Mickey Mantle is back in the record books.
A 1952 Mantle baseball card became the highest-priced sports card ever, selling for $5.2 million, PWCC Marketplace announced Thursday.
The Topps card, rated PSA 9 based on the grading system for cards, blew by the previous record of $3.94 million, set in August for a signed Mike Trout 2009 rookie card – of which just one was created.
As for the Mantle card, there may be as few as three left in good condition.
Rob Gough, an actor and entrepreneur, purchased the card.
“The 1952 Topps Mantle is the holy grail of sports cards,” Gough said. “I’ve dreamt of owning a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle since I was a kid collecting cards. It’s the Mona Lisa of sports cards and I’ve been searching for this high graded example talking to industry experts, dealers, auction houses, friends and I’m ecstatic that I’m now the proud owner of this iconic card.”
“Based on our research, this is the nicest looking 1952 Topps Mantle PSA 9 in existence,” Jesse Craig, director of business development at PWCC Marketplace, said in a press release.
The sky-high value of the Mantle card is due in part to the fact that in addition to being the Yankee legend’s rookie card, it’s from Topps’ first annual set – many of which were tossed into the Hudson River eight years later after they didn’t sell.
The Mantle record is also part of a boom in sports memorabilia that took off last year and has continued in 2021.
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