Rare Book Monthly

Articles - September - 2021 Issue

Yet Another Record Price for a Baseball Card - $6.6 Million

You are looking at $6.6 million (Robert Edward Auctions photo).

You are looking at $6.6 million (Robert Edward Auctions photo).

Are we in the midst of a bubble but don't realize it? The only way we can positively know that rapidly rising prices are a bubble is if they fall back down to Earth. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Those who correctly call a bubble get recognition for their wisdom later, but what we forget is when they called something a bubble and it was not. So here we are, another record price for a sports card, which we seem to be writing about every month, and no one knows where we will go next. One thing we can say is that baseball and other sports cards are one incredibly hot market today. The future is yet to be determined.

 

This month's record price is for a baseball card. When we entered this year, the record price for a baseball card was $3.9 million, paid last year for a Mike Trout “Superfractor” card. That price seemed impossible way back in 2020. However, it was quickly eclipsed earlier this year when a Mickey Mantle rookie card sold for $5.2 million. That record fell too, although there is some question on the next one. In June, a pre-rookie Babe Ruth card sold for approximately $6 million, but that was in a private sale, rather than a publicly verifiable auction. It was a “pre-rookie” card because it was from Ruth's stint with the Baltimore Orioles, a minor league team at the time.

 

While some may be unsure of that price, there is no question about the record price any longer. That price was eclipsed by a sale at Robert Edward Auctions. The price for this one was $6,606,296. It represented a return to the longtime champion of baseball card values, literally the Most Value Player, Honus Wagner. This was his 1909-1911 Sweet Caporal card, put out by the American Tobacco Company to promote their Sweet Caporal cigarette brand. It is a rarity, but not so much of one that copies don't come up for auction fairly regularly. There are at least 57 known examples, but as with old books, condition is paramount to value. Few rival this Honus Wagner card for condition.

 

The rarity of the Wagner card can be attributed to Honus himself. He was a non-smoker and did not want to be associated with tobacco. Good for you, Honus! He demanded they be withdrawn.

 

This is not the first time a Sweet Caporal Honus Wagner card has held the price record. One was sold in 2016 for $3.12 million. That was a record price at the time and undoubtedly some people thought that represented a bubble. That record held until the Mike Trout card sold for $3.9 million late last year.

 

Robert Edward Auctions was able to provide a bit more of this card's history. It was discovered by collector/dealer Mike Aronstein in 1973. He put it up for auction that year and it sold to Fred McKie for a whopping $1,100. For the record, the current price represents a six hundred thousand percent increase since then. I guess we can safely say that the $1,100 price was not a bubble though it must have seemed so to many in 1973. In 1976, McKie sold it to collector Barry Halper, price unknown. Halper later traded it to a Texas collector (as an aside, in my youth I used to trade baseball cards too, though not on this level). Eventually, it made it to auction in 2012 where it sold for $1,232,466. It sold privately within the last two years for what Edward says was “at a significant premium to its 2012 sale price.”

 

The astonishing prices have not been limited to baseball cards. The $3.12 million 2016 price was not just a record for baseball cards, but for all sports cards. However, just this year, we have seen it exceeded by basketball cards for Lebron James, $5.2 million, and Luca Doncik, $4.6 million, a football card for Patrick Mahomes, $4.3 million, and a hockey card for Wayne Gretzky, $3.75 million. So far, the collectible card market, like the stock market, is in bull mode. How long this will continue is anyone's guess.

Rare Book Monthly

  • DOYLE
    Rare Books, Autographs & Maps
    July 23, 2025
    DOYLE, July 23: WALL, BERNHARDT. Greenwich Village. Types, Tenements & Temples. Estimate $300-500
    DOYLE, July 23: STOKES, I. N. PHELPS. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909. New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915-28. Estimate: $3,000-5,000
    DOYLE, July 23: [AUTOGRAPH - US PRESIDENT]FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. A signed photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Estimate $500-800
    DOYLE, July 23: [ARION PRESS]. ABBOTT, EDWIN A. Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions. San Francisco, 1980. Estimate $2,000-3,000.
    DOYLE, July 23: TOLSTOY, LYOF N. and NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, translator. Anna Karénina ... in eight parts. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., [1886]. Estimate: $400-600
    DOYLE, July 23: ROWLING, J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury, 2000. Estimate $1,200-1,800
  • Freeman’s | Hindman
    Western Manuscripts and Miniatures
    July 8, 2025
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FRANCESCO PETRARCH (b. Arezzo, 20 July 1304; d. Arqua Petrarca, 19 July 1374). $20,000-30,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF THE VITAE IMPERATORUM (active Milan, 1431-1459). $15,000-20,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF ATTAVANTE DEGLI ATTAVANTI (GABRIELLO DI VANTE) (active Florence, c. 1452-c. 1520/25). $15,000-20,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FOLLOWER OF HERMAN SCHEERE (active London, c. 1405-1425). $15,000-20,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. An exceptionally rare, illuminated music leaf from a Mozarabic Antiphonal with sister leaves mostly in museum collections. $11,500-14,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Exceptional leaf from a prestigious Antiphonary by a leading illuminator of the late Duecento. $11,500-14,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF MS REID 33 and SELWERD ABBEY SCRIPTORIUM (AGNES MARTINI?) (active The Netherlands, Groningen, c. 1468-1510). $10,000-15,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Previously unknown illumination from one of the most renowned Gothic Choir Book sets of the Middle Ages. $6,000-8,000.
  • Sotheby’s
    Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern
    Now through July 10, 2025
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Book of Hours by the Masters of Otto van Moerdrecht, Use of Sarum, in Latin, Southern Netherlands (Bruges), c.1450. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Albert Einstein. Autograph letter signed, to Attilio Palatino, on his research into General Relativity, 12 May 1929. £12,000 to £18,000.
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: John Gould. The Birds of Europe, [1832-] 1837, 5 volumes, contemporary half morocco, subscriber’s copy. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Sotheby’s
    Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern
    Now through July 10, 2025
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Ian Fleming. A collection of James Bond first editions, 8 volumes in all. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1997, first edition, hardback issue. £50,000 to £70,000.
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.R.R. Tolkien. Autograph letter signed, to Amy Ronald, on Pauline Baynes's map of Middle Earth, 1970. £7,000 to £10,000.
  • Rare Book Hub is now mobile-friendly!

Article Search

Archived Articles