Sunday Estate Auction Finds

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Good questions Dan...I've been attending auctions for years as both of my parents were antique collectors when I was growing up, I just grew up with it...The only reason I went to the auction this weekend was because they advertised a Winchester baseball bat. That was the only baseball item I was expecting to see when I got there. I was pleasantly surprised to walk up into the garage and notice not one bat, but 4 bats and a splitfinger glove. The auctioneers are basically clueless when it comes to baseball items, but they sure know the name Winchester and that's the only reason they listed it. A lot of it is hit and miss as baseball memorabilia often doesn't even make it into the sale bill. The auctioneer from the sale this weekend knows me very well and usually will let me know when they have baseball stuff, but I never heard anything from him...I almost didn't go to this sale as I wasn't feeling well, but I figured I couldn't take a chance at letting the Winchester go for nothing.

edited to add: I guess I didn't answer all your questions...First off you can find estate sales by checking the classified ads in your newspaper. They should have a section just for auctions. Around here there are usually 2-3 sales per week until winter comes along...then they die down to just a few inside sales over the winter months. I have only been to one estate sale of a former major leaguer, Jack Bruner. I didn't even know about the sale until my brother called me from it and said I should come down because there were autographed baseballs...I went over there and I picked up 3 team signed baseballs of Western League clubs that Bruner had played on before he got called up...there was a trophy from his days with the Sioux City Soos and I had to make a deal with a guy to stay away from it and he would wouldn't bid me up on the baseballs...I kinda wish I had gone after the trophy anyway. The sale was not even listed as the sale of a former major leaguer, the auctioneers didn't even know. I asked the auctioneer if the people having the sale were present and he directed me to them...they invited me in the house and showed me all of Jack Bruner's baseball memorabilia...there were bunches of photos, his uniform, ephemera, et cetera. They were keeping all that stuff, but for some reason they didn't care about his minor league stuff.

Sometimes you just have to get lucky because like I said most auctioneers don't have a clue when it comes to baseball memorabilia so they don't even list it in the sale bill. Often you just have to show up and dig through the stuff and hope no one else notices it. A few years back I noticed an auction way up in the Northeast corner of Nebraska on the internet and they listed "old baseball equipment" so I emailed the auctioneer and he said it looked old and he didn't know much about it....so my brother and I headed up there one Sunday morning for the 3 hour drive and I walked in to the sale and there was a whole table filled with splitfinger gloves, birdcage masks, and a Spalding ring bat...I got the whole table full of stuff for $125.