I am a Ruth Fan. But This price is way out of control
 

The Auction opened only 4 plus hours ago

https://www.milehighcardco.com/1916_...-LOT80217.aspx


and this Beautiful 1916 M101-4 Ruth Blank Back Card PSA7 is already at

$1,350,000 before buyers premium.

And their appears to be no Reserve

Any thoughts?
Any Guesses on the Final Price?

But regardless

This is nuts

Most of the cards on your want list are six figure cards.

True my want list/wish list is not cheap.

I am just amazed at the price on higher end cards. Even with the spike the last year plus I never thought a PSA 7 blank back Ruth would go any where near this price on the first day. Let alone close with that price.

And there are a lot of bids on this on the first day which implies several bidders so it has the potential for a bidding was at the end and drive this to over $2.5 million (considering it is already at $1.6 million with BP)

There is a lot of money in the hobby and that is a premier card. Consider it art and it's still cheap.
,

Boy am I glad I got my Goudey Ruth, and several other now high-end cards, before all of this. If not, I would not be able to have them. I'm not poor by any stretch, but I do not have the wherewithal for this kind of buying, and I have zero desire to trade any more of my cards or sell them.

dumbest hobby move I ever made was to sell my 4 Goudey Ruth's in PSA 3's, and 21 Exhibit before the run up. Ugh

Jeff, you should pick up the E224 Wagner, that's a special card.

That is a Great Card and if the timing was better I would make a run at it.

I would love to but I am officially on hold to regroup the funds. Budget for 2 cards a year and picked up a 4 year supply. lol

I am not liquid at this point and not will to sell anything from my collection.

So I am more a trade person at the moment (but only if the trade was right of course for both sides)

Just hope that after it is sold it does not get shredded. :eek:

Is anyone familiar with the MBA Gold Diamond that has been awarded to this card by Mike Baker? This is the first I am seeing this. Among other things, it is meant to certify that a card has "premium print quality and centering". It's a great card but it is not centered left-to-right.

Ruth
 

Considering the combined population reports and the subject, conventional wisdom would have this M101 Ruth bringing more than the 5.2 million that the PSA 9 1952 Topps Mantle sold for recently, right? If not, why? Neither are rare, but both are interesting and help the hobby.

What happened to those purple stickers lol.

Greg still around? Haven't seen him in a while. Live or on the board.

Thank you for the link to the thread discussing the MBA sticker...I guess I missed it the first time around.

Trickle Down
 

So, any thoughts on what this price means, if anything, for mid and lower grade Ruths - particularly those with more rare backs?

Jeff hope all is well bud— I don’t know why you think this price is out of control?? . I am confused. Low grade Ruth rookies are 200k-400k. Why shouldn’t a NM copy bring a huge premium and well over 2 million in theory ?? Restored, authentics, and dog meat Wagner t206s fetch much more than where the bid is now. A Ruth rookie (m101) will never catch up to the Wagner it would seem, but it’s probably top 5 to get closer, maybe 60 percent of a Wagner long term pricing ?? so why the shock for a NM Ruth rookie with a Low population for the grade ?
We all have seen the Ruth rookie going up at astronomical rates. It’s not stopping anytime soon.

Well I guess I was wrong. Which is ok.

Just never seeing one going for this much before. (A blank PSA7 was auctioned at HA in May but did not sell when the reserve was not met and with the auction potentially adding bids we do not know what it would have went for).

and with a PSA 7 selling for $384K in April 2018. Just surprised that even with the new money coming in that this card will sell for 7 x or more what sold just 3 years ago.

It will be interesting to see where it ends up (since I am biased having a lower grade blank back)

I remember having a variation of this conversation in 1982 and 1998 and 2007 and...

Us 'seasoned' collectors are always bemused/disgusted/terrified when prices rise. Just depends on which side of the deal you are on. As a lucky collector who picked up on a few of the trends early, I am very pleased with myself. As someone who sat by and said 'manana' on so many other cards, not so much.

Totally agree with Jeff: trading is the bomb. I made a few nice trades this year where both sides were able to gain for their collections and go away happy. One of the things I most missed about the National the last two years was a marathon trading session I have every year with a collector. We go for hours and the deals are as complex as nuclear disarmament treaties. But way more fun!

More fun than nuclear disarmament treaties? Go on!! I call bullshit.

They almost seem quaint now.

I held the card in my hand at the last Boston show...it is near perfect and the print image is flawless. Brian thinks it should go for 4-5m. He just walks around with it in his pocket. I asked him if he get nervous at all going home with that in your hand...of course no.

Pretty cool that you had a chance to see it first hand.

Interesting that Brian is not nervous about carrying the card around. I would probably be paranoid.

Regarding Brian thinking the card can go for that much. To me $4-$5Million would be incredible/amazing.

In addition the market is so volatile normal price trends and even spike pricing is unpredictable

I Guess we will see what the market shows at the Auction ending in 16 Days.

But it's an old cert number in a new holder. According to conventional thinking, it really isn't a 7 now.

Insert sarcasm emoji :rolleyes:

Wow PhillyFan you nailed it.

The Card brought almost 2.5 million dollars last night.
Sold just a few years ago for 600K so a 4 multiplier in just a few years.

Lot's of new money in the collection hobby

Ruth
 

In the current climate, I actually thought that the 7 under performed last night. Why would a Babe Ruth rookie PSA 7 from 1916 sell for half of what a PSA 9 1952 Mantle sold for...?

My father thought it was ridiculous that cards from his childhood era were going for "so much" in the late 1980's. My mother and I used to get in trouble when she allowed me to bring home an "expensive baseball card", which back then might be, say, a '66 Topps Sandy Koufax for 20 bucks.

Since the modern hobby became self-aware 40 or so years ago, certain things have always been considered stupid expensive. So are Ferrari's and Van Gough's - but people still buy them...

The Josh Gibson 1950-51 Toleretos PSA 4 went for over $100k. A year ago a 7 on Heritage sold for half that.

Not surprised by the price. If you want a traditional Ruth baseball card produced during his Boston days I believe your only choices are the rookie, or a Boston Store/Collins McCarthy.

I know there's an m101-6 Red Sox version but there's like what 2 known? Not counting the '15 team RPPC as well.

Can't think of any others actually made during the early Boston days.

Perhaps a bit of personal perspective on the Ruth RC price run-up In 1995 or thereabouts, I bought a M101-5 Ruth Sporting News back, which was later graded a 5.5 by SGC, from Lew Lipset for around $5,000 and sold it in 2003 via Mastro for $15,000.
Humbug!

Wow humbug

Prices have changed alot. Over a fairly short time

I wonder about this one:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...-Alexander.jpg

Besides Ruth the WaJo image is from opening day in 1916 and the Coveleskie and Sisler images are used in 1921 E sets. I haven't been able to track down the originals on those yet. At least as to Ruth and WaJo there is no anachronism to the card being pre-trade.

Not sure about the date on those, definitely not a traditional baseball card though, weren't those cut from a larger piece containing other players?

I was shocked by this result. I don’t know what to think.

Regarding the Ruth, I would not have been superseded if it went over $3mm+. It’s an exceptional example of a top 5 card. In my pre-war-card-loving opinion, the value of that Ruth card should dwarf a PSA 9 52 Mantle.

Yeh, have all done that. Picked ups up a Louisville slugger Bat rack at a antiques show for $65.00, sold it a couple years later for $1000.00,, a few months later sold in an Auction house for 10,000.

:D I'll settle for this. :D

Very True Joe very true and on the flip many of us have missed opportunities also

Ruth 7
 

I thought the Ruth went light. Some I know expected it to go over 3mm, and it probably should have. There's only 100 Ruth's known, give or take, as many I know have been crossed, and that's rare compared to thousands of Mantle's. I know I'm a little bias, but I think the Ruth RC's are still cheap. If Lebron James RC's /99 bring 5.2mm, then Ruth should bring 10mm+!!

I 1000% agree with you Pete. Hi BTW!! How goes? We should catch up one of these days. I hope all is well.

i also totally agree...and if I were you Pete...I'd be biased too!!!

Nope. They were in the box that way in various configurations (4, 6 or 8 images, the latter two being mug shots) of roughly Exhibit size.

Ruth is THE Icon, so it won't surprise me if he continues to go up. I would eventually like to add A Ruth to my collection, one day, as I really think no collection is complete without one, but with each passing year it appears to be harder and harder.

As a side note, I think at this point I'd sacrifice the internet if given a chance to live in the 1950's. Could afford a nice house, plus all the cards that I've ever wanted :D

Interesting, do you have images of the others? I'd like to research to see if we can conclusively date this thing.

The lebron james has a piece of his game worn rookie jersey in it and his signature on the card though. So it's not quite the same thing. A "normal" lebron RC sells for a tiny fraction of that. Even the short printed ones.

Check out 93sp jeter psa10 omg

Johnson, Cobb, Alexander Bancroft

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kIyrfbHhh...304739_HDR.jpg

Groh (thanks Brian!), Schalk, Collins, O'Neill, ___, Ruth

https://dyn1.heritagestatic.com/lf?s...oduct.chain%5D

Tris Speaker

https://vintagecardprices.com/pics/12531/429396.jpg

Lee Meadows

https://vintagecardprices.com/pics/12531/429393.jpg

Thanks! Aren't their two other players with action shots or am I making that up?

It’s still Lebron’s top RC, signature/little patch or not, with /99 in circulation. To your point of other Lebron RC’s, he has a gazillion different ones, where Ruth has only one. No Lebron in any shape or size imo should sell for more than Ruth, nor should a Luka Doncic RC(4.6mm) short printed or not. Great players and cards, but they’re not Ruth.


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The Bancroft card would have been issued post-trade, since it shows him wearing a Giants uniform--a team he did not join until July, 1920. That makes the Alexander an anachronism insofar as he was not with Philadelphia at that time.

My guess for why the Ruth rookie didn't sell for more or outperform some modern cards is because too many people don't understand the significance of the card. For the longest time many collectors didn't know it existed or if they did they didn't know much about it. Due to its rarity and kinda oddball set it was passed by for many years and only appealed to a certain type of collector. I think when psa came out with the top 20 sports cards it gave the Ruth rookie more attention. I’ve noticed his 1920’s cards are getting more attention too. Now more people know they exist but still might not understand the significance to the hobby and the sport.