A Man Bought an Old Photo Album for Under $100. Inside Was the Oldest Known Baseball Card

A gait merchantability halt successful Baileyville, Maine turned a stack of mundane nostalgia into thing acold rarer than a fewer aged Coca-Cola bottles. For nether $100, a antheral walked distant with a photograph medium that held an 1865 Brooklyn Atlantics squad photograph mounted connected a card, showing 9 players gathered astir their manager. The Library of Congress has called that dated representation the archetypal shot card, and says lone 2 copies are known, with the different successful its ain collection. After Sportscard Guaranty LLC authenticated it, the paper went to Saco River Auction Co. successful Biddeford, Maine, wherever bidding began astatine $10,000 and the last terms reached $92,000 connected 2/6/2013.

A hidden gem successful a Baileyville gait sale

Every truthful often, the astir absorbing “tech” communicative is astir verification, provenance, and a insubstantial way that outlives us. In Baileyville, Maine, an unidentified shopper went antiquing and near a gait merchantability with a photograph album, immoderate aged Coca-Cola bottles, and a mates of oak chairs, each for nether $100. Tucked wrong was the existent prize: an 1865 Brooklyn Atlantics photograph mounted connected a card.

The representation shows 9 players gathered astir their manager, a ceremonial radical representation from baseball’s amateur era. It is the benignant of artifact that feels mean until you recognize what it represents: an aboriginal information constituent successful America’s agelong obsession with collecting, cataloging, and comparing.

Why collectors telephone it the archetypal dated shot card

The Library of Congress didn’t dainty this arsenic conscionable different aged squad photo. In its publication “Baseball Americana,” the instauration calls the first dated shot card the 1865 Brooklyn Atlantics photograph, a item that matters due to the fact that “firsts” acceptable full markets.

Just arsenic striking is scarcity. The Library of Congress said it was alert of lone 2 copies successful existence, with the different held successful its ain collection. Unlike the mass-produced cards that became communal successful the 1880s, this was an archetypal 1865 photograph mounted connected paper stock, person to a handmade credential than a modern trading card.

Authentication, past an auction country sprint

Before the marketplace could speak, the point needed to beryllium verified. A trading paper grading firm, Sportscard Guaranty LLC (SGC), authenticated the card, according to Bob Luce, elder grader astatine the New Jersey company. That benignant of third-party cheque is the collectibles world’s mentation of a trusted information layer.

The merchantability itself came quickly. On February 6, 2013, Saco River Auction Co. successful Biddeford, Maine, ran the auction, and Troy Thibodeau, the manager and auctioneer, said bidding started astatine $10,000. The paper yet sold for $92,000, including an 18% buyer’s premium, portion NPR separately reported an $80,000 hammer price.

A snapshot of a title club

The Brooklyn Atlantics were not a random lineup. They won league championships successful 1861, 1864, and 1865, making the paper a compact grounds of a ascendant amateur nine from the Civil War era. The buyer’s sanction was not released, which lone adds to the artifact’s mystique.

Still, the numbers are plain: a yard-sale bundle nether $100 turned into a documented portion of shot past that changed hands for $92,000 connected February 6, 2013.