‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson’s 1949 SC driver’s license sells for big money at auction

Two items associated with baseball legend Shoeless Joe Jackson, including his signed 1949 South Carolina drivers license, were auctioned last weekend for a combined $244,970.

Because Jackson was illiterate, his signature is rare and considered one of the most valuable in the world. Most signatures purported to be his were actually those of his wife, Katie.

The faded and frayed license on yellow paper went for $125,460. A card that was distributed in 1914 in boxes of Cracker Jacks sold for $119,510 by Goldin Auctions of Chicago. Both were consignment pieces, and the owners’ names were not revealed.

Dan Wallach, the executive director of the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum in Greenville, estimated there were fewer than 10 Jackson signatures, most on legal documents. He said when Jackson needed to sign a legal document he traced his signature from one his wife had given him.

Jackson memorabilia has long been traded at auctions, including one at the famed New York City Sotheby’s, which sold a signature from a lease in 1991 for $23,000, which is comparable to about $46,000 today.

A couple of years after that auction, the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society sued the Greenville County Probate Court for his will, which bore his signature.

The two charities were the heirs of Katie Jackson, who left them $60,000 and asked that her personal property be sold and split between them.

Joe Jackson died of heart failure in 1951 and Katie Jackson of cancer in 1959. The South Carolina Supreme Court ultimately ruled wills are government property.

His bat, which he called Black Betsy, sold at auction for more than $577,000 in 2001.

Born in Pickens County, Jackson got his start in baseball on the field outside of Brandon Mill in Greenville in the years when the Textile League was dominant. He played semi-professional ball and told Sport Magazine in 1949 he got his nickname because new cleats made blisters on his feet so he took them off. When he hit a triple a guy in the stands shouted, “You shoeless son of a gun.” He never played in his socks again, but the name stuck with him for life.

Jackson began his career in the Major Leagues in 1908 and played for 13 years in Philadelphia, Cleveland and finally Chicago. He was considered a natural batter and ended his career with a .356 lifetime batting average.

Jackson was banned from baseball in 1921 for his involvement in the 1919 World Service Black Sox scandal in which White Sox players were paid to throw the World Series. Jackson and the seven other players were acquitted by a Chicago jury but banned from baseball, which means he could not be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

There have been several organized attempts to get Major League Baseball to reinstate Jackson but so far each have failed, although Major League Baseball did say last year Jackson was not permanently ineligible for inclusion, Wallach said.

“That was a breakthrough,” Wallach said.

Jackson told legendary Atlanta sportswriter Furman Bisher in the 1949 Sport Magazine piece he heard of the scheme but did not take part.

“I played my heart out,” Jackson said.

Jackson spent his last years in a brick house in Greenville, where he owned a liquor store. That house is now the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum beside the Greenville Drive baseball stadium in downtown Greenville.

This story was originally published August 12, 2021 at 5:00 AM.