Battle of the icons

[Wolverine]

This was a discussion I had with a few buddies of mine earlier today and it basically expands on my other thread about the future of the sports memorabilia market.

If you were to choose 4 athletes from different sports to represent the sports memorabilia hobby as a whole, it's pretty safe to say that there are 4 "kings" of this hobby that would immediately come to mind. You have Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali and Wayne Gretzky.

Now, right now its pretty obvious that Babe Ruth is the true leader of this hobby. But will he always be king or will someone else eventually surpass him? So far, the only other athlete to even come close to bringing in Ruthian values on his memorabilia is Ali. But will premium Jordan, Ali or Gretzky items ever surpass Ruth values in the future?

I'm not talking about average prices on their memorabilia in general because obviously that wouldn't be a fair comparison being that Ruth items are so rare compared to the others. I'm talking specifically about the best of the best from these other icons.

For example, lets say just for fun that in the year 2050 Heritage Auctions lists a Babe Ruth uniform, a Michael Jordan rookie season uniform and a Wayne Gretzky rookie season uniform up for bid in the same auction. Do you think by that time the Jordan or Gretzky uniform sale prices could challenge the Ruth uniform by reaching the $1 million+ mark? Or will Ruth still reign supreme?