High Grade Ruth Rookie
 

I have been made aware that a high grade Ruth rookie—a nice looking PSA 5 Gimbels back—is coming up for auction in Bonhams in a few days



I am posting this as a service to any members who may have missed the listing (I was one, and find it interesting that the auction house did not post on this site). Any perspective bidders should note that the buyers premium, if I am reading things correctly, is 28% on the first $50,000 and 27% on the remainder up to $1 million. If this card were to be auctioned at Heritage or Memory Lane I think it would go for over $1 million. I wonder what it will go for here.

This is the first time I have ever heard of Bonham's auction so it does make me wonder why the seller chose them and not another one like Heritage, ML or REA? I guess there's no better way of advertising your House than getting word out about this card, but maybe they are already popular and I'm just behind the times?

Bonhams is probably bigger and older then all the previously mentioned auction houses combined.

That’s not an endorsement, rather an explanation of how they may have come across a piece like this. Maybe a collector or consortium they also handled a number of cars and/or pieces of high end art for.

Did not know that, Dave.
Thanks for letting me know. :)

I may have missed it but I did not see sports collectibles as one of their auction specialties. If that is the case, for an item like this which is a very expensive piece, I would expect to see more advertising. That said, they are a big well established house and they no doubt know what they are doing.

Like most high end art houses, I believe they’ve also courted their fair share of controversy through the years also.

Not my world, but watched enough documentaries about art scams to pick them out of a line-up.

;)

Hmm, interesting.

Dave 100 pct correct great auction house big history

Interesting, I have always associate Bonham's with fine art. They are an old British auction house, a big player in the art, furniture scene, a la Phillips, Christie's, Sotheby's. Looking online, I guess they do have a sports collectibles division.

Sports division or not, if you’re an art and antique house and somebody offers you a Million$ plus item and you have a 28% vig, you’re not going to say no, bring it to those guys down the street. You’re going to figure out how to sell it.

In the end, they’re all just “Antiquities”.

If I was the consignor I might have suggested that they advertise in the appropriate venues. Just a crazy thought.

Bonhams has included it in their fine books & manuscripts auction, with an estimated value of $250K-500K, and current bidding at $320K. The estimate does sound low and burying the card in a books & manuscripts auction without any promotion to sports collectors does not seem like the best way to get full value for the card.

Link:

https://www.bonhams.com/auction/3037...delsohn-c1916/

Ruth
 

Who knows, maybe they want to be in the business of auctioneering a major card or two from time to time. No better way than to get a solid price for a nice M101 rare-back Ruth. My guess is they know the consigner and someone who will pay the fair market value. Could be a “if you sell it right, more will come” type approach. Regardless, the company can’t really lose with that buyers premium.

Um...they have been around since the 1800s, I believe. Not sure how much or if any advertising they do but clearly whatever they are doing, they do not need to change a thing.

FWIW, I saw the card promoted in Sports Collectors Daily back at the end of March, so they made some effort to get the word out. I am a little curious as to why the family has only the Ruth card, since grandpa obviously had at least 19 other subjects if not more, and if he/they got rid of others over the years you would think they would be a little more familiar with the market when choosing an auction house.

I respectfully have to disagree. Having potential bidders on a 6-7 figure item unaware of your auction leaves room for improvement.

+1. It's Nonsense to not advertise in the areas it will get the most interest. Without your post Jay, hundreds, if not thousands of collectors, wouldn't have had any idea, me included. (not that I can afford that card but still...)

.

Chase-I'm not disputing that Bonhams is a great auction house. I'm only saying that I believe that in this case more publicity would help the card achieve the best possible realization.

Jay, good point...this is par for the course with Auction Houses (even some big ones) that aren't focused on sports...like Christie's and Sotheby's. They have, over the years, had some incredibly significant sports auctions and high-profile items, and they seem to happen under the radar, or certainly not well advertised here.

Bonham's or Sotheby's are likely tied for second to Christie's in historical auction houses and I cannot imagine it is not top notch. I used to have a friend that was an auctioneer for the Bonham's Concourse auto auctions.

That said, using any of these for sports cards seems like a high dollar investor picking only name recognition and not expertise. The buyer's for this card will find it, but I would definitely agree it was not the best consignment decision.

Posting a link to the auction (from the earlier thread call "Live Auctioneers"

https://www.bonhams.com/auction/3037...delsohn-c1916/

the bigger issue is many potential bidders may not even know it is availabie so then they cannot bid on it and that could hurt the consignor from getting potentially more bids and higher sales results.
The last Christie auction had some amazing items and i did not find out about it until the day before

Sorry, but I have to chuckle a little at many of the responses here, and the no doubt heartfelt sympathy expressed for the consignor. :rolleyes:
What happened to the days when there was some sort of general understanding that one should not "out" auctions and thereby spoil the opportunities of some here to perhaps find a card at a good price in reward for their vigilance and investigation? Now we learn of a card that fewer than a handful on this board could ever hope to land on their best day and seem annoyed that it was not given full-throated exposure on our favorite auction sites, plus we applaud the fact that it is now outed. Please provide a show of hands-- who here plans now or ever did plan to bid on this card? Oh wait, I'm sure that was not the point:rolleyes:

No bid from me...this is the only type of Bonham card I could afford to win.

Brian

At least for the most of us we can have, for free, the below portion of the Bonhams writeup about the Gimbels set, the majority of which originated from an article in the Sports Collectors Daily website in 2015:


In April of 1916 Gimbels Department Store launched a promotional campaign advertising a free giveaway of 20 baseball cards to kids who came in person to the Boy's Clothing Section (Sportscollectordaily.com, March 21, 2015). The ad published in the Wisconsin papers reads: "Attention! / Boys of Milwaukee / Especially—You Baseball 'fans' / How would you like to have Photographs of 200 Major League stars and other "Stars of the Diamond"? You can have them in lots of 20—each Saturday. / First bunch of 20 photographs on Saturday FREE / These are actual photographs of the players in their favorite action, and in ten Saturdays you will have the entire 200 players. Won't that be great? / Just sign your name and address below and present this 'ad' in Gimbels Boys' Clothing Section on Saturday, the 15th, and receive the first 20 pictures FREE."

As the promotion went on, fans late to the party could buy the previous sets for a nominal sum, except series #2, which featured superstar Ty Cobb and sold out early. The present owner's grandfather was a 10-year-old Milwaukeean in 1916 who took advantage of the Gimbels promotion, holding on to his beloved Babe Ruth card until the end of his life, when he left it to his descendants.


Brian

Todd--I'm not sure there was a "general understanding". I have always advocated for letting people know about auctions that they might be interested in but possibly could have missed.

Was going to bid. Not anymore.

Ditto. I already put my house on the market hoping I could get it for the minimum.

Secrets out now.

Wife’s gonna be soooooo pissed when she finds out.



:D

one has to protect their "investment(s)!"

Thanks for the heads up. I am certain you are not bidding on it bc if you were, you would not have alerted us. Thanks for the public service!

Unless you are bidding

There are two likely/practical reasons someone would "out" an auction: (i) its their item, or (ii) they have an example of the item being auctioned and they dont want the outed item to go cheap and create a "bad comp". In both cases, there is personal motive. And nobody outs an auction they are hoping to win.

I own a rare-back Ruth rookie and I like to see all Ruth rookies go for as much as possible. At the same time, this is a card I could bid on, especially if it was cheap, which it is right now. So, if I would be annoyed if I was a bidder, but am happy since I own one, am not a bidder, and like high comps. Purely selfish, admitted!

All that said, I was "taught" that (as a general rule) not to out an auction. But I figured it was ok to post the link since it was already outed in this, and another, earlier thread that contained a link.

It will be interesting to see where this thing lands. Its gorgeous, and its a rare combo (Gimbels is not all that rare but not may Ruths). I would think its a $1mm card in more typical sports auction house.

I’ll admit that when I first read that that card was being sold by an auction house that didn’t have a sports focus, I was a bit perplexed/dismayed, and I don’t own a Ruth RC. But that’s a huge card for the hobby, and a large, newsworthy number on that could help drive additional interest/value in some of the vintage cards most of us own. Hoping it goes big tomorrow!

That this is the only sports card in their auction, it is safe to assume the consignor picked it up as a trinket to go with his/her/their 200 million dollar art, vintage car and whatever else they collect. With or without the members of this board, the card would likely have done just fine.

I am in the camp that you do not out an auction and nobody would ever do it is they had interest in bidding but would if they had interest in the final price being as high as possible.

+1

Jay is my friend and I have high regard for him, and I do not want to speculate on his motive. That said, I couldn't agree more with this point, and from my perspective, if through hard diligence (e.g., reading trading journals, making connections, going to obscure trade shows, doing detective work, etc.) I uncovered a gem that likely others in my field did not know about, I would be pissed as hell if someone outed that auction.

In regard to using Bonhams to sell this card, Bonhams is a highly regarded auction house headquartered in the height of a high-trafficked retail area in midtown Manhattan. They have locations throughout the world. Likely for an item such as this the card will reach its market level. Where a selection of Bonham's as the AH for a baseball card consignment (i.e., items outside the AH's recognized areas of specializations) will have an adverse impact is in the instance of a multi-lot collection. In that instance, the lack of a sufficient number of baseball card collectors in their customer base would likely result in some items going for less than they would in an AH that specializes in baseball cards.

I think we saw that in the recent Christies sale. That sale featured items from two spectacular sports memorabilia collections, and in my view some of the items went for significantly less than I perceived their market value to be.

Ruth Rookie
 

+1 - Well said Corey.

Nothing gets missed this day and age. Nothing. Everyone is out to hoard, or flip, or buy with the intent of making even a small margin or Dollar cost averaging to protect their assets, or add an epic card.

I dunno about that...

From time to time, I see someone selling stuff on eBay with a low BIN, just because they don't know what they have. I've personally even picked up a couple of pieces at attractive prices this way.

Here as well, but many times.sellers are contacted before they ship! It's much tougher even in "no name" auction houses, let alone Bonham!

Sent from my SM-S918U using Tapatalk

HA.

Yeah...I always hold my breath until it actually gets to me. Seems like there's always that risk that the seller will wise up and cancel the sale. Hasn't happened to me yet, but there's always that paranoia.

I've also acquired some nice pieces from AHs at what I felt were bargain prices when they were lost in the shuffle. Sometimes it's because they didn't show up in search results, so I suspect that some bidders couldn't find them. Luckily, I've never had to worry about those AHs backing out on me.

I completely agree with this. IMHO, it is not right to out auctions, especially those that are relatively unknown in our hobby and do not advertise on this website.

$762k with BP

Thoughts?

How much less would it have sold for without this thread’s free advertising?

It still would have sold for much more in REA or Heritage.

Seems low but the market has softened a bit AND that number has too many digits for my budget so I am not an expert.

Maybe Jay, who told us about the auction, can shed some light on the strength of the sale.

You are correct the market has softened a bit

But I honestly felt it should have gone for more but it did not have the broad exposure of other auction houses to get more eyes and bids on it.

A High Grade Ruth are rare and I high grade Ruth Ad Back is even more so and more desirable.

Mu un-educated experiences feels in REA, Heritage, Memory Lane that it would have gotten several more bids even in this market and closed out closer to $900K.

Good for this particular buyer to get it at that price but I feel the consignor could have gotten more money for it

762 is pretty close to 900 so it did not do that badly. I had the impression with the ad back, the grade and centering it would be more like a million plus.

It’s probably just me or my computer equipment but when I go to the link I’m not seeing a picture of the reverse
https://www.bonhams.com/auction/3037...delsohn-c1916/

I respectfully disagree