The Find that Turned out to be Real

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Posted By: Todd Evans

In 1999, prior to my Pittsburgh, PA deal I had purchased a 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth #181 from a gentleman in New Jersey. He listed the card as VG/EX but the scan was small and wasn't very clear. I had comunitcated with him by email and by phone concerning the card and I ended up being the winning bidder. Upon receiving the card I was very pleased as I thought it was undergraded by the seller as I thought it was actually EX+. I sent the card to PSA using the walk-through service and it ended up grading a PSA 6 so I was thrilled. I contacted the seller and asked him if had any other cards. He said he had some other items as he got the Ruth card and all the other items from his neighbor who's husand had passed away about three years earlier.

The person who had died was in his 80's and had been a collector since his childhood days. From what I understand, he attended games in the New York area starting as a kid back in the 1920's and would buy 2 or 3 programs from each game he attended. He would score one and put the others up and he kept them in file folders. He was way ahead of his time and saved and cared for everything like he knew someday they would be valuable. I was told the amount of items he had, programs, cards, pennants and what not was astonishing. He had box fulls of 1933 Goudey's, Sportkings, Exhbit cards.

Noe to the sad part, he had all these items stored in large copy paper boxes. I believe I was told that he had 5 boxes filled with these items. After he had passed his wife had the boxes moved to the basement of the home they were living in. At some point a pipe burst in the basement and soaked four of the boxes since they had been place right under the pipe. At some point after the accident the neighbor was given the boxes. He told me that there was stack after stack of 1933 Goudeys just stuck together and each time he would try to peel one off it wold just tear apart. He said there must bave been at least 50 Ruth cards not to mention all the Gehrig's and others. He said he estimated there must have been 4-5 thousand cards in there. The one box that was salvaged did have some very nice items in it. I ended up buying several old programs dating back to the 1920's all the way to the late 1950's. These programs were in tip top shape. I also purchased a set of 1933 Goudey Premium stand ups, several 1927-29 Postcard back Exhibits including several Ruth's and Walter Johnson's. I purchaed several R310 1934 Baby Ruth premiums with Ruth, Gehrig, Ott and Foxx. These items were all in just outstanding condition. I also purchased many of the cards that were salvaged but some had some mold spots where they had been exposed to the wet conditions of the basement. I ended up purchasing most everything that was salvageable but what had to be thrown away was heartbreaking.

I took some of the items down to the Atlanta National that year and had them in box. I walked up to Rosen's table and waited for him to finish talking to the person in front of me. I was just going to let him offer me some rediculous amount for the items and then just say no and walk away. I ended up walking away from the table when he was so rude abd cursing at the guy in front of me who I believe had some modern cards. He saw me walk away so I purposely went up to the table across the isle and pulled out some of the items like I was looking for something. I could see he was trying to see what all I had in the box as I made sure he saw the 1933 Goudey premiums with the Ruth right on top. I put the items back in the box and walked off so he called out and wanted me to come over to his table. I ignored him and he came running up to me as I walked away and asked me if he could see what all I had in the box as he had cash to pay for them. I told him to go screw himself and that if he wasn't such an ass he would know what was in the box. I ended up taking them over to the Mastro booth and consigning some of the items and at one point when I had the items laid out while I was talking to the Mastro guys I noticed that Rosen walked by a couple of times trying to see what I had.