That is correct. Someone probably should have let this one marinate a bit longer before offering it back up for sale.

It is odd that we never learned the identity of the buyer of this card in REA. I was stunned to see it show up again as soon as it did.

I don't want to harp on this, but if that was my lot I wouldn't want it to say Oct 24th-26th. I understand you should know when what you're bidding on ends but man that is confusing. Heritage has always been so confusing to navigate and tell what's going on for me. Probably because I'm on mobile 99% of the time, and compared to simple sites like lotg, rea etc where i can fly around, it's overwhelming. If I could give them a piece of constructive criticism it would be to streamline their website more for mobile viewers.

I was curious what the card ended at and on the Heritage app it shows the auction ends tonight?

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So in Dec 2023 the card sold for $7.2 million or more (if the buyer did not have a reseller certificate taxes could have brought that total to as high as $8 million. Yesterday the card sold for $4 million and the seller probably realized something less. That indicates that the seller probably lost somewhere between $3 million and $4 million. Ouch!
One has to wonder if the REA hammer price was primarily the result of two determined bidders and with one gone the third high bidder was no where's close. I also continue to wonder why HA's estimate was less than what the lot realized in REA. I have always thought that their estimates were on the aggressive side so this one really stood out to me.
Congratulations to the buyer--I think you got a great deal.

The arc of the income disparity in this country is long, but it bends toward justice. We can all exhale now.

The market rendered its opinion about this particular example two years ago, which IMO is not long enough for new potential bidders to enter the market. And, as Jay points out, at this price level the market could be very thin, so the loss of one bidder could have a disproportionate impact on price.

While I have always regarded the BN Ruth as one of the truly great baseball cards extant, I never liked much this particular example. It is tired looking without bold colors and doesn't pop as other examples can. Despite being rarer than the T206 Wagner, it doesn't have the recognition of that card. At the end of the day, taking the "grade" out of it, the price it went for might not be too different than what a poor eye-appeal T206 Wagner would sell for.

Having said all that, congrats to the buyer, as I do think from an investment perspective the upside potential greatly outweighs the downside.

The true winner is the House (auction house that is). They provide great service no doubt, and earn a lot for it, especially multi-million dollar sales.

And so ends the long saga of this card’s value being inflated by being fractionalized. Someone clearly sold a sliver of this card and bid up the prices of that sliver to buy it back and make it look like it was worth a lot more than it was. I think only 1% of it was actually sold to the public when it was on that now defunct platform so the value was easy to manipulate.

Maybe it goes for $12 million in a PSA 2 slab.

Heritage can bid on its own, right? Perhaps they bought it back for the owner if he didn't want to let it go at that price. Cross it, get an MBA sticker, and try again. :)

I've tried to explain this concept to people and I usually get puzzled stares.

Wow what a blood bath on that card and always amazing how the T206 Wagner never lose on them but only 11 or so of these and this happens
A little surprised considering HA allows reserves and it is used so often.
On a card like this I would think they would protect themselves at least to minimize some down side potential

I’m not usually one for conspiracies, but when I see seven-figure cards like this I just assume that the auction house and/or consignor would intervene (whether directly or through an intermediary) to prevent the whale from taking a seven-figure loss. What are the odds that this card actually changes hands at this hammer price?

+1 on both of these.

Earlier in thread, right after Jay claimed the card would go for $12.5mm, I called that it would go below the estimate. But man, I did not think it would go for basically half of what it sold for last year. The seller must be apoplectic. Poor dude.

This

LOL, I missed by that much

https://www.cllct.com/sports-collect...-for-4-million

“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.

…

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.”

Slim and none!!

If you want to know how or why a card like this sells for what it does, just find out who the consigner is.

Usually this is an argument against selling through an auction process, at least for items with really thin demand, so I’m a little surprised that you would lean into it. But maybe the majority of the items in your auctions don’t fall into this category?

The people buying modern off grade basketball cards for $10 million and up could top that some day -- assuming actual sales are taking place.

Sorry that honesty seems to confound you. Or maybe you were just taking shots at me. I would argue the MAJORITY of items in EVERY auction don't fall into this category.

I've been on both sides of the equation. We had a Rose Co. Mathewson in a very nice PSA 3 sell for $18,000. The next month Heritage had an SGC 5 go for $13k because the big buyer was out of the market.

In almost the same time frame Heritage had a PSA 8 1952 Berk Ross Mantle go for $90k (destroying the previous high sale of $16k) 3 weeks later we had one go for $51k. Still great compared to the previous record, but with that 90k buyer out of the market the 3rd place bidder now sets the price.

The problem is you don't always know what's coming down the pike with other auction companies so it's impossible to plan for it. Now if an auction company were to do it to themselves, that, to me, is irresponsible to their consignors.

We had several very tough and thinly traded items in our recent auction from an Uzit back, to a Nadja Wagner and a couple of E222's (among others). The Uzit was probably safe no matter what had come before, and maybe the market is big enough for the Wagner because of who he is that it wouldn't have mattered if someone sold one a couple weeks before me, but I would've been VERY bummed if after I had advertised the E222's someone else had the same ones at auction right before me. It absolutely would've impacted our price and I'd be lying if I said otherwise.

Wasn’t intended as a shot.

I am surprised that you’re willing to publicly admit to (and even highlight) imperfections in your business model. But that’s primarily because all of us would rather downplay those, and focus on the strengths rather than admit to the weaknesses.

But certainly credit you for your refreshing candor.

As I stated on an another thread, Scott is all class.

And, I was the lucky buyer of that $18k rose co post card. I think that sale was a record (for any grade) and I have since sold that post card, I think at auction :eek::eek::eek:

Sorry, sometimes I'm over-sensitive.

My feeling is, I might make more in the short run grabbing every dollar, but consignors and buyers both will remember me longer and more fondly if I'm straight with them. I feel that IS my strength (among others lol)

I've passed consignors to other companies when I felt we wouldn't do the consignment justice. A number of those consignors later came back to me with amazing items because I took their best interests to heart.

LOL, I wasn't going to name names :D You could've made up for it grabbing the Mantle!

When you do stand-up a joke will absolutely kill one show and flop the next. The difference is the audience. Same with auctions. If the right eyeballs aren't on the auction, for whatever reason, the auction will flop.

Meanwhile, this sold for $268,400 last night after selling for $78,000 in 2023. Make it make sense.

https://sports.ha.com/itm/non-sport-...Auction-120115

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Obi-Wan voice:
"These aren't the cards you are looking for"

Now that's funny Jamie!:D

This is one of the dumbest things in all of collecting — huge value placed on the card being #1 in the set. Is there anything comparable in sports collecting?

Maybe Mr. Wonderful sees an upside?

Often #1 ends up at the top of the pile, so can struggle with condition issues.

66T #1 Mays in high grades tends to sell for a premium, and this is likely a factor. Maybe not quite the same, but in the same direction?

A few things re the Star Wars card. I would never (could never) pay that kind of money for that card, but I can understand why someone with extreme wealth would.

1. I've been putting together a high grade raw set of 1977 Star Wars first series for a few years. I'm still a few short. The #1 card is a true condition rarity. The card was on the edge of the sheet. Besides the full bleed blue borders that are prone to both corner wear and print boogers, and the usual Topps "I don't give a s**t" overall quality control, the border placement effectively means that the card is off-center L-R 95% of the time. There is a big premium on any centered #1, even in a 7 or 8 slab. It is so bad that one of the few markedly o/c cards in my set is the #1 because I won't ante up into three figures just for better centering.

2. The first series is one of the most iconic NS sets of the latter half of the 20th century. Star Wars was such a phenomenon in 1977, if you weren't there, you cannot really comprehend it. Star Wars literally was that summer; as close to a monoculture as anything ever was. I saw it multiple times, as did my friends, and we struggled to even get into the theater for the first month or so. The collectibles were everywhere; it was the first truly epic merch effort for a film. It had so much cultural staying power that the sequel was mobbed, too; us 12-year olds in 1977 were 15 in 1980 and stil went crazy for Empire. I camped out with friends at the Avco in Westwood to eventually see Empire on the first day of release, late in the afternoon. I would probably have done the same with Jedi but I got to see it in a special members screening via my father's job, at the Academy's theater in Beverly Hills. That was so much fun. At one point I looked behind me and who was sitting there? Shaft. Damn straight. Richard Roundtree. I digress to name drop...my point is that for an entire cohort of Gen X kids (who are now middle aged men with money) Star Wars was the cultural touchstone of their tween/teen lives and for the card collectors of my generation, it was the 1977 Topps cards.

3. The 1977 set series 1 is the seminal set for collectors of Star Wars cards who weren't there in 1977 but who are still ardent fans. The franchise has been carefully grown ever since, Jar Jar Binks notwithstanding. Films, TV, now a Disney 'land'. It has genuine cultural cross-appeal and staying power.

I happen to be a hardcore Star Trek (TOS) collector/fan rather than a Star Wars collector/fan but I totally get it.

Thanks for the education! It had a huge impact on me as a 3-year-old in ‘77 and Empire is my favorite movie, but as you can see from this section of my collection, I’ve always been a Solo guy, so I have no use for that #1:-)

It's not just the #1 factoring in here. The blue borders make high grades tough and the card is rarely centered well enough for a 9 or 10. Finally it's Luke Skywalker's (or Mark Hamil's) "Rookie" card. Whether that concept makes any sense has been discussed before, but there are many actors and historical figures in non-sports who have seen their first card appearance skyrocket over the last 10 years including Mickey Mouse, Einstein etc.

EDIT: Should've kept reading. Adam covered most of this.

From Babe Ruth to Luke Skywalker … you never know where a thread’s gonna go!

To tie the two themes together - The Luke Skywalker sold for 12x less than the consignor/owner of the BN Ruth LOST…. Yikes!

A whole lotta 10s would not get a 10 again were one to crack out and resubmit, whether deserving or not. This is the world of the flip being the commodity.

1952 Topps Andy Pafko. Same as with the Skywalker card, condition matters quite a bit.

Interesting aside: Many collectors (myself included) would consider a card from 1977 to be somewhat new; however, the Star Wars card is roughly 2/3 the age of the '52 Pafko.

Following up on the question above, why are we so certain that the consignor actually realized that loss? You deal in rarified air and I don't, so I simply don't know. Are auctions for cards this big arm's-length transactions the same way that bids for smaller lots are, or is it a tight circle where the parties could have some kind of arrangement where the consignor takes less of a hit?

I'm just wondering about cards owned by platforms like cllct, where ownership is fractional and shrouded in secrecy. It seems like it would be easy for a proxy to step in and bid on the Ruth if it looked like the hammer price was too low. Would Heritage have any way of knowing? Would they even care?

Mike, in my experience, expensive cards are treated no different then less expensive cards. I don’t know the seller of the BN Ruth or the facts of this consignment, but I assume it’s a real sale; indeed, if I was the buyer, I would insist it!!

Here is what I think - I think the buyer bought this two years ago for around $7.5mm. I think he decided to sell it and got his ass handed to him.no conspiracies or back room deals.

If you are a big enough boy to plunk down $7.5mm on a card then you gotta be a big enough boy to lose your lunch on a $7.5mm card. Plain and simple.

Agree completely. I dont like Heritage’s auction format, search functions, and descriptions and photos are lacking unless you ask for more.

Heritage could have bid itself too, according to its rules. Not saying that happened, I have no idea, although there are people here with inside knowledge who likely do know who the consignor was and whether someone actually won it (and who).

yes

100 percent. This hobby is small and lives gossip. People could talk if they really want to… or maybe they don’t?:D

Either way, we will talk again about this when the Ruth comes up for sale again in a year.

A question regarding the multi-million dollar loss on that card, but would a seller be able to take out a pre-auction insurance policy IN CASE it didn't sell for the amount he was looking for?
To indemnify him from having to take an Olympic-pool sized bath??

After this, I don’t think an example of that card, in either color or back, will be up for auction again for a very long time.

Who submitted the card? I wonder if that was the original owner or the auction house the first time it was listed in REA a couple years back.