Rovell: Mike Trout’s 2009 Rookie Card Sells for Record-High $3.84 Million
Rob Tringali/Getty Images. Pictured: Mike Trout.
A baseball card made in 2009 became the highest-priced card sold at auction early Sunday morning, as a Mike Trout Bowman Chrome SuperFractor sold for $3.84 million in a Goldin Auctions sale.
The buyer is not known.
The sale of the 1-of-1 card surpasses the $3.1 million spent on the famous Honus Wagner T206 card, produced 100 years before the Trout card, sold nearly four years ago.
BREAKING: This Mike Trout Superfractor card has just been sold for $3.84 MILLION in the @GoldinAuctions sale, breaking the record of the Honus Wagner ($3.1M) for the highest price of a card ever sold.
Consignor @itsvegasdave paid a reported $400K for the card two years ago. pic.twitter.com/RtFkq5rb7s
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) August 23, 2020
The 2009 Trout rookie is the ultimate among modern day cards, as proven on Sunday morning. A surplus in production ruined the card industry in the mid-90s, and card companies responded by limiting cards and numbering them. That, combined with grading, provided the necessary scarcity to reinvigorate the hobby and bring back investors.
But in recent months, the card industry has been on fire. Just last month, the modern card record was broken when a LeBron James signed rookie card sold for $1.84 million — also in a Goldin Auctions sale.
The card was consigned by Dave Oancea, who bought several scarce Trout cards. One of those sold last month for $922,500. This one, which he reportedly purchased for $400,000 in May 2018, was a bigger score.
Other big lots in the auction included another LeBron rookie, which sold for $1.08 million, the only perfect gem mint Nolan Ryan rookie, which sold for $600,000 and a George Mikan rookie for $72,800.
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