Last week a nice old lady called me and said she found a Babe Ruth signed baseball at her home. Her father actually played professional baseball and received the ball from Ruth at one of the Sultan of Swat's many exhibition games that he took part sometime in the 1930s.

The ball looked pretty good to me, although I will admit I am not Ruth autograph expert.

Anyway, she wanted to know how she could get it authenticated. Supposedly she has a man who promised her more than $30,000 for it if she got him a Certificate of Authenticity. (By the way, the ball I have pictured in this blog is not her ball. Her ball was toned and had a signature on the side panel that would rate about a 6/10.)
Using past auction results as a guide, I can’t imagine that a ball in the condition it was in could be worth much more than $10,000, much less than the man promised her. I stressed to her that something sounded very fishy about this and told her to be very, very careful.

I really have to wonder how many people get taken by crooks in the hobby. It is very, very scary.

I have no idea if she will ever sell the ball for that amount, if she will get ripped off or even ever get it authenticated (she didn’t like the idea of sending it into an authentication company). I probably will never find out, but it makes me wonder… you know?