Family Not in Dispute Over Rare Baseball Card Collection

While most of the estate planning news today seems to be about how families are constantly fighting over their loved one’s estate, there are families that chose to split their loved one’s assets peacefully. A group of cousins decided to split the proceeds from a real life treasure trove produced from a set of old baseball cards. The baseball cards were found in an old Ohio attic that belonged Carl Hench. The cards were found after Hench’s daughter passed away, “leaving everything inside [the house] to her 20 nieces and nephews.”

The cards were sold at auction for a little more than $566,132. The 700 baseball cards were in nearly pristine condition, and are the best example of this set of baseball cards in existence. The cards were part of an “extremely rare series given out with candy around 1910.” At the auction the baseball cards were divided into three sets. The set that earned the most, $286,800, was a nearly complete E98 set. But that was nothing compared to the price that one card earned at the auction. A “Honus Wagner” card earned $239,000. The high price on the card came after it earned a perfect condition rating from a Professional Sports Authenticator. Even though this card earned a good price, the highest price that a “Honus Wagner” card has earned is $2.8 million. This card was different than the current card because that card was part of a rare set of cards that were distributed in packs of cigarettes by the American Tobacco Co. There are only 60 of those rare cards in existence. The current Wagner card is a bit more common. 

See John Seewer, Rare Baseball Cards From Ohio Sell Well at Auction, Associated Press, Boston.com, August 3, 2012.

Special thanks to Craig M. Scalise (Author of the blog myestateplanningattorney.com) for bringing this article to my attention.