Brady Championship Rookie Ticket Brings $2.25 Million; New Highest Priced Football Card
It might be the best money anyone has ever spent on eBay.
A little over ten years ago, a collector decided to purchase a 2000 Playoff Contenders Championship Rookie Ticket Autograph card of Tom Brady. What that person paid isn’t publicly known, but considering the modest prices for football cards at the time and the result of the most recent sale, it was a steal. Graded 8.5 with a 9 autograph rating, the card sold through Lelands early Friday morning for $2,252,855, making it the most expensive football card ever sold. The buyer’s name isn’t yet known.
The auction price obliterated a record set just four weeks earlier when Fitbit Founder and CEO James Park purchased a copy of the same Brady card (graded 8 with a 10 auto grade) for $1.32 million.
The card offered by Lelands was numbered 99/100. It’s the latest headline-grabbing sale of a modern era sports card in a market that has been turned on its ear over the last 12 months. In early February, a 2017 National Treasures Patrick Mahomes card numbered to 5 sold for $861,000, breaking the football card record that had been held by another Brady card that had sold for $555,988 in January.
Several modern cards were among the dozen lots that sold for over $100,000 in the auction including $304,770 for a 2003-04 Bowman Chrome Gold Refractor (#29/50) LeBron James rookie card.
The first 2019-20 National Treasures Gold Zion Williamson Rookie Patch Autograph ever offered at public auction netted $269,549. Numbered 2/10, the card was pulled from a pack by the consignor, who had Lelands submit it to Beckett for grading where it netted a 9.
A recent find of four 1961 Topps Dice Game cards drew aggressive bidding that wound up bringing over $350,000 combined, topped by a Frank Robinson (SGC 5) that sold for $143,748. Others included an SGC 4.5 Willie Mays ($127,452); an SGC 4.5 Brooks Robinson ($46,800) and an SGC 3 Stan Musial ($37,273). The Topps Dice Game cards were created in-house but believed to have never been publicly distributed since only a few have ever been uncovered.
One of the 91 1979-80 O-Pee-Chee Wayne Gretzky rookie cards to have been graded 9 or better by PSA went for $259,501.
Memorabilia sold in the auction included a single-signed Babe Ruth baseball with an autograph grade of PSA 8 sold for $104,813. The official American League ball included the original box.
The jersey worn by Mike Trout in his first MLB game ten years ago failed to meet the seller’s reserve price.
Complete results can be found here.
