Baseball tickets that once sold for US$ 0.01, US$ 0.05 and US$ 0.10 in 1862 are among historic baseball items to be auctioned later this month in the U.S.
The tickets were for the 19th century contest between the Washington Nationals baseball club and the 71st Regiment of the New York Militia in the U.S. capital, Washington D.C.
The participation of the 71st Regiment of the NY Militia in the contest will likely generate interest in this particular 1862 collection of baseball memorabilia beyond sporting circles, attracting U.S. Civil War followers to the bidding, as well.
The match scorecard, formal invitation and passes to the historic 1862 match-up will also be put up for sale to the highest bidder.
Baseball’s origin has been a great and sustained topic of debate among historians and researchers, with recent discoveries suggesting the sport of baseball was first played by the Prince of Wales and other royalty in England as early as 1749 – some 265 years ago and 42 years before the earliest historical record of baseball in the U.S.
Baseball’s sister sport, softball, has a more clear and “indoor” birth. George Hancock, a U.S. reporter, is credited as having invented softball, initially as a winter indoor sport, in Chicago in November 1887.
Saco River Auction Company in Maine (USA) will be organising the auction that includes the 1862 baseball collection on 19-Feb.
Last year, a collector paid US$ 92,000 for an 1865 baseball card of the Brooklyn Atlantics amateur baseball club, which is considered to be the first dated baseball card known, of which only two are thought to remain.
The record purchase price for a baseball card was for a 1909 Honus Wagner card, which sold for US$ 2.8 million in 2007.
The current record purchase price for any piece of sports memorabilia is US$ 4.4 million for a circa 1920 New York Yankees baseball jersey worn by George Herman “Babe” Ruth, which was sold to a private collector in 2012.
