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Babe Ruth’s 500th homer bat sells for $1 million plus

hammer1hammer1 Posts: 3,874 ✭✭✭✭✭
edited December 16, 2019 1:33PM in Sports Talk

_Ruth was the first of just 27 Major League Baseball players to reach that mark.

He gave the autographed bat to his friend, former Suffern, New York, Mayor Jim Rice, in the 1940s. It’s been in the family for nearly 75 years._ https://www.ocregister.com/2019/12/15/babe-ruths-500th-homer-bat-sells-for-more-than-1-million-at-o-c-auction/

If he didn't autograph it, how could it be authenticated?

Comments

  • doubledragondoubledragon Posts: 23,269 ✭✭✭✭✭

    That's an unbelievable piece of baseball history. I have an old bat in my closet that I bought at a yard sale. I haven't been in my closet in years though. There's spiders in there. I've seen them.

  • stevekstevek Posts: 29,020 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited December 16, 2019 5:25PM

    @perkdog said:
    In today’s day and age the amount of trust I have in memorabilia is next to ZERO.

    In my opinion, there is too often a lot of "imagination" involved in sports memorabilia sales. Particularly anything considered vintage.

    When one understands that the amount of wood sold over the centuries claiming to be a piece from the Cross of Jesus Christ, could probably equal a fleet of ships, that's all you need to know about the possible deception involved with sellers of sports memorabilia.

  • stevekstevek Posts: 29,020 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @doubledragon said:
    That's an unbelievable piece of baseball history. I have an old bat in my closet that I bought at a yard sale. I haven't been in my closet in years though. There's spiders in there. I've seen them.

    The spiders are protecting the bat from wood boring insects.

  • hammer1hammer1 Posts: 3,874 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited December 17, 2019 2:03PM

    @doubledragon said:
    That's an unbelievable piece of baseball history. I have an old bat in my closet that I bought at a yard sale. I haven't been in my closet in years though. There's spiders in there. I've seen them.

    https://image.insider.com/5d38801036e03c43977b1af8?width=1100&format=jpeg&auto=webp

    image isn't uploading ...

  • CoinstartledCoinstartled Posts: 10,135 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @perkdog said:
    In today’s day and age the amount of trust I have in memorabilia is next to ZERO.

    One does have to use their imagination.

  • stevekstevek Posts: 29,020 ✭✭✭✭✭

    A "basic" problem is placing too much credibility in the word of an estate.

    I mean the estate folks, who are of course selling it for the money, can basically make-up any provenance they want. A so-called game used bat from a certain player could have been a batting practice bat for all we really know.

    Sure there are various ways to narrow down the possibilities that an item isn't as stated. However to get it to 100% certainly that a vintage item is as stated by the estate, I'm not entirely sure that is possible in many if not most instances.

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