[Brian Dwyer of Robert Edward Auctions holding a 1914 Baltimore News baseball card featuring a 19-year-old Babe Ruth in his rookie year]
Brian Dwyer (interview): “This card is, in our opinion, the most significant baseball card ever made. We have it right here. It is from 1914. One of only ten in existence. And it pictures Babe Ruth as a 19 year old member of the Baltimore Orioles of the International League. This is the first time that Babe Ruth ever appears on any collectible. It’s hugely significant for many, many, many reasons.”
[Dwyer turning card]
Brian Dwyer (interview): “Yeah, so the auction kicked off last week. We’ve already secured 12 bids for the card. Bidding opened up at $2.5 million, and now it sits at $6.3 million. By the time the auction ends in just a little less than two weeks, we expect that the card will sell for upwards of $10 million or more.”
[Top of card]
[Bottom of card]
Brian Dwyer (interview): “If you go back and you look at the sale history of this Baltimore news Babe Ruth, in the 1980s, it sold for $18,000 and in the 1990s, it sold for $99,000. And in the 2000s, we set the record at over $100,000 for the first time. It was one of the very few cards that had ever crossed that six figure threshold. So, there’s just been a constant increase in attention for the card, appreciation for the card.”
[Card on stand]
Brian Dwyer (interview): “This Ruth card is actually one of the few in this set of Baltimore news cards that shows the player in full profile. You see Ruth here, he’s wearing the large overcoat of the team. He’s got a glove on his hand, stirrups pulled up high. 19 years old. I mean, when I look at this card, I can’t help but realize that Babe Ruth is being really exposed to the world for the first time in this picture. And he’s completely unaware of not only the world around him, but certainly what he’s going to go on to become and how big of a name he will be in sport and in culture.”
[Michael Kowpak, general manager of Bleecker Trading card shop, entering store]
Michael Kowpak (interview): “Well, we’ve seen a crazy explosion in sports cards the past few years, and something like that. What might have been shocking five years ago, to me today might not be the craziest thing. That was a card that has very little population – only ten known copies.”
[Kowpak opening display case]
[Kowpak with baseball cards]
Michael Kowpak (interview): “Yeah, so I think it’s a lot that plays on nostalgia. People have come back into this space over the past, let’s say five, three years and it was really kick started by COVID(19). People are going through their attics, finding this old stuff they had, and it brought back a lot of feelings of nostalgia. Just like that concept, you want to get that car you couldn’t afford when you were 18, that red Corvette. Now, you can go back and get that Mickey Mantle card, or in this case, Babe Ruth from 1914, something that was a grail piece for a lot of people. Now, people with a little extra money in their pocket can start to put that to use and get something they can never afford. For a lot of people, they look at this as art. Someone from my generation would never put $10 million into a Picasso painting, that means nothing to me, but a Babe Ruth card as a Yankee fan for somebody, that could be in one of one collection piece.”
[Front of card]
[Back of card]
This script was provided by The Associated Press.