A LUCKY collector has discovered a baseball card worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in their late grandfather's collection.
The find was buried beneath a stack of trading cards "piled high" and featured Major League Baseball icon Joseph Jefferson Jackson, known by many as "Shoeless Joe Jackson."
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It was surrounded by stacks of papers in the grandfather's Mississippi home, with a particular ledger among them catching the eye of the family member, per Heritage Auctions.
The pages included newspaper clippings about the Dead Ball Era of baseball in the 1910s, and several trading cards were within the pages.
That's when they found the Shoeless Joe original from 1914, the official title being the 1914 Boston Garter-Color Joe Jackson #6, as it came from the Boston Garter collection of baseball cards printed in color, a rare occurrence at the time.
It also made the card exceedingly rare to find nowadays, and the collector's grandfather held several from it, including the Joe Jackson #6, which was most notable.
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Appraisers with Heritage Auctions dubbed the card one of the most rare baseball cards known on the market, comparing it to the likes of the 1952 Topps #311 Mickey Mantle rookie card.
"The argument that this is the most impressive baseball trading card that exists would not be without merit," the company wrote.
"It's the blue whale of the trading card taxonomy--impossibly large, stunningly beautiful, and yet almost never seen by the human eye."
Heritage Auctions added that it suspects less than 50 versions of the 1914 Boston Garter-Color Joe Jackson #6 have survived over the years, including the one discovered by the Mississippi resident.
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HISTORIC SCANDAL
The card is oversized compared to standard baseball cards made later on and features a drawing of Shoeless Joe at bat with two Boston Garter-labeled baseballs in the top left and right corners.
On the lower left and right side of the card, it shows prices of 25 cents and 50 cents.
A list of the other 11 cards in the Boston Garter collection was detailed on the back.
It also listed Shoeless Joe's batting averages from 1908 to 1913.
His career lasted 12 years before he was kicked out of the MLB for the infamous 1919 Black Sox Scandal.
At least eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the World Series that year against the Cincinnati Reds, per the Society for American Baseball Research.
Even with the complicated history, after being put up for auction with Heritage, the card sold in September 2023 for over $252,000.
As The U.S. Sun previously reported, the rookie Mickey Mantle card seems to still be worth more in the trading card community, as one sold for a whopping $12.6 million in 2022.
It was given a Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) rating of 9.5, meaning it was in mint condition, nearly appearing brand new.
The Shoeless Joe card was rated 1.5 on a different scale from the Sportscard Guaranty Corporation (SGC), meaning it was in fair condition with some natural decay and tears.
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For more related content, check out The U.S. Sun's coverage of the baseball cards found in the desk of a woman's great-great-grandmother valued at $1 million.
The U.S. Sun also has the story on baseball cards in the attic of a collector's grandfather that are potentially worth $3 million.
