1964 St. Louis Cardinals World Champion Banner
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APPRAISER:
How big is your house?
GUEST:
(chuckles) Well, it's too big for the house.
APPRAISER:
How did you end up with a 1964 World Champion St. Louis Cardinals banner?
GUEST:
Well, I worked for the Cardinals in 1970, before I went into the military. And we were cleaning out an area for the new football field to come in. So we were cleaning out underneath the stadium, and there were some boxes sitting there, and we asked them what to do with them. They said, "We don't care what you do with them-- just get rid of them." So when we opened them up, the flag was in there. So I asked, "Well, can I have this?" And they said, "Yeah, take it."
APPRAISER:
What were your memories?
GUEST:
I can remember the first day walking out. You don't realize the crowd when you're sitting in the stands. But when you walk on the field and you see this immense amount of people, it's unbelievable.
APPRAISER:
What I think about when I think about the '64 World Series, it's really an end of an era and the beginning of an era. Because Stan Musical, of course, the great Cardinals player, had only retired a couple of years, a few years prior to '64. And in 1964 it was the last World Series to feature Mickey Mantle. The Yankee dynasty, since 1949, they had been in 14 World Series. The Yankees in 1964 lost in seven games to the St. Louis Cardinals. Two years later the Yankees were in the basement, which was unthinkable. And yet St. Louis, now is this beginning of this fabulous dynasty, because the players they had in the World Series were Bob Gibson, phenomenal pitcher who had a 2-1 record. They had Curt Flood, and they also had Lou Brock. So this is a phenomenally exciting and really historically important World Series. If I were going to put an auction estimate on this, I'd probably be conservative and put $5,000-$7,000 on it. But if I was going to insure it, I would say probably $12,000 for insurance value.
GUEST:
Really? That's great.
APPRAISER:
So that was a pretty good box lot.
GUEST:
(chuckling) Yes, it was.
Appraisal Details
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Value can change: The value of an item is dependent upon many things, including the condition of the object itself, trends in the market for that kind of object, and the location where the item will be sold. These are just some of the reasons why the answer to the question "What's it worth?" is so often "It depends."
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