Antiques Roadshow

APPRAISER

When you look at memorabilia and you value it, you look at the historical importance of the players, of the team, of the era, of the event. You also look at rarity, you look at condition, you look at provenance, and this has it all. You've got one of the earliest known, you've got the earliest known professional team that came out of Cincinnati and went to the Red Sox. You've got your earliest pioneering Hall of Famers here, with Harry Wright, George Wright, and Albert Spalding. You've got provenance because they stayed in this boarding house and here are the notes they wrote to this woman's great great grandmother. And we have never seen this grouping of photographic baseball cards before. The earliest known cards were cabinet cards produced by Peck and Snyder in 1869, and they've been sold a few at a time over the last years. This has never been out. These group of cards have never been out, we've never seen an early set of notes like this, signed by these great Hall of Famers. It's Boston, it's the roots of Boston baseball. Even though it's the Boston team that became the Braves and not the Red Sox, you're still talking about Boston's earliest professional team here. And, they were winners. They finished third 1871, but 1872 to '75, these guys were the pioneers of baseball. It was all I could do not to break down myself on camera, because, you know, for me, this is as good as it gets. Today was definitely one of the greatest moments in my ROADSHOW career.