Pittsfield, Mass. (AP) - At a local auction, Colin Twing bid $60 on what he thought were two 19th-century railroad tickets, figuring each might be worth that much apiece.

As it turns out, the Pittsfield man acquired a pair of baseball tickets that two researchers are calling rare finds for the national pastime.

Twing, who has been shopping at auctions for 10 years, is now the owner of what looks like a season ticket from the late 1860s or '70s to the Athletic Club Base Ball Club of Philadelphia and a ticket to the 11th annual National Association of Base-Ball Players convention that took place in Philadelphia on Dec. 11, 1867. The ball club and the association were precursors to the modern organizations.

"They are earlier than the earliest tickets that we have in our collection, and they date from 1871 to 1874," said Tim Wiles, the director of research for the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. Wiles examined scanned images of the two tickets that Twing sent him via email.

Wiles said he doesn't know if they are the earliest baseball tickets that exist. "We don't know what is in other private collections," he said.

Wiles said it's hard to tell what price the tickets would fetch on the open market. The Hall of Fame doesn't appraise baseball items.

The tickets are printed, but each ticket bears a handwritten, "Philadelphia Inquirer," suggesting both had some connection to the newspaper at the time.

Renowned baseball historian John Thorn discovered Pittsfield's 1791 town bylaw banning "base ball" - currently the earliest known reference to the sport in North America - seven years ago. Thorn says the earliest known ticket having something to do with baseball is a social gathering given by members of the Magnolia Baseball Club on Feb. 9, 1843.

Thorn also examined Twing's tickets through pictures, and called them "very rare."

"I've never seen a ticket to a National Association meeting before," he said.

At the 1867 convention, the National Association's nominating committee banned black teams from joining the group, which marked the beginning of the color line in baseball, Thorn said.

"So it's definitely an historic ticket," Thorn said. "It's the real thing."

Thorn said he believes that the Athletic Club of Philadelphia ticket is most likely a season pass, because it contains perforations that indicate each time it was presented, the number of games was punched.

Thorn also believes the pass may date from the early 1870s because it appears similar to season ticket passes that were issued in 1874. The Athletic Club of Philadelphia is not related to the Philadelphia Athletics that were founded in 1901, but are the forerunners of today's Oakland A's.

Twing, who buys and sells antiques, rare books and musical instruments, said he didn't realize how significant the tickets were until he returned home from Fontaine's Antique Auction Gallery in Pittsfield and examined them in greater detail. He bought them in what's known as a boxed lot, which contains other miscellaneous items up for one sale.

"I looked at what was on the tickets, and I saw the date, 1867, and I said, 'Oh, boy,"' he said. "So I did a little research of my own, then I called the Hall of Fame."

"It's a piece of good fortune," he said. "You look for these kinds of things. You go to estate sales and you look for things that are really going to pay off. You settle for things that you can buy for $50 and sell for $100. But if you can buy something for $50 and sell it for $5,000, that's what you look for. It happens two or three times a year."

Twing said he plans to sell the tickets - "I'm not financially well off where I can donate these things" - but would be interested in selling them to someone who was willing to donate them to the Hall of Fame. The Hall only displays items that are donated or on loan.

The tickets are "worth what someone is willing to pay" for them, Thorn said.