Family and sports — likely in that order. Those were John Jay Barry's greatest loves. Though he passed away some 20 years ago, the den of his home on Main Street still personifies the nostalgic renaissance man who used to occupy it.

Beside his desk (a deep mahogany brown wood encasement that stretches from the floor to the ceiling and nearly wall to wall) is a latch hook rug with the Brown University seal.

An authentic Lionel train snakes across the top shelf of the desk, next to a series of one of a kind hand made ships. In the lower shelves are bounded collections of Brown University newsletters, Warren High School year books, professional sports memorabilia and trinkets of Americana.

The room is spotless, dignified and keen and enveloped by books and family photos. It by no means has the feel of a museum or shrine. It's a warm and social room, with a welcoming couch and table.

Opposite a sitting chair flanked by a record player is a closet door. There, stored away for decades in a brown Landis Boots box, sat John Barry's latest gift to his family.

A 1914 Babe Ruth rookie baseball card — just the tenth card of its kind to be discovered — which sold at auction in April.

Renaissance Man

John Barry was the former sports editor of the Warren Times Gazette and Barrington Times. He founded or helped form the Warren Little League, the country's first schoolboy indoor soccer league, a semi pro football team and the Brown University Football Newsletter. Barry is a contributing member of both the Warren and Brown University Athletic Halls of Fame who aided area schools, the George Hale Library and was active in local politics.

His card collection was just one of his many interests. It was a casual hobby — his cards were like old family photos — something worth looking at during a trip down Memory Lane.

Before his death in December of 1985 he made mention of the Babe Ruth card to his children.

"He talked with me and Bill and Jay," remembered John's only daughter Kate. "It was do this and don't do that and watch out for this — that kind of thing.

"I remember, he mentioned to Bill that he thought the [Babe Ruth] card was valuable and maybe worth $10,000."

From the brown boot box stored in John's den closet, Bill fished the card out and sought the advice of some card experts shortly after their father's death.

"Bill received one offer from a card collector for $8,000," remembered John's wife of many years, Ella Barry. "We knew if that guy was willing to offer $8,000 in cash on the spot, it had to be worth a lot more."

Bill declined the offer.

He and older brother Jay fit their father's card in a plastic case and eventually placed it in a safety deposit box.

There it sat for several years until Jay had a chance conversation at a camp ground in 2005.

"I saw an old friend and we got to talking," Jay remembered. "We started talking about baseball cards and I mentioned the Babe Ruth.

"He had read an article about how that card sold for quite a bit of money in an auction. I told him I'd love to read the article."

It was a full year later when the two men crossed paths again at the same Connecticut camp ground.

"He said 'ya know, I have that article.' So I read it and the card had sold for $270,000. I looked at the picture — it was the same card."

The Babe

The 1914 Babe Ruth rookie card is the second most valuable baseball card behind only the 1909 M206 Honus Wagner tobacco card (which recently sold at auction for $2.35 million). Some experts within the card collecting industry believe the '14 Ruth will one day surpass the '09 Wagner due to the demand for Ruth memorabilia and the rarity of the artifact. Over the last two decades alone, the 1914 Ruth has increased in value tenfold.

The card was produced by the Baltimore Sun Newspaper in 1914. Each member of the 1914 Baltimore Orioles minor league team were photographed individually with the team's "home" and "abroad" schedule printed on the backs. The cards were Orioles promotions as well as promotion for the newspaper.

"I always wondered how many people would hold onto these things," Jay said. "They were throw-aways. I go to Paw Sox games or to Cumberland Farms and grab the little schedule to see when I might go to a game, but how many people actually hang onto those things? That's what this card was."

The card was produced in both a blue and red version.

Babe Ruth was just 19 years old at the time, fresh out of St. Mary's School for Boys.

Before the end of the 1914 season, he was sold to the Boston Red Sox with teammates Ernie Shore and Ben Egan for $25,000. Ruth was assigned to Providence where he played for the Greys for the remainder of the 1914 season.

The Barry's aren't sure how John took possession of the card, but assume it was given to him by his father or uncle, both of whom shared a close bond with John and a common love of baseball.

The quarter of a million dollars the card sold for in 2006 dwarfed the $10,000 Jay, Bill, Kate and Ella suspected the card was worth and was enough to capture their attention and imagination.

Bill called Robert Edwards Auction House in New Jersey. That was the auction company through which the Ruth card fetched $270,000 the year before and of the 10 known Ruth rookies, Robert Edwards had handled the sale of six.

"I remember when Bill called the auction house, he was cute with the operator," said Jay. "He said we had some memorabilia they may be interested. He said we had some old Chicago Bears football programs... and some old New York Giants programs... and oh yeah, one of those 1914 Babe Ruth rookie cards!"

The operator was audibly shocked and immediately asked for Bill to hold as she connected him with auction house president.

Robert Edwards Auction president, Robert Lifson is a collector whose boyish love and savant knowledge of the card hobby gave comfort to the Barry's as they made their decision to sell their father's prized card.

Lifson rarely travels from his New Jersey office, but staring the potential sale of another 1914 Ruth, he gathered up some contracts, ducked into his car and turned it onto 95 North.

"If he was some hot shot from Jersey we may have held onto the card or called Sotheby's, but he set us at ease immediately," remembered Jay.

"He was very reputable," said Kate. "When we met him, everything just started falling into place."

Ella and her three children met with Lifson at Bill's house. Lifson was fascinated with John's collection of 1,000 or so cards, bags of sports buttons, programs, pictures and ticket stubs.

The Ruth card was given a PSA2 grade, a lower grade than the card which sold the previous year, due mainly because of a small amount of paper loss on the back of the card. The front picture was as high a quality as any of the other 10 Ruth rookies in existence.

Another find

At that same meeting, Lifson first saw another prized item of Barry's collection. A heretofore, unknown and unrecorded picture of the 1914 Orioles — including Ruth.

The team picture was displayed in a $1 frame along side several 8x10 pictures of Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams — hand me downs from his father — inside Jay's Benefit Street home.

A few years back, Jay had a flood in the lower rooms of his house and his wife Lori took the pictures down and stashed them in a suitcase stored in a back room.

Jay remembered the old picture as an after thought and described it to Lifson over the phone. Lifson was skeptical at first, but his skepticism turned to astonishment when the picture was placed before him that day at Bill's house.

"He looked at the picture and he expected to see something quite different than what we described," said Kate. "He was fascinated. It was more than he thought. Nobody knew this card existed."

Like the Ruth rookie card, the team photo was produced by the Baltimore Sun. In the left lower corner was written "Compliments of Emanuel Daniel, Sporting Editor, Baltimore Sun." Lifson authenticated the card and ensured its grading.

He leafed through John's collection, picking out a few more cards.

The family signed the contract with Robert Edwards Auctions and Lifson left with 38 of John Barry's cards, the team picture and the 1914 Babe Ruth.

"I had some apprehension about selling," admitted Kate. "There were feelings of nostalgia. I also thought, well if we waited seven years, the [Ruth] card would be 100 years old."

"But we wanted to enjoy it as a family," said Jay. "Life can be short and I had just been refocused on how there were no guarantees. We all knew the time was right. Everything felt like it fell into place."

Auction excitement

Last April 7, 2007, on the anniversay of John and Ella's wedding day, Robert Edward's Spring online auction began.

Among the 1,594 auction lots, John Jay Barry's collection of cards once stashed in a modest boot box were the unquestioned jewels.

The family made it a daily habit of checking and rechecking the progress of the auction. Both the Ruth card and team card were given $10,000 reserves, but in the early going, bids came fast and furious.

Kate, an elementary school teacher in Bristol, incorporated the bidding process into a classroom exercise in which her students learned place value by monitoring the bidding process.

"That was pretty neat," said Jay. "It turned into a learning tool for the kids. It's a lesson I bet they'll never forget."

"They loved it," said Kate. "I just remember the kids constantly asking me if they could hit the 'refresh' button."

By the time bidding ended on April 28, John Barry's collection had fetched "a substantial amount of money."

Ella was in the process of renovating the kitchen of her Main Street home. After the cost of the kitchen was taken out and commissions and taxes were paid, she divided the money equally among her children.

The speechless collector

Nowadays card collecting is big business. Price guides like Tuff Stuff and Beckett Baseball Card Monthly are far more apart of the card collecting scene than chewing gum or tobacco.

In that sense, John Jay Barry was a purist. He never viewed his collection as an investment, let alone something that would one day provide a level of security for his loved ones.

His card library followed few lines of order. He had a preference for players he knew personally (and he knew many), Red Sox players and those from his childhood — the 1930's and 40's. But his sports collection wasn't tethered to any one era or even sport.

It was the memories more than the cards themselves that he cherished.

The corners of his cards were rounded and worn from being handled. Plastic cases weren't a part of his hobby.

He would occasionally visit card shows and had friends and acquaintances anxious to trade with him.

But Barry rarely traded. He seemed sentimentally attached to each member of his card team.

Ella remembered an advertisement for replica cards from the 1910's that John saw in his final months. He told his wife he wanted those cards.

A check, an envelope, a stamp and three weeks later, Barry was on his bed with his cards littered around him.

"He just liked to look through them and have them around him," Ella remembered. "He just loved having those cards."

"It would have been difficult for Dad to sell them," said Jay. "His hand would have been trembling as he handed it over.

"But I think he's happy. He'd probably be speechless to know how much they sold for... and Dad wasn't a man who was speechless too often."

by adam cote

adamcote@eastbaynewspapers.com