A Cuban Winter League card of Oscar Charleston set a record Sunday for the most expensive card of a Negro Leaguer when it sold for $251,964 at Love of the Game Auction.
Another example of the card, also graded an SGC 4, held the previous record after fetching $142,000 in 2023.
The Tomas Gutierrez card, an insert from Diaz Cigarettes in 1923 and 1924, is extremely rare and one of two cards that count as a rookie card of Charleston, who, despite his lack of recognition, was considered by some to be the best baseball player of all time.
Though Negro League stats are often incomplete, Charleston, who played 18 years in the league, won three Triple Crowns, and holds the third-highest career batting average of all time (.350) behind Josh Gibson and Ty Cobb.
While his name isn't as prominent as other stars, many contemporaries of Charleston, who saw the greatest players of the early 20th century with their own eyes, called him the best.
“If Oscar Charleston isn’t the greatest baseball player in the world, then I’m no judge of baseball talent," said Hall of Fame manager John McGraw, whose New York Giants played Babe Ruth's Yankees in three consecutive World Series from 1921 to 1923.
Journalist Grantland Rice, who covered Ruth, Gehrig and Cobb, once said, "it's impossible for anybody to be a better ballplayer than Oscar Charleston."
More recently, Baseball statistician and author Bill James said Charleston, who was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1976, "probably rates right with" Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio and Willie Mays.
Negro League cards were few and far between, but smoking was so prominent in Cuba that cigarette and cigar brands used to put baseball cards in their boxes. Charleston, who played in the Cuban Winter League for nine seasons, has his other rookie in a Billiken Cigar set.
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.