AT first glance, the old baseball glove you've found at a flea market doesn’t look like anything special.
Just a normal, used mitt - could be from anywhere.
But don’t leave just yet. You may, just may, be walking away with a small fortune.
That dream scenario unfolded for the company a Florida-based sports memorabilia collector worked for a few years ago when a random find at a Long Island flea market eventually raked in a whopping $330,000.
Aaron Rothschild has seen it all in a 30-year career and although uncovering a golden glove - this one in particular just happened to be worn by the legendary Jackie Robinson in the 1956 World Series - is a rarity these days, the hope of scooping something really special remains.
In the modern world and with the advent of NFT and digital piece ownership, the sports memorabilia business is now a $30billion juggernaut that is expanding all the time.
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Finding a pair of Tom Brady's cleats or a LeBron James game shirt at a garage sale just isn't going to happen.
But when it comes to the sporting heroes of yesteryear, you just never know.
"The golden era would be before it was so easy to do research," the memorabilia expert from Dutch Auctions told The U.S. Sun.
"That would be when somebody were to put something out in the flea market, because they had no ability to research what it was.
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"Throughout my career, I have had the opportunity to work with some items you would label as 'finds.'
"When I worked at a company called Steiner Sports, they had sold a Jackie Robinson 1956 game used World Series glove for $330,000 in 2013.
"And at the time, and maybe to this day, that was the only Jackie Robinson game-used glove on the market. And it happened to be a World Series glove, which was even better.
"A guy bought it at a flea market in Long Island for around $20.
"It all stopped now, proper, professional recognition of items started in the 1990s while the actual serial numbering and hologram thing began in the 2000s.
"Finds really don't happen anymore because of the Internet. Also, because of eBay and Google, if somebody's at a garage sale and they have a telephone in their pocket, they start searching online and the process has already begun.
"Very rarely are you at a garage sale and you find a true piece."
That's not to say all is lost when attempting to uncover a piece of true sporting heritage.
"If you happen to be in the estate business, if you work with men and women who are older, and they pass away, and they're going to estates, that's where you may find a piece," Rothschild continued.
"That's where family heirlooms surface. The golden era would be before it was so easy to do research. That would be when somebody were to put something out in the flea market, because they had no ability to research what it was. "
True to his word, only last week Boca Raton-based Rothschild played his own part in a startling discovery.
"I sold a 1926 St. Louis Cardinals World Series ring only last week," he enthused.
"It's the first World Series title for the St. Louis Cardinals, it was a member of the pitching staff and went for $30,000.
"I don't know what the gentleman who I bought it from paid for it.
"But he found it in a collection of an estate jeweler. The rest of the items were just regular pieces but sitting right there is this ring.
"On the top, it says 1926 St. Louis Cardinals World Champions and is engraved with the name Herman S Bell.
"What made the 1926 World Series so special is the fact that being the Cardinals' first victory, they absolutely mowed down the New York Yankees with some unbelievable pitching.
"And this ring is a member of the pitching team, but as I said, these kinds of finds are extremely rare.
"I was so surprised that this ring would make it all the way to a vintage jeweler dealer. It's a very special one, and it's absolutely gorgeous."
Baseball uniforms were once found in all manner of places, thanks in part to teams like the New York Yankees back at the start of the 20th century happily sending works teams their used gear from the previous season.
"That stuff got scattered everywhere," he said.
The ones that got away, however, continue to sting even for the most experienced of collectors.
"I had been told a story by Dale Berra, Yogi Berra's son, that he would play baseball in the backyard with Mickey Mantle's kids using their father's equipment, and they would break the bats," he recalled with a shudder.
"They would hit them into rocks and throw them into trees.
"If you had one of those today? Well, you would have a $500,000 bat on your hands. These kids were tossing them away!"
Finding a gem is a tough task, but the hard work has only just begun. Now someone has to prove the bat or glove was actually used by a former superstar and when.
Talk about searching for a needle in a haystack. There is, however, a man you can call.
"There's a legitimate process for authenticating anything and there are companies in the space, and that's all they do," explained Rothschild.
"They're authenticators. And when it comes to an item like game-used gloves today in 2023, you would send it to a company called PSA DNA and they would do an 18-point inspection, compare it with ordering records for the players, and look for distinctive marks compared to photographs in that time period.
"I have a friend who does this, and his specialty is game-used bats.
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"He has all of the ordering records from going all the way back to the creation of the Louisville Slugger company and tries to match those orders with the model number.
"His ability is to confirm that a bat was ordered by a player during a certain time period, and then, his other skill is assessing the game. It's another comparative process."
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