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Rare Barry Bonds card sets record for controversial slugger
Barry Bonds trading cards should be worth as much as baseball’s top stars and legends based on his stature and remarkable career.
But they are not because of a couple of factors. One, the disputed home run king (insert * here) played during the junk wax era of the 1980s and ’90s when the hobby market was saturated with cards from an abundance of manufacturers. Second, Bonds has yet to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame and his career numbers will forever be tainted by his involvement in the PED scandal of the late-’90s.
That has kept Bonds’ top cards from attracting the big dollars of such legends as Hank Aaron and Willie Mays, and even such current stars as Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani. Even Bonds’ top cards fluctuate between a few hundred dollars to a few thousand, with GEM MINT 10 grades occasionally topping five figures.
But a rare 1-of-1 Bonds card just set a record, selling for $63,000 in the May Premier Auction at PWCC Marketplace.
The auction, which featured nearly 200 assets across all sports, had total sales of more than $6.2 million.
The 1999 Ultra Masterpiece Barry Bonds 1/1 #139P (PSA 7 NRMT) set the record for Bonds cards sold at public auction, according to PWCC.
The card, which features an image of Bonds in mid-swing with holofoil lettering and full bleed edges, is considered one of his most rare cards.
Another highlight of the auction was a 1996 UD U.S. Olympic Reflections Of Gold Michael Jordan AUTO #RG1 (BGS 8.5) that sold for $120,000, a record for the card. Upper Deck released the set just before the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta to celebrate American Olympic athletes. The 135-card set included 10 different Reflections of Gold foil inserts that fell one in every 79 packs, with the Jordan card one of the most rare.
Other record-setting cards from the auction include:
• 2022 Panini Prizm WWE Black John Cena 1/1 #45 (BGS 9.5) for $17,100, a record for Cena cards.
• 2016 Panini Eternal NBA Finals Black LeBron James NBA Logoman Patch 1/1 (BGS 9) for $30,600, a record for the card with a patch from LeBron’s game-worn Cavaliers jersey from the 2016 NBA Finals.
• 2005 Exquisite Collection Super Aaron Rodgers Rooke Patch Auto (DNA AUTO /15 PSA 10) for $23,700, a record for the card.
• 1933 Goudey Lou Gehrig #92 (SGC 7) for $45,600, a record for the grade.
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