Babe Ruth Locker Tags

[jerseygary]

Has anyone come across these? They are listed in various auctions as circa 1930 and that 3 were issued every year to each player. Plausible story, but I have only ever seen Babe Ruth ones (the one shown is from a Huggins and Scott auction). Surely a Lefty Gomez or Lou Gehrig or some other Yankee would have survived, right? I stopped counting at 4 different Ruth ones that have surfaced.

Anyone see another player besides The Babe?

[MK]

I have seen these come up many times in various auctions. My guess is they were produced after Ruth's death as a momento. Too many of them have surfaced to be the real thing.

[packs]

Could it be possible that they were simply given out to fans as a souvenir? I seem to remember they kept Ruth's locker untouched for a while after he retired and died.

What I'm thinking is they had tours and fans were given tags to Ruth's locker as a souvenir. That is if my memory serves me well and they did display his locker for some time.

[ooo-ribay]

I wondered about those, myself. With as many as are floating around, isn't it a bit odd the major, reputable auction houses continue to represent these as "one of a kind, held in Ruth's hand," etc?

[jerseygary]

Yeah I agree it's odd. You'd think if these were legit at least one other player's tags would have popped up on the market - as far as I can tell none have. But these keep selling for crazy prices. I'd hate to think some guy in Astoria, Queens is making them on some old tag maker device in his garage!

[packs]

Ruth's locker was in Yankee stadium until at least 1948. There are photos of him visiting his locker during his final trip to the stadium. I would like to see if anyone can find an article or advertisement for visiting the Yankee locker room. They do these types of tours today and I'd have to think they did similar ones in the past as well, especially since everything seemed much more accessible back then. If I were to lay some money down I'd say these tags were purchased or given away as souvenirs for people who visited the clubhouse, if they aren't fantasy pieces.