Insane Babe Ruth card on Ebay

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Carter08

I don’t know that I disagree with you. But how do you square that thought you with the sale from a few months ago? Not looking to pick a fight. Genuinely confident you probably have an answer.

First, I believe the one from 3 months ago undersold when it went for $59k. The same exact copy sold for $24k back in 2019 and $23k in 2018. This happens sometimes with cards that only come to market once every few years. Buyers just don't know how to comp them, so they just sorta guess and cross their fingers. But the market for Ruth cards, in general, has gone up by 4x or more in that same time span (this is easier to see with some of the cards like Goudeys that come to market more regularly). As an example, 1933 Goudey Ruths are going for around $16k right now in a PSA 3, whereas back in 2018 they were only going for around $3.5k. There are many other cards you could look to beyond just the Goudeys for Ruth, but this is a good starting point for estimating that valuation.

Second, the eye appeal delta between that PSA 2 that sold from Memory Lane and this one is pretty significant. Anyone who cares about centering and eye appeal (which I'm one of) would place a rather large premium on the copy that sold at auction last night on eBay (see pic below where the two are side-by-side). At first glance, it looks like it could be a 3.5, or at least from the front. But the reverse shows a light reverse crease in the lower right corner and a very small section of paper loss, so they're not going to give this a 3.5. It would drop it down to a 2 with strong eye appeal at SGC, which means they'll give it a 2.5. Assuming I'm right (as I don't have it in hand), and it does come back from SGC in a 2.5 holder, then I would value this card somewhere in the $100k to possibly even $150k range if the "right" buyers got into a war over it.

That said, I don't know enough about how the red ink vs blue ink affects the valuation of these. I'd have to research that more. If there is a substantial premium for the blue ink, then my estimate could be off by a factor of whatever the coefficient for the color variation would be. But I'm quite confident that this is nowhere near a $50k card and that someone just made a HUGE score.