Your best find at an Estate Auction

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Posted By: Keith

Dan's brother's Ed Weir find got me thinking (not even sure if it was an estate auction find), but what was the best thing you ever found on estate auction. I know I personally acquire things 1 of 4 ways, estate auctions, ebay, flea markets/yard sales/house sales, or auction houses like hunts, mastro, etc.
I go to a ton of estate auctions and have found some decent stuff over the years.
My favorite find (maybe not the most valuable) was a group of memoriblia from St Marks School and Yale from around 1907. The group included a fantastic Spalding melon football with the year 07 painted on 1 side, and the score of a game between St Marks and Milton on the opposite, 4 St Marks football photos, 2 St marks baseball photos, and 1 1908 Yale football team cabinet. I later acquired from another source from the same estate a dual framed St Marks photo with the trophy ball that I have being held by the captain, a Saint Marks Football sweater, and a sterling silver Saint Marks award medal for Athletics. All of the items belong to Alfred Biddle and Julian Cornell Biddle who played football at St Marks and then Yale.

My dads best estate auction pickup is a 1928-29 team signed ball by the Phila A's including sigs of Ty Cobb, Lefty Grove, Connie Mack, Jimmie Foxx.

I look forward to hearing some the other guys better estate auction finds.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

1929 A's Panorama

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I saw an ad on the internet for an auction that listed antique baseball equipment which was about 3 hours away from me up in the Northeastern corner of the state so I called and asked if they could elaborate and they told me that it was all packed away and they would get back to me...they never did so my brother and I got up early out of curiosity and this is what I came home with...all for less than $100 total. The bat at the top is a Spalding ring bat..kind of hard to tell, but it's the "antique" model. I also picked up a Red Head shotgun shell box for $1.00 that I turned around and sold on ebay for over $200. It had a gyroscope in it and was being sold as a gyroscope...I don't think the auctioneers even realized that the box was an antique shot shell box.

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Posted By: brock

At a local auction i payed $45 for a Larry Berra bat which later turned out to be game used. Very rare. I also picked up a Mickey Mantle single-signed baseball. Payed $35 great deal. I have also picked up lots 944,945,946 in the current mastro auction, at a local auction. And the other day there was a couple of 1940's team signed baseballs. One was a 1942 albany senators ball with Kiner. And another ball had Hank greenberg and Billy Herman i believe but i dont think the person who won them knew about them. I should have made hima offer on that ball. The lot sold for $170. There was a total of 5 vintage baseballs and 3 new ones.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

I actually have so many great finds...my brother was at an estate auction about two years ago and he called me up and asked me if I wanted something called a "baseball transfer" and I was thinking 1965 Topps baseball transfers so I said no, then he called me back a few minutes later and told me I should come to this auction because there were some autographed baseballs so I decided to go to the auction...when I got there I noticed a trophy from the Sioux City Soos and I asked the auctioneer who the auction was for and they said "The Bruner family"...I walked around a while until I noticed a lady that was going inside the house and I asked her if this was her auction and she said yes, I then asked her who the baseballs and trophy belonged to and she said they were her dad's Jack Bruner.

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/player.php?p=bruneja01

The auctioneer didn't even know that they were doing an auction for a former major league player. I ended up with the baseballs, but I kind of had to work out a deal with another collector to not go after the trophy which I now regret, but such is life. The baseballs were minor league balls from the 1940s of the Western League's Colorado Springs Sky Sox (Has a sig of Sam Hairston who I think was the last Negro League MVP) and the other ball was from the Sioux City Soos. I paid about $30 each for them.

Here's the Colorado Springs ball...I can't find my pic of the Soos ball, but I know I have it somewhere.
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Bruner's daughter invited me into the house after the auction and showed me all the stuff of her dad's that they were keeping, which was substantial...photos, plaques, balls. They said they had some uniforms, but they were at another family member's house.

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Posted By: brock

Dan
What kind of bats are on the left and right of the gloves. Meaning who are the players.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

They were not player endorsed bats...one said "Winner" on it and I think the other one said "Boys JR" on it...they are around somewhere lost in the sea of bats.

Anyone have a good garage sale find? My brother found me a box full of baseball bats at a garage sale for $20.

It had a Stall & Dean Jim Delahanty, LS Ty Cobb, Victor Sporting Goods, Draper & Maynard, LS Roberto Clemente and a bunch of lesser bats in it.

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Posted By: brock

Dan
You looking to sell or trade that Ty Cobb bat at all. I'm trying to start a collection of store model bats.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Brock, not at the moment. It's my only Cobb.

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Posted By: Joseph

Hey Dan,

Based on the bats and your earlier post, it seems your brother is pretty darn good at this game...

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Joe, he's much better than I am at finding stuff...of course he is much more dedicated to looking for it and for that I am grateful. He attends at least 5x the amount of estate sales than I do. Usually if the ad doesn't say something about sports memorabilia I won't attend and oftentimes he finds it because it wasn't listed in the auction writeup. I just don't have the patience that he does.

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Posted By: Alan Elefson

Hi-
I am an avid flea marketer and have made some fairly decent finds (at east for me) approximately every six months or so. I found an James Naismith autographed Spaudling Football guide for less than 50.00 (sold it for more than 10 times what I paid), a group of Joe Cronin vintage photos (including press photos, and one signed by Walter Johnson to Joe Cronin) that I sold for over 3,000.00 (paid about 500 for them, and these were at a baseball card shop). I also found a group of uncatalogued 1940s era Transfers including nine Joe Dimaggios. I ended up selling the lot in about a month to a few different collectors/dealers for over 3,000.00. I paid 40.00 for the tatoos and I found them slightly buried on a flea market table several hours after the flea market had opened (I am usually the guy there at the crack of dawn), a time when I very rarely make any significant finds. All of the above finds were made in the last two years or so.
I also collect (and sell) Boy Scout memorabilia. As a result, I can look for both scouting finds and sports finds at the same venues. I believe this greatly assists my desire to arise at 2:00am most Sundays and drive two hours to hit my favorite flea market, as chances are I will make a find in one of my focus areas. In scouting, I found three patches that I paid 10 dollars each for and resold them for 700.00 each. I also found an old boy scout merrit badge sash with very scarce regional patches from the 1940s that I ended up selling (in a few deals) for over 3,000.00. I made this find while I was still in High School in the early 1990s.
Flea markets are my form of gambling (I have also made more than my fair share of mistakes). Unlike gambling, you at least own a physical item (even if you paid too much for it).
I will provide a quick tip to flea marketers. I suggest you ask evry dealer whether they have what you are looking for (I generally ask for pre WWII sports memorabilia). You would be surprised how many folks have very nice items that they do not display on their tables. More than one of my sports and boy scout finds over the years have been discovered using this method, after other collectors had visited the table and left empy handed because they did not ask.
Alan Elefson

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Posted By: George Dreher

There have been many. I would say the most gratifying was in Hartford, Connecticut back in 1972. A complete T206 set, condition ranging from Very Good to Near Mint. It was the childhood collection of an old gent who had just passed away. As far as baseball memorabilia, about 1980 in a small town near Seattle, I purchased a game-used glove collection originating from the 1930s. About 100 gloves, some belonged to Hall of Famers including one Johnny Mize used his rookie year.

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Posted By: Max Weder

Not an estate find, but my friend found a near mint Matty kid's glove at a Goodwill store in Seattle

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Posted By: joe

Here are a few. When I bought the Orange Tigers, they were painted a dark brown. I used goof-off on them and look what I found.
Joe



Ty Cobb, Spikes flying!

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Posted By: Mike H

What do those pennants on the top of the Tiger's backs say? By any chance is the pennant available for trade or purchase...hee hee?

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Posted By: joe

The pennants say "1934 Pennant Detroit World Series" None of these items are for sale or trade at this time.

Joe

Ty Cobb, Spikes flying!

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Posted By: Mike H

Great stuff Joe. I've seen the 34 pennant and doorstops before, but don't believe I've seen the bookends. Is that Cobb on the trophy?

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Posted By: Paul Grubor

A few years back a lady running an estate sale called my store and asked me about bobbing head dolls. She was preparing for the sale and had no idea about nodders/prices etc. I told her to bring them in and I'd make her an offer. She brought in these four in PRISTINE SHAPE: Mantle, Clemente, Maris, and Mays. I offered her $800.00 on the four and she almost passed out.
She told me she was glad she called because she was going to put them out at $5.00 each. She didn't sell them that day but told me to come to the estate sale and she would have them under a table in a box. I entered the sale and gave her $800.00 cash and walked out. I wonder if she pocketed the cash?

Paul

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Posted By: joe

Mike, yes that is Cobb on the trophy. 1913 trophy, these were given to high school teams for different events. It is a W.B. Jarvis item, Cobb was involved with 2 sporting goods stores for about 2 years. W.B. Jarvis was the Brand name used to sell everything from fishing, golf, tennis, football, Baseball and other sports items. The stores were located in Detroit and Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Joe

Ty Cobb, Spikes flying!

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Posted By: Mike H

I'm in Ann Arbor Joe, where are you?