At ComicConnect.com’s baseball card auction held this month, a record-breaking miscut card sold for $72,500 thanks to an accident at the factory 70 years ago.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK /EINPresswire.com/ — Without question, two of the most collectible baseball cards in existence are Jackie Robinson and Mickey Mantle from the sought-after 1952 Topps collection.
What do you get when you put them together?
At ComicConnect.com’s inaugural baseball card auction held this month, the answer was a grand-slam, record-breaking, $72,500, thanks to a happy accident at the factory 70 years ago. The highest price ever paid for a miscut card!
The No. 312 Robinson card, one of the hobby’s most important issues, shows the Brooklyn Dodgers second-baseman against a vibrant red background. The game’s first African-American player had an amazing season in 1952: he hit .308 with 19 home runs, 24 stolen bases and 104 runs scored.
But just to Robinson’s left is a blue background and a sliver of another future Hall-of-Famer, the New York Yankees’ Mickey Mantle. The switch-hitting legend was heralded as the successor to Joe DiMaggio, and his first Topps release in 1952 is considered one of the hobby’s most valuable post-war trading cards.
“A miscut is usually the kiss of death when it comes to a card’s value,” said Vincent Zurzolo, COO of New York-based ComicConnect.com. “But having two Hall-of-Famers on one card puts it in a league of its own.”
Last year, the Jackie Robinson/Mickey Mantle miscut made headlines when it sold at auction for $29,520 to a long-time collector who had been following the trading card hobby since elementary school. He looked at the card as an investment and, in the fast-paced world of card collecting, decided less than a year later to sell it in ComicConnect’s historic auction. The seller and buyer remain anonymous.
“We are so happy for the buyer and seller of the card,” Zurzolo said. “It’s a win-win.”
Sports-card investing is growing in popularity, fueled by social media and huge profits enjoyed by some sellers. People who grew up in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s – who may have collected and traded cards as kids – are today discovering the thrill of finding, holding and then perhaps making a handsome return on investment.
But baseball card investing is not a get-rich-quick scheme, Zurzolo cautioned.
“This is more like a hobby that maybe you can monetize at some point,” he said. “You have to do your research to find potentially valuable cards and realize that you may have to hold them for five or even 10 years.”
ComicConnect.com is well-known among comic book collectors and investors, but is now accepting consignments of not only baseball cards but also vintage VHS tapes, video games, action figures and other items that today’s millennials may have grown up with.
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Rod Washington: Rod is a blogger, writer, filmmaker, photographer, daydreamer who likes to cook. Rod produces and directs the web series, CUPIC: Diary of an Investigator. He also produces news and documentary video projects. Check out his podcast StoriesThisMoment at https://m3e.d71.myftpupload.com/stm-tncn-podcasts/
