This is a list of the highest known prices paid for sports cards. The current record price is the US$12.600 million paid for a 1952

Mickey Mantle Mickey Charles Mantle (October 20, 1931 – August 13, 1995), nicknamed "the Commerce Comet" and "the Mick", was an American professional baseball player. Mantle played his entire Major League Baseball (MLB) career (1951–1968) with the New York ...

baseball card A baseball card is a type of trading card relating to baseball, usually printed on cardboard, silk, or plastic. In the 1950s they came with a stick of gum and a limited number of cards. These cards feature one or more baseball players, teams, stad ...

(

Topps The Topps Company, Inc. is an American company that manufactures chewing gum, candy, and collectibles. Formerly based in New York City, Topps is best known as a leading producer of American Football Card, American football, Baseball card, baseb ...

; #311) on August 28, 2022, breaking all previous records.

Background

Sports cards are a variety of trading card, small cards usually made of

cardboard Cardboard is a generic term for heavy paper-based products. The construction can range from a thick paper known as paperboard to corrugated fiberboard which is made of multiple plies of material. Natural cardboards can range from grey to light b ...

, which feature an image of an athlete or athletes along with identifying text. The earliest sports cards were promotional materials usually included with tobacco products and candy and often bearing an advertisement on the reverse. The first sports card to sell for one million dollars was a

T206 Honus Wagner The T206 Honus Wagner baseball card depicts the Pittsburgh Pirates' Honus Wagner, known as "The Flying Dutchman,” a dead-ball era baseball player who is widely considered to be one of the best players of all time. The card was designed and issue ...

which went for $1,265,000 at auction in 2000 (). , the industry brings in over one billion dollars annually for manufacturers and retailers. 14 of the 25 most valuable sports cards and 2 of the 5 priciest cards are

basketball card A basketball card is a type of trading card relating to basketball, usually printed on cardboard, silk, or plastic. These cards feature one or more players of the National Basketball Association, National Collegiate Athletic Association, Olympic b ...

List of highest prices paid

This list of items is ordered by

consumer price index A consumer price index (CPI) is a price index, the price of a weighted average market basket of consumer goods and services purchased by households. Changes in measured CPI track changes in prices over time. Overview A CPI is a statistica ...

inflation-adjusted value (in bold) in millions of

United States dollar The United States dollar ( symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the officia ...

s in .The Wikipedia template uses a yearly average inflation. Using monthly averages gives slightly different numbers, most significantly for paintings sold early or late in a year with significant inflation. This list includes only the highest price paid for a given card and does not include separate entries for individual copies of the same card or multiple sales prices for the same copy of a card. Thus, for example, the T206 Honus Wagner is represented on this list by one particular card's 2021 sale and does not include the same card's 2012 sale for $1.2 million or the Jumbo Wagner and its $3.12 million sale price. Cards are evaluated by third-party services, most often Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA), Beckett Grading Services (BGS) and Sportscard Guaranty (SGC), and given a grade on a ten-point scale based on condition. The images below do not necessarily represent the individual specimen sold but are representative of the given cards.

Notes

References

{{Sports cards Auction-related lists Lists of most expensive things Trading cards

Background

List of highest prices paid

See also

Notes

References