Antiques Roadshow guest’s dad kept five-figure signed baseball in ‘sock drawer’ for years

An Antiques Roadshow guest shared that his dad kept a rare baseball signed by some of the greats in a sock drawer.

PBS expert Philip Weiss met with a guest who brought in two baseballs to be appraised with him explaining that he had inherited them from his dad.

He said: “Well my dad loved baseball, how he got these balls, I don’t have any idea but when he passed away, we the siblings were kind of divvying up his things, the balls were there and I said I’d take them.”

When asked where his father kept them, the guest replied: “Oh they were in a sock drawer, a dresser drawer and I didn’t think they were much of anything.

“You hear about reproductions and whatever and so I just had them in my sock drawer for a few years.”

Weiss began: “Well let’s just say this is going to be a tale of two baseballs.

“The first baseball here on the right is really interesting, because you see there’s Babe Ruth right here on the sweet spot.

“And then when you flip it over to this side, right here, you have Lou Gehrig and then when you flip it over again, you have what I call the key signature.

“Not that it’s the most important player but that's right here, Joe Girardi.

“Joe Girardi was the key signature as he only played on the Yankees for one year and by having him on the baseball, we’re able to identify this as a 1927 Yankee baseball.

“The 1927 Yankees is arguably the best team in baseball history and obviously people will argue that but I personally think that could be true.

“You had Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig combining for an enormous amount of home runs, batting over 300 RBIs combined and the Yankees came first in the American League with 110 wins and swept the Pirates in the World Series.”

The expert then went on to talk about the second baseball which was a circa 1950s Milwaukee Braves ball signed by the likes of Henry Aaron and various other Hall of Famers.

But he quickly revealed: “Sadly, that ball is a stamp ball, not a signed ball.

“And the reason that I’m glad you brought it in, is because at the Roadshow, we see an enormous amount of stamp baseballs and it’s a good kind of tool for us to show a stamp baseball at an appraisal like this.

“So people can realise what things to look for and find out that it’s stamped.

“One of the key things you look for in a stamp ball is very often you see the signature going off into the stitching. You can’t sign a baseball like that with a signature going off into the stitching.

“What happens is that it would be stamped onto the ball itself and they would fold it up and stitch it that way.

“The other thing you see on a stamped ball and don’t see on most signed baseballs is that the signatures are going in different directions. What they try to do is squeeze as many signatures as they can.”

He summarised that this second ball would be worth no more than $100 but it was the first baseball which really caught his eye.

Weiss concluded: “This is a really, really good example of a 1927 Yankee baseball.

“It does have some wear on some of the panels but you have a fairly good Ruth signature and a really strong Gehrig signature.

“As a team ball signed by most of the players on it, you don’t have one signature which is pretty important and that’s Miller Huggins the manager.

“I’ll give you a conservative auction estimate. I would expect it to sell in the $15,000 to $25,000 range.

“It could be more. Balls like this have sold for $40,000 to $50,000 but based on the condition, I think that’s a fair range to do it.”

The guest barely reacted at the news, just stating: “Wow. A good spot for a sock drawer.”

“Did you have it in the sock or was it just rolling around?” Weiss asked.

The guest replied: “No, probably just rolling around.”

“Well, it’s a nice sock drawer find and a good story about two baseballs.”

Antiques Roadshow is available to watch on PBS.