The Alan Marc Smith Card Collection

Alan Marc Smith (AMS) started collecting cards in the late sixties and early seventies. Like most kids growing up in the Boston area, his passion ran deep for the Celtics, Bruins, and Red Sox. Collecting, trading and "flipping" cards were a way for him to stay connected to his heroes; Yastrzemski, Havlicek and Bobby Orr. Inevitably, as Smith grew older, and interests changed, the cards were relegated to shoe boxes, put away in some dark corner of the attic, some even thrown away.

Many years later, Smith's collecting fires were reignited when his then future wife, Lisa, presented him with a birthday gift consisting of the rookie cards of his four favorite athletes — Staubach, Orr, Yastrzemski and Havlicek.

Smith's re-entry into card collecting started small, his focus primarily on finding those cards he remembered from his youth. Gradually, the "bug" eventually took hold, escalating into an almost obsessive matching their respective player's jersey number - like a Lou Gehrig #4 of 7 - or cards numbered 3 from various rare Babe Ruth insert series.

Smith's endeavor involved creating a vast network of "friends" at shows, private auctions and hobby shops helping in the search for the rarest signature cards, bat cards, and jersey cards. As his reputation for aggressive buying grew, the cards and memorabilia started finding him.

Among the apples of his collecting eye is the entire set of Donruss 1 of 1 Babe Ruth cards offered in this sale. All seven of these cards came from the 1925 Babe Ruth game-used jersey cutting ceremony that Donruss held in 2003 at ESPN Zone in NYC. He didn't seek out one or two of these seven 1 of 1 cards that existed, but all seven. Other points of pride include the infamous Alexander Cartwright 1/1 signature cut card — the only known example featuring the autograph of the true inventor of baseball, and his collection of memorabilia from the 1912 Red Sox.

Some select highlights from the AMS collection are pictured here.