Lot # 653: 1926 Spalding Champions Babe Ruth (1926 Copyright) PSA NM-MT 8

Graded NM-MT 8 by PSA. Outstanding ultra-high-grade example of the key card from this 1920s set issued by the Spalding Sporting Goods Company. The Spalding Champions set is beautifully and elegantly designed. The cards are also rarer than most collectors realize. There have been only two major "finds" of pristine examples of these cards over the years. Both have been handled by REA, so we have some extra insight into this set. In 1990, we turned up a find of about 400 uncirculated cards and, in 1996, we auctioned a find of 798 uncirculated cards. The cards from both finds had been saved in a virtually perfect state. (The owner of the 798-card find had been given the cards by a storeowner as a child in 1926. He kept them undisturbed for the next 70 years. In 1996, he realized they were extremely valuable and consigned them to REA.) Whenever there is a "find," especially of a substantial quantity of high-grade cards from a rare set, there is naturally uncertainty about how many have been found. These two finds combined represent a total of about only 1,200 cards from the 200-card set. Included were about sixty Babe Ruths, far more than suggested statistically by the quantities found. This is because Spalding printed more cards of Ruth than the other subjects in the set. Aside from these two finds, only a random smattering of cards in various conditions have survived here and there, usually not in high grade. As the years have gone by, the high-grade "find" Ruths have disappeared into collections. It's not hard to see why: This is the single best Babe Ruth card from a standard set from the 1920s, a decade that was Ruth's peak as a player but with very few quality card issues. Bright and crisp with four strong corners, flawless picture quality, and perfect contrast. The text-style reverse refers to his 356 homers to date, his three homers in one game in the 1926 World Series, and his Major League record of 59 home runs hit in 1921. "Nov., 1926" Copyright. This card originates from the REA "Spalding Card Find" of 1996.