Old cigar box uncovered in metro Atlanta full of 100-year-old baseball cards

Berndt Petersen
·1 min read

Over the course of a lifetime collecting baseball cards, Joe Davis thought he had seen it all.

“We have had people bring in one Babe Ruth or two Babe Ruth’s. But you do not see 20 at a time,” Davis told Channel 2′s Berndt Petersen.

That is what recently happened at his shop, GotBaseballCards in Loganville.

A metro Atlanta lady inherited a cigar box full of 100-year-old baseball cards. The original owner got them while growing up in Coney Island, New York in the early 1920s. Back in those days, candy stores would toss in a baseball card with every purchase.

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“I would love to have a DeLorean, hop in, and travel back and see it. Because there ended up being over 1100 cards in the collection. That was a lot of trips to the candy store,” Davis said.

They are not like the cardboard versions of today. These were drawings of the players on long strips of paper. The shopkeeper would tear them off one at a time. In the case of this collection, over a thousand times.

Davis says the moral of this story is you never throw anything away.

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“Anyone out there sitting on old baseball cards, comic books, autographs, whatever---just give us a call! We are glad to help. But definitely do not toss them. You might be sitting on a gold mine. You never know!”

The most valuable cards including Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb have been sent to a professional card grading service. When they come back, the collection will be for sale online.

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