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Extremely Rare 1916 M101-4/5 Morehouse Baking #151 Babe Ruth Rookie PSA VG+ 3.5 - Newly Discovered!

Sold For: $812,724
Year: 1916
Auction: 2024 Fall
Lot #: 1
Auction: Prewar Baseball - 1910s and 1920s Cards
Presented is a newly discovered example of Babe Ruth's rookie card featuring the exceedingly rare Morehouse Baking advertising back. This represents the first time that an example of Ruth has been documented with this advertisement and presented for sale! This auction unveils an exciting newly discovered collection of more than 100 Morehouse Baking cards, with more than a dozen Hall of Famers and stars offered individually in this auction. Prior to this, we had handled only ten Morehouse Baking cards (of any player) in the past twenty years. All the cards have been saved for decades in a family from near to the Morehouse Baking factory. Amazingly, the collection featured a number of duplicates, including a second example of the key Babe Ruth card, which will be offered in a future auction. The 1916 D352 Morehouse Baking card is identical to M101-4/5 Sporting News except for the different advertisement on the reverse. Morehouse Baking reverses are seen much less frequently than Sporting News reverses. To date, only 53 examples featuring a Morehouse Baking back (of all players) have been graded by PSA (SGC has graded 57). While exact population numbers for ungraded examples cannot be known, in their extensive research into the M101-4/5 sets and their advertising backs, collectors Tim Newcomb and Todd Schultz estimate that Morehouse Baking cards are among the most difficult to find (along with Holmes to Holmes and Indianapolis Brewing) and account for two percent of the entire M101-4/5 production run of all back varieties (Morehouse Baking has been confirmed to appear both on M101-4 and -5 cards). Graded VG+ 3.5 by PSA (submitted by REA), this is a very distinctive example of Babe Ruth's rookie card, universally regarded as one of the most significant cards in all of card collecting. This is a very attractive card that, as can easily be seen, displays exceptionally well and far superior to the average example from this series. Ruth M101-4/5 cards are often found with centering and print issues. The offered example is crisp and clean, with outstanding centering (sitting towards the bottom, which is the ideal direction for this card if perfect centering is not an option) and strong corners. The reverse has the "Morehouse Baking" advertisement boldly printed in black, along with a purple factory-stamp ("Cancelled") relating to the card's redemption as part of the promotion advertised on the reverse. This is a very unusual, never before offered example of an extreme rarity that would be a significant addition to any world-class Babe Ruth or rare vintage baseball-card collection. Opening Bid $150,000.
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