Posted By:
PhilI actually have a couple of stories like this, but I'll just explain one of them right now. About a year and a half ago, an elderly gentleman walked into my trophy shop trying to sell me some old trophies he had accumulated. I had no need for them, but as he was leaving my shop he noticed a display case that I sell that holds baseballs. I just had a beat up display baseball in it and he asked me about my ball. I told him it was just a display piece. He then asked if I had any interest in autographed baseballs, I said "yes".
He then explained that he was a butcher in New York city in the 1930s and his company had purchased 3 New York Yankees team signed baseballs from the 1939 season to raffle off to it's employees. He told me he won one of the balls (DiMaggio, Gehrig, Dickey, etc.) but wasn't much of a baseball fan so he said it was still in the original box and still wrapped in the tissue paper it came in. It was "somewhere" in a closet. He asked me if I would be interested in purchasing it. Trying to not sound too excited, I said "sure".
He then muttered that he hoped it was still in his closet and said, "I hope my daughter never got her hands on it over the years..." He told me he would go home and find it and bring it in to me.
That was a year and a half ago..............I guess his daughter did get her hands on it.