In 1922 the New York Yankees were the most lucrative gate attraction in baseball history. Since acquiring Babe Ruth from Boston in 1920, Yankees home attendance had more than doubled, and home receipts had followed suit every year since. Every team that hosted the Yankees -- or hosted them as visitors -- was cashing in. This check, signed by Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert as President of The American League Base Ball Club of New York, Inc., dated August 17, 1922, and drawn on Yorkville Bank at 1511 Third Avenue in New York, is the physical record of exactly that transaction. Made payable to the Detroit American League Baseball Club for $10,457.70, it represents the Yankees' payment to Detroit for their share of gate receipts from three games played August 15, 16, and 17 -- itemized on the back stub as $3,757.90, $3,554.60, and $3,245.70 respectively.

The 1922 Yankees won 94 games and captured their second straight American League pennant, finishing just one game ahead of the St. Louis Browns. Detroit finished 15 games back in third place, but games against the Yankees still meant a payday. The Yankees' share of road receipts had more than doubled since Ruth's arrival -- meaning every team in the American League was profiting from the Babe whether they liked it or not. This check is a direct piece of that financial reality: Ruppert's signature authorizing payment to a road opponent, the routine mechanics of baseball business in the middle of a pennant race, on a day when the Yankees were drawing crowds that no team in the sport could match. Authenticated by JSA, certification number A35885.

Kennedy averaged four to five cigars a day, and his love of cigars became one of the most famous footnotes of his presidency. On the evening of February 6, 1962, Kennedy called Press Secretary Pierre Salinger into his office and asked him to procure "about 1,000 Petit Upmanns" by the following morning. Salinger worked through the night scouring Washington tobacconists, and returned the next day with 1,200 Cuban cigars. Kennedy smiled, opened his desk, and signed the decree banning all Cuban products from the United States. The man who loved Cuban cigars had just made them illegal for everyone else. With his personal stash secured and Havana off the table, Kennedy turned to the next best thing - and the Philippine government was already way ahead of him.

The paper trail accompanying this cigar tells the full story. In April 1961, Philippine Ambassador Carlos P. Romulo wrote to Kennedy directly after Manila newspapers published a photo of him smoking a cigar, suggesting it "may be a good idea to let you sample what we believe are the best cigars in the world." The cigars were sent through Secretary Salinger to avoid adding to Kennedy's schedule. By July 1961 Romulo was back, writing to Salinger personally: "I have just returned from the Philippines and I bring with me the best cigars in the World -- our Philippine cigars -- and I am sending you these two boxes, one for the President and the other one for you." By January 1963 -- just ten months before Dallas -- Kennedy was writing personally to the new Philippine Ambassador thanking him for "the handsome, personalized, mahogany box of very fine cigars," calling the gift "another demonstration of the warm friendship existing between our countries." The cigar in this display came from that relationship. It remains in its original cellophane sheath, stamped in gold lettering "SPECIALLY MADE FOR PRESIDENT KENNEDY," bearing a Coronas Alhambra label reading "Choicest Philippine Tobacco / Sumatra Wrapper." Above it hangs a photograph purchased directly from the JFK Library, showing Kennedy smoking a cigar aboard the Presidential yacht Honey Fitz on August 31, 1963 -- Labor Day weekend, less than three months before his assassination. The framed display measures 14.5" x 21.5", and is accompanied by photocopies of the complete diplomatic correspondence from the JFK Presidential Library & Museum documenting exactly how this cigar came to sit in the White House.

For 21 years, Walter Johnson stood on the mound at Griffith Stadium as the greatest pitcher in Washington Senators history. On October 15, 1929, he sat down at a desk in Clark Griffith's office and signed a three-year contract to manage the same team he had carried on his back since 1907. This original International Newsreel Corp wire photo captures that exact moment -- Johnson, pen in hand, Griffith watching beside him -- distributed to newspapers across the country the day it happened. The caption on the back reads plainly: "Former Senator pitcher, and holder of more worlds pitching records than any other player in the game today, shown with Clark Griffith, owner of the Washington Senators. Griffith announced today that he signed a three year contract with Johnson to manage his team."

The Washington Daily News described his arrival at the club offices that day as quiet and unostentatious -- no welcoming committee, no bands, no demonstration -- entirely in keeping with the man himself. Johnson stood on the steps of the dugout he had walked for two decades, looked out over the empty park, and said very little. The accompanying newspapers tell the full story: the Springfield Daily Republican running the headline "Washington Senators Sign Walter Johnson to Three-Year Contract," and the Baltimore Evening Sun covering his return as the homecoming it was. For the man who grew up to farm life in Kansas and never lost that quiet simplicity, managing Washington was the dream of many years finally come true. This set -- the original wire photo with its International Newsreel Corp stamp and typed caption intact, alongside the contemporary newspaper coverage -- documents one of the most significant transitions in Senators history, captured on the day it happened.

On August 24, 1938, Walter Johnson visited Washington D.C. and signed baseballs for a crowd of kids - the kind of scene that had followed the Big Train his entire career. What made that particular day different was what the Associated Press caption on the back announced: Johnson, now a Germantown, Maryland farmer, had just filed for election as Montgomery County Commissioner on the Republican ticket. The photo, transmitted by wire on August 25, 1938 and certified directly from the Baltimore Sun's historic archive, captures him at the exact moment his second act in public life began. He is smiling, surrounded by children, signing baseballs -- completely at ease, because this was always who he was. One of the first five players inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936, Johnson had retired to his Germantown farm and almost immediately turned toward public service.

The Baltimore Sun from November 10, 1938 tells the rest of the story. Under the headline "Walter Johnson Victor In Montgomery County," the paper confirms he won the Commissioner's race, launching a political career that would take him all the way to a congressional run in 1940, where he lost to Democrat William D. Byron by 60,037 to 52,258 votes -- a margin of just six percent. After that loss he was re-elected County Commissioner in 1942 and served until his death from a brain tumor in 1946. The farm he retired to in Germantown -- the exact ground where he lived out his post-baseball life as a farmer and elected official -- is today the site of Seneca Valley High School. I know this piece of land well. I went to Seneca Valley. The hallways, the fields, the parking lot where buses pull in every morning -- all of it was once Walter Johnson's farm. For most collectors, this is a piece of baseball and political history. For me it is also a piece of the ground I walked every day for four years, long before I knew whose land it had been. That connection is why this set will never leave my collection.

Costello's Own Copy: The Earliest Surviving "Who's On First?" Radio Script From the Kate Smith Show

In February 1938, Abbott and Costello joined the cast of The Kate Smith Hour, and "Who's On First?" was first performed for a national radio audience on March 24 of that year. What followed became one of the most celebrated comedy routines in American history. Kate Smith's producer Ted Collins had initially refused to let them perform it, fearing it would "get them hissed off the air," and only relented when the duo claimed to have run out of material for that week's show. That gamble paid off and cemented Abbott and Costello as national stars. An early recording of the routine from October 6, 1938 was later placed in the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry, but no copy of the original March broadcast is known to survive. This script comes from that same formative window, when the routine was still being shaped into the version the world would come to know.

What sets this piece apart is its connection to Costello himself. The consignor notes that Costello's name is handwritten into the top right corner, suggesting this was his own personal copy of the script. By their own (likely exaggerated) accounts, Abbott and Costello performed "Who's On First?" thousands of times over their careers, refining it slightly with each performance, though the core structure never changed. The routine was later inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1956, and Time magazine named it the Best Comedy Sketch of the 20th Century in 1999. Surviving radio scripts from this earliest era of the routine's development are exceptionally rare, and one bearing Costello's own handwriting connects directly to the man who turned "Who's On First?" into a piece of permanent American culture.