A $25 piano bought in Maryland in 1992 turned out to be hiding 112 baseball cards, including a 1916 Babe Ruth rookie card. The card was found inside a stuck pedal and remained with the buyer for 27 years before being put up for auction. It eventually sold for $130,053, far above the expected price of $60,000 to $75,000.Ellen Kelly bought the old piano from a family estate sale in Westernport, Maryland, in 1992, Yahoo Sports reported. The piano had belonged to her aunt Nora, who had kept it at her home. Kelly said she never remembered it working, but she still wanted to play it after buying it for $25.That led to an unexpected discovery. When Kelly asked a friend to repair a pedal and tune the piano, the friend found that the pedal was stuck because 112 baseball cards had been placed inside it. As Kelly looked through the cards, she noticed one of the biggest names in baseball history. “He was looking at a pile of cards and I said, ‘Hey, there’s Babe Ruth,'” Kelly recalled.The cards were believed to have been placed inside the piano by Kelly’s father or uncle. Kelly said they may have hidden them there because her aunt was a neat freak and might have thrown them away. The cards had apparently remained inside the piano for decades, with the Babe Ruth card among them.
Babe Ruth card sells for $130,053
The card found by Kelly was a 1916 Sporting News M101-4 Babe Ruth rookie card. It shows Ruth’s photograph along with his name, position and team on the front, while the back is blank.The card was later included in the Beckett Goodwin Masterpieces and Uncommon Commons 78 auction. It attracted 23 bids before selling for $130,053. The auction result was around twice the amount expected before the sale.“We were expecting $60,000-$75,000 for the card, so it far exceeded our expectations,” said Steve Bloedow, Beckett Director of Auctions, in a Beckett news release.
Babe Ruth played professional baseball in Major League Baseball from 1914 to 1935.
Bloedow also pointed to the condition and appearance of the card. “Ruth’s RC continues to soar in price and has clearly joined the hobby’s elite. The centering and eye appeal on this one was very strong so it’s not shocking that it exceeded all expectations.”The card received a BVG grade of 2.5, described as Good+. Despite that grade, its sale price made it notable among publicly sold cards in the same graded condition.A different Ruth rookie card had sold at Heritage Auctions in 2009 for $38,837. That card had received a grade of 6 on a scale of 10, which was higher than Kelly’s card.Despite having the lower grade, Kelly’s card sold for more than four times the 2009 price. Forbes reported that the earlier sale would be worth $46,017.44 in today’s dollars after adjusting for inflation.
What else did Kelly find?
The Babe Ruth card was not the only baseball card Kelly found. The piano contained 112 cards in total, dating from 1916. Kelly’s collection included cards featuring other Hall of Fame players from that period, including Walter Johnson and Grover Cleveland Alexander.The cards had remained inside the piano’s pedal area for years. Their condition was described as surprisingly good by a senior grader who spoke to Sports Collectors Daily. However, the cards had dust stains and a crimp that was believed to have come from being stored underneath the pedal.Kelly eventually decided to sell the cards rather than continue keeping the collection. She said she wanted the money to help care for her brother’s medical condition and to buy a new vehicle because her truck was breaking down.The Babe Ruth card was sold separately at auction, while the other 110 cards from 1916 were sold together. According to Forbes, that group fetched $4,420.
