Turkey Red baseball card valued $150K: Ep. 2 recap of ‘Antiques Roadshow: Raleigh’
Antiques Roadshow had a tour stop in Raleigh at the NC Museum of Art last May, and nearly 3,500 people came by to get their special items checked out and appraised.
The second of three episodes features 22 items appraised by the show’s professionals. Many of the items were appraised in the thousands (with a few breaking six figures) and had heartfelt, family-centric backstories.
The first episode, which aired April 2, featured a $16 Goodwill painting valued at $100,000. The second episode, called “North Carolina Museum of Art, Hour 2,” aired Monday April 15 at 8 p.m. on PBS. You can watch for free online or in the PBS App.
Here are the highlighted items in the second episode.
77-card Turkey Red baseball card collection valued up to $150,000
A man brought in a 77-card Turkey Red collection, which belonged to his late father. In the collection, 25 cards are for Hall of Famers.
His father, who passed away eight years ago, collected the cards with his brothers when they were children. The cards were in a safety deposit box at the bank until his passing, when his son saw the cards for the very first time. Until then, he’d only heard stories about them, he said.
The cards are called Turkey Red Cards after the cigarette maker, said appraiser Leila Dunbar.
“This set is considered to be the biggest, the boldest, the best, the most beautiful cigarette card set for sports,” she said.
You had to send in 10 coupons from Turkey Red cigarette packs to get a “cabinet card,” which each measured five and three-quarters by eight inches large — much larger than the standard baseball card. Coupon collectors had three choices for the card they received, Dunbar said.
The man’s father and brothers began collecting the cards when they were eight to ten years old, he said, and could not buy cigarettes. The whole family smoked, and they would save the coupons in their cigarette cartons to give to the boys at Christmastime.
Turkey Red is a part of American Tobacco, a Triangle company with American Tobacco Campus as a locally well-known fixture of today’s downtown Durham.
The man had a Ty Cobb card, which Dunbar said is the best card in the entire set and valued alone between $25,000 and $35,000. Other Hall of Fame cards were valued individually between $1,000 and $10,000.
While the set is not a complete 100-card collection, Dunbar recommended insuring it for at least $150,000 and estimated its value at a $75,000 minimum.
1962 comic introducing Spider-Man valued near $20K
A man bought his comic book — 1962 Marvel Amazing Fantasy #15 Introducing Spider-Man — from a hot dog stand when he was a little boy.
“When I was 12 years old in 1962, we would go to a town to get groceries on Saturdays and stop at a hot dog stand and if I had been behaving myself, I would get a chance to pick out a comic or two,” he said.
Landry responded: “I am getting Goosebumps at that experience of buying this comic right off the newsstand.”
The man said he had the comic appraised before, and he was told not to take less than $1,000 if he ever sold it.
But Landry conservatively valued the comic at $18,000 to $22,000. The value would be higher if the book were in better condition. The book is ripped and has missing pieces, and its pages have yellowed with age.
Still, he’s surprised the cover is fully attached at both staples — and the owner didn’t get any ketchup or mustard stains on it when buying it at the hot dog stand all those years ago.
The highest-graded copy within the past couple years sold at auction for $3.6 million, Landry said.
First Miss America’s 1920s trophies valued near $5,000
A woman brought in two first place Miss America trophies that a family member was awarded in the 1920s.
“My great-great aunt was the first Miss America. … There was a local newspaper contest that you could enter to then move on to the pageant, and I believe her mother entered her into the contest in which she won,” the woman said.
She remembered her great-great aunt as being incredibly humble about her wins as a teenager.
“It’s extraordinary to me that she won at such a young age, only 16,” said appraiser Laura Woolley,
“We do see trophies come up from Miss America, but firsts are always the best. … And she is absolutely recognized and regarded as the first Miss America.”
The competition celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2021, and the competition has changed dramatically since the year these trophies were awarded, Woolley said. Now, the competition does not include a swimsuit contest and focuses largely on humanitarian efforts.
Woolley appraised the two trophies from 1921 and 1923 as valued between $3,800 to $5,000, noting the value isn’t about the material the awards are made of, but instead what they represent.
Sylvan Esso’s ‘beasties’-covered sugar bowl valued at $1,000
Nationally known Durham-based pop duo Sylvan Esso (married couple Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn) made an unnamed appearance in the episode, bringing a stoneware sugar bowl that belonged to Meath’s mother.
“She said that it was special and that it was English,” she told the appraiser Nick Dawes, who agreed on both.
The sugar bowl was decorated with fish and “what I could call beasties,” Dawes said.
“[The artists] were called The Martin Brothers and yeah, they were weird. I mean, you look up ‘weird’ and you get a picture of them,” which cracked them both up.
Dawes valued the bowl at $1,000 but said it could climb towards $1,500. Both Meath and Sanborn were happily surprised.
Antiques Roadshow Raleigh finds in Episode 2
Here are the other remarkable finds featured in the second episode:
Philco Tombstone Radio (ca 1936) valued at $75
WWII US Army Officer Uniform valued between $150 and $200
1959 Minnie Evans Crayon & Graphite Drawing valued between $8,000 and $10,000
New Mexico Pueblo Water Pitcher (ca 1880) valued at $6,500
Victorian Gold Memorial Watch Fob Seal (ca 1865) valued between $800 and $1,200
Willie Daniels Oils (ca 1985) valued between $2,000 and $4,000
Royal Delft Commemorative Platter (ca 1990) valued at $25
1924 Prohibition Gibson Rye Whiskey with Box valued between $2,500 and $3,500
1882 The Six-day Race of the Champions Poster valued between $2,000 and $3,000
Autograph Album with Crockett Inscription (ca 1840) valued between $12,500 to $18,700
Martin Brothers Stoneware Sugar Bowl (ca 1890) valued between $1,000 and $1,500
1975 Tom Wesselmann Study for Still Life #61 valued between $25,000 and $75,000
Grindley Child’s Pitcher (ca 1930) valued at $5
Shiraz Embroidered Kilim (ca 1900) valued between $2,500 and $3,500
Mississippian Granite Discoidal (ca 1000-1500) valued between $3,000 and $5,000
Tang Yin Painting Copy (ca 1930) valued at $6,000
1970 Appointment for 1st Supreme Court valued between $40,000 and $90,000
Dent Horse-Drawn Patrol Wagon (ca 1900) valued between $400 and $600
‘Antiques Roadshow’ comes to Raleigh. How & when to watch episodes
$16 Goodwill painting valued at $100K: Ep. 1 recap of ‘Antiques Roadshow: Raleigh’
