109-year-old Babe Ruth baseball card sells for $7.2 million
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A 1914 Baltimore News Babe Ruth rookie card sold for millions on Monday. This marks the third largest sum ever paid for a baseball card.
The card raked in at $7.2 million, marking it as the most expensive Babe Ruth item to date, according to ESPN. It barely missed the $7.25 million paid for a Sweet Caporal Honus Wagner card in Aug. 2022.
In 1914, a Baltimore newsie named Archibald Davis collected these baseball card of his favorite minor league players. Davis was especially fond of the 15 Babe Ruth cards he had collected.
The cards would be passed down to Davis’ family for generations, until eventually they donated the cards to the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Musuem in 1998. They were later sold privately in 2021.
“Overall, the card was pretty well preserved; the fact that it was in the hands of the museum for the last twenty-plus years helped keep it in the condition that it’s in,” said Brian Dwyer, president of Robert Edward Auctions, who brokered the sale. “It’s one of only ten that we know to exist.”
According to Dwyer, the existence of the cards wasn’t known until the 1980’s, which is surprising for a name who, Dwyer noted, “Needs no introduction.”
This marks the first time in a decade that a Ruth rookie card has been up for sale. The last time was in 2013 where it sold for $450 thousand.
The most expensive baseball card ever sold for $12.6 million was a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card.