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Shoeless Joe Jackson Card from 1910 Sold for $492K at Auction
May 8, 2020
A "Shoeless" Joe Jackson baseball card from 1910 sold for $492,000 on Thursday night as part of an auction run by Heritage Auctions.
The card is from a set called T210 Old Mill, which featured minor league players. It depicts Jackson during his stint with the Double-A New Orleans Pelicans.
According to ESPN's Tom VanHaaren, Heritage director of sports auctions Chris Ivy said the following about the card, which was won by an anonymous bidder: "After 110 years in the same North Carolina family, we were glad to help find it a proud new owner."
The card was sold by Ben Foster and his father, Hayes, who found it in 2009 when they discovered Hayes' card collection in a metal lunch pail in the back of his law office.
It wasn't until last year that the Fosters closely examined the collection, and it was then that they found several valuable cards, including T206 cards of Hall of Famers Cy Young and Ty Cobb from 1910.
The Fosters also found the Jackson card and realized they had something special on their hands when Ben saw a Jackson T210 Old Mill card graded 3.5 out of 10 sold for $600,000 at auction in 2019.
Jackson spent 13 seasons in Major League Baseball with the Philadelphia Athletics, Cleveland Naps and Chicago White Sox.
He hit .356 with 54 home runs, 792 RBI, 873 runs scored and 202 stolen bases in 1,332 career regular-season games.
Jackson won the 1917 World Series with the White Sox, but he is best known for the Black Sox cheating scandal of 1919. Jackson was one of eight White Sox players who were banned for life from baseball for allegedly throwing the 1919 World Series.
As a result, Jackson has still not been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame despite his status as one of the best players of his generation.