The most expensive baseball card ever sold is once again of the vintage variety.
PWCC Marketplace says it sold one of the six 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle cards graded Mint 9 by PSA for $5.2 million, shattering the record of $3.9 million set by the sale of the 2009 Mike Trout Superfractor in August.
The Mantle card was sold to entrepreneur and actor Rob Gough, an avid collector. The same card sold for $2.8 million just two years ago through Heritage Auctions. The buyer from that auction sold the card to Gough in a deal brokered by PWCC, earning a tidy profit for his investment.
“Based on our research, this is the nicest looking 1952 Topps Mantle PSA 9 in existence,” Jesse Craig, director of business development at PWCC Marketplace, said in a press release.
Only three 1952 Topps Mantle cards have been rated higher by PSA. Graded many years ago, that trio of Gem Mint 10s would likely bring well into eight figures each if put on the market today.
“I’ve dreamt of owning a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle since I was a kid collecting cards,” Gough stated. “It’s the Mona Lisa of sports cards and I’ve been searching for this high graded example talking to industry experts, dealers, auction houses, friends and I’m ecstatic that I’m now the proud owner of this iconic card.”
Gough is is the owner of several companies including DOPE CBD. He’s acted in Billionaire Boys Club, The Forgiven and Mom and Dad.
PWCC called the card the “nicest PSA 9 Mantle in existence.”
Million dollar sales of trading cards have now become a regular occurrence during the unprecedented boom in collectibles.
The Trout card sold by Goldin Auctions last summer had broken the record that had set several years earlier by the sale of one of the top T206 Wagner cards. Goldin has sold multiple modern era cards for high six and seven-figure prices in the last several months.
In October, Mile High Card Company sold a T206 Honus Wagner for $3.25 million.
One of the three PSA 10s is owned by Arizona Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick, another by a private collector and a third by former attorney and avid collector Marshall Fogel, whose copy was delivered by armored truck to a Colorado museum when it went on display in 2018.