Items Signed By Babe Ruth And Lou Gehrig Could Bring Record Prices At Leland’s 2023 Spring Auction

Even though he left baseball in 1935 and died 13 years later, Babe Ruth is still hitting home runs.

Documents signed by Ruth, who held single-season and career home run records that stood for decades, are expected to attract bids of six figures or more in the 2023 Lelands Spring Classic Auction, a 20-day event that ends April 22.

The auction, which also includes items signed by Lou Gehrig, Ruth’s teammate with the powerful Yankee teams of the ‘20s and ‘30s, features more than 1,200 items of sports memorabilia, ranging from rare baseball cards to signed books and contracts.

Bids could be enormous; Leland’s sold a signed Ruth contract in 2017 for $2.3 million.

In fact, a recent Market Decipher report estimated the sports memorabilia and trading card industry will generate $35 billion this year and soar to nearly $230 billion by 2032.

The coronavirus pandemic may have sidelined Major League Baseball but prompted new interest and awareness in memorabilia – apparently as a reminder of “the good old days.”

Leland’s, which runs several auctions a year, has thrived.

The Matawan, NJ auction house, founded in 1985 by Joshua Leland Evans, has previously handled the Mickey Mantle Auction of the Greer Johnson Collection for $1.3 million, a Harry M. Stevens auction for $1.8 million, and the Boston Garden Auction for $2 million total.

Several Ruth items in the current auction relate to the famous trade that sent him from the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees after the 1919 season.

Among them are promissory notes sent by Boston owner Harry Frazee to Yankees co-owner Jacob Ruppert after the teams agreed on the Ruth transaction. One note for $25,000 is signed by Ruppert, Yankees co-owner T.L. Huston, and Frazee.

A related letter in the nine-lot collection is a letter from the Yankees to Frazee on the day the deal was finalized.

The Ruth documents had been held for years by the late Barry Halper, a memorabilia collector who was also a minority owner of the Yankees. Much of the Halper collection was sold in 1999 by Sotheby’s, another auction house, to a client Leland’s now represents.

Also in the ongoing Leland’s auction is a workbook Gehrig used in statistics class at New York’s High School of Commerce in 1920, before his professional baseball career began. It has pages of handwritten notes and 22 signatures, both in ink and pencil.

According to the Leland’s website, a Gehrig rookie card from 1925 had an opening minimum bid of $20,000 but was up to $179,699 on the morning of Easter Sunday.

The first two players to have their uniform numbers retired, Ruth and Gehrig teamed to lead Yankee teams nicknamed “Murderer’s Row” because of their ability to crush opponents.

Ruth hit 60 home runs in 1927 and 714 lifetime, both celebrated and long-standing baseball records, and was part of the first class inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Gehrig joined him later.

Leland’s provides guidance to clients relative to current and future market prices and availability of vintage sports items. It offers in-house authentication and appraisal services, using secondary authentication services to validate its findings.

Its auctions of major sports cards and memorabilia have raised hundreds of millions of dollars. Although Leland’s handles items on consignment for clients, it sometimes purchases items directly.

For further information, email [email protected] or call 732-290-8000.