KANSAS CITY, Mo. — MLB All-Star FanFest is a giant celebration of all things baseball – and as kids practice their sliding skills and get batting and pitching tips, some of the grownups around FanFest can’t help but feel a little nostalgic about this all-American game.
And they also want to see if some of their old baseball memorabilia is really worth anything.
Richard Beck brought some of his old memorabilia to the Hunt Auctions booth at Fan Fest to get some of his collection appraised.
“I don’t know how many Satchel Paige cards I ruined in the spokes of my bicycle,” says Beck laughing.
He brought in an autographed ball he got when he was 12 years old, a 1963 Kansas City A’s signed ball. And he had his shoe box full of old baseball cards, but found out most of them were of the mass-produced variety and not very valuable.
David Hunt does these free appraisals at FanFest every year, he says it’s exciting because you never know what will walk through the door. Friday he saw some game used bats, and some vintage baseball cards.
“Probably the best piece is a 1934 Yankees ball with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig that is in beautiful condition,” he said.
Harriett Mercer says her ball was in such good shape because her husband kept it hidden in a drawer all these years. He got it on a trip to the New York World’s Fair in 1939 when he was just 12 years old.
The appraiser told her it’s worth as much as ten-thousand dollars. Mercer signed the ball over to the auction house to be sold off in November.
“I didn’t want to decide between four children who gets the ball,” she said.
