Four 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth Cards Just Added

Dean's Cards just added five Babe Ruth cards to our inventory!  We buy over 500 collections a year, but have never added this many Babe Ruth cards at one time.  The cards added include all 4 of the Babe's 1933 Goudey cards and his 1931 W517 Portrait card.

The 4 Goudeys were part of a 160 card Goudey collection that we acquired last month.  The cards were actually collected by the seller’s father and had been in his family for 76 years.

The way that we came to buy this collection was very unusual for us.  A guy contacted me by email and said that he had a friend that wanted to sell a bunch of pre-war cards, but was reluctant to send his cards through the mail.  It has been my experience that scenarios like these rarely work out, but I was really hoping that this would be a chance to buy some great Goudey cards.  Dean’s Cards has been in business for 8 years and I have never traveled to buy a collection.  They are all sent to us in the mail, which is one of the reasons we are able to pay more than other dealers.

The seller sent me a spreadsheet of the cards and I provided a price range that we would pay – depending on the card’s condition.  The seller’s friend said that he had gotten several other quotes and we were, by far, quoting the highest amount.

I spoke to the friend of the seller on the phone and he said that the seller would come to the office and bring the cards, since he just lived up in Youngstown.  It just so happened, though,  that Jonathan (my 12 year old son) and I were driving up to Cleveland to attend the National Sports Card Convention,  so I offered to meet the guy on the way.  My wife was a bit nervous about it – especially since Jonathan was with me - so we agreed to meet in the lobby of a Holiday Inn.  You just never know these days.

The seller and his friend turned out to be great guys and the collection was better than expected.  The gentleman accepted my offer, but was so nervous by the prospect of selling his fathers cards, that he was visibly shaking.

Although I paid a small fortune for the cards, the acquisition of the four 1933 Babe Ruth cards capped off a successful father/son trip to the National Card Show.  Out of the millions of cards that I have bought over the years, these were the first ones acquired outside the friendly confines of the Dean’s Cards Office.

The other Ruth card just added, 1931 W517 Babe Ruth Portrait card, came through a separate collection of about 30 W517 cards that also included the Lou Gehrig card. These are the first W517 cards we have had due to their rarity.

All cards over $50 at Dean’s Cards qualify for our quantity discount.