“The Bambino” knocked this one out of the park.
The first Babe Ruth baseball card fetched an unbelievable $4.026 million at Heritage’s Fall Sports Catalog Auction on Friday.
The 1914 Baltimore News Babe Ruth rookie card was issued back when Ruth was a 19-year-old minor league pitcher in Baltimore — and fewer than a dozen are known to exist.
“It is also one of the rarest cards of any issued during Ruth’s career, with only 10 examples ever graded and encapsulated,” Chris Ivy, Heritage’s director of sports auctions, said.
“If a collector wishes to have a seat at this table for one of the finest Babe Ruth rookie cards in existence, then the price for that seat will reflect both the rarity and desirability of this fantastic offering.”
The card was previously on display at the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum in Baltimore, where George Herman Ruth was born.
The “Sultan of Swat” is widely regarded as the greatest baseball player, starting as an ace pitcher with the Boston Red Sox before becoming an iconic slugger with the New York Yankees from 1920 to 1934.
He died in 1948 at the age of 53.
Heritage’s Fall Sports Catalog Auction marked only the second time in the last 10 years that a Baltimore News Ruth card was sold at auction.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
