There were 1,700 lots spread across nearly 400 pages of a catalog but when Memory Lane’s Summer Rarities Auction came to a close early Sunday, all but three lots had found new homes.
In all, the auction generated over $5.5 million.
There were so many autographed cards in the catalog that it contained a special section devoted to them and when the smoke cleared, two of the best had sold for six-figure prices.
A 1980-81 Topps Magic Johnson-Larry Bird rookie card with Julius Erving graded PSA 9 with a 10 autograph rating netted $173,389 while one of the hobby’s best signed 1951 Bowman Willie Mays rookie cards soared to $100,846.
Pre-War baseball cards—especially those featuring Ty Cobb– were a big part of the auction. A T206 ‘Bat Off Shoulder’ with a Uzit back graded PSA 2.5 sold for $69,929 while a T206 Old Mill Green Portrait graded PSA 3 netted $47,257.
Other Cobb rarities included a 1910 D380 Clement Brothers Type 2 that realized $60,313, a 1911 M131 Baltimore News Newsboy Series graded SGC 1.5 that brought in $34,408, and a 1912 M101-3 Sporting News postcard with an ad for a Kansas hardware store and a 1912 postmark that sold for $36,197.
Two other popular Cobb cards included a 1911 T3 Turkey Red (checklist back) graded PSA 4 that went for $68,256 and a 1911 M116 Sporting Life Blue Background Cobb PsA 7 that ended at $39,353.
The top selling pre-War card was PSA 3.5 1925 Exhibit (gray tint) Lou Gehrig rookie card that crossed the block at $117,604. A Honus Wagner card from the M131 set also drew interest from bidders, climbing to $75,262, while bidders battled over an SGC 3.5 1921 American Caramel E121 Babe Ruth Series of 80 that reached $39,907 and an SGC 5 copy of the 1916 M101-5 Jim Thorpe that ended at $29,724.
A PSA 3.5 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle was the top selling non-autographed post-War card at $98,398, a record for the grade.
Other sales included a 1954 Topps Hank Aaron rookie card graded PSA 7 that hit $30,961 and a 1959 Topps Sandy Koufax PSA 9 that went for $27,631.
Topping the cards sold from other sports was a 1984 Star Company Michael Jordan graded 6 by PSA that went for $55,498. The lone PSA 10 copy of the 1967 Philadelphia card of Hall of Famer Bob Lilly netted $16,150.
Two top 1952 Bowman Large football sets were offered. The 10th ranked set on PSA’s Registry with a 6.59 GPA sold for $30,463 while the 14th ranked set, with a 6.09 GPA, sold for $22,013.
The auction also included numerous lots of memorabilia, with a Babe Ruth game model bat that originated in the collection of 1920s Yankees teammate Mark Koenig topping them all at $117,604.
A 1939 Pasadena City College yearbook carrying six signatures from a young Jackie Robinson went for $10,270.
Complete results can be found here.
Memory Lane’s next major auction is the Winter Rarities event. Consignments are being accepted.
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