The Big Train Jersey In Heritage Auctions
 

I am sure many have seen this, but this must be, at least, one of the best jersey's of Walter existent? Thoughts on final price? It's out of my league, by at least a few comma's... :) Their estimate is 3M...

I guess 2.82M after juice...(card not included in sale!!)


To get back to cards on the front page-

Show a card and/or memborabila of his and/or guess the final price of the jersey, if you care to?


https://sports.ha.com/itm/baseball-c...umbnail-071515

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I was reading the auction description the other day - that is amazing!

My favorite WaJo card, along with a signed letter circa 1910....

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Incredible Jersey. I'll go 3.1 w/juice.
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I will go 2.1. I think the three million types are spending it on Ruth, not Johnson.

no idea what it will bring...

It’s really 1 of a kind, could see an MLB titan or ownership splashing out $3MM.

Reading the description of the jersey makes it even more mind blowing. If I’m reading it right Johnson was wearing this as the pitcher when Ruth got his first hit as a Yankee.

+1. I'm thinking the jersey with no other special feature to it would hammer for some fraction of the estimate, maybe a fifth or sixth of what they're expecting. I think it went for something like 150K at Sotheby's/SCP in 2006. A fraction is still a heck of a lot of moolah, though, and it is the only known WaJo jersey other than the one in the HOF. Ruth is king.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...019a9132d8.jpg

TonyETrade with a PSA 8 next to my shirt at the 2023 National in Rosemont

I'm guessing $2.26mm.

What a beauty! What's THAT worth?

To bring this thread back to Page 1:

How do you even put a price on that? Only one known outside of the Baseball HOF? If I had won the billion-dollar lottery, I would not think twice about dropping $3 million on that. Amazing.

I believe the price is $2.01MM

https://sports.ha.com/itm/baseball-c.../50069-82172.s


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Scott- That card is mind blowing!

What’s my prize???


QUOTE=4815162342;2435296]I believe the price is $2.01MM

https://sports.ha.com/itm/baseball-c.../50069-82172.s


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro[/QUOTE]

I figured they were dreaming about north of three, but to paraphrase Tip O'Neill, "A million here, a million there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money..."

Who would even have thought to try to photomatch it to a photo from this particular date? And for experts in the field, is this a convincing photomatch?

Way over my pay scale but it seems they had a date range to look at but the rest is a massive blur to me. Not sure if they were using those copies of the photos or actual photos. Anyway, the match made no sense to me BUT I will be the first to state the obvious. I know nothing about how a jersey was made in 1910 vs 1920. It would be awesome if anyone on the board who knows this stuff could connect the dots.

I haven't read all of the promotional material they're using to sell the piece, but do they address the fact that the 'W' insignia on the sleeve is distinctly different from the one in the photo they are matching it to?

Was it claimed to have been added/replaced later or something???

Attachment 622009

Certainly does look thinner in the vintage photo, doesn't it? Hmmm...

Yeah, I'm with you Darren. I find the whole thing very confusing. The W looks wider/thicker on the Jersey they sold when compared to "photo-matched" images, and the stripes in the different pictures they show seems to have different widths as well.

And yet, they are claiming the size of the W relative to the stripes is another reason to believe it was Walter's jersey, even though the W looks thinner in the picture they show.

Imagine spending $2 million on some kind of a relic and knowledgeable people with no skin in the game are like "yeah. . .I don't know . . .I'm not sure that is what they said it was. . . ."

Thankfully I will never be in that position!

The thin W on the shoulder looks like it was used from 1916-1919 (earlier years seem to wear is slightly lower on the arm? Can't tell for certain). While I don't think the photo match is right I do think the Jersey is Walters 1920 Jersey.

But isn't it the photo match with the Babe Ruth connection that gives it so much value?

I think that was what they were attempting to do and from my vantage point I was not sold in the least on the connection. No idea of value on this just as a Johnson jersey but it might be that the price reflected that those interested were not buying the story either.

And here I thought cards were dicey. This stuff you simply have to buy into a tale. Not the first time we have seen this either.

This is why I don't buy game worn jerseys and prefer autographed checks to signed cards unless there's some real provenance.

Agree. Bought a 1952 signed Ty Cobb check in 2006. Liked how Francis Cobb also signed the back.

Pinstripe Jerseys are like fingerprints- the way the fabric is cut and seamed. The above side by side photo analysis of the WaJo Jersey looks like a match to me (and apparently Heritage, and to the authentication company too)...Re: the W, can't speak to that, possibly replaced sometime over the last 100 years, which is very common with numbers, letters and patches on vintage Jerseys. I know it says it's originally, but that might be an oversight(?), as it was likely replaced (which I don't think impacts the overall value at all). Or, finally, the original photo is an action shot, there's movement of his body, part of his body (right arm) is blurry. It's possible it's the same W but the movement of his body has blurred or distorted some of the details.

For reference, I have a Derek Jeter Game Used Jersey from his final season. Photo-matched to 2 games. It's very well-documented and was just on exhibit for a year at Yankee Stadium's Museum. You can see how the pinstripes interact with the NY Logo and #2, and the interaction at the seams. These are the details authenticators are looking at for photo-matching.

If I had a jersey from anybody from that era I could understand trying to match it to all available photos of that person, after all there are considerably fewer pictures of Walter Johnson than there are of Gavin Lux.

I'm not an "expert" but I am qualified to look at the photo that JollyElm posted and say that the area in the right oval does not match in my opinion, and the W certainly looks different in each of them.

I would also question what the difference is between an "expert" and the homeless guy I gave a dollar to yesterday, when it comes to their ability to differentiate those, or any, photos.

I'm with Snapoli1 and CalvinDog when it comes to my thoughts.

It's certainly seems to be a cool old Senators jersey, as for the rest of it...

Doug

Brings to mind a piece I showed to the late Bill Huggins (boy, that's hard to write...) to see what he thought of it. He listened patiently to what I had been told about it, then said, "Hank, whenever you need a story to go with an item, you've got a problem."

How much of that sale price is due to the "photomatch" does anyone know what a Johnson jersey would otherwise sell for?

OMG, that's funny! If it's up to you guys, some of these "experts" might be finding themselves out on the streets. But seriously, folks, sometimes this stuff strikes me like anyone who has seen the Zapruder film and wants to claim the head shot came from the Book Depository. To quote from one of my favorite movies, "The Outlaw Josey Wales": "Don't piss down my boots and tell me it's raining..."

Shows ya what we know...apparently or obviously this is a rare item.

https://www.sportscollectorsdaily.co...swat-erickson/

https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions...8/lot.168.html

And yet Sotheby’s writes that Johnson was from Idaho. Wow.

Not really inaccurate in the sense that "hailing from" can also mean coming from in addition to being born there. And Walter did, indeed, go directly from Idaho to D.C.

I guess to me, “hailing from” means where you are from. No one knows better than you where he was from, since you wrote the book, and are his kin. Do you think he would have said “I hail from Weiser, Idaho” if someone asked him where he was from? My guess, he would say either Kansas or California.

He would say he was from Kansas, for sure. However, you said that the auction description has him coming from Idaho, whereas what they said was that he hailed from Idaho, as in "hailing from Idaho...blah, blah, blah," which, if you look up it up in the dictionary, can mean either being born there or coming from there. And how can you expect these guys to be such experts in photo matching (!) and linguistics at the same time?

Good points. I expect Sotheby’s knows best when writing a description on a $2,000,000 item. That’s why they are the professionals.