Ned Hanlon Championship Pins & Cufflinks, ca. 1895
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GUEST:
Well, these are from my great-grandfather. Ned Hanlon is his name. It's my mother's side. And when the ANTIQUES ROADSHOW was coming to town, I said, "I'm gonna apply for tickets." Got the tickets and called my mom and said, "Hey, Mom, "how about those things we have from your grandfather?" I know one may be a set of cufflinks, but the others I don't really know what they're used for.
APPRAISER:
Well, let's talk a little bit about your great-grandfather, Ned Hanlon, one of the most legendary managers in baseball history.
GUEST:
He was known, as I know from some of the history books, as "Foxy" Ned Hanlon. His full name Edward Hanlon, but he was known to create the force play for the bunt. There was some story about him creating the foul lines to have an angle so the ball wouldn't roll out of bounds so easily. I think he was called out for that one, but so that's where he was given the name Foxy Ned.
APPRAISER:
Yeah, and you know, the hit and run, and inside baseball. I mean this was all kind of Ned Hanlon's way of playing. And he was a baseball player himself before he became a manager.
GUEST:
See, I didn't know that much about him.
APPRAISER:
Yeah, yeah, he played for the Detroit Wolverines. And of course then he went on to manage the Baltimore Orioles in the National League in the 1890s. And this team became a real juggernaut and one of the great teams in baseball history. He had really, really good players on his team. Hughie Jennings, he had Joe Kelly, "Wee" Willie Keeler, John McGraw. And basically a coaching tree began with Ned Hanlon. John McGraw was the next one. He taught Casey Stengel.
GUEST:
Wow, okay.
APPRAISER:
Casey Stengel taught Billy Martin. So it goes...
GUEST:
Wowee...
APPRAISER:
Yeah, this line of managers goes all the way back to Ned Hanlon. He was most famous as manager of the Baltimore Orioles in the 1890s. And what he did was basically piloted this great team to three straight National League pennants-- 1894, 1895, and 1896.
GUEST:
Right, right.
APPRAISER:
And then went on to bring a National League pennant to Brooklyn in 1899 and 1900. One of the great managers in baseball history. These are really, really exciting. So what we have here are basically championship lapel pins.
GUESTS: Lapel pins, okay.
APPRAISER:
Right, so these two up here, this is from 1894, this one with the one baseball right there. And this one right here with the two, 1895, that's their second in a row. And then this one down here, that's the three. So you've got three little gems in there. The ruby for 1894, the sapphire for 1895, and the diamond for 1896. And what's great about these lapel pins is they're all engraved on the back. They're engraved with your great-grandfather's name. And they're from the owner of the team.
GUEST:
Really interesting.
APPRAISER:
Yeah.
GUEST:
He was inducted, I guess, right at 100 years because it his 1896 and 1996 he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
APPRAISER:
And very deservedly so. He was one of those people, who for many years, people arguing, you know, Ned Hanlon belongs in the Hall of Fame. He's so important. So it was great that he finally got in. Now, you got to take part of that, that's really cool.
GUEST:
Yeah, it was really fun.
APPRAISER:
Also here we have these cufflinks-- baseball bat and ball cufflinks. And they're from 1900 Brooklyn. So this is again, a National League championship team. This was one of the trinkets they would get. And it's baseball and has a little diamond in there. Beautiful pieces. Now, Baltimore Orioles stuff in particular from the 1890s is exceptionally rare and exceptionally collectible. Very, very little of it has ever come to market, especially when we're talking about an actual person who played for the team-- or in this case, managed the team.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
We discussed it, and we're all very excited about this find. If it were appraised for insurance, I would appraise it at $200,000.
GUEST:
(laughing) Oh, my God. Now that's really un... unexpected. Wow. No kidding. Can we turn that one back around?
APPRAISER:
Yeah.
GUEST:
Wowee. That's quite a surprise. Oh, my mother's gonna be very pleased. Golly, that's... That's unexpected.
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