1934 Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig & Jimmie Foxx Signed Tour of Japan Photograph....

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Sold on Jul 31, 2014 for:

$56,762.50 Bid Source: Live: Floor bidder

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A study in sluggers from the Land of the Rising Sun

1934 Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig & Jimmie Foxx Signed Tour of Japan Photograph. It's the Mount Rushmore of Depression-age sluggers, a trio that altered the course of baseball history as significantly as the Tour in which this photograph finds them engaged. Together they would supply 1,741 baseballs to fans in the outfield bleachers and reinvigorate a game damaged by swelling corruption in the closing years of the Dead Ball Era. On a 1934 Tour of Japan team laden with Hall of Fame legends, these three names command the boldest ink in the sport's record books.

And it is with the boldest ink that each long ball artist autographs this previously unknown photographic portrait, a spectacular relic that was consigned by the Japanese family that acquired the autographs personally eight decades ago (we'll include the packaging in which the photo was shipped to our Dallas offices). Each burly batsman holds the instrument of his immortality in the approximately 6x8" (borders thinly hand-trimmed) sepia-toned portrait and autographs his image without any distracting adornment of personalization or sentiment. The lightest brushes to the tail end of Gehrig and Foxx' surnames are not sufficient to undermine the characterization of each autograph as pristine. Each of the three autographs ranks among the finest exemplars ever found on a photograph. Short of the aforementioned (and neatly executed) trimming, the photo itself is likewise free of any distractions of note.

The growth of the sport of baseball from our National Pastime into an international phenomenon is most firmly predicated upon this trans-Pacific voyage in 1934. Domestically, the transformation of the game from slap-and-sprint to slug-and-saunter is due to this trio of Tourists specifically. As such, this peerless relic marks perhaps the greatest stage of baseball's evolution in forty-eight square inches of faultless photography. Full LOA from PSA/DNA. Full LOA from James Spence Authentication.

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