A rare baseball card from 1865 that was found in a yard sale in Maine is going to auction on Wednesday night and it is expected to sell for up to six figures.
According to the Associated Press, six-figure bids are expected for the 148-year-old baseball card that discovered at a rural Maine yard sale earlier this year. Saco River Auction Co. in Biddeford is holding an auction Wednesday evening that includes a card depicting the Brooklyn Atlantics amateur baseball club.
Troy Thibodeau of Saco River Auction Co. in Biddeford previously said that the card was found by a man looking though a photo album he bought in the small town of Baileyville on the Canadian border. Thibodeau said he was aware of only two cards of the same type in existence and that the card should get at least $100,000
''There hasn't been another one that's sold,'' he said. ''When there are only two known in the world, what's it worth?''
The card looks very different from modern day baseball cards and has an original photography from 1865 mounted on a card, showing nine players and a manager. According to the AP, the Library of Congress confirmed last month it was aware of only two copies of the photo. The other is in the institution's collection.
The report says: "In its book "Baseball Americana," the Library of Congress calls the item the first dated baseball card, handed out to supporters and opposing teams in a gesture of bravado from the brash Brooklynites, who were dominant and won their league championships in 1861, 1864 and 1865."
The auction is expected to receive numbers bids by phone, while at least five people have said they will travel to make bids.
"The great unknown is the Internet," Thibodeau said. "We have two Internet bidding sites, and we won't know how many people will use those until the bidding begins."
The Maine man who found the card did not want to be publically identified and said he found the card while antique picking. Thibodeau said the man bought the photo album, old Coca-Cola bottles and a couple of oak chairs together in a single purchase for less than $100.
The card is one of 425 items being sold at the auction. In the past, baseball cards have been sold for great amounts of money, including a 1909 Honus Wagner card, which sold for $2.8 million in 2007. Last year, the same auction house sold a rare 1888 card of Hall of Fame baseball player Michael ''King'' Kelly for $72,000.
