Babe Ruth 40K kork grip bats

[SkubeBats]

Hello,
I have 2 Babe Ruth 40K kork grip bats. I'm trying to find out if their game used or store bats. I know MEARS has graded some and said that their game used. They say 40K bats with inch marks on the knobs are store bats and the ones with no inch marks are pro model bats. Both of thes bats are cracked and show good use. The top bat is missing most of the kork and the bottom bat has all of it's kork. The top bat has some wood rot and some wood loss to it on the barrel side. The bat 34 inch and is 33.7 oz do to condition. The top bat is 34 inch and is 38.8 oz and had a small screw in the handle. Please let me know what you think.

[SkubeBats]

The bottom bat 34 inch and is 38.8 oz

[cincy13]

store model

[SkubeBats]

MEARS sold a Babe Ruth 40k kork grip bat in their auction on 2/27/09. The bat sold for $13,915.00 and this Ruth bat was 34 inches long and weighed 36.5 oz. You can see their LOA for it on their website the certificate number is 308627. So they could be game used, what do you think???

[legaleagle92481]

from the pics it appears that they are store model bats.

[MSpecht]

Here is an article that may provide some insight into the use of 40K bats in the Major Leagues:

http://www.gameuseduniverse.com/blog/post.php?topic=186

Here is an excerpt from the article:

"For Model 40k bats, a similar pattern emerges. Of the 726 documented Hall of Famer existing orders, there were twelve references to 40k orders-- one each for Babe Ruth (4/10/23 - 1 order of 48 documented orders) and Travis Jackson (4/1/25 - 1 order out of 13 documented orders), and 10 orders for Joe Sewell (1920-1926). Put another way, cumulatively for all 59 Hall of Fame players of the period, Model 40k bats were ordered/referenced twelve times out of approximately 726 existing documented orders. If you were to toss out the Joe Sewell records (10 orders out of 20 documented orders), the percentages look much like the Model 250 bats above."

The bats you picture, when compared with Ruth's documented orders of the general period, are two inches shorter than comparable orders of the period (1920-1924 orders that have specified lengths are 36 inches0 ) , and, in fact, are shorter than any of Ruth's 48 documented orders (shortest documented order is one 34.5 inch order in 1932.). At this point you have to determine probabilities in your own mind. Additionally, the common thread in MEARS authentications of such a bat is generally that it was hand turned, which does not appear to be the case with the bats you picture.

Mike Jackitout7@aol.com

[SkubeBats]

How can you tell if a knob is hand turned or not?