Extraordinary Find: 1917 Boston Red Sox Baseball Calendar
HOST: At a 2021 ROADSHOW in Connecticut, sports aficionado Simeon Lipman found a hundred-year-old calendar that had somehow survived well into extra innings, and wound up providing one lucky collector with quite a windfall.
GUEST: Wow... It's a 1917 baseball calendar. I-I found it online. It was found on a back of a door in a barn. And if you know anything about the Red Sox, they won in 1915 and 1916, as indicated on the calendar.
APPRAISER: So what we have here is a promotional calendar for Bunker Hill Breweries...
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: ...for P.B., Purest and Best, ale. That beer company actually went defunct not long after that calendar was produced. So it's not like there was a long tradition of these calendars out there. That's why it was so rare. That's why I'd never seen one before. It features the Boston Red Sox team. What makes this calendar very special is, as you said, it's kind of commemorating the 1915-1916 championships. We have, uh, several great players of the era. I remember Tris Speaker being on there and Harry Hooper. I knew if it was from 1917, Babe Ruth was on there somewhere, and he certainly was. What did you pay for this calendar?
GUEST: It was a little more than I wanted to spend at the time. I-I remember it around $200, $250, and then it cost me close to that to frame it.
GUEST (voiceover): My mother was just off camera, and she thinks I'm crazy for collecting a lot of things. And, you know, "Why did you buy that? Why do you want that?" And I was like, it's just a cool old piece. And I figured it's probably worth $500. That's what I was told.
APPRAISER: At auction, we'd estimate this at $20,000 to $30,000.
GUEST: Really?
APPRAISER: Yeah. (exhales)
GUEST: $20,000?
APPRAISER: Yeah
GUEST: $20,000 to $30,000. To $30,000?
APPRAISER: Auction estimate. Yeah, yeah. It's a spectacular early Babe Ruth piece. That's what makes it so special.
GUEST: Yes. (laughing) How much did you say again?
APPRAISER (chuckling): I said it; $20,000 to $30,000. Yeah.
GUEST (exhales) (chortles)
APPRAISER: (chuckles)
GUEST: Did you hear that? $20,000 to $30,000. (person speaking indistinctly) (laughs)
GUEST (voiceover): I-I was flabbergasted. My chin just hit the floor. It was just like I finally hit a home run myself. I brought it home, hung it back on the wall, and enjoyed it for a few more years. And then it decided, I'm gonna start downsizing. So I, uh, reached out to an auction house. The final auction price was $28,000. I was quite happy. I hope the people that bought it are enjoying it. Wasn't enough to buy a sailboat, but I took the proceeds from the auction and the calendar and I bought myself a new truck, which I desperately needed. So that worked out well. All these other things I had bought and-and made money on or sold or enjoyed for years, this one was out of the ballpark.
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episode
Extraordinary Finds 3
Revisit remarkable ROADSHOW finds whose stories didn’t stop even after we yelled "Cut!"
Understanding Our Appraisals
Executive producer Marsha Bemko shares her tips for getting the most out of ANTIQUES ROADSHOW.
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."
Note the date: Take note of the date the appraisal was recorded. This information appears in the upper left corner of the page, with the label "Appraised On." Values change over time according to market forces, so the current value of the item could be higher, lower, or the same as when our expert first appraised it.
Context is key: Listen carefully. Most of our experts will give appraisal values in context. For example, you'll often hear them say what an item is worth "at auction," or "retail," or "for insurance purposes" (replacement value). Retail prices are different from wholesale prices. Often an auctioneer will talk about what she knows best: the auction market. A shop owner will usually talk about what he knows best: the retail price he'd place on the object in his shop. And though there are no hard and fast rules, an object's auction price can often be half its retail value; yet for other objects, an auction price could be higher than retail. As a rule, however, retail and insurance/replacement values are about the same.
Verbal approximations: The values given by the experts on ANTIQUES ROADSHOW are considered "verbal approximations of value." Technically, an "appraisal" is a legal document, generally for insurance purposes, written by a qualified expert and paid for by the owner of the item. An appraisal usually involves an extensive amount of research to establish authenticity, provenance, composition, method of construction, and other important attributes of a particular object.
Opinion of value: As with all appraisals, the verbal approximations of value given at ROADSHOW events are our experts' opinions formed from their knowledge of antiques and collectibles, market trends, and other factors. Although our valuations are based on research and experience, opinions can, and sometimes do, vary among experts.
Appraiser affiliations: Finally, the affiliation of the appraiser may have changed since the appraisal was recorded. To see current contact information for an appraiser in the ROADSHOW Archive, click on the link below the appraiser's picture. Our Appraiser Index also contains a complete list of active ROADSHOW appraisers and their contact details and biographies.
