While we, like so many other young American boys and girls, collected baseball cards as a kid ( from ages 5-12), we became a serious collector of rare baseball memorabilia two years after graduating from college in 1975. We were attracted to baseball memorabilia because our best friend’s dad had a world class collection. We enjoyed viewing that collection. Secondly our primary source of income was advertising and baseball and advertising have a history together that dates back to 1868.



Our collection has always been about quality and not quantity. Our collection includes advertising signs, pennants, player-endorsed sheet music, rare tickets, early programs and scorecards, a few games, and, of course baseball cards. In total we have less than 1000 items in our collection. We have about 400 baseball cards- almost everyone of which is a very high grade, often rare, type card.

Negro League- an important area of interest. We have studied the history of black baseball extensively. It is both a sad and interesting story. We have an extensive collection of tickets, programs, original Negro League baseball and photographs and a few real player post cards. We have donated several items to the Negro League Museum in Kansas City (http://www.nlbm.com,) It is our intent to leave our entire Negro League collection to the Museum. Our prized piece, which is on display at this site, is one of three surviving programs to the first Negro League World Series between Hillsdale and Kansas City.

The oldest piece in our collection is a n 1870 baseball team card. We have a plethora of 19th century baseball cards, programs, tickets and advertising items.

The most unusual item is a 1912 uncut sheet of Boston Garter baseball cards. Men wore garters before they wore socks. Boston Garter made a few cards and only distributed them to retailers. This sheet contains four cards and is, in our view, among the 50 most valuable baseball memorabilia items.