GUEST:
Well, my dad loved baseball. How he got these balls, I don't have any idea. But when he passed away, we were... siblings were kind ofdivvying up his things. The balls were there and I said I'd take them.
APPRAISER:
And where did he keep them, were they displayed?
GUEST:
Oh, they were in his sock drawer, dresser drawer.
APPRAISER:
In a sock drawer.
GUEST:
They were really nothing, yeah. And I didn't think they were much of anything. You know, you hear about reproductions and whatever, so. I just basically had them in my sock drawer for a few years.
APPRAISER:
No big deal, just a couple of signed baseballs.
GUEST:
Just a couple of baseballs.
APPRAISER:
Well, let's just saythis is going to be a tale of two baseballs.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
The first baseball here on the right is really interesting because you can see we have Babe Ruth right here on the sweet spot. And then when you flip it over to this side, right here, you have Lou Gehrig.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
And then when we flip it over again, you have what I call the key signature. Not that it's the most important player, but that's right here, Joe Giard. Okay, Joe Giard was the key signature because he only played on the Yankees for one year. And by having him on the baseball we're able to identify this as a 1927 Yankee baseball.
GUEST:
Great.
APPRAISER:
1927 Yankees, arguably the best team in baseball history. Obviously people would argue that, but I personally think that could be true. You had Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig combining for an enormous amount of home runs. Batted in over 300 RBIs combined. And the Yankees came in first in the American League with 110 wins, and then swept the Pirates in the World Series, 4-0.
GUEST:
Great.
APPRAISER:
The other baseball is interesting too, because this is a circa 1950s Milwaukee Braves ball. And you have Henry Aaron over here, you have a couple of Hall of Famers. Sadly, that baseball is a stamp ball, not a signed ball. And the reason why I'm glad that you brought it in was because at the ROADSHOW we've seen an enormous number of stamped baseballs. And it's a good kind of tool for us to be able to show a stamped baseball in an appraisal like this so people can realize things to look for, to find out that it's stamped. One of the key things you look for when you see a stamped ball is very often you'll see the signature going off into the stitching. You can't sign a baseball like that with the signature going off into the stitching. What happens is it would be stamped onto the ball itself, and then they would fold it up and stitch it that way. The other thing you see on a stamp ball that you don't see on most signed baseballs is that the signatures are going in different directions. You have a signature this way, you have a signature that way. On this side, they squeeze in. What they try to do is squeeze in as many signatures as they can.
GUEST:
Yeah.
APPRAISER:
In terms of value,this particular baseball is just a great souvenir baseball. It's a nice keepsake and memento. $50, maybe $100, no big deal. And again, when you see a stamped ball, you're going to see same consistency in the signatures, everything's the same. But this ball's another story. This is a really, really good example of a '27 Yankee baseball. It does have some wear on some of the panels. On this panel here you can see it does have some scuffing and some wear. But you have a fairly good Ruth signature, you have a really strong Gehrig signature. As a team ball signed has most of the players on it, you don't have one signature, which is pretty important-- or very important-- and that's Miller Huggins, the manager. I'll give you a conservative auction estimate, I would expect it to sell somewhere in the $15,000 to $25,000 range.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
Yeah, could be more. Balls like this have sold as high as $40,000 and $50,000. But based on the condition, I think that's the fair range to do it.
GUEST:
Yeah, good spot for a sock drawer, isn't it?
APPRAISER:
Yeah, nice to be in a sock drawer. Did he have it in a sock or just rolling around?
GUEST:
Nah, probably just rolling around.
APPRAISER:
Rolling around loose. Well, it's a nice sock drawer find, and a good story about two baseballs.
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