If you’re looking to strike it rich, forget buying a Powerball ticket or going to Vegas. Just run up to your dead grandpa’s attic.
According to the Associated Press, a Southern family — who wishes to remain anonymous — discovered a cache of 100-year old Ty Cobb baseball cards worth a million bucks.
The family had card experts verify all seven identical Cobb cards — cards that are so rare it was believed there were only 15 in existence. Appraisers are already estimating the value of all seven cards to be around a million dollars.
The Cobb cards that were found are all T-206’s, essentially the first widely-produced set of baseball cards ever — cards that were included mostly in tobacco products from 1909 to 1911. In fact, the most famous card in the history of the hobby is one of the rare Honus Wagner T-206 cards still in existence that sold for over $2 million.
The gigantic treasure of a lifetime was found in a “crumpled paper bag” in the dilapidated house” of their deceased great-grandfather.
Joe Orlando, the president of Professional Sports Authenticator in Newport Beach, California, who verified the find, said it is “spectacular” and “miraculous” to have come across such a cache.
“I am not sure if any other baseball card find is more remarkable than this new discovery,” Orlando said in a statement …
… The cards’ value is sure to shift now that there are so many more in existence, and an exact figure is difficult to pin down. But Orlando said the total worth of the whole cache should exceed $1 million. It’s not yet clear what the family who found them intends to do with them.
For those of you who don’t know, Ty Cobb was one of the best hitters in the history of baseball and was part of the sport’s very first Hall of Fame class, along with Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Honus Wagner and Babe Ruth. Cobb was also likely the most hated man in the history of baseball. But who cares now. More than a hundred years later and he’s making others rich. Just know if he were a live today he would likely want a cut.
Here’s another look at one of the cards via T206Resource
Josh Helmuth is the editor of Crave Sports.
