Collect Baseball Memorabilia: Uniforms to Cards

As American as root beer and apple pie, baseball has been a sporting obsession for over 150 years. The first official games were played in New York, and the Knickerbocker Baseball Club set out the rules we know today in 1845. By the 1920's players such as New York Yankees slugger "Babe" Ruth were national heroes.

Ruth hit a record 60 home runs in 1927. Since then, there have been lots of other legends that have graced the nation's parks and then earned their own particular place in the Hall of Fame. In the 1950's some of the biggest names were Ted "The Kid" Williams, Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle.

Williams was considered the greatest all-round hitter ever with a batting average of 406 in the golden year of 1941. Relics from this and other great eras are becoming very popular and are attracting crazy prices at auctions such as Lou Gehrig's 1927 Yankees jersey fetching an extraordinary $488,000.

The expression "dressed to the nines" is thought to come from the maximum nine players that a baseball team fields. Most collectable worn items include warm up jackets, gloves and caps. Signed items such as bats and balls generally attract the highest bids, while anything relating to a deceased Hall Of Fame player naturally tend to have higher values.

There are many themes that fans can focus their collection on however the most popular are Major League teams like the Boston Red Sox from the historic Fenway Park or world famous rivals, The New York Yankees. Then there are World Series and All Star games with their accompanying match tickets, badges and gold and diamond commemorative rings.

A growing collector's niche centres on the so-called Negro leagues, which were formed in the late 1800's and existed right up until the 1960's. Jackie Robinson ended this long-lasting sporting apartheid when he signed for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Collectors could also look to the game played elsewhere around the world such as Japan, Mexico and Cuba who all have thriving baseball scenes.