Massive Mayeron Collection

[dspuria]

I was a close friend of John Mayeron, who recently passed away. John was a leading baseball book seller and book collector, and collected everything else from ceramic baseball nuns to GU equipment. John had the most extensive baseball book collection in the country with over 2,000 unique titles, including some of the rarest baseball books in existence. Some of his rare books are being donated to the HOF.

John's collection has been consigned to Heritage Auctions. Due to the size and diversity of his collection, it will be featured in various Heritage auctions over the next two years, starting with Heritage's Platinum auction this weekend. In the Platinum auction, there are 17 items from John's collection, including a 9.5 graded Keeler GU bat, a 10 graded Mays bat, a John McGraw SS ball, a signed Ruth book, a signed J. Robinson book, a 1915 Federal League Pass, an 1896 NL Pass, a 9 graded Bicentennial Brett GU bat, GU bats of Carew, Kaline, Gwynn, and Puckett, and GU jerseys from the Vikings Purple People Eaters.

Most of his collection will be featured in its own section of Heritage's Fall auction on November 17-18. He will likely have additional items in HeritageÂ’s Platinum auction that ends in February 2023.

The sheer size of the collection has prevented Heritage from taking on the entire collection. Accordingly, there will be many items (especially books, cards, signed photos, and signed baseballs) left after the consignments to Heritage auctions. We will prepare a list of "for sale" items shortly.

Thanks for your interest.

[Hankphenom]

So sorry for your loss, and may he R.I.P. Sounds like a wonderful collection, looking forward to seeing it as it comes out. I don't think I ever met him, but as an oddball guy myself, anybody who collected ceramic baseball nuns is OK by me!

[Mark]

This is one impressive collection. Naturally, the value of a great collection like this should not be reduced to a dollar value. Still, a sign of the collection's quality, and of the strong demand for memorabilia, is that the 9.5 GU Keeler bat sold for a quarter of a million dollars last night. Not bad for a short bat!

[Jewish-collector]

I think Heritage should have done a separate hard copy catalog for the "John Mayeron Collection" like other auction houses have done for world class collections (ie Memory Lane - Tom Newman collection.) It's a way to remember the family member to pass down to generations rather than just saying grandpa John sold his collection of baseball memorabilia for $10 million or whatever. You never know that a young family member could get interested in collecting or a sports career after browsing the catalog.

[dspuria]

Heritage is very excited about this collection. They have devoted an entire section of their big Fall auction to John's collection. They are also sending out a mailer that promotes John's collection in the upcoming Fall auction.

We pre-empted the debut of the collection by including 17 items in the Platinum auction this past weekend to take advantage of the timing of that auction and the hot market. His items did very well - Keeler bat fetched $250,000, Mays bat got $52,000, Brett bat got $30,000, and the Ruth book got $17,500 (which I have never seen for more than $10,000).

The bulk of the collection will be featured in the November auction.

Thanks for your interest.

[dspuria]

Hundreds of significant items from John Mayeron's collection will be featured in Heritage Auctions' upcoming November 17 Fall auction. They include many game-used bats, including a game-used Maris bat from 1961, as well as signed photos and baseballs. Included is John's copy of the book, The Krank, which John Thorn describes as "baseball's rarest book." Other books include signed first editions of Ruth, Cobb, Hornsby, Paige, Robinson, Rickey, Mack and Maris books. Mayeron items are now also in Heritage's weekly and monthly auctions.

Thank you for your interest.