Sotheby’s to auction ‘the most complete Jewish baseball card collection in the world’
The collection, estimated to sell for more than $500,000, only starts with Sandy Koufax
A Sandy Koufax rookie baseball card displayed by the Unclaimed Property Division of the Colorado State Treasurer at the State Capitol in Denver, Colorado, March 10, 2015. (Craig F. Walker / The Denver Post)
(JTA) — For many Jewish fans who collect baseball cards, the joy of opening a new pack and finding a Jewish player is second to none. That was Seymour Stoll’s experience years ago when he drew a Sandy Koufax card at 14 years old.
Inspired by that sense of pride, Stoll set out to collect the cards of every Jewish player in baseball history — around 200 total. More than 50 years later, his complete collection is going up for auction at Sotheby’s on Jan. 25, with an estimated price of $500,000 to $700,000.
Touted as “the most complete Jewish baseball card collection in the world,” Stoll’s archive features over 500 cards representing 191 Jewish players. It claims to contain at least one card for every Jewish player who has appeared in a professional game as of the 2024 season. (A similar but much smaller set of Jewish baseball cards was produced and sold throughout the 2000s.)
The players most represented in the collection are Hall of Famers Koufax and Hank Greenberg. Other well-known Jewish stars such as Norm and Larry Sherry, Ron Blomberg and more contemporary players like Ian Kinsler and Ryan Braun are all featured. Lipman Pike, the first Jewish baseball star and one of the sport’s first-ever professional players, is also represented.
The most valuable card in the set is an 1867 tintype — an old-fashioned metallic print — of Philadelphia Athletics star Levi Meyerle, one of two Meyerle tintypes in existence. Stoll told Sports Collectors Digest that he bought the card for $750 around 30 years ago and later had it appraised at $250,000 to $300,000.
Other standouts include a rare card of 1930s New York Giants star Philip Weintraub, a 1946 Cuban series card of Max Rosenfeld and a 1915 PM1 Ornate Frame Pin of Benny Kauff. There’s also a fake card of former Cincinnati Reds player Harry Chozen — a card that Chozen’s family created after the Reds refused to have one made because Chozen was Jewish.
“This collection not only celebrates achievements but also sheds light on the challenges Jewish players faced on and off the field,” reads the Sotheby’s listing, which notes that Koufax and Greenberg both faced antisemitism during their careers.
Stoll’s collection has been on display at 11 major museums around the United States — including the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia and the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles — as well as synagogues, libraries and community centers.
“Everybody loves something whether you’re young, you’re old, and it gives you a sense of pride of what the baseball players did to integrate Jews into society,” Stoll, now a physician in California, said in 2020. “In the old days, they would be blackballed and had to hide their Jewish heritage. Today, they’re welcomed with open arms. It shows the evolution of the game, the evolution towards the feelings of Jewish players and the country in general.”
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