Yahoo Finance Man Finds His Deceased Father's Lost Baseball Card Collection And Discovers Treasure Trove Of Rare Cards With An Estimated Value In The High Six Figures
Almost every sports memorabilia or baseball card collector has a story of some massively valuable card collection their parents or housecleaner accidentally discarded. This time, the shoe was on the other foot for a Sacramento, California, man who discovered his late father's baseball card collection in a cigarette tin in a closet. He was even more shocked to discover the collection included a treasure trove of rare cards featuring some of baseball's most famous players.
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A Baseball Card Collection Built Over A Lifetime
The current owner, whose full name is being withheld by the auction house that will sell them, can remember his father, Ed, showing him the cards on occasion while he was a child. He said that Ed began collecting these cards as far back as the 1920s when family members would give them to him as gifts. At the time, they certainly wouldn't have been considered extravagant gifts by any stretch of the imagination.
It was the Great Depression, and like many people who grew up in that era, Ed cherished simple gifts like baseball cards. He grew his collection over time and stored all the cards in a tobacco tin. It's unknown whether he kept the cards because he believed they would eventually rise in value or because holding on to things was just a habit that became ingrained in Depression-era children.
Whatever the motivation, Ed kept these cards all his life, bringing them with him from Oakland, California, to the San Joaquin Valley home where they were found. Not long after Ed died, his son cleared out Ed's home as part of his preparations to sell the property. That's when he rediscovered his father's cards locked away in a closet, in the same tobacco tin that had kept them safe for the past 100 years.
The Card Collection Could Be Worth High Six Figures
Most of Ed's collection was accrued between 1919 and 1926, an era that featured some of the players who would become all-time baseball legends. Some of the luminaries included in this collection are Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and Shoeless Joe Jackson, who was widely regarded as the best player of his generation before the Black Sox gambling scandal ruined his reputation.
The collection is even more rare because it includes mainly Zee Nut cards, which were only available on the West Coast with Zee Nut-brand candy and popcorn. Many of the cards are in surprisingly good condition, and the auctioneer was astounded by the fact that Ed's collection includes multiple Babe Ruth Cards. It’s an even more fitting end that the auction house that will appraise and sell the cards — Auction Monthly — started as a father-and-son outfit.
Some will be sold directly to premium Auction Monthly clients — buyers with deep pockets — while the rarer, high-grade cards will probably be auctioned. The remaining cards will be sold as lots at auction. All told, Auction Monthly estimates the 600-card collection could be worth a "high six-figure" sum. That may be worth more than Ed's house. That's an impressive haul for a Great Depression-era baseball card collection.
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This article Man Finds His Deceased Father's Lost Baseball Card Collection And Discovers Treasure Trove Of Rare Cards With An Estimated Value In The High Six Figures originally appeared on Benzinga.com
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