Rare Babe Ruth baseball card found inside a broken £20 piano sells at auction for a massive £100,000

A BASEBALL fan has pocketed a huge £100,000 after finding a rare collectors card hidden under the pedal of her family’s old broken piano.

Ellen Kelly, a 65-year-old hospital receptionist from Maryland, US, bought the 100-year-old piano for a mere £20.

The Mega Agency

The card depicts Ruth as a rookie and a left-handed pitcher for the Red Sox long before he became known as ‘The Sultan of Swat’[/caption]

Last week, she sold it for a whopping six figure sum.

The piano had belonged to her Aunt Nora, but Kelly says that as a child she was never allowed to play.

Kelly told Sports Collectors Daily: “She didn’t like us banging around on it, and she was a grouch, anyway … I never remember it working.”

It was only after her Aunt’s death that Kelly was able to scoop up the heirloom at her family’s estate sale.

The hidden collector’s card may have been long forgotten, had Kelly not noticed the piano seemed to be out of tune.

A friend who visited Kelly’s home in Westernport noticed a pile of vintage baseball cards lodged beneath the pedal.

Kelly said: “He was looking at a pile of cards and I said, ‘Hey, there’s Babe Ruth’.”

CARD IN ‘NEAR PERFECT’ CONDITION

The prize card shows Ruth, famed for his role a batter for the New York Yankees, on the field playing the game of which he later became a master.

But most interestingly, the card depicts Ruth as a rookie and a left-handed pitcher for the Red Sox long before he became known as ‘The Sultan of Swat’.

The card was issued in 1916 and had survived in-tact and in near-perfect condition after Kelly’s father and uncle tucked it away inside the piano for safekeeping.

Kelly said: “They had to hide the cards because my aunt threw everything out”.

The Maryland resident suspected that either her father or uncle hid the M101-4 collector’s card there, along with 110 others, and forgot about them.

Until last week, the cards had been kept in a safe deposit box.

But with her brother’s health failing, Kelly decided to part with the cards and auctioned the collection with Beckett Goodwin.

Best $25 I ever spent

Ellen Kelly

Last month, the valuable card was sold for an impressive six figure sum of $130,053 (£100,000).

Kelly said: “I don’t guess I realised what [the cards] were worth when I found them.

“Best $25 I ever spent”.

The auction price was a record for the public sale of Ruth rookie cards graded in the same condition.

According to the Beckett Goodwin, the card only became valuable in recent years.

Their website reads: “At long last, Babe Ruth’s rookie card now stands at the precipice of becoming the Ruth of Sports Collectibles.

“A Relic For The Ages If ever a museum-worth sports antiquity existed, it would be Ruth’s major league rookie card.”

Jeromy Murray, vice president of Beckett Grading, told Forbes: “Stories like this Ruth card energize people.

“I promise you that hundreds of people slung open their old pianos once they heard about this Ruth story just hoping they might find a hidden gem. It might sound crazy, but stories like this change people’s lives.”

Kelly has said she just wants to retire comfortably and reports say she is considering selling the family home to move closer to her brother who is in medical care.

The Mega Agency

Kelly pocketed a huge £100,000 after finding a rare collectors card hidden under the pedal of her family’s old broken piano[/caption]