'Antiques Roadshow' seller gets a life-changing valuation for baseball his wife almost sold for $200
Usually, the guests on "Antiques Roadshow" bring along vintage timepieces, paintings, and sculptures. Although there are exceptions, a baseball is an unexpected item on the show. But one guest got a staggering appraisal for an autographed 1919 World Championship baseball from the expert, Simeon Lipman. To his delight, the appraiser found the item to be a great piece of sports history, and he estimated that its value would be about $45,000 to $50,000.
"It was given to me roughly about 38 years ago, I'd say. I must have been about 13 years old. A friend of my mom's give 'em to me before he went back to Texas, and I've had 'em ever since sitting in a little viewing area at the house there, and then they went down to Virginia with me for a while, and then back here to Ohio," the guest told Lipman.
The appraiser took over to explain how the 1919 Cincinnati Reds were a great but underappreciated team. "They won 96 games that year, which was the best in the league, and of course, they went on to play the Chicago White Sox in the World Series. A lot of people favored the White Sox. Shoeless Joe Jackson. The White Sox lost the World Series five games to three. Then it came out that they had perhaps thrown those games. And it was a big cloud over baseball," he shared.
Thus, he noted that the World Series win for the Cincinnati Reds that year kind of got lost in all the drama. "A lot of scholars think they were really one of the best teams of the era. It's just that they've kind of been overshadowed by the Chicago White Sox, of course, known as the Black Sox," he added.
Coming to the item, Lipman observed that it was signed by 26 members of the team. "We have the manager of the team, Pat Moran, who is right here on the sweet spot. We even have the owner of the team, which is interesting, August Herrmann. We have some of the best players. A gentleman named Edd Roush eventually became a Hall of Famer. And then we have a player named Jake Daubert, who was a great player of the era. Kind of a borderline Hall of Fame-type player. He's one of the rarer signatures on a baseball," he explained.
He further added that championship team-signed baseballs are popular collectibles in the market, and the older they get, the rarer they become. "Now, do you want to take a guess as to how many 1919 Cincinnati Reds baseballs there are out there?" Lipman asked the guest. When the guest said 20, Lipman revealed that there may be fewer than five. Thus, Lipman went on to put an auction estimate of $45,000 to $50,000 for the item. "Whew! That's a little more than I thought," the guest said in response.
In the end, Lipman added that the ball was in remarkable shape and all the signatures were dark. "This is by far the best baseball I've ever seen on the Roadshow," he said. The guest thanked him for the appraisal, saying, "Glad I brought some excitement to you, 'cause you brought some excitement to me." In the end, the guest revealed that his wife once almost sold the ball for $200.
