The Ty Cobb auto post got me to thinking... long read!

[Moonlight Graham]

Warning: This may be a very long post, but does involve a Ty Cobb signature. The recent post about the hand-written TY auto has forced me to post a long story that I hope will entertain a few folks that like myself, love uncovering sports treasures...

A few years ago, on a no longer relevant message board I posted of stumbling into the King Tut's tomb of memorabilia collectors... We were on a road trip from Wa-Ore coast-Cal-Nev-Cal-Ore back home to Washington... we stopped at an antique store in Medford, and I didn't see much until I got to the counter and saw some payroll checks under class... 2 Ty Cobbs, a Luke Appling, a Rocky Colavito... Very interesting... I asked if they had any more memorabilia that I may have overlooked. The owner looked at me, and asked "Do you know much about memorabilia?" I said that I thought I did... he said "follow me"...

He took me to the left side of the store, and slid a plywood panel aside (!) when we went into the storage room, he turned on the lights... What I saw was difficult to put into words, but I was in awe and discussed what he had from my limited knowledge; 2 hours went by fast, and I only left because my girlfriend (workinggirl444) didn't have the same love of sports and memorabilia that I have, and was clearly getting bored. (Continued on following posts)

 

[Moonlight Graham]

The proprietor of the store gave me the story... he knew almost nothing of what he had; a lady in town was the relative of a gentleman that had died. The gentleman was the owner of a "Pro Sports Museum" located somewhere in California. When he died all of the assets of the museum were sent to her in Oregon, and she naturally enlisted the owner of the antique store to help her divest of the stuff. The owner told me that she had said her relative had paid over $100,000 for the stuff.

Ok, so I get back home and go to work the next day... my boss and best friend and I used to be weekend warriors doing mall shows before the advent of ebay, so I knew he would be interested in the story.

I told him about the store, and what I saw, and said "This stuff is for sale"... we caught a plane the next day to Eugene, and drove to the store. I had told the owner that we were coming to make an offer, and he had his brother come to the store also, probably to watch us since he didn't really know us... so we went back into the room.

Now, my buddy isn't as easy as I am to impress ("Hey look, a white car!") but even he was taken aback. Everywhere you looked were sports memorabilia items. On two shelves on the wall were NFL Football Gamer helmets... racks of Jerseys, Basketball, Football, Baseball... boxes and boxes of game used shoes, gloves... autographed balls... one whole bookcase full of game used and signed Baseball hats... A box full of baseball cards and other miscellaneous items; at least a dozen boxes of '86 Fleer Updates. One of the misc. items just dumped into this box was a letter. It was a hand written letter (green ink) from Ty Cobb, written to Joe Cronin, regarding this young phenom that would be going to his first Red Sox Spring Training... Bobby Doerr, and how Cobb thought he was something special. I literally shivered when I saw this, and told the store owner and his brother that he needed to safeguard it, instead of leaving it in the box.

My buddy and I spent a few hours looking at everything, then we went to a nearby restaurant to discuss it... My buddy was the one that was going to put up the cash, so I was very concerned about not offering more than would provide a good profit. I was not too familiar with Game Used uniforms and equipment of Hall of Famers, so we were very conservative in our estimate, and then lowered it even more just to make sure... we ended up offering $60,000 dollars, and the store owner told us that he had spoken with someone in Nevada that told him to contact him before any decisions were made, since he also wanted to buy the merchandise... (we weren't aware of this beforehand)

The owners brother was more knowledgeable of sports, and I described what we were looking at as we went through the room... My intention was to be honest, and let them know that this was valuable merchandise, and that our offer was based on what we felt the worth of the material was to us. When Steve and I were at the restaurant, I jotted down some of the things we saw, in a little notebook I had bought just for this occasion... in the next post I will actually list the things from my notebook. As you will see, having a few more days to do research would have come up with a different assessment of the merchandise... ::facepalm::

 

[Moonlight Graham]

Ok... firstly, the guy in Nevada ended up with the stuff, and I am sure it will (or has already surfaced)...

Here is what I wrote in the notebook, this was from memory, and Steve was also telling me stuff to write down too, so it is in no particular order.

Joe Montana helmet
2 Blanda Raider's jerseys
Marcus Allen Raiders jersey
Steve Bono 49'ers jsy
Rice 49'ers jsy
Roger Craig 49'ers jsy
Montana 49'ers jsy
Randy White Cowboys jsy
Lance Alworth cowboys jsy
Bobby Hull Jersey
McCutcheon Rams jsy
Cal Ripken, Jr. jersey (With 1982 tags)
Tom Jackson Bronco's jsy
Mike Schmidt jsy with 1977 tags (zippered, pinstripes)
Steve Carlton jsy 1977
Goose Gossage Yankees road jersey
Willie Randolph jsy pinstripes
Yogi Berra Pinstripes jsy
Thurman Munson road jsy
Pee Wee Reese (Dodgers #29 flannel with Hall of Fame- replica I think)
Bob Ca??? ( I don't have the best handwriting)
JoJo White Golden State
Phoenix Sun's 70's warmup
3 Mets jackets (Swan, McGraw and Hodges)
Koufax Dodgers jacket
Ryan auto Hat
Bonds auto hat
Mattingly auto hat
Kelly auto hat
Winfield auto hat
Randolph auto hat
Pie Traynor auto'd glove
Johnny Bench Catchers mitt (tagged as World Series used)
Steve Garvey glove
2 Jackie Robinson auto'd photos
4 Roy Campanella auto photos (pre accident)
1 Roy Campanella post accident auto
1 Ted Williams auto'd 8x10
A letter from Joe Cronin to Bobby Doerr telling him what to expect in spring training
Hall of Fame Ball (that's all I wrote)
1957 Dodgers auto'd ball (Campanella was on it)
Garvey Padres Jersey
Bench gamer bat
Dodgers Division banner
"St. Louis Welcomes Visitors" -1992 Advertising banner (large)
Canseco A's 1986 jersey
2 Rickey Henderson jerseys
Don Sutton jerseys
Phil Garner Pirates jsy

I have also noted that there were 58 jersey's and 3 jackets... This was all written from memory; There must have been over 30 Riddell KraLite helmets, over 25 auto'd baseball hats, and ton's of shoes (that would take a long time to authenticate) as well as a wealth of other stuff. Everything belonged to either a Hasll of Famer or All Star from what we could see. The baseball jerseys were authentic, and had tags (except for the Reese which was also very nice even though likely a replica) and there was a bunch of Doerr stuff too, I think the museum owner had a good relationship with Doerr from what I could see)

I hope you've enjoyed reading this...

Randy

 

[trademhigh]

saved!
Edit-Sorry, I couldn't resist ::facepalm::

 

[darrend505]

I want to know more! Where is the info?

 

[boomo]

what the???

 

[trademhigh]

what the???

I believe he is saving the posts to write more info. He decided he didn't want to write it in the OP, i guess.

 

[darrend505]

You can't leave us hanging! Hurry!!!

 

[Moonlight Graham]

Whew! I think I'm done...

 

[darrend505]

That story is amazing, I would have loved to have been there!

 

[Viking4Alpha]

Excellent.