Poll: Final Hammer Price - 1914 BN Babe Ruth vs the 1952 Rosen Topps Mantle
 

REA will be auctioning a 1914 Baltimore News Babe Ruth in their upcoming auction: https://robertedwardauctions.com/baltimore-news-ruth

What do you think the final hammer price will be compared to the 1952 Rosen Topps Mantle, which sold for $12.6 million in Heritage in August 2022: https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/...ttering-record

Babe sells for more, less, or roughly the same?

That's quite a range in one post. $12.60 to $126,000,000.00
I guess decimal points are important.

I think it sells for more. The inflated grade from SGC will help.

Post updated.

I am in the camp of it will sells for less (my guess is closer to 10 million). Great card, but I think interest is down from the peak.

Do you think all the publicity will help?

I think the rarity of the card, especially compared to 52T Mantle, should contribute to a higher price.

Publicity can never hurt :D

It will be interesting for sure.

I think and hope it sells for more.
Estimate $15 million

Both cards iconic but so many Mantles at all grade levels and the difference from the 7’s on up is so little and so few Ruth.

I am also biased as a Ruth collector. But so many Mantles both in selection and quantity out there. And the ‘52 though amazing looking and considered iconic it is his second year card.

Baltimore news 1914 Wow

i think the ruth will sell similarly to the mantle...in light of the timing...values are down a little since the mantle sale.

Skin in the game
 

These threads about the price of cards that the overwhelming majority of us can never bid on or afford should be coded.

If you have ever purchased a card for more than $100,000.00 post your comment in green.

If you haven’t ever purchased such a card, then post you opinion in red.

If you don’t know how to change the color of your post, I’m not interested in your opinion either.

Those who are willing to have skin in the game matter or they are fools.

I'm not really convinced that the general cardboard market has an impact here. Does anyone really think that the bidders will set their max bid based on how the general cardboard market has been trending lately? I'm not seeing it.

This seems like a relatively straightforward competition. A crazy rare item, (arguably?) a rookie card, of the game's most well-known player. Get all the biggest fat cats from our world with virtually limitless resources together and they start bidding. It's anyone's guess when they will stop.

Given all of the advertising around this auction, it's not like a serious potential bidder is going to miss it. So it's really just a question of how high the last 2 bidders are willing to go, and when does the underbidder finally tap out?

The final price will likely boil down to psychology and how emboldened that underbidder is feeling at the moment. There are theories around here that crazy rich people are disciplined and not susceptible to the same sorts of emotions and passions as us commoners. But I would argue they're just as human as the rest of us. Trouble with the wife (or mistress), a drop in their company's stock price, a lawsuit that just took a turn for the worse, and the bidder is likely to be just a little less determined. But a few of them will go nuts because they decide they can't live without this piece. Since their bank account balance starts with a B, they won't be constrained by petty resource limitations like us mortals.

Personally, given how infrequently these come onto the market in any condition, I'm taking the over. I wouldn't be surprised if it hit $20M, and it might even blow that away.

My guess: $17,750,000

This!

It’s a rounding error for the crazy rich with a MUCH steeper upside by acquiring. Imagine just 2 of the many Fortune 500 CEOs who wants this on display at their HQ or personal collection. Imagine the international investor or royal with endless capital. Imagine 1 of hundreds of PE firms clamoring for this. Imagine a loaded movie star with power and influence?

The question isn’t how much will this go for, but will this or a PSA 10 1952 Topps Mick be the first $100MM card we witness in our lifetimes?

An hour in and it's already at $4.5 million.

Before the juice, natch.

Bidding increments are at $250K? Won’t take long to get to $10M+…

The world has always had a lot of uber wealthy people but how many of them ever spend on baseball cards? Why would it happen now, on this card? Not the first Balto News Ruth by any stretch.

Fair enough, but not sure last time this was offered to the public, so with the recent crazy run up and proliferation of cards as an asset mindset, unlike Wagner T206 with 60+ copies typically offered 1 up annually, this Ruth is much more scarce and of a player with better public name id, so poised to smash records.

Who knows, all speculation, but my speculation is that the uber wealthy outside the hobby are buying art and race horses and real estate and whatever and don't venture into sports collectibles and likely won't. I think the buyer of the Ruth will be within the hobby.

I know there have been times when we withhold bidding on cards we know one of our hobby friends is chasing. I hereby announce that this is one of those times, and I want my dear friends here to know that I will not be bidding on either the Mantle or Ruth cards, so you may bid away knowing that I am not running up your costs.

You're welcome.

I share your suspicions.

My guess is that one of the fat cats that has a PSA 10 52T Mantle will decide they can’t live without this card and will go nuts.

Why now? They don’t come along every day. There are a few others, but you might have to wait a while for another to come along. And these buyers are probably not all that young. So they might not get too many more bites at this apple.

Also, $20M ain’t what it used to be.

Only three people have a PSA 10. Kendrick, not sure if he is still adding. Fogel, I would doubt it, he more likely is making plans to downsize. The third anonymous guy bought in 2001 so that purchase does not at all suggest he is that wealthy. He paid chump change, 250 or so I think.

Kendrick almost won the World Series. He should be spending that money on Blake Snell or Juan Soto.

OK. So not those 3 guys specifically. But similarly-minded collectors who view themselves as being a big deal, and who happen to have more money than they can spend in this lifetime.

Maybe some of the internet millenials will get bored buying 1 of 1 Lukas and LeBrons and go after a real card.

I wonder what the likelihood is that a major serious bidder may actually represent a group of investors collectively going in on this card, or even a corporation.

I could see someone like Rubin buying it and taking it on tour to promote Fanatics. Would be a convenient business expense.

How much would it be worth if he cut it into 25 pieces to make inserts for next years Topps Definitive release?

I don't see the corporation idea taking off.

For a big corporation, they've got more important things to do than fuss with baseball cards. They go around disclosing that they spent 8 figures on a baseball card and every shareholder will jump on a suit for going beyond the corporate mandate to dabble in nonsense. And if we're talking about a smaller corporation, then why wouldn't the owner just buy it for themselves?

I guess you could have a group. But I think a lot of that has died down with the collapse of a lot of the fractional ownership platforms. Obviously someone could put together their own little club deal with their buddies. But I would wonder why they would go to all that trouble.

I suppose anything is possible, but these seem less likely to me.

Just my hunch, but I think after this auction concludes, another of these cards is going to surface at an auction next spring.

Better than spending that much renovating the CEO's office.

Tay-Tay could easily by this ,
Christmas present for uncle Travvy :rolleyes:

Next time I submit to SGC, I'm going to ask Brent Martin if they can re-grade a few of my cards on the "Baltimore News" curve. I could turn a few of those 1s into 5s.

When you own a company, you can do what you want.

So you're saying that you are gonna make a play on it?
Cool, hope ya win it :)

When REA does a reprint I'll be all over it.

A reasonable person would think that SGC just blatantly juicing the grade on any marquee card they get would start to hurt them and their reputation, but as it's the card hobby this is a feature instead of a problem.

The Mantle was not a 9.5, and this ain't a 3. Really awesome cards, it doesn't get much cooler than this Ruth. I'm sure whoever the new owner ends up being won't care the slab they dropped $10M for is a lie.

The fanboys don't care. But yes the man on the street is treated differently than friends and family.

if i win the bidding i will crack it out and put it in my binder

I think the Ruth card at REA will sell for more, but I will be honest in that I don't even really even understand why a '52 Topps Mantle (even a PSA 10) would sell for anything close to Babe Ruth's first card with a population of less than a dozen.

Because nobody collecting now saw Ruth, whereas Mantle was a folk hero to a whole generation of guys many of whom are still living. And 1952 Topps is the set that brought in modern collecting.

I understand the reason why the 1952 Topps Mantle is iconic and that set's impact on the hobby. I should have worded that better and said I don't understand the whole PSA 10 factor at play and why it turns a common card into a six or seven or eight figure card. :)

Ego.

Perhaps the Mantle wasn't a 9.5, but it was certainly better than all of the PSA 9s I've seen and two of the PSA 10s. Ultimately, this is what mattered, and this is why they put it in an SGC 9.5 holder. It was a matter of hierarchy, not accuracy. And given the significance of these cards, I think it was the right move to make. The goalposts never should have been moved on us, but they have. The only 52 Mantle that could give it a run for its money is the sheet cut PSA 10.

I haven't seen all the other BN Ruths, but I suspect this decision was similar. Placed on the old grading scale. Had it gone to PSA, it probably gets a 1 despite being nicer than one already slabbed as a 2.

This is precisely why I think the Rosen 9.5 went to SGC and not PSA. PSA will probably never grade another 52 Topps Mick a 10 even if one were pulled from a pack like happened at the National with the 55 Bowman Mick, as it would conflict with the three already in 10 holders, to protect and honor those. It could have received a 9, but really deserved to be a 10 considering the 2 PSA 10 examples it was compared to and their respective flaws. Since SGC awards half points, there you go, split the difference.

I think you're absolutely right on all of this, and fudging the grade is probably even the right business decision. It's still off-putting to people like me. Right or wrong, I had a perception of SGC as the straight-and-narrow alternative to PSA. When I saw an SGC 3 slapped on that card, it make me rethink that perception. It should be worth roughly the same whether it's a 1-1.5 or a 3, but they shot high anyway. To what end?

Yes, I’m sure it was the “right to move make” for the mone, that is the point.. Corruption is a feature, not a problem. It’s blatantly dishonest. A card with staining like that has never before been considered to be in 9.5 or in 9 condition. If I submitted a Dale Coogan in the same condition I would not get a 9 or a 9.5. If I submitted a common T206 in the same exact condition as this Ruth it would not get a 3. I would be lucky to get a 1.5. This whole show is a farce, grading is not to produce an accurate grade it’s to suit the market interests of a select group.

When you submit a Dale Coogan though, they're not pulling up examples of previously graded copies to see where it might fit in among the hierarchy of other Coogans. And they shouldn't be expected to, because we want them to keep grading fees affordable. But when they're grading cards like this Ruth and the 9.5 Mantle, I would argue that it's the right thing to do. Even if the grades look silly in comparison to other recently graded cards.

This is why you shouldn't move goalposts.

Some goalpost movement is inevitable as the hobby changes, but moving them to the 50 yard line as they seem to have done is ridiculous.

That IS moving the goalposts. The graders claim they do NOT give preferential treatment to high end cards and lift the grades for them. The whole reason for grading, besides the much more honest ‘it juices the money printer’ is that it’s supposed to be a consistent set of criteria applied to the cards to make condition less of a debate. It’s not consistent when there’s 2 completely different sets of rules where the big cards get juiced. They did it with an Wagner fairly recently as well, SGC is clearly overgrading the best cards they get, presumably for the obvious financial reasons. Again, I know that corruption will be very popular among a lot of the hobby but it’s absurd and in a normal business would reduce customer confidence.

Ya. Now PSA is lumping in POOR, FAIR, GOOD, AND VG cards all into PSA 1 holders in order to make room for the EXMT cards they're slabbing as 4s. I honestly thought they would have corrected this by now. It's really baffling.