1928 "Ruth's Home Run Candy" Wrapper Featuring Babe Ruth

Sold For:

$960

Year:

1928

Auction:

2019 Spring

Lot #:

2073

Category:

Post-1900 Baseball Memorabilia

Exceedingly rare wrapper to “Ruth’s Home Run” candy bar produced in 1928. This wrapper is a lot rarer than collectors realize simply because there are so many reproductions. While it is impossible to say how many authentic examples are known today, we believe it is probably fewer than twenty. All the rest are reprints. For some reason, forgers like this item, probably because it is so great for display and because it features a portrait of Babe Ruth. It should be noted that Ruth’s “Home Run” candy bar was produced for only one or two years in the mid-to-late 1920s. Today all that remains from that short-lived confectionary endeavor are a handful of wrappers, a few advertising items, a few Babe Ruth Candy Club membership cards, and a modest number of Babe Ruth Candy cards (one card of Ruth was included with each bar). As recently as twenty years ago, the only Ruth's "Home Run" candy wrapper known in the entire hobby was a single, completely trimmed example that was owned by Barry Halper. A small find in the late 1980s, which basically accounts for virtually all of the remaining authentic examples, provided collectors with the opportunity to own this classic for the first time (since the 1920s of course). The rarity of the wrapper may be explained by the printed message along each border that reads, “Save this wrapper and ask your dealer how to get a Babe Ruth Home Run baseball.” When kids were given the choice of saving a wrapper or receiving a free baseball, the baseball probably always won out, thus contributing significantly to the rarity of wrappers today. The offered wrapper (7.5 x 5 inches) is toned and displays numerous creases throughout (common to all Ruth candy wrappers; it had to be tightly folded and sealed around the candy), as well as a few tiny interior and edge tears. In Very Good condition overall. When the small find of authentic Babe Ruth wrappers first surfaced in the late 1980s, they were selling in the $2,000 range. In the years since, the reprints have made collectors understandably cautious and have actually hurt the value of the originals, because so few originals exist that collectors tend to just shy away from them (or are not interested in buying one because they think they have an authentic example when in fact they they have a reproduction). This is a classic Ruth piece and only the third we have offered in the past 15 years. Reserve $200. Estimate (open).