1917 Boston Red Sox Baseball Calendar
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GUEST:
It's a 1917 baseball calendar. I found it online. It was at least ten years ago. Maybe, maybe longer than that.
APPRAISER:
Mm-hmm.
GUEST:
And they said it was real. I didn't think it was really real. It was found on a back of a door in a, a barn. And if you know anything about the Red Sox, they won in 1915 and 1916, as indicated on the calendar, and I thought it was a really cool old, old piece. I'm from Massachusetts, so I'm a Red Sox fan.
APPRAISER:
So what we have here is a promotional calendar for Bunker Hill Breweries.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
For PB, Purest and Best Ale.
GUEST:
Yeah.
APPRAISER:
And uh it features the Boston Red Sox team. What makes this calendar very special is, as you said, it's kind of commemorating the 1915-1916 championships. We have several great players of the era.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
Right here in the middle is Harry Hooper. Hall of Famer, actually. But this team, 1917, had a great left-handed pitcher, and his name was Babe Ruth.
GUEST:
That's right.
APPRAISER:
That's what makes this very special.
GUEST:
Oh.
APPRAISER:
Because there's a, a real desire for anything early in Babe Ruth's career. And here he is as a young kid, he's only 22 years old.
GUEST:
Oh, yeah.
APPRAISER:
Yeah. 1917 was a great year for him. He won 24 games as a pitcher.
GUEST:
Yeah.
APPRAISER:
But he also hit .325, which was, I think, fourth-best in the American League that year.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
1917 is the last year he was a great pitcher.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
By 1918, he'd started to convert into the outfield. So this was his last hurrah as uh, as this great lefty.
GUEST:
Yeah.
APPRAISER:
I mean, he would have been a Hall of Famer as a pitcher. What did you pay for this calendar, if you don't mind me asking?
GUEST:
Well... It was a little more than I wanted to spend at the time. I remember it around $200, $250. And then it cost me close to that to frame it. At the time, I thought it might be worth $500.
APPRAISER:
Well, baseball calendars are something that you'd see back then, but I've never seen this one before, and neither have my colleagues. Bunker Hill Brewery actually went out of business in 1918.
GUEST:
Oh, really?
APPRAISER:
So this was one of the last promotional things they did. Condition, there are some issues, but again, it's a hundred and, you know... Three years old, yeah. ...three years old, at least.
GUEST:
Yeah, right—
APPRAISER:
because it's an early Ruth piece, because nobody's ever seen it before-- it's also really big-- I spoke to several of my colleagues. We all agree, at auction, we'd estimate this at $20,000 to $30,000.
GUEST:
Really?
APPRAISER:
Yeah.
GUEST:
(exhales) 20?
APPRAISER:
Yeah, $20,000 to $30,000
GUEST:
To 30,000...
APPRAISER:
Auction estimate.
GUEST:
...dollars.
APPRAISER:
Yeah, yeah. It's a spectacular early Babe Ruth piece. That's what makes it so special,
GUEST:
Yes. How much did you say again? (laughs)
APPRAISER:
I said at $20,000 to $30,000.
GUEST:
Yeah. (laughs)
APPRAISER:
(chuckles)
GUEST:
Did you hear that? $20,000 to $30,000! (laughing) (exhales)
GUEST:
Very good.
APPRAISER:
Yeah.
GUEST:
Wow.
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