Major League Baseball has worked with Hunt Auctions for 20 consecutive years to bring elite memorabilia to the forefront during All-Star Week, and Hunt unveiled its lineup for the highly-anticipated annual auction Wednesday morning.
Hunt will feature memorabilia ranging from President Kennedy’s autographed ceremonial first-pitch baseball to game-used bats from Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays, sourced from multiple notable collections.
The auction house operates as the official auction company of MLB at the All-Star Game FanFest, now the All-Star Village presented by Capital One, for two decades.
Last year, Hunt made a splash with the sale of a Babe Ruth home run ball from the 1923 World Series, signed and inscribed by Ruth, for $317,250.
Among the most noteworthy items from the auction, which will occur July 16, is Lou Gehrig’s 1933 MLB All-Star Game gold pendant, presented to him after the AL team was victorious. In 2018, a similar pendant from his Triple Crown season in 1934 sold for $146,779. The estimate is $50,000 to $100,000.
Items from Geddy Lee, the Rush frontman who sold off a large portion of his significant collection in December 2023 at Christie’s, include two autographed ceremonial first-pitch baseballs, from President Kennedy (Est. $75,000 to $150,000) and President Johnson (Est. $40,000 to $60,000) respectively.
Another signed Kennedy ball, given to player Mickey Vernon, who witnessed the president throw out the first pitch on multiple occasions, has an estimate of $50,000 to $100,000.
Other items from a rare 19th century archive of baseball memorabilia include pieces dated to the 1860-80s such as a presentational silver trophy baseball given to the Hampton B.B.C. team in 1856 (Est. $25,000 to $50,000) as well as an 1860s Tri-Mountain ambrotype (a photograph on glass) accompanied by the bat pictured in the photograph for an estimate of $50,000 to $75,000.
Pieces previously owned by Anthony Brizzolara, a prolific autograph collector who is known for not paying for a single signature, instead acquiring them thanks to his role as a passenger service representative for the railroad and close proximity to traveling ballplayers, includes autographed album pages from Babe Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle and more.
A rare Honus Wagner cabinet photograph by Carl Horner, known as the image used to create the 1909-11 T-206 card, which formerly sat in the archives of the Cleveland Plain Dealer for more than 100 years, carries an estimate of $100,000 to $300,000. Cabinet photos — images mounted on cards — were quite popular during this era, having displaced the carte de visite style popular in the late 19th century.
Rounding out the auction is a game-used Mantle bat from the collection of a former California Angels batboy to whom he gifted the bat during the 1967 MLB All-Star Game (Est. $100,000 to $150,000) and a high-grade (PSA 8) single-signed Ruth baseball (Est. $100,000 to $150,000).
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.