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Babe Ruth rookie card, 1968 Mantle net big sales in $22M Heritage Winter auction
Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle are still kings when it comes to vintage sports cards, as Heritage Auctions showed in its Winter Platinum Night Sports Auction.
A 1916 Sports News Babe Ruth rookie card, graded SGC 7, sold for $1.77 million to top the Heritage Auction, which closed this past weekend. The sale was the largest for an SGC-graded copy of the Ruth rookie card. A PSA 7 version sold for $2.4 million last year.
A 1968 Topps Mickey Mantle card, graded PSA 10, also attracted a big sale, netting a record $510,000. A PSA 10 copy sold for $214,579 last year.
The auction also featured a PSA 8 version of the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card, but it sold for less than recent examples of the iconic Mantle card. One of only 35 PSA 8 examples, the card sold for $1.09 million, the lowest price for a PSA 8 since May of last year. Two PSA 8s sold for more than $2 million last year, while two more sold for around $1.5 million.
The auction attracted $22.29 million in total sales from more than 2,800 bidders who helped set several records for cards and memorabilia.
“You never know what bidders are going to respond to, and this weekend we had a significant number of new records, some of which took us by surprise,” said Chris Ivy, director of sports auctions at Heritage. "But that's the beauty — and thrill — of auctions: Every piece gets its day in the sun."
Other big vintage sales in the auction included:
• A 1951 Bowman Mickey Mantle rookie card, graded PSA 8, for $480,000.
• A 1948 Joe DiMaggio Yankees game-used jersey with a Babe Ruth memorial armband for $564,000.
• A 1915 Babe Ruth Type 1 photo for $468,000.
• A high-grade 1953 Topps Baseball set, ranked fourth on the PSA Set Registry, for $705,000.
• A 1953 Topps Willie Mays card, graded SGC 9, for $360,000.
• A 1961 Hank Aaron All-Star Game game-used bat for $264,000, the most ever paid for one of his game-used bats. Aaron gifted this one to a young fan who came to the game wearing a "Henry Aaron" T-shirt.
• A circa 1933 Joe DiMaggio game-used San Francisco Seals jersey for $264,000.
• A 1911 M116 Sports Life Ty Cobb card with the blue background, graded PSA 8, for $174,000.
• A copy of the April 13, 1964 issue of Sports Illustrated with Sandy Koufax on the cover for $32,400, a record for a graded (9.8) copy of SI.
The top modern-card and memorabilia sales included:
• A 2003-04 Upper Deck LeBron James Rookie Patch Autograph card, numbered 12/23 and graded BGS 8, for $720,000.
• A 2000 Playoff Contenders Tom Brady Championship Ticket Rookie, graded BGS 8.5 with a 10 autograph, for $516,000.
• A 2010 Tom Brady game-used and signed New Patriots jersey for $336,133.
• A rare 1996 Upper Deck Michael Jordan U.S. Olympic Champions “Reflections of Gold” Signatures card for $210,000.
• James Harrison's Pittsburgh Steelers jersey from Super Bowl XLIII, when Harrison returned an interception 100 yards for a touchdown, for $216,000. The ball from the play and game sold for $126,000.
• A 1989 game-used signed bat from Ken Griffey Jr.'s rookie season for $50,400.
• A Mariners dugout lineup card from Sept. 14 1990 that features back-to-back home runs by Ken Griffey Jr. and Ken Griffey Sr. for $93,000.
