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You are here: Home / Sports Card News / Vintage Sports Card News / SGC 7 Ruth Rookie at Heritage Auctions Could Set Record

SGC 7 Ruth Rookie at Heritage Auctions Could Set Record

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One of the highest graded copies of the 1916 M101-4 Babe Ruth rookie card is on the block at Heritage Auctions where it’s expected to sell for $3 million or more when bidding ends later this month.

A blank back PSA 7 Ruth sold in Nov. 2021 for $2.4 million.  The card offered by Heritage carries an ad for The Sporting News on the back and is the highest SGC example ever to reach the auction block.

With more than two weeks left in the auction, the high bid stands at $1.7 million with the buyer’s premium, already ahead of the $1.5 million sale price of a PSA 6 in April of last year.  

The 1916 M101-4 Babe Ruth ffered by Heritage Auctions could become the highest selling example of the slugger’s first widely issued card.

“There is only one universally recognized Babe Ruth rookie card, and this is it,” states the Heritage website description. “And while some particularly obscure (and far less significant) issues may exist in smaller populations, this Ruth representation is far and away one of the rarest cards that commonly surfaces in top twenty hobby rankings.”

The back of the card contains an advertisement for The Sporting News, which offered the cards as part of a promotion. 

Stats on the 1916 Sporting News Ruth Rookie

The 1916 Sporting News Ruth rookie has risen in popularity among vintage collectors over the past several years. A PSA 6 sold in 2009 at Heritage attained only about $39,000. 

The Sporting News M101-4 baseball series included 200 cards, each measuring 1-5/8” by 3”.  Ruth was likely included after his breakthrough season as a Red Sox pitcher in which he went 18-8. He also hit .315 and belted four homers. 

The highest-graded example of the Sporting News Ruth is a PSA 8. There are two SGC 7s and one PSA 7.

A combined PSA and SGC population report indicates the card and its variations have been graded 40 times. Compared to the T206 Honus Wagner, with about 65 known copies, the Sporting News Ruth is about 60% rarer.

If this SGC-graded Ruth topples the record set in 2021, it will mark another milestone for the grading company. An SGC 9.5 1953 Topps Mickey Mantle sold for $12.6 million in August, and an SGC 2 T206 Honus Wagner sold for $7.25 million just a few weeks earlier in a private sale announced by Goldin Auctions.

The auction is set to close on Feb. 25 during the first of two sessions in the Heritage Winter Platinum Night Auction.

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M101-4/5 Baseball Card Craze Included Department Stores Newly Uncovered Holmes to Homes Bread Babe Ruth Rookie Coming to Auction Babe Ruth Rookie Card Part of “Florida Baggie Find” of M101-4 Gems Ruth Rookie Card and Photo, 1968 Mantle, Gehrig Bat Among Top Sellers at Heritage Ruth Rookie Card Found in Piano Brings 6-Figure Price Rare, Original Conlon Photo of Ty Cobb Slide Nets $390,000 to Top REA Sale Top Rated Vintage Football Sets at Auction James Harrison’s Super Bowl Relics, Hank Aaron Bat Help Heritage to $22.3 Million

About Horacio Ruiz

Horacio is an educator and writer living in Staten Island, NY. He is the author of The White Knight: Calvin Patterson and the Integration of Florida State University Football.