WATCHUNG, N.J. – The T206 Wagner and the 1914 Baltimore News Babe Ruth rookie card are the two most valuable baseball cards in the world. Both are included in Robert Edward Auctions’ highly anticipated spring auction.
“This is an unbelievable auction,” says REA president Robert Lifson. “There’s just no other way for us to describe the material assembled for this auction. It’s incredible.”
Catalogs will ship on April 9. The first copy off the presses will be presented to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y., for its library, as is the longstanding tradition. The other 10,000 650-page catalogs will be sent to collectors all over the world.
The final date of bidding is May 3. Bidding starts April 12 by fax, phone, or the Internet via the Robert Edward Auctions Web site. The total sales for the event are expected to exceed $5 million.
Coming to the block will be more than 1,600 lots of baseball collectibles covering the entire history of the game.
The newly-discovered T206 Honus Wagner is one of the great card collecting finds in the auction. This card was the highlight of the recently discovered “Beckett T206” Find.
All 546 cards have been graded by Beckett Grading Services and the entire collection will be offered in the auction.
The Wagner and the entire collection are an amazing find, but the story behind their discovery is also amazing. These cards were saved by the owner’s grandfather and were stored in the attic for decades. The family was in need of money and rediscovered the cards in December 2007 when searching the house for things to sell. Throughout all these years, no one in the family had given the cards any thought, especially with reference to value, and they remained all but forgotten.
After submitting the cards for authentication and grading, feedback from Beckett Grading Services immediately made the family very aware of the great significance and value of the find. It’s not every day that an authentic T206 Wagner is discovered. It has a minimum bid of $50,000 and is expected to sell for in excess of $100,000.
The 1914 Baltimore News Babe Ruth rookie card, graded VG 40 by SGC, is also a newly-discovered rarity. Many consider this card to be the single most important and miraculous baseball card in the world. The 1914 Babe Ruth rookie card features Ruth as an unknown minor league rookie straight out of St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys. Only 11 1914 Baltimore Ruths are known to date, including the one owned by the Babe Ruth Museum in Baltimore. This newly-discovered card was saved as a keepsake by a non-collecting family in Baltimore. The last 1914 Baltimore News Ruth card offered to the collecting world at auction was sold for $200,000 in 2007. The reserve is an extremely modest $10,000, but this card is expected to sell for a record price.
For more information, call 908-226-9900, or go online to
www.RobertEdwardAuctions.com.
