Family finds rare baseball card bought in Charlotte 100 years ago — what’s it worth?

Joe Marusak
·3 min read

A Charlotte-area family’s undiscovered 1910 baseball card may be among the rarest ever, according to a national baseball card auctioneer that says the card could fetch more than $1 million.

The 1910 Joe Doyle Hands Above Head New York Nat’l error card sat — value unknown — in the passed-down collection of a Charlotte man born in 1900, said P.J. Kinsella, communications director for New Jersey-based Robert Edward Auctions.

Only when the man’s great grandson had the card appraised recently did its true worth reveal itself, Kinsella told The Charlotte Observer on Tuesday.

“It could be in the top-tier of all-time sports memorabilia sales,” Kinsella said.

A Charlotte family’s undiscovered 1910 baseball card may be among the rarest ever, a baseball card auctioneer says, worth more than $1 million.
A Charlotte family’s undiscovered 1910 baseball card may be among the rarest ever, a baseball card auctioneer says, worth more than $1 million.

The card is far more rare than the T206 Honus Wagner, which in the same condition sold for more than $6.6 million in REA’s summer 2021 auction, he said.

Only 10 of the Joe Doyle error cards are known to exist, Kinsella said. Industry-recognized card-grading company SGC graded the Charlotte man’s card VG+ 3.5, REA president Brian Dwyer told the Observer.

REA is auctioning the card in its summer catalog auction July 24-Aug. 13.

“The card has stayed in the same family for around 110 years, hidden in plain sight,” Dwyer said.

The family selling the card wants to remain anonymous, Dwyer said, in part over security concerns given the high value of the card.

The original owner grew up loving sports and picked up the baseball cards that people discarded on the streets of Charlotte from packs of cigarettes, Dwyer said. The cards served as stiffeners for the cigarettes, he said.

Original owner had 1,000-plus cards

The man amassed a collection of more than 1,000 T205 and T206 baseball cards issued by the American Tobacco Co. His two daughters kept the collection when he died and handed them down through the family.

The family kept the cards in vintage albums from the early 1900s, Dwyer said. They never displayed the cards but considered them family heirlooms, he said.

“Slow Joe” Doyle’s card is much more famous than he ever was, Kinsella said. His Major League career lasted only five years.

The back of the rare card touts the Piedmont brand cigarette.
The back of the rare card touts the Piedmont brand cigarette.

The card mixed up Doyle’s team and the team of another player named Doyle.

Joe Doyle pitched for the New York Americans, which became the N.Y. Highlanders and later the Yankees. A Larry Doyle played for the New York Nationals.

In its initial printing of the T206 set, the manufacturer listed Joe Doyle with the New York Nationals, which later became the N.Y. Giants and now the San Francisco Giants.

The printer discovered the error early on, Kinsella said. Instead of correcting the league name from “Nat’l” to “Amer.”, however, the printer removed the league designation entirely from the printing plate.

Because the error was caught early and changed quickly, most Joe Doyle hands-above-head cards are identified only with “N.Y.” That made the “N.Y. Nat’l” variation extremely rare, Kinsella said.