According to apnews.com, a mint condition Mickey Mantle baseball card recently sold for $12.6 million on Sunday, setting a new record for the most money ever paid for sports memorabilia in a market that has exploded in recent years. The previous record was $9.3 million for a jersey worn by Diego Maradona when he scored the “Hand of God” goal in soccer’s 1986 World Cup. Chris Ivy, the director of sports auctions at Heritage Auctions is quoted in saying, “There’s only so much Netflix and ‘Tiger King’ people could watch (during the pandemic). So, you know, they were getting back into hobbies, and clearly sports collecting was a part of that,” He continued to say that, “We’ve kind of started seeing some growth and some rise in the prices that led to some media coverage. And I think it all it all just kind of built upon itself,” he said. “I would say the beginning of the pandemic really added gasoline to that fire.” Prior to the pandemic the sport memorabilia market was estimated at $5.4 billion as stated in an interview between Forbes and David Yoken, the founder of collectable.com in a 2018 interview. However, by 2021 that market had grown to $26 billion and is predicted to grow to $227 billion within the next decade. The seller of the Mickey Mantle card, was Anthony Giordano who bought the card back in 1991 for $50,000.
—
Brian Eichhorn / Shutterstock.com