You could call it the Holy Grail for baseball card collectors.
The 1914 Baltimore News Babe Ruth rookie card, one of only ten known to be in existence, is headed for the auction block.
The red-bordered card depicting the Great Bambino is expected to fetch upwards of $10 million.
The card is the first-ever made of George Herman Ruth, then a 19-year-old rookie for his hometown Baltimore Orioles of the International League.
“Simply put, the Baltimore News Babe Ruth rookie card is the most significant baseball card ever produced,” said Brian Dwyer, president of Robert Edward Auctions, a sports memorabilia and trading card auction house. “This card is the genesis of Babe Ruth, a man who transcends the game of baseball. This card is not only one of the most elusive pieces of sports memorabilia, it’s one of the rarest collectibles in American history.”
The auction house said it’s the first time in a decade that one of the cards has been made publicly available. Like the records Ruth smashed, the card is likely to be the second highest selling baseball card ever, behind a Mickey Mantle rookie card that went for $12.5 million, Dwyer told The Baltimore Sun.
The card has a “remarkable provenance” the auction house said: it remained in the same Baltimore-area family for more than a century.
The card, included among others in copies of the Baltimore News in 1914, was collected at the time by Archibald Davis, a 16-year-old paperboy.
Davis, who went on to play semiprofessional baseball, would pass the card down to his children, the Sun reported. It was on loan to the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum for years before being sold to a private collector in 2021.
Now the historic baseball treasure is up for grabs again.
The card will be featured in Robert Edward Auctions’ Fall Auction event, which runs from November 17 to December 3.
The public will have a chance to see the card, along with a blue-bordered version of the card, at the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum in Baltimore on November 15 between 2 and 4 p.m.
“This is a card that every collector dreams of owning, and with so few examples in existence, there is almost no desire to sell these cards by the few privileged enough to own them. It is very likely to be the only example we’ll see available for purchase for years to come,” said Dwyer.
Register to bid on the Baltimore News Babe Ruth card as well as more than 4,000 other trading cards and memorabilia items here.