Putting Babe Ruth in Your Investment Portfolio, Literally (Updated)

Source: GoldinAuctions.com

This story has been updated with more recent results – see below.

It seems almost impossible to believe, but 2014 marks the 100th anniversary of Babe Ruth’s infamous career in major league baseball. With many anniversaries come many milestones. A current auction has perhaps the greatest Babe Ruth collection ever amassed in a piecemeal auction. 24/7 Wall St. has a serious question for collectors and alternative investors and for die-hard fans alike — should you add Babe Ruth to your portfolio?

Goldin Auctions has two Babe Ruth auction sessions in July. The first such session ends at midnight on Friday, July 11, and the second session ends at midnight on July 18. We contacted Ken Goldin of Goldin Auctions to get some basic data. The data are far from basic, and the auction total here is already into the millions of dollars.

For starters, we asked how many “Babe Ruth only” items were up for grabs in the current auction. More or less, the number is 215 items. Here is where the money is though. The combined minimum bid for the live auction was put at $1.6 million. Again, that is just the minimum. The estimated market value or combined sale price estimate was put at more than $6 million, and that was for lots 1 to 126.

UPDATE: As of 3:00 PM Eastern Time on Friday there were 7 items over $100,000 for a total of over $2.1 million for those seven items alone.

What is up for auction goes above and beyond the total available of real Babe Ruth items on eBay or any other auction we have seen. These are just some of the top items by price up for grabs:

• 1918 Babe Ruth Boston Red Sox Contract — Ruth’s own copy and the earliest existing Ruth player contract known — starting bid $250,000
• 1914 Baltimore News Babe Ruth graded PSA 1 and now considered the ‘real’ Ruth rookie card — starting bid $100,000
• 1918 to 1920 Babe Ruth game-used and signed Louisville Slugger baseball bat “The Curse of the Bambino” with Buck Weaver Connection — starting bid $150,000
• An ink hand print of George Herman Ruth, signed in 1934 — starting bid $50,000
• 1916 to 1918 rookie era Babe Ruth game used Hillerich & Bradsby bat (one of only two authenticated examples) — starting bid $50,000

As of Wednesday July 9, most of these items had already doubled their starting bids, and the five items above were already commanding bids of almost $1.1 million.

Other Babe Ruth items up for auction include baseball cards, autographed contracts, autographed baseballs, game-used uniform pants, game tickets, signed photos, advertisements and many other items.

Investing in collectibles has become big business. A recent auction (of Goldin Auctions as well) featuring the famed T206 Honus Wagner 1909 to 1911 tobacco baseball card went for a whopping $2.1 million alone. eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) currently has roughly 65 items we would consider as authentic Babe Ruth items for sale with “Buy It Now” prices of $10,000 and higher, although many of those items would likely sell for far less than the pricing might indicate.

ALSO READ: The 9 Most Valuable Collectibles

Collectors and investors can generally add some authentic Babe Ruth collectible to their collection (or alternative investment portfolio) at any time. What is never up for grabs is a vast choice and selection of this magnitude and diversity of items.