1956 Ty Cobb-signed Baseball
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APPRAISER:
How old are you guys?
GUEST 1: I'm 18.
GUEST 2: I'm 21.
APPRAISER:
Okay, so what are you doing, then? I could see if you had a Barry Bonds ball, Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter. What are you doing with a Ty Cobb ball?
GUEST 1 (chuckling): We don't know. We got it from our great-aunt from Royston, Georgia.
GUEST 2: And Ty Cobb lived in Royston, Georgia. So she asked him to get a ball signed for my dad. And so he signed it and gave it to her, and it's been passed down by generations to us finally.
APPRAISER:
So what did your dad do with it when he got it?
GUEST 2: He put it in a safety deposit box. He knew it was probably pretty valuable.
APPRAISER:
Now, how much do you know about Ty Cobb?
GUEST 2: I know he was a really good baseball player and he had a high batting average and stuff.
GUEST 1: He was pretty mean, too.
APPRAISER (laughing): He's pretty mean. Everyone seems to know that.
GUEST 2: Yeah, that seems to be his outstanding trait, I think.
APPRAISER:
All right, let me fill in a few blanks for you guys, just so you know. Ty Cobb, yes, he actually broke into the Big Leagues in 1905. He was only 18 years old. And everyone talks about having a .400 season. The last guy to do it was Ted Williams in 1941. Ty Cobb did it three times.
GUEST 2: Wow.
APPRAISER:
Three times. So he was pretty impressive. Also, he held the stolen base record for years until Lou Brock broke it, and then afterwards Ricky Henderson. So he was fast, he got a lot of his hits on bunts that he used to drag. So he had a phenomenal career, was in three World Series. When he started out, he was a shrewd businessman. This guy in 1908 held out with the owner because he was making $2,400 and he wanted to make $5,000. Frank Navin, the owner of the Detroit Tigers, gave in. And it paid off because three years later, Cobb hit .400 for the first time.
GUEST 2: That's good.
APPRAISER:
But in the '20s, he went back to Detroit, he bought General Motors stock. And in Atlanta... because he was a Georgia boy and lived there all his life.
GUEST 1: Right.
APPRAISER:
He bought Coca-Cola stock and ended up being worth $11 million by the time he died in 1961. But just to show you how frugal he was in his beginning years, he was known for taking all the soap chips out of the locker room showers and reusing them for himself.
GUEST 2 (chuckling): Wow.
APPRAISER:
Single signed baseballs for Hall of Famers that died before the era of signing shows that they have nowadays are worth the most money. Most of the time, when you're looking at single-signed baseballs, they tend to be worth more if they're signed during a player's career. But what's so great about this and what makes it valuable in and of itself is simply the absolute spectacular quality of the signature. Now, also most of the time you look for baseballs that are official American League or National League. This one's a Special League, again signed well after the fact. It doesn't matter. The signature in this case supersedes all of those other factors.
GUEST 2: Okay, great.
GUEST 1: Okay.
APPRAISER:
What do you guys think this is worth?
GUEST 1: We don't even know.
GUEST 2: I have no clue.
APPRAISER:
All right, all right. Well, just last fall I sold one in one of my auctions for $15,000.
GUEST 2: Are you serious?
GUEST 1: Wow.
APPRAISER:
And if I was going to put this one in another auction, I'd put it in at least $10,000 to $15,000. And if I was going to insure it, I'd insure it for probably $20,000.
GUEST 1: Wow.
GUEST 2: Wow.
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