Thursday, January 8, 2009

Old Lady Gets Lucky





This lady found this baseball card while going through some boxes. Thought it might be worth something so she put it on Ebay for $10. She started getting lots of inquiries asking if it was an authentic card. She called a local collector and he advised she remove it from Ebay and research the card.

The card was made in 1869 and is thought to be one of the first cards ever made. The photo shows the "Red Stocking B.B. Club of Cincinnati" baseball's first professional team. It is estimated this card could be worth $100,000 or more.



She and her husband buy contents left in storage units and re-sell them on Ebay or in their store. She believes the card came in a box that was from one of the lots they bought but she is not sure. Once she made the call to the local collector and it was decided to pull the auction, she kept the card in a sandwich baggie, tacked to her laundry room wall. She was also smoking around it. Insane.



It was recommended that she take it to PSA so they could seal it and protect it so she and her husband drove it to them. The card did not get graded however. "It does have some pretty significant discoloration and creasing," says Joe Orlando, the president of PSA. "The good news is that the sepia tone photo that is mounted on the front is, relatively speaking, unscathed. The clarity of the photo is still there. If this were graded, it would be near the bottom. But even for a card that low on the grading scale, it does have some eye appeal to it. It still presents fairly well, and that's the more important thing."

The card will be listed again on Ebay but they are drumming up some advertising and marketing schemes so there will be more people checking it out this time. There is no telling what this card might go for. But I know I will be watching!

4 comments:

Grumpy said...

I smell a lawsuit from the previous owners when they realize it came from their stuff.

Unknown said...

Unless they are dead. The article said most stuff left in storage belonged to relatives of deceased folks that went through it and sold what they did not want.

Grumpy said...

By the way, our paper this morning, in Cincinnati, is saying the worth could be $20,000 tops.

Unknown said...

Oh that is funny. What a big disappointment from $100,000 or more. Oh well, I would be freaking if I had an extra $20,000 that I found in a pile of crap.