LOT #58784 |
Sold on Jan 26, 2024 for: Sign-in
or Join (free & quick)
1916 M101-5 Blank Backs Babe Ruth Rookie #151 SGC EX+ 5.5....
Click the image to load the highest resolution version.
Sold on Jan 26, 2024 for:
$630,000.00
Bid Source: Internet bidder
Get one of these:
Explore Available Items
Description
Pop One, None Higher!
1916 M101-5 Blank Backs Babe Ruth Rookie #151 SGC EX+ 5.5.
How does one measure supremacy? For many years, when it came to
Babe Ruth, the answer was as simple as an examination of his stat
line. It's been said that records are made to be broken, but Ruth
positively shattered them, dismissing the standards of incremental
advancement for a paradigm shift that serves as the clearest
evidence of the sport's transition from Dead Ball Era to Live. Some
records have fallen, occasionally with help from medical science,
but any argument that Ruth was not the most dominant athlete in
sports history is doomed to burial beneath a mountain of evidence
to the contrary.But we're talking trading cards here, and personal opinion offers no such handy metrics with which one might construct a consensus ranking. All we can do is make our case, which we believe to be as compelling as it is clear and simple.
With affectionate deference to the T206 Wagner and the 1952 Topps Mantle, cards well-deserving of their placement at the ceiling of the trading card pantheon, we are inclined to assign the primary ranking criterion to the identity of the subject. In this regard, the argument for Ruth has already been made. Certainly the matters of happenstance that made the Wagner and Mantle cards the hobby's most famous short-prints remain a point of intrigue--and each card pictures a true baseball legend--but there can only be one King, and that has to be Ruth.
From that point, we fall very much in line with the collecting dogma that has held sway over the trading card community for generations: All hail the rookie! There is only one universally recognized Babe Ruth rookie card, and this is it. It's a gorgeous specimen besides, providing one of the sharpest obverse images we've seen for this iconic trading card, spared a further climb up the SGC leaderboard by minimal corner wear and a slight westerly shift in centering.
This is quite simply as good as it gets in the SGC population, the offered example is the only one at this grade among a full census of just eight as of the time of this writing. Graded SGC EX+ 5.5.
Auction Info
2024 January 26 - 27 Winter Sports Card Catalog Auction #50067 (go to Auction Home page)
Auction Dates
January, 2024
26th-27th
Friday-Saturday
Bids + Registered Phone Bidders: 33
Lot Tracking Activity: N/A
Page Views: 5,905
Buyer's Premium per Lot:
20% of the successful bid per lot.
Shipping, Taxes, Terms and Bidding
Terms and Conditions | Bidding Guidelines and Bid Increments | Glossary of Terms | Sports Collectible Grading Tutorial
Important information concerning Sales Tax and Resale Certificates. Learn More
Terms and Conditions | Bidding Guidelines and Bid Increments | Glossary of Terms | Sports Collectible Grading Tutorial