Winter Auction 2016 Closing January 30th
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 1/31/2016
One can almost see the situation develop, and feel the burst of adrenalin: an autograph hound encounters the once-in-a-lifetime, totally unexpected chance to obtain the signature of Babe Ruth. "What do I do?" The obvious answer is, grab the most readily available item to receive Ruth's signature, and that must have been the case here, where it looks like a resourceful collector sacrificed the integrity of his 1939 New York Giants team signed ball in the interest of capturing the most desirable penmanship of all. So, Babe Ruth placed a dark and robust, wholly dominating black ink signature on the sweet spot of this moderately worn "Spalding League" unofficial ball. His scripting is glorious in its strength, and it appears to be situated directly on top of a much less intense Giant signature that was already in place before Ruth's came along. Among the ball's 23 N.Y. Giants black-ink signatures (some of which are very faint) highlights include: Bill Terry, Carl Hubbell, Walter Brown, Joe Moore, Lou Chiozza, Frank Scalzi, Bob Seeds, Harry Gumbert, Harry Danning, Hal Schumacher, Zeke Bonura, Alex Kampouris, Jack McCarthy, Dick Coffman and Bill Lohrman. This is an amazingly displayable Ruth ball ... with the bonus of a highly entertaining, speculative history! LOA from PSA/DNA.