Babe Ruth – Courtesy Hunt Auctions
This past weekend an auction (hosted by Hunt Auctions) took place at Yankee Stadium featuring over 400 sports memorabilia items, including many items from the collection of Babe Ruth’s family. There were some very strong prices and in the end, the sale had a 90% sell-through rate – guess everyone was out to find the perfect last-minute Father’s Day present! The most highly anticipated item was Babe Ruth’s 1928-30 jersey whose estimate was ‘on request’, but word has it they were quoting “in excess of $4M.” As we all know, Ruth set many records during his career… impressively, he continues to set records as the price of the jersey really hit it out of the park – it is now the most expensive sports memorabilia ever sold at auction. The unknown buyer paid a solid $4.7M ($5.64M with commission) beating the previous sports memorabilia record – also a Babe Ruth jersey (1920 season) which sold for $4.4M in 2012. In addition, a unique photograph of Lou Gehrig with the inscription “Babe – May I always be deserving of your friendship, cordially, Lou Gehrig” sold for $400K ($480K w/c) on a $100-200K estimate!!