LOS ANGELES – A baseball signed by Henry Ford will be auctioned by Huggins & Scott Auctions from July 26-August 8. It is just the second baseball signed by Ford to be offered at auction. Interested bidders may participate in the auction online.
The Ford Motor Company had custom-made baseballs produced for A Century of Progress International Exposition World’s Fair in 1933-1934. The World’s Fair was held in Chicago to commemorate the city’s centennial. The Ford Motor Company issued baseballs with the “1903 Ford 1933 Safety Glass Exhibit” logo stamped on the balls. The balls also featured an art deco “V8” logo promoting the V8 engine the Ford Motor Company introduced the previous year.
The Safety Glass Exhibit was considered one of the highlights of the World’s Fair. The exhibition was held in the Travel and Transportation building, which hosted the Automobile Theatre. Visitors entered a screen-enclosed tunnel and threw baseballs aiming at a glass target. The ball would ricochet off the shatter-proof glass. People who threw the ball at the exhibit received a commemorative good luck coin that read, “Safety Glass Sharpshooter.” Engraved on the coin was an image of a baseball hitting the Safety Glass.
Henry Ford signed the World Fair’s commemorative baseballs for students at the Ford Trade School in New York City on December 16, 1933.
This is just the second Henry Ford autographed baseball to surface on the auction market. In 2016, a Ford signed baseball sold for $15,000.
Additional information on the Ford signed baseball can be found at https://hugginsandscott.com/cgi-bin/showitem.pl?itemid=37261
About Huggins & Scott Auctions
Huggins and Scott, based in Silver Spring MD and founded in 2002, is a leading catalog auction company specializing in sports and Americana collectibles. The company was founded by current president Bill Huggins, who has been in the collectibles business since 1976 when he opened his baseball card store. Specializing in vintage sports and non-sports cards, autographs, memorabilia, and a wide range of collectibles for every level of collector, Huggins and Scott runs four online Masterpiece Auctions per year.
Source: Huggins & Scott Auctions