Bob Ross: The Joy of Baseball Cards
While best known as the legendary artist and host of The Joy of Painting television show, Bob Ross had a surprising secondary passion – baseball cards. Throughout his life, Ross amassed an enormous collection of baseball cards that he loved to pore over in his spare time. Despite his fame as a painter, Ross’ baseball card collection remains relatively unknown. For those who knew him best, it came as no surprise given his deep love of America’s pastime.
Ross was born in 1942 in Daytona Beach, Florida. He grew up playing little league baseball and spending hours at local card shops, trading and collecting cards with other kids in the neighborhood. His favorite players included Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron. As a young boy, Ross dreamed of one day having a complete set of Topps cards from the 1950s and 1960s, considered the golden era of baseball cards.
In the late 1960s after serving in the Air Force, Ross began teaching art lessons. It was a struggle to earn a living and support his growing family. Around this time, Topps released the very first baseball cards with gum, kickstarting the modern baseball card craze. Ross saw this as an opportunity. He began buying unopened boxes of cards wholesale and reselling individual packs and boxes to local card shops and collectors. This side business proved quite lucrative for Ross and helped support his teaching career in its early years.
Through the 1970s, as Ross continued teaching art and his family grew, so too did his baseball card collection. He amassed complete sets going back to the early 1950s and was always on the hunt for rare rookie cards and stars of the era like Hank Aaron’s 1954 Topps card. Friends and fellow collectors recall Ross having one of the finest vintage collections in the region during this time. It remained a secret passion outside of his circle of baseball card enthusiast friends.
In the early 1980s, with three sons to support, Ross decided to try something new – teaching art on public television with a show aimed at helping others learn the joy of painting. The Joy of Painting premiered in 1983 and became an unexpected runaway success. With his newfound fame and fortune, Ross was able to fully indulge his passion for baseball cards. He worked with dealers to track down the rarest vintage cards to complete his collection, including legendary specimens like the iconic 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle rookie card, considered the Holy Grail of the hobby.
By the late 1980s, at the peak of his television fame, Ross’ collection was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and occupied an entire room in his home. He enjoyed showing off prized cards to fellow collectors but remained mostly low-key about the collection outside of hobby circles. Friends recall Ross being more excited to show off a new acquisition for his collection than a new painting technique. He even had his favorite cards professionally graded and encapsulated to preserve their condition.
With the baseball card market booming in the early 1990s thanks to rising prices and interest spurred by The Joy of Painting, Ross began to appreciate the true monetary value of his lifelong collection. He considered selling some of his prized pieces to fund his retirement or pass down money to his sons. Ross worked with some of the leading auction houses and dealers at the time to get appraisals and discuss potential auction block appearances for keys pieces.
Before any cards went up for sale, tragedy struck. Bob Ross passed away in 1995 at the young age of 52 from lymphoma. After his passing, his sons went through their father’s belongings and came across the famed baseball card collection, taking inventory of the sheer magnitude of what their father had amassed. Working with the same auction houses and experts their father consulted, they consigned the entire collection for auction in 1996 through Butterfield & Butterfield. The two-day event was one of the highest grossing baseball card auctions of all time.
Ross’ prized 1952 Mantle rookie fetched an astounding $126,500, setting a new record price for any single card sold at the time. His complete vintage sets from the 1950s also broke records. In total, the auction grossed over $3 million for the collection, showing just how much an average collector like Ross was able to amass substantial wealth through his lifelong love of the hobby. The money helped provide for Ross’ sons and cement his legacy outside of just his iconic paintings.
To this day, Bob Ross’ basement collection remains one of the most famous in hobby history. While he was a pop culture icon as the host of The Joy of Painting, Ross’ secret passion for baseball cards showcased another side of the man – a small town kid who never forgot his love of America’s pastime. Through his card collecting over decades, Ross not only indulged his hobby but found a way to support his family and leave behind a fortune, all thanks to his joy of baseball cards. His story serves as inspiration for collectors everywhere.
