Vintage Baseball Volumes To Bring High Prices At Rare Books Fair

A Babe Ruth autobiography published in 1948 will bear a price tag of $10,000 at the Antiquarian Book Fair in New York later this month.

That’s because it carries the signatures of Ruth, former Yankees co-owner Dan Topping, plus pitcher Bob Porterfield, who spent 12 years with the team.

The hardcover Babe Ruth Story, was co-authored by Hearst reporter Bob Considine.

“It’s a very fair price for what it is,” said Sunday Steinkirchner, chair of the fair and co-owner of B& B Rare Books, which is bringing numerous baseball-related items to the show.

“The book belonged to Alfred Sloan, who went to a game in 1948 and got it signed and inscribed by Ruth. Since he died that August, it might have been one of the last items he actually signed or even touched.

“We are interested in the signature, the inscription, and the information. Had his signature been on an earlier book, it would be even more valuable.”

Steinkirchner, 41, buys and sells old books, including first editions of Pride and Prejudice, The Catcher in the Rye, and signed Ernest Hemingway novels.

If the Ruth book does not sell at the New York show, she and business partner Josh Mann will bring it to other fairs. They are doing at least three in the United Kingdom but also going to Cooperstown, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame, for a one-day show June 24 at the Clark Sports Center.

“It should get a lot of attention there,” she said of the show, which is run by Willis Monie Books, a Main Street rare books shop that has scheduled author signings during Hall of Fame Induction Weekends every July.

“We have rare books, signed books, and first editions, but people come to Cooperstown for baseball material.”

The 63rd annual New York show, which Steinkirchner calls the biggest on the rare books calendar of events, drew 9,500 spectators last year and generated $30 million in sales for vendors.

“I think it was the highest-grossing book fair of all time,” she said. “It attracted people from all over the world.”

This year’s roster includes more than 111 U.S. booksellers; 79 international, from 17 countries; and dozens of celebrity guests.

According to promoter Stanford L. Smith + Associates, increased interest from younger collectors and visitors should help attendance jump another 10% this year, with online ticket sales already up by 30%. Their theory is more attendance equals more sales.

“Rarity is based upon demand,” Steinkirchner explained, “so it could even be something new if it’s a limited edition. The first Harry Potter book was published in 1987 but there were only 500 copies printed. It ended up being a world phenomenon, so that’s what makes it rare.”

Prices of items at the fair range from $50 to seven figures, she said.

A copy of The Emancipation Proclamation once sold for $2 million at the fair and just
just
last year, a miniature book by the 13-year-old Charlotte Brontë, author of Jane Eyre, was purchased for $1.25 million by a charity that planned to donate it to the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

On Discovery Day, the last day of the weekend show, sellers can bring items for appraisal, evaluation, and potential match-making. “If people want to sell, we’ll give them the names of interested dealers,” she said. “Every once in awhile we get really cool things that come through. people find these things in their homes and find out they’re really valuable.”

Founded in 2003, B&B Rare Books occupies a small space in Manhattan near
near
the former site of Foley’s, a West Side Irish pub that was loaded with baseball memorabilia.

“During the pandemic, we started selling baseball material because we were bored,” revealed Steinkirchner, a Buffalo native who now roots for the Yankees. “We found people love buying bats, balls, cards, and letters but not antiquarian books. So we started buying books at memorabilia shows.

“If people like it, it’s fine. If nobody likes it, we get to keep it. It’s hard to find books in nice condition. I bet there’s a lot of 19th century baseball material out there.”

Books with original dust covers are especially valuable, she said. That’s why the 1931 first edition How to Play Baseball, written by Babe Ruth, will go into the show with a price tag of $2,500.

“It has its original dust cover,” Steinkirchner said. “It’s amazing to me how many people take dust covers off and throw them away.”

In addition to the Ruth book, a 1914 Ty Cobb first edition called Bustin ‘Em, also from B&B Rare Books, is on sale for the same price. A much later work B&B will offer is a 1991 autographed hardcover, My Favorite Summer 1956, by Mickey Mantle. It is priced at $1,500 because of the signature.

The rare books store will also display an archive of material from Lefty Gomez, a Hall of Fame pitcher who spent his entire career with the Yankees.

“A lot of book sellers have inventories in the thousands,” said Steinkirchner, who plans to bring 150 different items to the show, “but we’re so small that we only buy certain things.”

She and Mann met in college, lived in the East Village, and searched for a way to support themselves. They found an old edition of Alice in Wonderland at a street sale and gladly purchased it for $1. That’s when they realized people collect rare books the way they collect art and antiques.

“We started as scouts, helping people find what they were looking for,” she said. “That’s how we figured out what we wanted to do: buying and selling.”

They bought the Babe Ruth book from the son of the person it was inscribed to.

“We buy from the general public,” she said. “It can be one book or a whole collection.”

The 63rd annual show is set for New York’s Park Avenue Armory from April 27-30.

“We love having old books in the old armory,” Steinkirchner said. “There aren’t that many places like that in New York anymore.”