According to the description of the baseball, it was a gift directly from Earle Combs to his neighbor. On an item expected to sell for as much as this one there would or should be a paper trail a mile long.
How difficult then to request the NAME of the neighbor which certainly the consignor would be more than happy to provide,
take less than an hour do a search of the Federal Census records. Confirm Combs address......his home address is in all of the census back to when he was a baby....and then confirm the proximity of the neighbor. Pretty simple stuff. Also could be crossed checked against the city directory and the best part is all this information is available on line.
Then to be extra diligent find a living relative if the neighbor is deceased (also through census records) and confirm. Then after ALL of that is done examine the item in question.
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jim@stinsonsports.com