An ultra-rare baseball card featuring a 19-year-old Babe Ruth has sold at auction for $7.2 million – the third-highest sum in trading card history, behind only the famed 1952 Mickey Mantle ($12.6 million) and the 1909 Honus Wagner ($7.25 million) .
Now the most expensive Ruth collectible ever, the 1914 card was printed by the Baltimore News when it was still a local phenomenon. At the time, the budding baseball legend was still playing for his hometown Orioles, a minor league team with no connection to the current Major League club of the same name.
Robert Edward Auctions, which sold the card, originally estimated it could fetch as much as $10 million. Only ten copies of the map survive, and its existence was not publicly known until the 1980s. Since its discovery, prices for copies of the map have risen from $6,600 to $18,700 in 1991 and to almost $80,000 in 1999, according to REA.
The identity of the buyer has not been disclosed.
The 1914 card was printed by the Baltimore News when the budding baseball legend was 19
The Baltimore native was just 19 at the time and making just $100 a week from the Orioles
'On the whole the map was reasonably well preserved; “The fact that it has been in the hands of the museum for the past 20 years has helped keep it in the condition it is in,” said Brian Dwyer, chairman of Robert Edward Auctions. ESPN.
“It's one of only 10 known to exist.”
“The red and white image of Ruth is available in both red and blue varieties and is framed by a red border on the offered example, which measures approximately 2-5/8 x 3-5/8 inches,” REA's description reads .
'The reverse shows the domestic and foreign schedules for the Baltimore team during the 1914 campaign. This card is the highest graded example on the SGC Population Report and also the second highest graded example in the hobby, with only one PSA VG -EX 4 higher.'
As Dwyer explained, Ruth's 1914 rookie differs from the 1909 Wagner in that the former is much more recognizable to modern fans than the latter.
“When we sold the record-breaking Wagner for $6.6 million [in 2021]and people came to us – even at the [National Sports Collectors Convention] – asking: ''Who is Honus Wagner and why should we worry?'' Dwyer said.
“Not a single person asks who Babe Ruth is, what his significance is to the game, to the hobby, or frankly, to American culture. He transcends everything. We think that the Ruth is the most important card and that it has not yet peaked, so to speak.'
The most expensive cards: a 1952 Mickey Mantle ($12.6 million) and a 1909 Honus Wagner ($7.25 million)
Brian Dwyer of Robert Edward Auctions shows the 1914 Baltimore News baseball card
Ruth was depicted regularly throughout his life, from his youth in Baltimore in 1898 (left) to his early playing days in Boston (right) after being sold to the Red Sox for $25,000.
This particular card is “the second best confirmed example and the highest valued to appear at public auction in more than fifteen years,” according to REA.
“The last time any of these transactions occurred [in 2013] was $450,000,” Dwyer told ESPN. “It's been easier to buy an NFL team over the last decade than it has been to buy one of these cards.”
While the Mantle, Ruth and Wagner cards are all vintage, others that fetch similar prices are typically modern printings with signatures. For example, in 2021, a LeBron James rookie sold for a basketball record $5.8 million, only to be matched by a Stephen Curry rookie two months later.
The rising price for Ruth's rookie is somewhat ironic, considering he was reportedly making $100 a month at the time.
That June, the Orioles would sell the pitching-hitting sensation to the Boston Red Sox for $25,000, and he became a national sensation, epitomizing the roaring twenties in the United States.