Baseball Memorabilia, ca. 1950
Appraised Value:
$10,000 - $15,000
IMAGE: 1 of 3
Appraisal Video: (3:01)
Appraised By:
Philip Weiss
Sports Memorabilia
Philip Weiss Auctions
Appraisal Transcript:
GUEST: The baseball is signed by Babe Ruth to Bud. That's me; I was just under two years old when he came to Fargo. He signed the picture "To Buddy." And this is a baseball autographed by Grover Cleveland Alexander, a great pitcher in the American... National League. I got that one when I was about ten or 11 years old under the stadium in Wahpeton, North Dakota. He was taking a shower out of a bucket, and, uh, he was barnstorming across the country. He lived in Los Angeles. This is a 1936 home run ball hit by Red Kress of the Washington Senators and it's signed by all of the Senators. A friend of my dad's... it was through my dad that all these things happened. My dad got a pass here from the National Association of Professional Baseball signed in 1938, and that gave him free access to any baseball park in the United States.
APPRAISER: Terrific, and the baseball pass ties in the provenance and story that you're telling-- your dad having the access to the ball parks and being there. The Babe Ruth photo is wonderful, signed to you. The ball-- Red Kress is your dad's friend, so you have the team ball there, and the Grover Cleveland, as well as the piece de resistance, which is the Ruth and Maris ball. Unfortunately, the Ruth signature is a little bit smudged, but when you flip it around here, and we get a nice image of the Roger signature, it's a strong signature.
GUEST: Roger Maris was signed by my father into professional baseball when he pitched in Fargo for the Fargo-Moorhead Twins, a class C Northern League at that time. And, uh, I watched Roger play high school football in Fargo. He was a great football player, a great athlete and a wonderful guy.
APPRAISER: And to have those two on the same ball... it's fantastic. It's a great grouping-- really, really interesting stuff. As far as value goes, for auction, we'll start over here with the '36 ball, the Red Kress ball.
GUEST: I didn't put that in there too much for the value as much as just to tie in the provenance.
APPRAISER: It's a '36 Washington Senators team ball. You could still estimate that anywhere from $700 to $1,000.
GUEST: For heaven's sake.
APPRAISER: The Grover Cleveland Alexander is a really nice ball. Not a strong signature, but it's a white ball, nicely done. That's between $2,000 and $3,000. Uh, the pass has more sentimental value than dollar value, and that's something I'm sure that's going to stay in the family for a long time. Now, your Ruth photo. It's a very strong signature with a nice inscription. Personalized Ruth photo like this you could estimate at $3,000 to $5,000. And the baseball here, again, signed by Ruth on this side and Maris on that side, I would place a value of that-- only because of the smudging and a little bit of the faintness on the Roger Maris-- at about $4,000 to $6,000. So overall, what you're looking at basically is a package that's somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000.
GUEST: Oh, my gosh. Well, that's...
APPRAISER: And it's a wonderful, wonderful collection and I can't thank you enough for coming.
GUEST: Great.
