Getty Image / Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe
The year is 1916 and the ‘Curse of the Bambino’ had yet to come into existence as the 21-year-old George Herman ‘Babe’ Ruth was pitching for the Red Sox and yet to be traded to the New York Yankees where he would go on to become the most famous baseball player in history. It was 1916 when the Morehouse Bakery in Lawrence, Massachusetts decided to print Babe Ruth rookie cards as part of a local promo and over a century later those cards are so rare that many didn’t believe they even still existed.
That was until a man from Danvers, Massachusetts recently unearthed 2 Babe Ruth rookie cards that were buried away among boxes that housed over 100 Morehouse Bakery cards that his father used to collect. Now, those Babe Ruth rookie cards that were so rare people didn’t even think they existed are set to be auctioned off and will likely fetch a fortune.
Collector Jeff Gross recently spoked with NBC 10 Boston about how this card that’s so rare he wasn’t sure it was real was somehow suddenly sitting in his hands. It started with speaking to someone at an estate sale when the other collector who is choosing to remain anonymous said they had some Morehouse Bakery cards:
Of the two Morehouse Bakery Babe Ruth rookie cards, one is in considerably better shape. NBC 10 Boston says the one in better shape is “expected to fetch at least $500,000″ and I put ‘at least’ in bold there because that card is almost certainly likely to fetch A LOT LOT LOT more than $500K given the rarity.
Collector Jeff Gross is now working with the anonymous collector to help sell the cards and says people have asked him whether the person in possession of the rookie cards realize they won the lottery. Because honestly, that’s the reality of the situation. Sure, they might’ve had some semblance of an idea that the Babe Ruth rookie cards were valuable but there’s no way they could’ve known just how insanely valuable the cards are or they wouldn’t have sat on them for decades.
The cards will be auctioned off through Robert Edward Auctions beginning this Friday, November, 22nd. An infamous game-worn jersey of Babe Ruth’s sold for $24.12 million earlier this year. It certainly feels like the sky’s the limit here.