'Pawn Stars' guest wanted $10,000 for Babe Ruth's check — then the expert showed up
The guest even had the signature authenticated, but it did not fetch him what he wanted.
Sept. 6 2025, Published 11:49 a.m. ET
Guests on "Pawn Stars" walk in expecting a fortune for items that seem to be vintage, and most of the time, they have to deal with Rick Harrison's hardball tactics. On some occasions, guests are disappointed by experts who devalue the artifact. This happened to a guest who wanted $10,000 for a check signed by Babe Ruth, only to settle later for $2,500.
Babe Ruth was one of the top baseball players of his time and is revered to this day as one of the greatest to have ever played the sport. The guest came in prepared with the signed check and a certificate of authenticity. However, since the check was made out to the New York Yankees, the guest believed that Ruth had paid the money to purchase multiple rows of seats for the 1937 World Series.
Now, there was no doubt that the signature was authentic. The certificate of authenticity was signed by a man named Steve Grad, whom Rick Harrison had often called to the store to authenticate a number of items. However, he had doubts about whether Ruth had really paid the money to purchase seats. After all, a player as popular as him would have gotten any seats he wanted for free.
That is also the exact reason why the guest believed that the check was worth so much money, since it was unusual for a player of his stature to spend close to $500, which was a lot of money in 1937, for several seats. Harrison knew that the only way to understand what this was about was to call in an expert. So, he called in the man who authenticated the signature himself.
The signature was authentic, but one of the things that the expert did not like was a red stamp mark on it. He also said that the signature was a grade 7, and the best ones go up to grade 10. When it came to why Ruth paid all that money to the Yankees, the expert’s guess was as good as Harrison’s. There was no way of knowing what the money was really spent on, and he said that the pawn shop owner had to take a leap of faith to pay that kind of money for it.
The expert, Grad, then valued the check at $4,000, which was a lot less than what the guest had asked for. Harrison was going to pay even less than that, and the two settled at $2,500. After leaving the store, the guest said that he wasn’t thinking logically when the negotiation was going on and said that he would not have sold it had he gotten the chance again.
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