A collector on Friday took what is believed to be the biggest loss in card collecting history when their Babe Ruth card sold for $3.2 million less than what it was bought for in December 2023.
The card of Ruth, who at the time was a minor league pitcher, appeared in an 11-card set in the Baltimore News, and is considered by some to be his true rookie.
The collector originally bought the card for $7.2 million at REA and called it “the most significant card ever produced.”
On Friday, 690 days after buying it, the collector sold it for $4.02 million at Heritage — a loss of $4,609 every day they held it.
The set came in blue and red, but there are only between 10 to 15 total copies of the Ruth card believed to exist, making it roughly four times rarer than the T206 Honus Wagner. Prior to the $7.2 million sale in 2023, the card had last sold publicly for $450,300 at REA in 2013.
Despite now being more than 100 years old, the card only began to surface in the collecting community in the 1980s. According to REA, the first copy to sell at public auction fetched $6,600.
Heritage estimated the consignor’s card was still worth the $7 million it once sold for, but the market didn’t agree. Some have questioned the ability to call it a rookie when it's clearly a minor league card. It also, for some, misses the bar for being a card, since it promotionally appeared in the newspaper instead of being available to the public nationwide.
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectibles market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.