Mickey Mantle baseball card sells for record at auction
Mickey Mantle was a three-time MVP and seven-time World Series champion
A Mickey Mantle baseball card entered a league of its own on Sunday.
The mint Mantle card from 1952 was sold at auction for $12.6 million, making it the most ever paid for sports memorabilia, surpassing the $9.3 million paid for Diego Maradona’s jersey from the 1986 World Cup and the $7.25 million for a Honus Wagner baseball card recently sold in a private sale.
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Anthony Giordano received the big check for the card. He bought the bard for $50,000 at a New York City show in 1991. He said his children were monitoring the auction.
"As soon as it hit 10 million, I just turned in. I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. They stayed up and called me this morning bright and early to tell me that it reached where it reached," he said.
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The New York Yankees legend was a Triple Crown winner in 1956, a three-time American League MVP and a seven-time World Series champion. He died in 1995.
"Some people might say it’s just a baseball card. Who cares? It’s just a Picasso. It’s just a Rembrandt to other people. It’s a thing of art for some people," John Holden, a professor in sports management law at Oklahoma State and amateur sports card collector, told the Associated Press.
"The value is whatever the market’s willing to support."
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The card was expected to fetch more than $10 million. A similar 70-year-old Mantle card previously fetched $5.2 million.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.