GUEST: One of my hobbies is to go to garage and estate sales. And we... my husband and I do it several times a year. We went to Atlanta about eight years ago and there was a box with magazines and photographs-- old photographs-- and I asked the gentleman what he would like for the box and he said, "Ten dollars." So I bought the whole box for ten dollars. And we did not realize that these files were in there till we got home. We said, "This is not the real Bobby Jones," and then we convinced ourselves it was.
APPRAISER: Well, I can say it certainly is the real Bobby Jones. It's the legal correspondence between the Spalding sporting goods company and Bobby Jones for about a ten-year period from 1931 to 1941. As you know, he won the Grand Slam in 1930. And he was world- famous after that. And the Spalding sporting goods company, which is still very much in business today, sought him out and asked him if they could develop a contractual relationship so he could promote their sporting goods products, particularly golfing products. And what you have, at least as I've gone through it so far, there are four different signed contracts between Bobby Jones and the Spalding sporting goods company. And he signed them all. These are his personal copies. This is a wonderful promo here. This, I believe, was sent to Bobby Jones to proofread as one of his advertisements.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: I find this particularly intriguing, Toni. In 1932, which is right after the first of these contracts was signed, a Tommy McAuliffe, the world champion armless golfer, wrote to Spalding sporting goods and asked if he could be introduced to Bobby Jones to play him a round of golf. Now, of course, we don't know if he ever played that round of golf, but it is wonderfully intriguing. What you have, though, is a wonderful legal file as well as a historical file of, of... to my mind, still the world's greatest golfer. I wish I had more time to have looked at it further, but what I see here is very exciting and, uh... you paid ten dollars for it.
GUEST: I paid ten dollars for the whole box.
APPRAISER: I would say, Toni, that what you have here, conservatively, in the marketplace would sell for $15,000.
GUEST: That's marvelous.
APPRAISER: It's remarkable.
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: It's wonderful.
