Strangest Items and Best Sports Memorabilia Finds of 2007
Rich Mueller
January 02, 2008
Sports Collectors Daily has released its lists of the Strangest Sports Memorabilia and Best Sports Memorabilia Finds of 2007.
The web site covers the sports memorabilia industry, providing original content and links to stories appearing in the mainstream media, updated Monday through Friday.
Combing through an archive of 1,000 sports cards and memorabilia related stories posted to the site during the year, Managing Editor Rich Mueller selected some off-the-wall winners of weirdness. All of the items were available for sale at some point.
The list of strangest sports memorabilia is just kind of fun.” he said. “Definitely not what you’d find in most normal collections. Some of these things came out of long-time storage, others were manufactured and a few more owe their selection to little more than ingenious marketing,” he said. “Once-chewed items seemed to be especially popular this year.” The list, in no particular order, includes:
Tiger Stadium dugout urinal:
The defunct ballpark was gutted and its remaining contents sold by a St. Louis auction company. Signs, doors and other fairly banal pieces were offered, along with the Tigers dugout urinal, which brought $900.
We need some *#%?& decorum around here:
From the estate of a baseball historian came an 1898 document sent to big league teams asking for an end to vulgar language on the field. The ironic document spelled out quite vividly which swear words or phrases had been used against umpires, dispelling the notion that 19th century athletes were more gentlemanly. Scheduled for auction this coming spring.
Take a bite out of Michael Vick:
Following his arrest on dog fighting charges, a female collector and artist decided to let her pup nibble on 22 Vick trading cards and then offered the less-than-mint condition lot on eBay. Much publicity and myriad copycat auctions ensued, but the original lot sold for $7400.
George Bush gets his own baseball card…sort of:
Collectors did a double take when opening the first Topps packs of 2007. A joker in the art department put a smiling, waving President Bush into the stands on Derek Jeter’s card. Waiting to bat next was the late great Mickey Mantle.
Leon Washington’s R-rated football card greeting:
Jets’ running back Leon Washington was photographed for his 2006-07 Bowman card flashing what looked like a “double bird” salute. Arms crossed and middle fingers extended, it appeared as if he was obscenely greeting America’s youth. Surprised by the uproar, Washington insisted he was simply forming the letter “E” for his hometown of East Jacksonville, FL.
The $673 can of game-used bug spray:
A swarm of insects descended on Yankees’ pitcher Joba Chamberlain in Game 2 of the American League playoffs. The bugs rattled the rookie and the Cleveland Indians not only won the game, they took the series. The can of bug spray put into action that night sold in an MLB auction for $673.
Matt Holliday’s game-chewed sunflower seeds:
A Colorado woman was among fans allowed on the field to watch a post-game fireworks show at Coors Field. Sitting in left field, she picked up a small quantity of sunflower seed shells spit out by popular Rockies outfielder Matt Holliday and put them on eBay where they sold for $25.89.
1975 Pete Rose game-chewed gum:
Frustrated during a mid-career game, Rose removed the wad of gum from his mouth and fired it toward the dugout. It landed on the wall below the stands instead where a fan grabbed it, inexplicably hung onto it for 32 years and then tried to sell it on eBay.
The Father of Our Baseball Cards:
Autographed cards are now commonly inserted into packs to help promote sales, but Topps went a step further with its Allen & Ginter sports and historical issue, inserting a few strands of George Washington's hair into a card featuring the 1st President. One dealer who found one of the cards in a pack tried to sell it on eBay, which kept rejecting the listing, claiming it was historical memorabilia, not baseball.
Yankee gloves found…where?
A truck-driving former minor leaguer stopped by a used sporting goods chain store in California looking for socks when he spotted four actual game model gloves made for Alex Rodriguez, Jason Giambi and Steve Karsay. The store didn’t know they were the real deal and how they got into a bin with gloves used by cousin Ed was a mystery. Mark Webb quickly turned a $500 investment into $10,000 after putting them up for auction.
2007 brought a treasure trove of items which entered the sports card and memorabilia hobby for the first time. They ranged from old game worn jerseys, gifted or sold long before any self-respecting adult actually collected them, to decades-old unopened boxes of baseball cards found at garage sales.
In no particular order, here’s a list of some of the hundreds of great discoveries that made headlines in the pages of Sports Collectors Daily during 2007.
Lou Gehrig “Boy Scout” baseball:
Yes, there was once a time when Major League superstars would show up at local boy scout dinners. Lou Gehrig dropped by one such awards dinner in 1937 and signed a baseball for 15 year-old Donald Starks. The sweet spot-autographed ball was a keepsake for Starks, but he finally consigned it to Memory Lane Auctions, which sold it this summer. Not the most valuable ball ever, but the perfect symbol of another time.
Early Baseball Rules:
The Olympic baseball club of Philadelphia was playing baseball seriously enough in 1839 to create their own “constitution”, a printed list of by-laws distributed to team members. After over three decades in hiding, the original document made its way to Robert Edward Auctions.
1964 Topps Stand Ups Box:
Why do millions of people go to garage sales? Because…say it with me...”you never know what you might find”. One east coast resident knew he had something good when he found an old box of unopened packs at a dirt cheap rate. Some quick investigation revealed the contents to be 1964 Topps Stand-Ups baseball cards. Flooded with offers once it hit eBay, the box was sold to a buyer for Mastro Auctions, which sold it in a catalog sale for $35,864.
Bobby Orr in the Closet:
A gift from the ultra-popular Boston Bruins’ Hall of Famer to a young boy over thirty years ago finally came out of the closet and showed up to oohs and ahs at a Canadian sports memorabilia show. The owner decided to consign it to Classic Auctions of Montreal, which sold it for over $80,000 to a Quebec businessman.
High Grade Vintage Find:
A family visit led one man to the collection of his wife’s late grandfather, a phenomenal horde of T-cards and Tin Tops from the early part of the century including never-before-seen pristine examples of the Joe Jackson and Jim Thorpe Colgan’s Chips discs. Split into lots, they were sold by Mastro Auctions.
Babe Ruth rookie cards x 2:
An east coast family learned of the sale of a 1914 Baltimore News Babe Ruth, then realized they had one. When Rob Lifson of Robert Edward Auctions showed up to take a look, he found they also had a team photo card of the ’14 Orioles. The consigned pair brought over $252,000.
Cards in the kitchen: A woman remodeling her kitchen peeled back the baseboards and out popped some early 1950s Topps cards. No Mantle rookie but a few 1952 Topps saw the light of day for the first time in over 50 years. It won’t result in fabulous wealth but it goes to show there are still cards hidden in the strangest places.
Gehrig Jersey Saved from the Scissors:
Major League teams are keenly aware of the collector value of their game worn jerseys now but back in the 1930s, they just wanted to get rid of them. The manager of a church softball team spent $9 each for a stack of them in the late 30s, hoping to outfit his team. The jersey once worn by Gehrig was saved in case patches were needed. Thankfully they weren’t, the team folded after one season and the jersey was preserved, sold in the fall by Lelands.
Black Sox baseball:
Jake Mintz was a private investigator who worked the concourses and stands at Cleveland Indians games during the 1920s. He passed on a small collection of autographed baseballs to family members who consigned them to Huggins & Scott Auctions in 2007. One ball, signed by Joe Jackson and Buck Weaver not long after the Black Sox scandal, starred in a fall auction, bringing $69,000.
1st All Star Game Lineup Cards:
Luckily, the family of NL manager Bill McKechnie had saved the lineup cards from the 1933 All Star game. They were consigned to Hunt Auctions’ sale just prior to this year’s game in San Francisco and sold for $138,000.
You can find more details on any of the items by searching the archives at
The web site covers the sports memorabilia industry, providing original content and links to stories appearing in the mainstream media, updated Monday through Friday.
Combing through an archive of 1,000 sports cards and memorabilia related stories posted to the site during the year, Managing Editor Rich Mueller selected some off-the-wall winners of weirdness. All of the items were available for sale at some point.
The list of strangest sports memorabilia is just kind of fun.” he said. “Definitely not what you’d find in most normal collections. Some of these things came out of long-time storage, others were manufactured and a few more owe their selection to little more than ingenious marketing,” he said. “Once-chewed items seemed to be especially popular this year.” The list, in no particular order, includes:
Tiger Stadium dugout urinal:
The defunct ballpark was gutted and its remaining contents sold by a St. Louis auction company. Signs, doors and other fairly banal pieces were offered, along with the Tigers dugout urinal, which brought $900.
We need some *#%?& decorum around here:
From the estate of a baseball historian came an 1898 document sent to big league teams asking for an end to vulgar language on the field. The ironic document spelled out quite vividly which swear words or phrases had been used against umpires, dispelling the notion that 19th century athletes were more gentlemanly. Scheduled for auction this coming spring.
Take a bite out of Michael Vick:
Following his arrest on dog fighting charges, a female collector and artist decided to let her pup nibble on 22 Vick trading cards and then offered the less-than-mint condition lot on eBay. Much publicity and myriad copycat auctions ensued, but the original lot sold for $7400.
George Bush gets his own baseball card…sort of:
Collectors did a double take when opening the first Topps packs of 2007. A joker in the art department put a smiling, waving President Bush into the stands on Derek Jeter’s card. Waiting to bat next was the late great Mickey Mantle.
Leon Washington’s R-rated football card greeting:
Jets’ running back Leon Washington was photographed for his 2006-07 Bowman card flashing what looked like a “double bird” salute. Arms crossed and middle fingers extended, it appeared as if he was obscenely greeting America’s youth. Surprised by the uproar, Washington insisted he was simply forming the letter “E” for his hometown of East Jacksonville, FL.
The $673 can of game-used bug spray:
A swarm of insects descended on Yankees’ pitcher Joba Chamberlain in Game 2 of the American League playoffs. The bugs rattled the rookie and the Cleveland Indians not only won the game, they took the series. The can of bug spray put into action that night sold in an MLB auction for $673.
Matt Holliday’s game-chewed sunflower seeds:
A Colorado woman was among fans allowed on the field to watch a post-game fireworks show at Coors Field. Sitting in left field, she picked up a small quantity of sunflower seed shells spit out by popular Rockies outfielder Matt Holliday and put them on eBay where they sold for $25.89.
1975 Pete Rose game-chewed gum:
Frustrated during a mid-career game, Rose removed the wad of gum from his mouth and fired it toward the dugout. It landed on the wall below the stands instead where a fan grabbed it, inexplicably hung onto it for 32 years and then tried to sell it on eBay.
The Father of Our Baseball Cards:
Autographed cards are now commonly inserted into packs to help promote sales, but Topps went a step further with its Allen & Ginter sports and historical issue, inserting a few strands of George Washington's hair into a card featuring the 1st President. One dealer who found one of the cards in a pack tried to sell it on eBay, which kept rejecting the listing, claiming it was historical memorabilia, not baseball.
Yankee gloves found…where?
A truck-driving former minor leaguer stopped by a used sporting goods chain store in California looking for socks when he spotted four actual game model gloves made for Alex Rodriguez, Jason Giambi and Steve Karsay. The store didn’t know they were the real deal and how they got into a bin with gloves used by cousin Ed was a mystery. Mark Webb quickly turned a $500 investment into $10,000 after putting them up for auction.
2007 brought a treasure trove of items which entered the sports card and memorabilia hobby for the first time. They ranged from old game worn jerseys, gifted or sold long before any self-respecting adult actually collected them, to decades-old unopened boxes of baseball cards found at garage sales.
In no particular order, here’s a list of some of the hundreds of great discoveries that made headlines in the pages of Sports Collectors Daily during 2007.
Lou Gehrig “Boy Scout” baseball:
Yes, there was once a time when Major League superstars would show up at local boy scout dinners. Lou Gehrig dropped by one such awards dinner in 1937 and signed a baseball for 15 year-old Donald Starks. The sweet spot-autographed ball was a keepsake for Starks, but he finally consigned it to Memory Lane Auctions, which sold it this summer. Not the most valuable ball ever, but the perfect symbol of another time.
Early Baseball Rules:
The Olympic baseball club of Philadelphia was playing baseball seriously enough in 1839 to create their own “constitution”, a printed list of by-laws distributed to team members. After over three decades in hiding, the original document made its way to Robert Edward Auctions.
1964 Topps Stand Ups Box:
Why do millions of people go to garage sales? Because…say it with me...”you never know what you might find”. One east coast resident knew he had something good when he found an old box of unopened packs at a dirt cheap rate. Some quick investigation revealed the contents to be 1964 Topps Stand-Ups baseball cards. Flooded with offers once it hit eBay, the box was sold to a buyer for Mastro Auctions, which sold it in a catalog sale for $35,864.
Bobby Orr in the Closet:
A gift from the ultra-popular Boston Bruins’ Hall of Famer to a young boy over thirty years ago finally came out of the closet and showed up to oohs and ahs at a Canadian sports memorabilia show. The owner decided to consign it to Classic Auctions of Montreal, which sold it for over $80,000 to a Quebec businessman.
High Grade Vintage Find:
A family visit led one man to the collection of his wife’s late grandfather, a phenomenal horde of T-cards and Tin Tops from the early part of the century including never-before-seen pristine examples of the Joe Jackson and Jim Thorpe Colgan’s Chips discs. Split into lots, they were sold by Mastro Auctions.
Babe Ruth rookie cards x 2:
An east coast family learned of the sale of a 1914 Baltimore News Babe Ruth, then realized they had one. When Rob Lifson of Robert Edward Auctions showed up to take a look, he found they also had a team photo card of the ’14 Orioles. The consigned pair brought over $252,000.
Cards in the kitchen: A woman remodeling her kitchen peeled back the baseboards and out popped some early 1950s Topps cards. No Mantle rookie but a few 1952 Topps saw the light of day for the first time in over 50 years. It won’t result in fabulous wealth but it goes to show there are still cards hidden in the strangest places.
Gehrig Jersey Saved from the Scissors:
Major League teams are keenly aware of the collector value of their game worn jerseys now but back in the 1930s, they just wanted to get rid of them. The manager of a church softball team spent $9 each for a stack of them in the late 30s, hoping to outfit his team. The jersey once worn by Gehrig was saved in case patches were needed. Thankfully they weren’t, the team folded after one season and the jersey was preserved, sold in the fall by Lelands.
Black Sox baseball:
Jake Mintz was a private investigator who worked the concourses and stands at Cleveland Indians games during the 1920s. He passed on a small collection of autographed baseballs to family members who consigned them to Huggins & Scott Auctions in 2007. One ball, signed by Joe Jackson and Buck Weaver not long after the Black Sox scandal, starred in a fall auction, bringing $69,000.
1st All Star Game Lineup Cards:
Luckily, the family of NL manager Bill McKechnie had saved the lineup cards from the 1933 All Star game. They were consigned to Hunt Auctions’ sale just prior to this year’s game in San Francisco and sold for $138,000.
You can find more details on any of the items by searching the archives at
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