This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/27/2013
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. This is a real one, and we'd be surprised if there were as many as fifteen real Babe Ruth Candy wrappers in the entire world. 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. Authentic examples such as this are actually very easy to distinguish from the fakes, but real ones are so rare that few collectors have ever even had the opportunity to compare. Babe Ruth’s “Home Run” candy bar was only produced in 1928. Today all that remain from that short-lived confectionary endeavor are a handful of wrappers, a few advertising items, one Babe Ruth Candy Club membership card, 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 Babe Ruth Candy wrapper known in the entire hobby was a single, completely trimmed example that was owned by Barry Halper. An exciting find of approximately a dozen wrappers surfaced in the late 1980s, providing collectors with the opportunity to own this classic for the first time (since 1928 of course). We're not sure if a single additional authentic wrapper surfaced since the late 1980s. 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 an outstanding example. It displays normal wrapper folds, some fine wrinkling (common to all Ruth candy wrappers), and is otherwise in Excellent 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 at that time. 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 magnificent and extremely rare original 1928 Babe Ruth's Home Run Candy wrapper.