1959 Ted Williams "Paul Bunyan" Bat
APPRAISER: You have brought us a really big piece of lumber today.
GUEST (laughing): Yes, I have.
APPRAISER: The biggest bat I've ever seen. Eight feet long.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: Uh, uh, let's lift it.
GUEST: All right.
APPRAISER: I want to try to lift it. Uh, it-- so we're talking, what, 30 pounds?
GUEST: I'm thinking about 30 pounds.
APPRAISER: 30 pounds. And your normal bat is 32, 36 ounces? And you could say it's Bunyanesque, and...
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: I see right there it does say "Genuine Paul Bunyan."
GUEST: Uh-huh.
APPRAISER: And I'm guessing if the mythical lumberjack played for any team, it had to be the Giants.
GUEST (laughing): Yeah. It's always been in my grandparents' sporting goods store. They had a store in San Mateo. And since I was a kid, it was always the big bat hanging at Grandma and Pop's store. I don't know how it got to my family. It's been with us for a long time, and I'd like to find out why it was made, who it was made for.
APPRAISER: Well, I think why it was made is, we have some clues here on the bat, and if we take just a quick look, it says the "Quartqui Centennial, 1834-1959." And then we have "Paul Bunyan." And then on the other side, we can see it says, "Presented to Ted Williams, baseball's Paul Bunyan." So I think that gives us the first two big clues. Maine and Minneapolis vie for the title of owning...
GUEST: (laughing)
APPRAISER: ...the rights to the origin of Paul Bunyan...
GUEST: All right.
APPRAISER: ...in the United States. The, the mythical lumberman with his ox, Babe, right?
GUEST: Babe, mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: And Minneapolis, I believe, claims that he created the 10,000 lakes. Well, Maine has also claimed Paul Bunyan for their own.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: So in 1959, they had this 125th anniversary. So what better way to celebrate it than to have this bat made and present it to the Paul Bunyan of baseball, who we better known as the Splendid Splinter. (laughs) But this is a lot bigger than a splinter.
GUEST: Oh, yeah.
APPRAISER: Ted Williams. And you have here in this great photo, this promotional photo, Williams posing with the bat. Now, I'm guessing that this is being suspended, and he's not actually holding it, because 30 pounds... I tried swinging this earlier.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: There's no way. Now then, the next question is, well, why Williams, and what's the connection to Maine?
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: Well, not only was Williams a Hall of Fame hitter, one of the greatest ever, he was also known as a great outdoorsman. He's the only athlete to be in both the Baseball Hall of Fame and the Fishing Hall of Fame.
GUEST: Oh, wow!
APPRAISER: So who did he fish with? He fished with Bud Leavitt, who was the sports editor of the Bangor News.
GUEST: (laughs)
APPRAISER: So I am sure that between Bud and the townspeople, he was more than happy to do it. This has to be a one-of-a-kind bat. What do you think the value is? Have you ever had it appraised?
GUEST: I haven't. Um, I had, I checked online with a couple of just, mail in the photos and get back to me, and they all said maybe $1,000, but they weren't interested.
APPRAISER: You really have to see it in person, just as we saw today when you brought this in.
GUEST: (laughs)
APPRAISER: I mean, there was a crowd that gathered immediately. And you're not gonna have that impact from photos.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: You're just not. We have had the benefit of seeing it in person in its total magnificence.
GUEST (chuckling): Yes.
APPRAISER: And we would all put an auction estimate of $8,000 to $12,000.
GUEST (inhales sharply): All right! That's wonderful, thank you.
APPRAISER: I got to say, Glenn, it's kind of a Bunyanesque number.
GUEST: (laughs) And you know what he would say? Timber!
GUEST: (laughing)
$8,000 - $12,000 Auction
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Understanding Our Appraisals
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Value can change: The value of an item is dependent upon many things, including the condition of the object itself, trends in the market for that kind of object, and the location where the item will be sold. These are just some of the reasons why the answer to the question "What's it worth?" is so often "It depends."
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