HOST: At a 2021 ROADSHOW in Connecticut, sports aficionado Simeon Lipman found a hundred-year-old calendar that had somehow survived well into extra innings, and wound up providing one lucky collector with quite a windfall.

GUEST: Wow...

It's a 1917 baseball calendar.

I-I found it online.

It was found on a back of a door in a barn.

And if you know anything about the Red Sox, they won in 1915 and 1916, as indicated on the calendar.

APPRAISER: So what we have here is a promotional calendar for Bunker Hill Breweries...

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: ...for P.B., Purest and Best, ale.

That beer company actually went defunct not long after that calendar was produced.

So it's not like there was a long tradition of these calendars out there.

That's why it was so rare.

That's why I'd never seen one before.

It features the Boston Red Sox team.

What makes this calendar very special is, as you said, it's kind of commemorating the 1915-1916 championships.

We have, uh, several great players of the era.

I remember Tris Speaker being on there and Harry Hooper.

I knew if it was from 1917, Babe Ruth was on there somewhere, and he certainly was.

What did you pay for this calendar?

GUEST: It was a little more than I wanted to spend at the time.

I-I remember it around $200, $250, and then it cost me close to that to frame it.

GUEST (voiceover): My mother was just off camera, and she thinks I'm crazy for collecting a lot of things.

And, you know, "Why did you buy that?

Why do you want that?"

And I was like, it's just a cool old piece.

And I figured it's probably worth $500.

That's what I was told.

APPRAISER: At auction, we'd estimate this at $20,000 to $30,000.

GUEST: Really?

APPRAISER: Yeah.

(exhales) GUEST: $20,000?

APPRAISER: Yeah GUEST: $20,000 to $30,000.

To $30,000?

APPRAISER: Auction estimate.

Yeah, yeah.

It's a spectacular early Babe Ruth piece.

That's what makes it so special.

GUEST: Yes.

(laughing) How much did you say again?

APPRAISER (chuckling): I said it; $20,000 to $30,000.

Yeah.

GUEST (exhales) (chortles) APPRAISER: (chuckles) GUEST: Did you hear that?

$20,000 to $30,000.

(person speaking indistinctly) (laughs) GUEST (voiceover): I-I was flabbergasted.

My chin just hit the floor.

It was just like I finally hit a home run myself.

I brought it home, hung it back on the wall, and enjoyed it for a few more years.

And then it decided, I'm gonna start downsizing.

So I, uh, reached out to an auction house.

The final auction price was $28,000.

I was quite happy.

I hope the people that bought it are enjoying it.

Wasn't enough to buy a sailboat, but I took the proceeds from the auction and the calendar and I bought myself a new truck, which I desperately needed.

So that worked out well.

All these other things I had bought and-and made money on or sold or enjoyed for years, this one was out of the ballpark.