The jersey worn by the Pittsburgh Steelers great James Harrsion in Super Bowl XLIII, when he picked off a Kurt Warner pass and returned it 100 yards for the game’s most storied defensive touchdown sold for $216,000 Sunday night as Heritage Auctions wrapped up its Winter Platinum Night auction.
The ball itself realized $126,000.
Hank Aaron also hammered home a few records over the weekend: A bat Aaron used in the 1961 All-Star game sold for $264,000, the most anyone has ever paid for an Aaron bat. Aaron had gifted the prized lumber to a young fan who came to a Milwaukee Braves game wearing a “Henry Aaron” T-shirt.
The bat had sold in August of 2020 for $39,600…quite a profit for the person who bought it at that time.
The game-used bat wasn’t the only Aaron item to rack up record numbers: A 1968 Topps Aaron card graded PSA Gem Mint 10 sold for $174,000.
A game-used and signed bat from Ken Griffey Jr.’s rookie season of 1989 also sold for a record price: $50,400. But Ken Jr. and Sr. were also responsible for one of the auction’s biggest surprises when a Mariners dugout lineup card from Sept. 14, 1990 – featuring historic back-to-back dingers from father and son – shattered its pre-auction estimate of $8,000 to realize a whopping $93,000.
This auction also saw a record price for a graded Sports Illustrated with the sale of the only CGC 9.8 graded copy of the April 13, 1964, issue with Sandy Koufax on the cover sold for $32,400,
“You never know what bidders are going to respond to, and this weekend we had a significant number of new records, some of which took us by surprise,” says Chris Ivy, Director of Sports Auctions at Heritage. “But that’s the beauty – and thrill – of auctions: Every piece gets its day in the sun.”
The second night of the auction followed Saturday night’s first session, which saw the sale of a Babe Ruth rookie card, a PSA 8 1952 Topps Mantle and record setting 1968 Topps Mantle PSA 10.
In all the two-night auction generated nearly $22.3 million in sales with over 2,800 bidders participating.
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