A Babe Ruth bat from the collection of a former teammate, a Lou Gehrig rookie Exhibit card, a rare card of Moonlight Graham and thousands of other items will be up for auction later this month at Memory Lane.
The company’s Summer Rarities Auction catalog will offer nearly 400 pages worth of vintage and modern sports cards, autographs and memorabilia.
Collectors will see a late 1920s Babe Ruth game bat from the estate of his former Yankees teammate Mark Koenig. The bat, with an “MK” branded above Ruth’s engraved signature on the barrel, has been examined by PSA/DNA which awarded it a rating of GU 8.5.
Koenig played shortstop for the Yankees and was Ruth’s teammate from 1925-1930. He batted .500 in the 1927 World Series and was on third base when Ruth belted his 60th home run of the season.
Koenig’s first year with the Yankees was the same one in which Lou Gehrig supplanted Wally Pipp at first base and began his legendary consecutive games streak. Gehrig’s first appearance on cardboard was through a 1925 Exhibit Supply Co. postcard and the auction will include a ‘gray tint’ version of what’s considered his rookie card. It carries a far better than normal grade of PSA 3.5.
Dipping even further back in time comes an 1888-89 Old Judge N173 Buck Ewing cabinet card. The 4 ¼ x 6 ½” premium card of the 19th century Hall of Famer is the ‘bat in right hand at right side’ variety and stands as the only example ever graded by PSA (VG-EX 4).
Baseball fans and avid movie buffs know the story of Archibald “Moonlight” Graham, the ballplayer turned small town doctor whose life served as a model for the novel Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella that became the blockbuster movie Field of Dreams. Three years after his lone major league appearance, Graham was still toiling in the minors and was part of a 1908 Rose Company postcard set while playing for Scranton in the New York State League. The only known PSA graded example of his card—issued not long before he retired to pursue his medical career—is also part of the auction.
Another ‘white whale’ offering is the only known 1904 Allegheny Card Company Christy Mathewson. The PSA 5 example is part of a 112-card boxed set that never reached the public and therefore, only one card of each player from the only set ever created is known to exist.
Another one-of-a-kind card is found in the form of a 1912 M101-3 Sporting News Ty Cobb with advertising for a Kansas Hardware Store on the back. Postmarked in November of that year, the card has been authenticated and graded SGC 1.5.
The auction includes several pages of T206 cards with rare backs. Broad Leaf, Drum, Hindu, Brown Lenox and Old Mill are among those represented with Cobb and Christy Mathewson among the subjects. Many have populations of fewer than 5 known examples.
Memory Lane will also offer the breakup of a near set of 1911 T3 Turkey Red cabinet cards, spread out over 87 lots, including a Cobb with checklist back.
There is also a section devoted to autographed cards, ranging from 1933 Goudeys to a 1939 Play Ball Joe DiMaggio to a 1952 Bowman Mantle to a PSA 10 1980-81 Larry Bird-Magic Johnson-Julius Erving signed by all three NBA legends.
The auction will include key single cards, high-grade vintage and rare unopened packs and boxes from all major sports throughout the history of collecting.
Bidding is set to open August 17 and run through September 7 at MemoryLaneInc.com.
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