GU's Holy Grail

[joelsabi]

If baseball card's holy grail is the Gretzky T206 Wagner, what is considered the game used memorabilia's holy grail? What is it and who owns' it.

[yanks12025]

Re: GU's Holy Grail

I would say the bat Babe Ruth used to hit the first home run at yankee stadium. If its not that it has to be somthing dealing with Babe Ruth or Lou Gehirg. Maybe the jersey Gehrig was wearing during his famous "I'm the luckiest man on the face of this earth" speech. And i have no idea who owns these items, all i know is that their very rich.

[thomecollector]

Re: GU's Holy Grail

To me, It would have to be the bat that Babe Ruth used to lean on in his last appearance. I believe Bob Feller owns that one. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[joelsabi]

Re: GU's Holy Grail

Maybe I should ask it another way. Is there a consensus Holy Grail for game used memorabilia? Card collecting seems to have one. I was wondering if there is a consensus. I do not seem to see anything that says this is THE item as they have in baseball cards.

I appreciate also if you want to give your vote too. I thought it was the Shoeless Joe Jackson's bat, Black Betsy but have nothing to support this.

[thomecollector]

Re: GU's Holy Grail

It may be Black Betsy . But not for long. I thought I read that Upper Deck bought it to use in cards. Those @#%$!*

[yanks12025]

Re: GU's Holy Grail

If it was black betsy i think someone would have bought it again. I'm sticking with my 2. Have you thought maybe the Gretzky T206 Wagner is the holy grail of just collecting. I know if i had the money it would be on my top 10(being the Lou Gehrig famous speech jersey first).

[TFig27]

Re: GU's Holy Grail

To me, It would have to be the bat that Babe Ruth used to lean on in his last appearance. I believe Bob Feller owns that one. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

On Babe Ruth Day, June 13, 1948 at Yankee Stadium, when terminally ill Ruth used Feller's bat to keep his balance while speaking: "That bat is in my museum right now in Van Meter, Iowa. I got that bat back. It took a long time to get it, but I got it back. One of my teammates took it and hid it after Babe signed it, and then I bought it back from a fellow that won it in a contest after (collector) Barry Halper sold all his memorabilia.
Babe came walking out of the runway. He was dying of throat cancer. He was very feeble. He probably only weighed about 145 to 150 pounds. He reached in the bat rack there in the third base dugout, which was our dugout, the visiting team dugout. He grabbed a bat at random to use for a cane and to lean on. And, as a coincidence, it was my bat. He had no idea whose bat it was. I was warming up to pitch the ballgame, and he just took that bat and leaned on it. One of my teammates had (Ruth) sign it, and that teammate put it away and hid it. And then the bat came back to me later by way of Barry Halper, who bought it from my teammate. (Halper) auctioned it off, then Upper Deck ran a contest, and this guy from Seattle won it. I bought it back for my museum from this man in Seattle, Washington."

[corsairs22]

Re: GU's Holy Grail

I think that Black Betsey might be the single most recognized piece of equipment. (Surely you are joking about Upper Deck slicing it up into a million pieces). But if we're talking about a Holy Grail, I would think that the item would have to be missing and not available on ebay. Has the bat that Ruth used to hit #60 been identified? If we are looking for an item that is known to be missing, I nominate the Mathewson uniform that was stolen from his hometown seven years ago. And don't forget those affidavits that went missing from the Black Sox trial.

[joelsabi]

Re: GU's Holy Grail

Have you thought maybe the Gretzky T206 Wagner is the holy grail of just collecting.

If it is, I hope what I read in the book "The Card" is not true. The is this one guy in the book who collects the best T206 cards possible and the Wagner card he would want was not the Gretzky T206 but a nongraded T206 Wager thats belong the HOF Museum.

I went to the Nationals one year where they had this Gretzky T206 Wagner as the the thing to view at the Nationals so it may well be the Holy Grail of the entire baseball collecting hobby.

[joelsabi]

Re: GU's Holy Grail

interesting. here the top 3 prices for a single item.

3. Babe Ruth used in hitting a home run in the very first game at Yankee Stadium, sold for nearly $1.3 million at an auction recently.

2. No, we’re NOT talking about the sale announced on September 6, 2007 of the Wagner at $2.8 million purchased by an anonymous buyer from an anonymous seller who purchased it from Brian Siegel for $2.35 million in February 2007.

1. $3 million for the baseball that Mark McGwire hit for home run #70 in 1998. The buyer was a comic book artist by the name of Todd McFarlane

[godwulf]

Re: GU's Holy Grail

As far as I'm concerned, there is, and can only ever be, one true Holy Grail of Baseball...and it sure isn't a card.

The Alexander Cartwright baseball - that ancient, blackened relic, which may very well be the one A.C. took with him to Hawaii, and which was used in some of the early Knickerbocker games, is my candidate.

I know that it was once in the Barry Halper collection, but I don't know who won it at auction, or where it is now. I hope that it's in Cooperstown, where it certainly belongs, if anything ever did.

[jetersbatboy]

Re: GU's Holy Grail

Wolf, I have heard of that ball before. Being from Hawaii, Cartwright's story is very well know. I do agree you are correct, the father of the game of baseball should be the holy Grail. but not the ball, it should be the original hand written rules of the modern game. From my understanding the original rule where written some where around 1845. Now that's the holy grail

[jetersbatboy]

Re: GU's Holy Grail

Just A Little History

Alexander Cartwright II (April 17, 1820 – July 12, 1892) was officially credited by the United States Congress on June 3, 1953, with inventing the modern game of baseball. Many attribute the invention to Abner Doubleday, a story considered a myth by sports historians. Cartwright was a bookseller in Manhattan, and a volunteer fireman. Cartwright founded the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club (after the Knickerbocker Fire Engine Company) in 1842. They played a brand of stick-and-ball game called the town game. In 1845 Cartwright and a committee from his club drew up rules converting this playground game into a more elaborate and interesting sport to be played by adults. He and other firemen played on a field at 47th and 27th Streets. The rules of the modern game are based on their by-laws, and Cartwright is thought to be the first person to draw a diagram of a diamond shaped field.
The Knickerbockers participated in the first competitive game (as opposed to intramural) under these rules on June 19, 1846. The Knickerbockers lost 23-1 to the New York Nine.
Born in New York City, April 17, 1820 to Captain Alexander Joy Cartwright, Sr. and his wife Esther Burlock Cartwright, Alex Jr. was one of six children. His five siblings were Benjamin, Katherine, Alfred, Esther, and Mary. Alex married Eliza Van Wie of Albany on June 2, 1842. Three children were born to them in New York: DeWitt (born May 3, 1843), Mary (born June 1, 1845), and Catherine Lee or Kathleen or “Kate Lee” (born October 5, 1849).
Cartwright left New York to mine gold in California in 1849 and introduced baseball in almost every town where he stayed along the way. But the unsanitary conditions in California mining camps proved horrible by modern standards, eventually leading to a cholera epidemic. To escape it, Cartwright settled in Hawaii and became a successful Honolulu businessman. Two more children were born to Alexander and his wife, Eliza, in Honolulu, Bruce in 1853 and Alexander III in 1855. In Honolulu, Cartwright established the first baseball league composed of teams he created throughout the Hawaiian islands.[citation needed] His Hawaiian leagues became a model for the modern American and National Leagues of today. He is buried in a pink granite cask at Oahu Cemetery in Honolulu, a plaque to him exists in Honolulu Hale (City Hall), and Cartwright Field in Honolulu is named in his honor. In 1938, Cartwright was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fa

[cjmedina1]

Re: GU's Holy Grail

For its a hard to pin point one,So I'll give you my top 5 in Jerseys and bats in no special order

1.Babe Ruth Red Sox Jersey
2.Joe Jackson Jersey
3.Cy young Jersey
4.Christie Mathewson Jersey
5.Jackie Robinson Rookie jersey

1.Josh Gibson Game Used Bat
2.Babe Ruth First HR at Yankee Staidum
3.Black Betsey Bat Joe Jackson
4.Babe Ruth Bat with HR notches on the bat
5.Ted Williams Rookie Bat

I'm not sure if any of these items exists but I sure would like to see them

Carlie Medina III
carliemedinaiii@sbcglobal.net

[godwulf]

Re: GU's Holy Grail

Wolf, I have heard of that ball before. Being from Hawaii, Cartwright's story is very well know. I do agree you are correct, the father of the game of baseball should be the holy Grail. but not the ball, it should be the original hand written rules of the modern game. From my understanding the original rule where written some where around 1845. Now that's the holy grail

I agree that the original, handwritten rules - if they exist - belong in Cooperstown, too...but I still favor the ball.

After all, the rules have changed many, many times over the years, but the ball, despite minor changes in size, weight (and humidity ) is eternal, and as central to the game itself as anything could possibly be.

Does anyone know how to go about finding out the final results of the Halper auction, and who got that baseball?