Historic Cardinals Memorabilia Set For Auction Block

BELLEVILLE (Alex Fees) - What appeared to be a basic housecleaning and auction turned up some baseball treasures in Belleville. Hidden in the basement, boxes of memorabilia from the 1940s.

World Series programs from 1943, two years before the end of World War II, featured advertisements making fun of Adolph Hitler. They read, "Victory is in the Cards, but not for you, Adolph."

World Series program ads from the following year, between the St. Louis Cardinals and the St. Louis Browns, featured caricatures of a Japanese soldier.

Call it the accidental archives. For nearly sixty years, these materials could be found hidden in a Belleville basement, alongside fan scorecards with names like Musial, Slaughter, and Schoendienst.

But they were not found until 2006, in the Belleville basement of the home of the late Claude Lipe, Jr. They were discovered by officials with the Prindable-Schumacher Auction Service, in Belleville. And they will be auctioned off to the public, beginning Sunday at 11am.

The collection contains countless newspaper articles, including those by a cub reporter named Bob Broeg, who went on to become a famous sportswriter. There is a also a Cardinals official 1949 schedule.

There are promotional photographs, approximately eight-by-five inches in size, that could have been the predecessor of the modern-day baseball card. They feature names like Tyrus Raymond Cobb, Babe Ruth, Dizzy Dean, Honus Wagner and Henry Louis "Lou" Gehrig.

There are tickets, notes, maps, and lists, too numerous to detail. There are copies of Baseball Magazine. There are souvenir programs for the 1948 Boston Red Sox. And the 1950 Cardinals. There are advertisements in Cardinals baseball programs for beer, like Budweiser, and soda, like Pepsi. Apparently, some things never change.

Prindable-Schumacher Auction Service is located at 1436 East Main Street.