Beyond the jersey there’s an archive of Gehrig’s correspondence, including an exchange of letters about his “mysterious” now-eponymous illness, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the progressive nervous system disease. One letter between Gehrig and Dr. Paul O’Leary of the Mayo Clinic includes the passage “From what I am going to write, please don’t judge me a cry baby, or believe me to be losing my guts,” and continues: “There is definitely something going on within my body which I do not understand …”
That archive alone is estimated to fetch from $400,000 to $600,000.
There’s also a 1909-11 Ty Cobb baseball card estimated at $225,000 to $425,000. The 120-year-old card has “virtually non-existent” wear, according to Christie’s website.
Unlike other collectibles auctions, where estimates are set deliberately low to generate interest and stimulate headline-grabbing results, these are “conservatively accurate,” Hunt says.
It’s easy to take these giant numbers for granted, he cautions. “It’s the nature of all of us to be a little bit blasé about ‘a million this,’ ‘2 million that,’” Hunt says. “It’s a lot of money.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.