The miscut 1952 Topps Jackie Robinson that shows a little bit of the Mickey Mantle that was on the sheet next to it sold for $72,450 over the weekend.
The card, graded SGC 1 for the miscut, some minor wear and a handwritten “42” in ink near the bottom is—as far as we know—one-of-a-kind. The two cards were side-by-side on the sheet that was cut at the factory 70 years ago.
The card sold through ComicConnect, a New York City-based arm of Metropolis Collectibles.
Twenty bids were entered during the three weeks of bidding. The card was originally offered late last summer through Goldin Auctions where it sold for nearly $29,000.
Robinson’s card—his first Topps issue—is #312 while Mantle is #311. The latter is the hobby’s most valuable and popular post-War card. Both were part of a final series Topps pushed out that didn’t sell well. Unable to sell them even to carnival operators for virtually nothing, Topps dumped the leftover stock in the Atlantic Ocean sometime in the late 1950s.
Two other sales of note from the auction: a 2003-04 Upper Deck Exquisite Patches Kobe Bryant autograph card (BGS 9.5) netted $95,000 while a 2003-04 Topps Chrome X-Fractor LeBron James (BGS 9) went for $70,020.