Beals Becker Uniform & Photographs

Appraised on: July 12, 2008

Appraised in: Wichita, Kansas

Appraised by: Mike Gutierrez

Category: Sports Memorabilia

Episode Info: Big & Little (#1320)
Wichita, Hour 3 (#1309)

Originally Aired: March 23, 2009

IMAGE: 1 of 4  

Appraisal Video: (-1:56:10)

GUEST: My great-great-uncle on my father's side played for the... National League, I think, back in the early 1900s, and he-- when he retired-- just gave them to my great-grandpa, and they just got passed down through my family from there. And at one point, my parents were thinking about getting rid of them so we might be able to do the kitchen, you know, it might be of some value, but we didn't know. And my dad asked me, "Is this okay with you?" And I was just like... old enough to appreciate it, maybe, and I just said no. You know, it's a family heirloom, and we don't have a whole lot of those. And so, I was just excited about it.

APPRAISER: Your great-great- uncle's name was Beals Becker, right? Mm-hmm. And he played with the New York Giants?

GUEST: Yeah. A couple of other teams, too.

APPRAISER: Right in the centerpiece here, we have a cabinet photo. Now, it's a team cabinet photo with all the members, including Hall of Fame greats, John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, Rube Marquard. Early 20th century Hall of Famers, which were phenomenal players. And... including a Hall of Fame manager there with John McGraw. Usually, you find this photo about 8x10 in size or sometimes smaller, but this is what we call an oversized photo. And it is incredible. This size is about as large as we've ever seen on here. Now, I've noticed that's there's some scraping and a little bit of staining on the photo. So, there's a few issues here and there on it, but I still feel that at auction that this would bring about $5,000 to $7,000. Just for this photo alone. Okay?

GUEST: It's on a piece of cardboard. All right.

APPRAISER: (laughing) Now, let's talk about the jersey. Beals Becker played on the Giants between 1910 to 1912, right?

GUEST: Yeah, yeah.

APPRAISER: Okay, so this is safe to say it's from that era? You got a few condition problems with the jersey. There are some moth holes, some minor tears. It's missing, I think, just one original button there, but all in all, it's in pretty good shape for 1910. I mean, this is almost 100 years old.

GUEST: Considering that my dad and his brothers wore it around for Halloween costumes and whatnot.

APPRAISER: If we look over here at the pants, we see the matching gray flannel pants, which signifies the uniform for playing outside of New York. And, although there's no markings inside the jersey with Beals Becker's name, we do right here in the pants have stitched in, "Becker," into the pants. Therefore, I'd say, in auction, this complete uniform would bring between $8,000 to $10,000.

GUEST: All right. Okay. That's good for a Halloween costume.

APPRAISER: Now, the crowning piece here... this panorama photo. This is off the charts. You can't call it oversized. I've never seen this size, this length. Normally, there's a photography process called a yard long, but that's for 36 inches. This is about double that, and in this picture, we see here that it is commemorating opening day, 1910, for the National League, the Boston Braves versus the New York Giants. And in that photo, toward the end there-- I can't reach that long-- is Beals Becker.

GUEST: It's right... right there. He always has his arms crossed in his pictures.

APPRAISER: You're right. Now, I noticed here on the side you've got a little bit of water damage there, but overall, there are collectors that would just die for this. A good auction estimate for this photo alone would be about $20,000 to $30,000. Not bad, huh?

GUEST: No.

APPRAISER: This material is family heirloom for you. What I would recommend for you is to insure this whole collection for about $50,000.

GUEST: Absolutely.

APPRAISER: Thank you for bringing these collectibles in to us, and, uh, take good care of them, please.

GUEST: I will. No, thank you for your time-- it's been a dream. Could have redone our kitchen very well. (laughing)