Satchel Paige Rookie Card Sells for $89,000

It’s not easy to find a super high grade 1948 Leaf Satchel Paige rookie card. Proof of that came with the end result of a recent auction.

Satchel Paige struggled to make a living even at the height of his Negro Leagues fame. His long overdue arrival in the Majors late in his career helped boost his profile, but he wouldn’t believe the price level reached by his first rookie card nearly 60 years after he probably first saw one.

A 1948-49 Leaf Paige graded PSA 8 (NM/MT) sold for $89,087 in Goodwin & Company’s catalog auction late last week. The price includes a 17.5% buyer’s premium.

Described as “quite possibly the most difficult to obtain, high-grade baseball card in existence”, the Paige card is one of few high grade examples known. It was short printed and the 1949 Leaf issue is troublesome because of its poor quality paper stock and primitive inks which often led to defects.

Last spring, a PSA 7 (near mint) Paige sold for over $21,000 in a Mastro auction.

Among the other highlights of the Goodwin Auction:

• 1968 Topps baseball set including 326 PSA 9 graded cards $36,921
• 1969 Topps baseball set including 164 PSA 9 graded cards $33,858
• 1911 D304 Brunners Honus Wagner graded PSA 7 $33,014
• 1956 Topps Ted Williams graded PSA 10 $32,666
• 1952 Bowman Large Jim Lunsford Single Print SGC 92 $30,040

Paige also had a 1949 Bowman rookie card, which is sometimes available on eBay. Click here.

About Rich Mueller

Rich is the editor and founder of Sports Collectors Daily. A broadcaster and writer for over 40 years and a collector for even longer than that, he's usually typing something somewhere. Type him back at [email protected].