Naismith Notes Slam Dunk At Auction

Hoops Inventor's Notes Sell for $71K at Auction Today!

Helen Carpenter is the granddaughter of James Naismith, inventor of the game of basketball. When Carpenter's mom left her a bunch of family artifacts, she didn't think they were worth looking at:

"My mother told me they were family things and had no value," Carpenter said.

Her mom once tried to get the Smithsonian Museum to take them, Carpenter said, but the museum only offered to put them in its archives, not display them.

"Her response to that was, 'If you are going to keep them in your basement, I'll keep them in my basement,'" Carpenter recalled.

The picture here shows the the original rules for basketball (when they actually called traveling), the whistle Dr. Naismith used when he coached the University of Kansas team, and a photo of the first basketball team - made of of players from the International YMCA Training School in Massachusetts (Springfield College today) circa 1891.

They stayed in her basement for decades, but when Carpenter finally realized she had items including her grandfather's hand-written notes on the first game ever played, she put them up for auction. The auction took place yesterday, and the loot went for a total of $293,972. The big-ticket item was a hand-written account of the first game ever played, which sold for $71,700. If you missed out yesterday, don't worry. You'll get a second shot, when 300 more items go up in a second auction on Dec. 15.
(Source) Heritage Auction Galleries/(Photo by Jim Manoney/DMN)