As early history tells us, that entire region was a hotbed for early baseball fans. The family would sit by the fire and listen to the scores roll in from the US. The Carpathian Mountain range was vital to the introduction of slope side baseball but the sheer cliffs and steepness resulted in many parents punishing their children by throwing their early Babe Ruth cards off the cliff so to speak so early cards are extremely rare due to this anomaly. A recent Slovakian hiking contingent after searching high and low , found an old tin with 632 authentic Ruths in there. The weird thing is, the tin was a Bambino Smoking Tobacco tin. Coincidence? Hmmmm?!?!!?!?
The Ruths were about to be mailed to TPG companies in the US but due to the slow mail system in Slovakia, a tribal elder "blessed" the cards as authentic and this according to local legend was good enough.
I'm still uncovering more about these mysterious Slovak gems and will update if more info comes in from my "sources".
peace, mike