Babe Ruth 1914 Baltimore News Rookie Card Sells for $7.2M; 3rd-Highest Price for Card

A Babe Ruth rookie card sold for $7.2 million at an auction Monday, making it the third-highest-priced card ever.

The 1914 Baltimore News card is one of just 10 known in existence. Surprisingly enough, the card itself had no known existence until the 1980s, according to Brian Dwyer, president of Robert Edward Auctions, making it a shockingly rare find on the market.

"The last time one of these transacted [in 2013] was $450,000," Dwyer told Dan Hajducky of ESPN. "It's easier to buy an NFL team in the last decade than it has been to buy one of these cards."

Ruth played for the Baltimore Orioles, then a minor league team, for only a short period before his contract was purchased by the Boston Red Sox in 1914. He would go on to play six seasons in Boston before famously being sold to the New York Yankees in 1920, setting up the "Curse of the Bambino."

"It's miraculous that this card exists," REA communications director P.J. Kinsella said. "He was on the Orioles for a few months and, by the end of [1914], he was in Providence. That he's encapsulated in this set, not knowing what he would become ... it's rather remarkable that he's on this card. The time that in which they were able to get him was so minute."

The highest-ever price for a baseball card was set at $12.6 million for the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle rookie. A Honus Wagner T206 Sweet Caporal card is in second place at $7.25 million.

The Ruth card sold at auction originated with a then-16-year-old Baltimore paperboy named Archibald Davis, who had several baseball cards in his collection that were passed down by his family.