Aug. 28 (UPI) -- A 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle rookie card sold for $12.6 million at auction on Sunday becoming the most valuable sports collectible ever sold at auction.
The card sold through Dallas-based Heritage Auctions at 12:28 a.m. CST Sunday but the auction house said it had already become the most valuable sports card sold at auction weeks ago.
"An eight-figure result in the sports market was the stuff of fantasy just a decade ago," Chris Ivy, director of sports auctions at Heritage said in a statement. "We always knew this card would shatter records and expectations."
The $12.6 million price tag topped the record for the most valuable sports card sold at auction set by a T206 Honus Wagner card that sold for $6.6 million last year. It also claimed the record for most valuable sports collectible of any type, surpassing the $9.3 million price that a jersey worn by Diego Maradona during his "Hand of God" goal in the 1986 World Cup fetched at an auction earlier this year.
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Heritage Auctions said that consignor Anthony Giordano bought the card from Alan "Mr. Mint" Rosen for $50,000 in 1991 and decided to keep it "hidden away" and ungraded for the next 30 years.
Rosen, who came across the card and several other Mantles in a haul of 1052 Topps cards Rosen bought from a Massachusetts man in the mid-1980s, wrote a letter to Giordano saying the card was "in my estimation the finest known example in the world."
The Mantle card was graded a Mint+ 9.5 by Sportscard Guaranty Corporation, which Ivy said made it especially desirable at auction.
"It bears the finest qualities any 1952 Topps can possess: perfect centering, registration and four sharp corners," he said. "That this Mantle rookie card remained in this condition for 70 years is a true miracle."
