“The vintage cards, we deal with them all day, every day.  The same vintage card can be worth a hundred bucks, or it can be worth 100-thousand bucks or more," Brown says. "It just all depends on condition. The thing is, nobody really knew how to handle cards through the years, so many didn’t survive in great shape, which is why the ones that are in pristine shape are so sought after and so expensive.”

The best cards will be auctioned in August, at the National Sports Collectors Convention in Baltimore.  The set could be worth up to 3 million dollars, which will be divided among 20 cousins related to Carl Hench, who stashed the cards away before dying in the 1940s.