Woman finds historic baseball card collection in her old barn house

    MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (WMUR) -- A Manchester woman was shocked after finding something unexpected inside her old barn house.

Friends and contractors restoring Toni Pappas’ home discovered 52 baseball cards from the late 1930s and early 1940s.

One of those cards is a Ted Williams rookie card.

“Right away, I thought, 'Oh my gosh, those were Billy's cards',” said homeowner Pappas.

The collection was hidden in the walls of Pappas’ barn, where she lived with her late husband for many years and where he grew up.

“All of a sudden, I look in there, about a foot down. There’s 51 more cards. I start pulling them out, pulling them out, pulling them out. We have 52 cards total, and we’re going through them, and we just recognize Ted Williams right off the bat,” said contractor Ron Piecuch.

The cards could be worth tens of thousands of dollars, but Pappas said they’re worth much more than money.

“I can reminisce and imagine my husband at 10 or 12 years old. He was looking at all these cards, playing with them, trading them off with other kids, and probably dreaming that he’d be a great athlete someday,” said Pappas.

Billy Pappas was a baseball Hall of Famer at the University of New Hampshire, a player for his Air Force football team and the love of Toni Pappas’ life.

“I think he’s smiling down at us. I really think he’s laughing and happy that we found them,” Toni Pappas said.

If she does sell the cards, Toni Pappas said she’ll likely donate the proceeds to the sports scholarship she has in her husband’s name at UNH.