Best venue to sell game used WILLIE MAYS BAT!

[ullmandds]

hi guys...I have the bat in hand. the markings correspond with being made 1951-1957...I'd presume closer to 57' as that corresponds to my friends historical recollection. Bat is cracked...has little use.

Apparently this is a very rare bat...despite not showing a ton of use.

It seems there are no similar bats that have sold that I can find on the internet...and for this reason as well as others I will likely be getting this bat graded and will send to a big auction house. The value range is just too variable from what I can see.

I will post more pics tonight.

Here is link with some pics I posted a while ago.

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=213784

[ullmandds]

here are some pics...I've done a lot of research and I cannot find an exact exemplar...I did find a similar mantle bat that sold REA for a lot of moulah...but no exact willie mays with the flame treated notation or the older adirondack label.

[ullmandds]

and here is an exerpt from a book my friend wrote regarding this bat:

On July 31, 1956 my father took me to the Polo Grounds to see my first major league night game, a twi-nighter against the Cincinnati Redlegs. Dad skipped the last couple of hours of his summer road crew job but by the time we navigated a network of Long Island highways, traversed the Triborough Bridge and entered the stadium at 8th Avenue and 155th Street, the first contest was more than half in the book.

We zigzagged the pedestrian ramps to the upper deck and I heard the distant crack of the bat, a sound so distinctly “baseball” it forges an emotional link in millions of baseball hearts. The home crowd erupted, its collective voice deep-throated, spontaneous, rich and full. Jackie Brandt, a rookie Giant outfielder from Omaha, had homered off lefty reliever Pat Scantlebury, a Panamanian nearing the end of a distinguished international pitching career. If I listen closely to the replay in my mind I can hear the hit with a 7-year-old’s ears. I can still feel the internal electric current the crowd’s roar transmitted to my heart.

A few seconds later the other-worldly vista of an enclosed stadium appeared, Technicolor gone steroidal played across a Cinerama screen. Row upon row of seats gleaming under artificial illumination. Virtually unblemished infield skin. Park-green outfield grass. The playing surface populated by neatly clad players wearing gray sleeveless uniform tops over red t-shirts and one in the batter’s box wearing a cream jersey and a black hat. To this day I feel a youth’s excitement upon entering a stadium and eagerly anticipate the initial glimpse of the field, even the oft-maligned Metrodome, a major league venue now abandoned for an outdoor one at the immensely popular Target Field, a pitchers’ park where homers are rare, a stadium better known for its ambiance and amenities than for the quality of the competition.

A white shirted attendant pointed to our seats under an overhang decorated by an ornate façade. With the Giants leading 4-0 in the bottom of the seventh New York outfielder Don Mueller scratched out an infield single. He advanced to second on a wild pitch and scored on Red Schoendienst’s single to center, drawing emotion from the crowd once more. My hero, Willie Mays, ended the inning. He whiffed on a third strike.

Willie’s out represented a small disappointment since, after the Redlegs got one back in the top of the eighth courtesy of pinch hitter Stan Palys’ homer, the Giants won. According to New York Daily News writer Jim McCulley, “The Giants upset the second-place Redlegs, 5-1, in the opener of a twi-nighter as Joe Margoneri went the distance with a nifty five-hitter.”

In the nightcap Cincinnati scored five in the fifth and took a 7-1 lead. The Giants didn’t rally. They split the doubleheader. In truth, not a bad result for a 34-58 team, hardly that of a pennant contender.

I didn’t care I rooted for a cellar dwelling team. I didn’t notice the sparse attendance. I loved being there. I loved the Giants’ cream jerseys. I loved seeing Willie play. Besides, to my way of thinking, the best was yet to come.

In the days before Walter O’Malley and Horace Stoneham took their National League franchises to the West Coast, New York fans expected to walk on the field after games. In fact event management encouraged patrons to use it as an efficient way to empty the stadium, directing fan toward gate openings in the outfield walls. On several previous occasions I’d trekked across the Yankee Stadium outfield to stand awestruck before the famous monuments, memorials to Miller Huggins, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig clustered around the flag pole in dead center field. After the second game on this night I walked on Willie’s turf.

Dad and I made our way to the field and stood on the top step of the Giant dugout where an equipment manager purposefully pulled the bats from a storage cabinet and stuffed them into a white canvas bag with a reinforced leather bottom. The man paused as he yanked one particular bat from the rack. He lifted a buckskin Adirondack, the wood veined with darker streaks. He examined it carefully. Grasping it by the barrel he tapped the handle gently against the dugout steps. The cracked bat responded with a twang. He held it up, caught my eye and tossed it my way, an upside-down exclamation point. The genuine ash product bore an inscription on the barrel: Willie Mays.

[ullmandds]

Full length...35"...33.5oz...length and weight are correct per Willies specs.

[ullmandds]

Some info I found on PSA site.

Does anyone have any opinions/advice?

WILLIE MAYS


Much like fellow power hitter Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays alternated between H&B and Adirondack professional model bats throughout his career. While his Adirondack bats do feature his signature on the barrel, Mays’ H&B bats are of the block letter variety only since he did not have a signature contract with the company. A small number of the known examples do possess either "W. Mays" on some of his early bats or his full name from the latter portion of his career, but most Mays H&B gamers only feature his last name. Another interesting similarity to Mantle was Mays’ use of pine tar, which evolved over the course of his career. Early on, Mays was inconsistent about his use of the gripping substance. By the mid-1960s, that all changed.

Mays was known to apply a coat of pine tar that would sometimes extend from the base of the handle up past the center brand, a pattern documented in many photos. As a result, well-used bats from this period until the end of his career are as distinct looking as any gamer of the era. In addition, many of the known Mays gamers do feature his primary uniform number "24" marked on the knob. Mays did wear number "14" for a short time during his rookie season, but many of his early bats do not possess a vintage uniform number notation.

Keep in mind that Mays was a player who often hit with the label facing downward, which caused ball marks to cluster on the left barrel in such cases. You will, however, find that heavily-used Mays bats often have contact marks on both sides, which is consistent with his free-swinging approach. Finally, Mays gamers from his time with the New York Giants are far tougher to locate than bats manufactured during his time in San Francisco and with the New York Mets.

SMR PRICE GUIDE
Approximate Value: $7000

Important Notes:

(a 1961-64 Willie Mays bat sold for $18,725)
(a documented Willie Mays HR bat #620 sold for $37,400 in 2004)
(a 1965 Willie Mays HR bat (#491) from the "Roseboro Game" sold for $55,000 in 2012 - it was graded PSA/DNA GU 10)
(a 1969-72 Willie Mays bat sold for $17,925)
(a PSA /DNA GU 9.5, 1970-1972 Willie Mays bat sold for $14,520 in 2014)
(a PSA/DNA GU 10 1954-57 Willie Mays signed bat sold for $40,630 in 2016)
(a PSA/DNA GU 9, 1954-57 Willie Mays signed bat sold for $36,250 in 2016)

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

does the lack of pine tar worry you at all?

[ullmandds]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

does the lack of pine tar worry you at all?

no because from what I read willie didnt regularly use pine tar at this point in his career. he started liberally using it in the mid/late 60's.