The story behind this spike is as interesting as the piece itself. After making his historic appearance on ABC’s Nightline in 1989, Josh Evans got a call about a major collection in Maryland from a Ms. Barbera. She had just recently lost her husband and the “new” husband wanted the priceless memorabilia and the memories of husband #1 out of the house. The first husband was Ed Barbera, the ultimate Ted Williams fan. Barbera was badly wounded during WWII from an explosion on a Navy Destroyer and ultimately developed MS and was confined to a wheelchair. But a diehard Red Sox fan, another ex-Navy man took a liking to him: Ted Williams. Becoming fast friends, Barbera went to every spring training, hundreds of Red Sox games (sitting right behind the Red Sox dugout) and built a memorabilia collection par excellence through his contacts. A player favorite, he once was given a game-used bat Mickey Mantle cracked in spring training around 1960. He had to hide it in case Ted saw it (true story). One of the best pieces was this bronze spike Ted wore in his final season of 1960. There were originally two of them sold at auction by Leland's in the late 1980s, but the buyer was a bit of a hobby rapscallion and returned one, but kept the other, saying he had sent both. We went ahead and auctioned off the left spike and after the rapscallion’s recent passing the lefty mate is now here. It so in beautiful condition, the bronzing is vintage from the period and the delight that we finally have this back is extraordinary. We would love to join it with its mate (are you out here?), but it is of course not mandatory.