Lajoie card could fetch over $88,000
This city baseball legend’s card not meant for your kid’s bicycle spokes
WOONSOCKET — Homegrown hardball legend Napoleon “Nappy” Lajoie didn’t make any errors in the big leagues back in the 1930s – after all, he was already retired – but a bubble gum company that distributed baseball cards during the era made a big one. They left him out.
And that’s why collectors have bid up the price for a belated 1933 version of the Goudey gum company’s card for the famous infielder from the city to a whopping $88,000. Bobby Livingston, the executive vice president of RR Auctions of Massachusetts, says he wouldn’t be surprised if the selling price tops $100,000 before the online auction closes today at midnight.
“For sure,” said Livingston. “Just like if you were a kid in 1933 and you didn’t have a complete set of the Goudey cards, you have to have this card to complete your set. There are so few examples out there.”
Though Goudey’s Lajoie card says it’s part of a 1933 set, it was actually issued in 1934. The company issued a 240-card series in 1933, but somehow it did so without a No. 106 card in the set.
“Everything else about the set was superb, with a great design, bright colors, multiple cards of the best players, and detailed player highlights on the reverse,” according to Livingston. “The set had everything. Except no 106 was produced.”
Collectors – mostly kids – complained. So the following year Goudey issued the No. 106 card and chose Lajoie to be featured on it.
Among the reasons it’s so desirable among collectors, according to Livingston, isn’t just that it was issued a year late and backdated. It’s that kids who wanted the No. 106 card couldn’t just go to the store and buy it. The only fans who got one were those who wrote a
letter to Goudey asking for the card. The company responded to each one of those requests with the Lajoie card – and a letter of apology from Goudey.
If the gnarly-faced Hall of Famer is having something of a moment in RR Auction’s online selloff – he’s having one in his hometown, too. When Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt completed the signature achievement of her tend ure – a $2.6 million makeover f of World War II Park – the d new, state-of-the-art baseball field there was christened the Napoleon Lajoie Field in his n honor.
The son of French-Canadian immigrants, Lajoie was born in Woonsocket and always thought of the city as his r home, though he died in Daya tona Beach, Fla. in 1959 at the age of 84. His baseball days stretch back to the 19th century, playing Major League Baseball for the Philadelphia Phillies, the Philadelphia Athletics and the Cleveland Naps d from 1896-1915. Known as d
“The Frenchman,” the sect ond-baseman was one of the y first player-managers and retired with a career batting avr erage of .339. h But it wasn’t just Lajoie’s t talent on the field that makes h him such a hero in his own backyard. In a city with deep blue collar roots, Lajoie was a native son. He was a member of the Teamsters who dropped out of high school to work in a textile mill to help support d his siblings after his father died. He also earned money as a taxi driver with a horse and buggy, earning the nickname “The Slugging Cabbie.”
Livingston says the Lajoie card was put on the auction block by a collector who prefers to remain anonymous. In addition to its unusual provenance, Livingston says the card is in extremely good condition, with an appraisal rating of 8, which is rarely seen.
It’s also one of the better examples of all the Goudey
No. 106s. Goudey cut out multiple cards from what’s known in collector jargon as a “high number sheet.” Not all of the cuts were perfect, but the one offered by RR has borders that are more regular than others. As RR explains, “The offered card is very well centered, just slightly to the right, much better than most examples.”
The card went on the block about two weeks ago with an entry-level value of $25,000 and quickly shot up to $88,000, said Livington, so there’s no question there’s a bidding war going on for Lajoie. The offer is many times that of all the other playing cards in RR’s sports memorabilia auction. Goudey’s No. 108 card from the same series, for example – featuring Babe Ruth – was poised to fetch just $7,143 as the bid deadline was closing in.
Headquartered in Boston, RR Auction is one one of the world’s premier auction houses, known for rare documents, manuscripts, autographs and historic artifacts. Founded in 1976, the company has set many record-setting prices in hundreds of sales, including: astronaut Dave Scott’s Apollo 15 Lunar Surface Chronograph watch ($1.625 million); President Kennedy’s “reporter diary” from 1945 ($718,750) and an original Apple-1 computer that brought in $325,000.
The current auction mainly includes sports memorabilia,
and it contains a few items that are expected to bring in significantly more than Lajoie’s No. 106. Among the hot properties are several original players’ contracts, including one in which Babe Ruth famously objected to a Depression-era pay cut, and another in which Ted Williams demanded a pay cut during his last year with the Red Sox because he didn’t perform as well as he thought he should have that season.
To the layman, the demand for baseball memorabilia may seem to have ebbed a bit in recent years, but Livingston says that’s not so. Not long ago, Heritage Auctions sold a 1952 Topps brand Mickey Mantle card for $2.9 million – an all time record for the Yankees slugger.
“The trend is absolutely the opposite,” said Livington. “Collecting baseball cards does seem to transcend the generations.”