You can call it the Holy Grail for baseball card collectors.
The 1914 Baltimore News babe Ruth rookie card, one of only ten in existence, is heading for auction block.
The red-bordered card depicting the Great Bambino is expected to fetch more than $10 million.
The card first belongs to George Herman Ruth, who was then a 19-year-old youngster for his International League hometown Baltimore Orioles.
“Simply put, the Baltimore News Babe Ruth Rookie Card is the most important baseball card ever,” said Brian Dwyer, president of Robert Edward Auctions. “This card is the origin of Babe Ruth, a man who crosses the game of baseball. This card is not only one of the most elusive pieces of sports memorabilia, it is also one of the rarest collectible items in American history.
The auction house said this is the first time in a decade that a card has been made publicly available. Dwyer told the Baltimore Sun that like Ruth’s record, this card is likely to be the second best-selling baseball card after the Mickey Mental Rookie card, which sold for $12.5 million.
The auction house said the card has a “remarkable origin”: it lived in the same Baltimore-area family for more than a century.
The cards, included among others in copies of the Baltimore News in 1914, were collected by Archibald Davis, a 16-year-old paperboy at the time.
Davis will hand over the card to his children after playing semi-professional baseball, The Sun reported. It was on loan for years at the Babe Ruth birthplace and museum before being sold to a private collector in 2021.
Now the historic baseball jackpot is at stake again.
The card will be showcased at the Robert Edward Auctions Fall Auction event, which will run from November 17 to December 3.
The public will have the chance to see the card with a blue-border version of the card at the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum in Baltimore between 2 and 4 p.m. on November 15.
“This is a card that every collector dreams of having with them, and with so few examples in existence, there is almost no desire to sell these cards. This is likely to be the only example that we will see available for purchase for years to come,” Dwyer said.
Register to bid on the Baltimore News Babe Ruth Card as well as over 4,000 other trading cards and memorabilia here.
Thank You For Reading The Article! & Support Smartanswer for such News.
