One-stop shopping has made our lives more convenient. You can head to a department store and buy, for example, some macaroni and cheese and a Tom Petty CD.
We’ve discussed the work of Heritage Auctions before, but they’ve now taken one-stop shopping to a new level. Say you enjoy The White Album, but you also feel like you’re not doing enough to properly celebrate the Seattle Seahawks’ Super Bowl championship in 2014. Heritage has you covered.
They’re running two auctions presently: The Winter Platinum Night Sports Auction and Beatles “Coming to America” 60th Anniversary Music Memorabilia Auction.
Naturally, they demanded I come in to see the items because they had some things they wanted to get off their chest. And by “demanded,” I mean, “tolerated,” and by “wanted to get off their chest,” I mean, “answered questions politely, like when you’re trying to explain concepts to an excited three year old.”
How could I not be excited? They’ve got an autographed Pete Rose jersey! You, like, never see Pete Rose signing things for a fee! Certainly not if you’ve ever visited Las Vegas. They even mention in the description the jersey itself is much more unique than finding he’s autographed something.
I was talking about the jersey with Chris Ivy, Heritage’s director of sports auctions. Even though Pete Rose signed a Reds’ jersey, he’s obviously most remembered for the half season he played in Montreal. That is where he got his 4,000th hit, after all. And Ivy tolerated this discussion. Politely. Like when you’re talking to an excited three year old.
And I’m glad the world will soon get to learn more about the ownership group that led to the Expos’ demise.
Pete Rose was older than me when he recorded that hit, so I’ve still got time to make the Majors. I might just need some equipment.
The glove Babe Ruth wore during his 14-inning complete game in the 1916 World Series could do the trick. Ivy explains this comes from early in Ruth’s career before he was the Bronx Bomber.
Continuing a series of fun lovin’ Yankees who might have enjoyed an occasional drink, consider also Mickey Mantle’s 1964 contract:
Ivy says any individual item might have great appeal for some people but not for others. I remember seeing Pete Rose managing at Riverfront Stadium back in the day, so the Reds jersey was a conversation starter for me. If you’re a Houston Astros fan, you might like to own a World Series ring.
“It looks like these rings have gotten just a bit gaudier since the A’s 1974 championship,” I observed.
Any good auction requires bidders to consider philosophical principles, though.
You can bid on a box of hockey cards from the 1979-1980 NHL season, Wayne Gretzky’s rookie year. Ivy explains that inside are a total of 10,752 cards in there, so at least 27 should be Gretzky rookie cards.
But Heritage embraces Schrodinger’s Cat: You mustn’t open the box to check. This is the only sealed case of O-Pee-Chee hockey cards from that season, so the case is more valuable than the individual cards.
If you’re not into sports, the Beatles celebrate an anniversary this month.
Sixty years ago, in February 1964, the Beatles made their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. You can bid on a menu from their flight to New York signed by the band and the captain on the Pan Am flight.
Robert Wilonsky showed that menu sitting next to the last contract they’d sign 11 years later.
Continuing a series of employees expressing disbelief at my eagerness to use items for the reason they were originally intended, Wilonsky then showed me John Lennon’s copy of The White Album, labeled as #0000006.
Ivy says the people they belonged to might have considered them mundane when they were using them, but these are items that capture a moment in history.
