1939 - 1940 Baseball Signatures & Book
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GUEST:
I got an old baseball book, uh, found in the bottom of a box lot, and had signatures in it from 1939-1940 baseball.
APPRAISER:
This is something you purchased at an auction.
GUEST:
Correct-- I was hopeful that not too many other people had seen it at the bottom of a box lot, and so I was just waiting for it to come up. No one seemed to be interested in the box lot, so I got it for ten dollars.
APPRAISER:
Oh, I can't imagine that excitement you must have had waiting for that to come up.
GUEST:
Oh, yeah, yes.
APPRAISER:
And how long ago was that?
GUEST:
It was about five years ago now.
APPRAISER:
It's the 1939 Who's Who in the Major Leagues. This magazine, Who's Who in Major Leagues: Baseball, was a competitor to Who's Who in Baseball. It is a 1939 seventh printing, and when you look at it, it is a pretty simple booklet. So it's basically a media guide that was sold to the public. We see it says 25 cents on the cover right there. They're real thorough guides, quick little bio, but have real thorough stats in the back. We open up to the first page here. So who do we have here on the first autographed page? Lou Gehrig.
GUEST:
Lou Gehrig.
APPRAISER:
What'd you think when you saw that?
GUEST:
Um, my heart, uh, started to race.
APPRAISER:
Yeah. So 1939 was Lou Gehrig's final season. He was diagnosed with A.L.S., unfortunately passed in 1941 at age 37. A 1939 signature of Lou Gehrig are very scarce. And that's a beautiful signature, like all the others in this book, real crisp, has barely seen the light of day. Beautiful Joe DiMaggio signature there. He, of course, came up in 1936. We'll skip another couple pages here to another important autograph. We have a signature of a rookie Ted Williams.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
On a scale of one to ten, it's a ten. But what really jumps out about this book is the amount of signatures. In total, how many signatures are in this book?
GUEST:
About 184, I think.
APPRAISER:
I'm not aware of a baseball publication from this era that has as many signatures as this book.
GUEST:
Oh, nice.
APPRAISER:
You hit a home run.
GUEST:
(laughs)
APPRAISER:
I would put a value of this at auction at $10,000 to $15,000.
GUEST:
Fantastic. It will, it will go to the kids, cause they're baseball fans, also. But, nice. Had no idea.
Appraisal Details
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