Watch This Woman Learn Her Antique Baseball Cards Are Worth a Fortune

Is there anything better than watching someone get lucky on Antiques Roadshow? Probably not! Hence you’ll very much enjoy watching this woman learn that her amazing collection of proto photographic baseball cards, featuring the Boston Red Stockings of the 1870s, might be worth as much as $1 million.

This woman (who hasn’t revealed her name) inherited the collection from her great great grandmother, who owned a boardinghouse where she hosted the Boston Red Stockings (some of the very first professional baseball players). And so she ended up with these cards, as well as a letter with a teasing little sentence and signature from each of the players. The owner plans to keep the collection in the family—or at least she did, until she found out just how much it was worth—so the valuation is primarily a question of how much insurance to buy. Her face, when the appraiser gave her a number:

“Are you serious?” she immediately demanded to know.

After everybody had a lovely time watching this clip yesterday, Grumpypants McGrumperson Keith Olbermann promptly chimed in to inform everybody not to get too excited. First of all, they’re not *actually* “baseball cards” per se, but rather “scorecards” with photographs, and “there are at least two dozen different ones known and at least 100 of them in total in existence– even I have a bunch. And they’re in all the catalogs and they have a name. They’re called Mort Rogers 1871 Boston scorecards and the 10 of them there are NOT worth a million dollars.” You know he’s just lovely at parties.

Yeah, well, the letter makes the whole kit and caboodle a precious family heirloom and regardless the collection is likely worth more than a hundred grand so if she does choose to sell, she basically found a bunch of money crammed into a drawer. Either way, I call it a happy ending and an instant Antiques Roadshow classic.