VIRGINIA SPORTS MEMORABILIA GOLD MINE

 

It is quite possibly the largest private collection of sports cards in the world — and probably by a wide margin. Mr. Banazek estimates that it includes 20 million cards, although other visitors have pegged the number even higher. For comparison, Paul Jones, a man in Idaho who claimed to have the largest private baseball card collection, told a local newspaper in 2020 that his holdings amounted to 2.8 million cards. The largest collection of nonsports trading cards consists of 32,809 items, according to Guinness World Records.

What makes the collection even more notable is its lack of public profile. For years, it sat in a concrete outbuilding behind a low-slung ranch house on a wooded country road.

Two members of the reclusive seller's family said that the collection had been painstakingly accumulated over more than 50 years and that the seller had "purchased whole collections from other buyers at times."

The collection includes at least every Topps baseball set produced from 1954 to 2016, as well as roughly three decades' worth of completed sets of basketball and football cards. There are an estimated 10,000 Michael Jordan cards, 6,000 Kobe Bryant cards and 4,000 LeBron James cards. There are at least five different Babe Ruth cards, not to mention Ty Cobb, Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio cards; authenticated tobacco cards of Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson and others from the T206 and T205 set (1909 and 1911); hundreds of signed balls and bats; rolled-up sheets of uncut cards; and game-used catching gear worn by the Hall of Famer Bill Dickey.

The collection of artifacts extends well beyond sports and includes original and authenticated postcards of Marilyn Monroe from the 1950s; sealed boxes of cards from "Star Trek," "Star Wars" and Pokemon; and turn-of-the-century cigarette cards featuring images of stage actors popular at the time. Some of the collection is stored in literal shoe boxes. Other sets are sealed in their original packaging, fossilized bubble gum still sitting in packs.

Joe Marrs, an independent appraiser of card collections based in Chicago, visited Mr. Banazek's acquisition in 2022. It's not unusual for private individuals to quietly amass enormous stockpiles over decades in the hobby, he said. Still, he had never seen anything like the collection in Virginia.

Unlike the previous owner, Mr. Banazek does not shy away from publicity and is now considering ways to showcase his card heaven to a wider audience. He is teaming up with Rob Smith, a former executive at Endemol Shine who helped produce reality television programs like "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" and "Wipeout." Mr. Smith said he had various ideas about how to showcase the collection, including taking it on a tour as an interactive exhibit, perhaps culminating with a residency in Las Vegas.

"To me, this is a perfect family-friendly thing where you can go and enjoy and see all these amazing things we have," Mr. Smith said, "as well as the history of card collecting, the history of America."

He has solicited help from various business partners, including John Skipper, the former ESPN executive, now at Meadowlark Media.

To read the complete article, see:
20 Million Cards: A Sports Memorabilia Gold Mine Uncovered in Virginia (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/14/business/sports-memorabilia-collection-discovery.html)

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