The early Babe Ruth game bat didn’t break a sales record, but it did draw a crowd.
A Babe Ruth game-used bat, dating to the Boston Red Sox’ 1918 World Series winning season realized $537,750 at Heritage Auctions Oct. 1-2 Signature Sports Memorabilia Auction.
The auction totaled just more than $4.2 million in sales according to the company.
Ruth’s first Yankee Stadium home run bat–autographed by the Babe– sold for $1.2 million in December of 2004. While it’s generally considered the most famous Ruth Bat, the Hillerich & Bradsby model sold by Heritage not only predates that bat by five years, it is also the "parent" model of all Ruth bats to come. The Ruth bat was used extensively throughout the historic 1918 season, making sure it lived up to his demanding specs – and as evidenced by the tightly centralized impact area.
"We saw very solid results across the board," said Chris Ivy, Director of Sports at Heritage. "The Ruth bat was the icing on the cake in an auction that featured examples from many of the greatest names in sports. Time and time again in this auction we saw totals far exceed the pre-auction estimates multiple times. It shows that demand for the highest quality material, as Heritage Auctions specializes in, will never diminish."
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