NAPA VALLEY REGISTER SPORTS HOLIDAY EDITION • NOVEMBER 22-23, 2023 | B5

SPORTS MEMORABILIA

Babe Ruth Birthplace Museum executive director Michael Gibbons displays a rare 1914 Babe Ruth baseball card at the museum in Baltimore. The card is now up for auction and expected to
bring several million dollars.

CASHING IN ON THE BABE

1914 Ruth baseball card A mint
but Ruth’s esteemed place in sports his-
tory could make it tantalizing for wealthy
condition
sports collectors, a hobby that has sky-
expected to bring millions Mickey
rocketed in popularity — and in dollars
Mantle rookie
spent — in recent years.
baseball card
HAYES GARDNER Before the past few years, a card being
Baltimore Sun sold for $12.6
sold for millions was rare. Now, it’s be-

A
paperboy sold newspapers on the
cities and streetcars of Baltimore
in 1914, likely for one or two cents
each. Along the way, he collected base-
ball cards of Baltimore Orioles players
included in that day’s paper.
He treasured them — particularly one
of George Herman Ruth, a 19-year-old
pitcher for the minor league Orioles —
for years, eventually passing them on to
his son. That Ruth card is now one of only
a handful still around. And now it being
auctioned for the first time since it was
issued 109 years ago.
It’s expected to fetch at least several
million dollars and could potentially
compete for the title of priciest baseball
card ever, a record currently held by a
Mickey Mantle rookie card sold for $12.6
million last year.
Archibald Davis, the paperboy who was
16 years old at the time, grew up to play
semiprofessional baseball and later passed
the cards down. Glenn Davis, Archibald’s
grandson, remembered playing with them
as he grew up in the 1950s and 1960s.
“Certainly, had we known how valuable
they would become, we would have han-
dled them with more care,” Glenn wrote
in an email to The Baltimore Sun.
After a century of ownership, including
many years in which the card was on loan
at the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum
in Baltimore, the Davis family sold the
cards to a private collector in 2021. That
collector is now auctioning it off where it
is expected to draw eye-popping bids as
one of the most expensive cards ever sold.
First off, the 1914 Baltimore News Babe
Ruth card is rare. Issued in both red and
blue, there are only 10 known to exist in
either color. For comparison, there are
at least 50 examples of the T206 Honus
Wagner card, one of the most iconic and
valuable cards of all time.
Secondly, the card is the first collectible
of Ruth as a baseball player, issued before
he’d ever played a Major League Baseball
game. At the time, he was playing for his
hometown team and listed as a “pitcher,”
the position he first played for the Bos-
ton Red Sox before becoming a slugging
outfielder for the New York Yankees,
changing baseball and becoming one of
the country’s first athlete celebrities.
The card is the centerpiece of Robert
Edward Auctions’ fall catalog. The auc-
tion house started the bidding at $2.5
million last Friday, but expects the card
to fetch much more than that over the two
weeks it will be available, likely becoming
at least the second-most expensive card
ever auctioned.
The Mantle rookie card, which was
in mint condition and has the benefit of
being auctioned just last year, is the only
card to ever sell for more than $7.5 million.
Brian Dwyer, the auction house’s presi-
million last
coming more commonplace.
year, setting
“This is definitely rarefied air,” Dwyer
the record
said. “But if you look at all of the exam-
for the most
ples of cards that have commanded six,
money ever
seven, 12 million dollars, none of them,
paid for a
in our opinion, has the significance of this
piece of sports
Babe Ruth rookie card.”
memorabilia.
The simple card features just Ruth’s last
ASSOCIATED name on the front. When the card was is-
PRESS PHOTOS
sued, he was in the midst of acquiring his
nickname, “Babe,” for his youthfulness.
On the back, it advertises the 1914 Ori-
oles’ schedule against other International
League teams — such as the Buffalo Bison,
the Jersey City Skeeters and the Montreal
Royals (the team Jackie Robinson would
integrate decades later before breaking
MLB’s color barrier).
The 2 5/8 inch-by-3 5/8 inch red card
has spent much of the past quarter cen-
tury on display at the museum near Cam-
den Yards, first lent there by the Davis
family in the 1990s. The Davis family
decided to sell the card in 2021 and —
despite an estranged relative challenging
the family’s ownership, Glenn Davis said
— moved forward with a sale.
The new owner, whose identity the
Babe Ruth takes a auction house is keeping anonymous,
practice cut prior agreed to keep the card on display at the
to the Yankees’ museum until earlier this year.
1932 home The card is now in the care of Robert
opener against Edward Auctions in a secure, undisclosed
the Philadelphia location — “It is heavily fortified, we’ll put
Athletics at it that way,” Dwyer said — and will be until
Yankee Stadium Dec. 3, when the auction ends and a new
in New York. buyer will own the century-old keepsake.
In addition to the Ruth card, the other 14
cards collected by Archibald Davis in 1914
will be auctioned in separate lots.
The museum has had one of the few
other examples of the card, a blue one, on
display since July (thanks to a loan from
a different collector) and last Wednesday,
the one up for auction, a red one, accom-
panied it at the museum.
The card must remain behind layers of
high-security glass, secured with motion
dent, thinks the Ruth card could reach or detectors. When traveling, the multimil-
surpass $10 million because of its rarity lion-dollar card — the same one Glenn
and its unique provenance, having spent a Davis casually played with as a boy — has
century with one family. It could be many its own cadre of professional guards.
years, he projected, before another one of “This card has to have its own secu-
these 1914 cards is for sale. rity detail,” Dwyer said. “This card has to
“We believe that it has the potential to travel with armed security. If you think
threaten the all-time record,” Dwyer told about any movie you’ve seen where
The Sun. there’s armored cars and armored guards,
The Ruth card is not in mint condition, this is worthy of that type of protection.”

MOST EXPENSIVE SPORTS CARDS SOLD

$12.6 million $7.25 million $5.9 million $5.2 million $4.6 million $4.3 million $4.2 million $3.9 million $3.75 million $3.1 million $2.46 million
Mickey Honus Steph Curry LeBron James Luka Doncic Patrick Babe Ruth Mike Trout Wayne Tom Brady Babe Ruth
Mantle 1952 Wagner T206 2009 Panini 2003-04 2018-2019 Mahomes 1933 Goudey 2009 Gretzky 1979 2000 Playoff 1916 M101-4
Topps National Rookie Patch Panini 2017 Panini #53 Bowman O-Pee-Chee Contender Sporting
Treasures Autograph National National Chrome Draft Championship News
Rookie Patch Upper Deck Treasures Treasures Prospects Rookie Ticket
Autograph Exquisite Rookie Patch Rookie Patch Superfractor Autographed
Autograph Autograph Autograph Card
Source: cgccards.com Platinum

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