Sports trading cards are in demand like never before.
And that demand is driving prices at the top end of the market to record after record.
Sports memorabilia generally is performing well.
The most valuable piece of sports memorabilia ever is the Babe Ruth “called shot” NY Yankees jersey that sold for $24.1 million in 2024.
But would it surprise you that just behind that legendary item are the two most valuable ever sports cards sold: a joint Kobe Bryant/Michael Jordan card that made $12.9 million in August 2025, and a Mickey Mantle 1952 Topps card that realised $12.6 million at auction in 2022.
That’s incredible.
Most of these cards are created collectibles of the sort that are usually pretty worthless: mass produced in their millions for kids to collect and swap. Stuck into cigarette or bubble gum packets, the vast majority of them didn't last a summer.
Here are the five most valuable sports cards of all time.
Plus the most valuable in each major sport. And some information that might help you become a successful sports card collector, because one of the draws of this particular hobby is that needles are still out there in the haystack to be found.
5 - 2009 - 10 Playoff National Treasures Stephen Curry Rookie Logoman Autograph card
Steph Curry stepping onto the court, and into a long career that has made his rookie card one of the most treasured of all time.
Sold for $5.9 million in July 2021
In 2021 this card set a world record as the most valuable sports card of all time.
Like a growing number of top basketball cards it was not mass-produced, but created as a unique, one-off designed to be collectible and valuable.
The fact that an investment fund, All Fund II, bought it shows how successful that has been.
The National Treasures Rookie Logoman Autograph series is made by Panini and it stacks up the desirability factors to become a super treasure for collectors.
It’s a rookie card, the first time a player has been shown on a card series, and that can never be repeated.
They’re called Logoman because they contain a swatch of the player’s jersey with the NBA logo on it.
They’re signed on the card.
These products aren’t sold at ordinary stores and come from pricey “hobby boxes” aimed at committed collectors. For example, I can pre-order now a hobby box called Obsidian with some nice high-end features. Each box contains seven cards, with an average of two signed cards in each box. And it will cost me nearly £400.
Stephen Curry, often called Steph (and nicknamed Chef Curry), is a basketball legend, who was drafted by the Golden State Warriors of San Francisco in 2009. He went on to win four NBA league championships, has two NBA MVP awards, one from the finals and two from All-Star Games. He’s an Olympic gold medal winner.
This card was graded as NM-MT 8 (near mint 8) from PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator, a third-party condition and authenticity adjudicator).
4 - Babe Ruth 1914 Baltimore News red card
Just a kid, on his way to mythical status, Babe Ruth's earliest card was worth a fortune in 2023. Image courtesy of REA.
Sold for $7.2 million in December 2023.
Babe Ruth is the biggest name in baseball history. And one of the biggest in collectibles too - beyond the $20.4-million “called shot” jersey is are bases loaded with collectible shirts, signatures, bats, balls and more.
So, it’s no surprise to see this very early baseball card here.
Collectors love stories, and the unlikely survival of this scrap of card from the collection of a 16-year-old paperboy who picked it up from the local paper in 1914 is a great story.
And only 10 of them are thought to survive. Despite many years as a child’s plaything in the family of Arhicbald Davis, the paperboy who found it, the card was handed to the Babe Ruth museum in the 1990s and only one other card has a higher condition grade. Only one more shares the 3 grade given to this one.
This is the most valuable ever Babe Ruth card. And, if it is ever sold again, it may well jump to the top of our list.
Ruth’s career legend is dominated by his NY Yankees glory days. He was only on the Baltimore Orioles team for a few months. His time at the Boston Red Sox is most notable for inspiring generations of bitter regret among Bostonian sports fans over his departure after winning three world series in five and half seasons.
But Baltimore is where it all began. The Baltimore card is the one and only Babe Ruth rookie card, and it looks undervalued already.
3 - Honus Wagner 1909 - 1911 T206 American Tobacco Company
This is one of the most famous cards in baseball collecting history, perhaps more famous than the player himself now.
Sold for $7.25 million in August 2022.
A good old fashioned rarity with a great story celebrating a great player.
Honus Wagner was a Pittsburgh Pirates legend. Rescued from a life in Pennsylvannia coalmines by his prodigious baseball talent he surely should have won more than the one World Series to his name.
But why is his card worth multiples of others of the same era featuring other players with great reputations and big honours lists?
Rarity.
Wagner withdrew his permission for the use of his image by the American Tobacco Company and only between 50 and 200 of his card were printed.
It’s possible he disapproved of his young fans buying cigarettes to get the cards. It’s also possible he wanted a decent fee for what we would now call image rights. After all, in 1907, he became the first sportsman to do an endorsement deal when a signature bat was produced in his name.
Either way, the T206 became baseball card gold dust.
By the 1930s the card was a known collector’s item and rated as the most valuable baseball card by experts.
If you’d have invested the $50 it was reckoned to be worth you’d be laughing now.
T206s are legendary and have been the world’s most expensive sports card on a number of occasions.
This example was sold in a private sale in 2022, and at $7.25 million it is the most valuable ever Honus Wagner T206 card.
If you’re shopping for T206s be warned. They are extremely thin on the ground, but not all accounted for, which makes them perfect fodder for forgers.
2 - Mickey Mantle 1952 Topps 311
Not quite a rookie card, and rare for an unusual reason.
Sold for $12.6 million in August 2022.
This image captures the the New York Yankees genius who won seven World Series and still holds six records of the MLB’s championship playoffs.
But unusually for a very valuable card, it’s not his rookie card.
That was issued the year before.
So, why is the 1952 card such a treasure?
Again, it’s rare. Like the Honus Wagner card, the true story of that rarity is a little obscure. The most commonly accepted story is that an executive at the Topps company destroyed a load of them.
The Mantle card was issued as a “high number” card (that’s the 311) for the season. That’s a second issue put out midway through a baseball season to account for transfers or new players.
Mantle started playing with the Yankees in 1951, but after working his way into the side from the farm team his season was interrupted by the knee injury that would haunt the rest of his career.
Perhaps that relegated him to the second set in 1952. And, when that second set sold poorly, leaving Topps’ Brooklyn HQ awash with surpluses, a member of staff decided to dump a load in the sea.
So the story goes.
In any case, Mantle 52s are supremely rare and very valuable.
But with mass-produced baseball cards, condition is extremely important.
The example here, sold for $12.5 million at auction in 2022, is graded by SGC as 9.5 on a 10-point scale, and is the “finest known example” of the issue.
You can find Mickey Mantle 1952 cards listed online. There are around 2,800 known, graded and authenticated examples. They’re all expensive by baseball card standards.
You’d be advised to insist on professional authentication and condition grading before you part with any cash for a Mantle 52, but it’s also the case that there are other cards out there waiting to be discovered.
When it was sold, this card was the most valuable ever sports card ever sold and the most valuable item of sports memorabilia ever sold.
1 - Michael Jordan and Kobe Byrant Upper Deck Exquisite Collection Dual Logoman Autographs
Bulls and Lakers together in this lovely card. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions.
Sold for $12.9 million in August 2025.
Another of the new breed of unique, high-quality cards sold at a high price to collectors who are essentially competing in a sort of lottery - will your box contain a multimillion dollar rarity?
The card was issued in 2007 - 08, and is of a similar type to the Steph Curry card at number five in our list, with a signature and a shirt logo making it instantly very desirable.
Collectors know that tragedy can also add value. And when Kobe Bryant died in a 2020 helicopter crash the chances of him and Jordan ever signing another card together disappeared.
Each of the stars feature on a significant number of this card series, but this is the only one they share - a one-of-one issue.
A $6-million dollar estimate before the card was sold just a month ago showed how special it was.
In the end, that was a massive underestimate, and this is now the most valuable sports trading card ever sold. It took a frantic 82-bid battle to beat the record for any sports card.
The card had been kept by its original owner, and kept in good condition, earning an excellent-mint 6 grading. The signatures were also excellent quality and condition.
A booming collectibles market
So, as of August 2025, there’s a new record to be beaten in the sports card collecting market.
And, it’s one that is booming and has been for a while.
Most expensive sporting cards in other sports
Baseball and basketball stand out for sports card collectors. But there is plenty to interest fans of almost every sport looking to indulge the love of their game or look for investment buys.
The most valuable tennis trading card ever sold
The only woman on this list, surely that won't be the case for much longer. Image Goldin Auctions.
A 2003 Netpro International autograph relic Serena Williams sold for $266,400 in 2022.
With match-gear swatches and Serena’s rookie card, autographed, this is a great quality card. It’s alos the most valuable sports collecting card showing a female athlete.
The most valuable male tennis player card is a 2024 Topps Royalty Tennis Carlos Alcaraz card (another 1/1 issue) that made $222,000 in June 2025.
The most valuable F1 card ever sold
A big growth area for card collectors is the high-octane, big money world or F1. It’s no surprise really, in a sport that has become more and more about big personalities.
Topps put out a Chrome F1 issue in 2020, the first major set of the recent times. And it hit immediately, with the 1-of-1 Lewis Hamilton superfractor card becoming the most valuable F1 card ever issued when it sold for $900,000 in 2022.
The most valuable American football/NFL card ever sold
A 2017 Panini National Treasures Platinum Shield Rookie Patch Autographs card showing Patrick Mahomes is the most expensive ever NFL card.
It sold for $4.3 million in 2021. Mahomes is the quarter back of the Kansas City Chiefs with three Superbowl Wins to his name.
The card, with a NM-MT 8.5 condition grading is another unique card with an autograph and uniform swatch.
The most valuable football/soccer trading card ever sold
While the sports card collecting market is very focused on US sports, there is also a global market, and an American demand for the global game - football.
The most valuable ever soccer card shows Pele and is a genuine vintage issue. It’s Pele’s rookie card, from 1958,
The card comes from a World Cup set, issued for the finals in which the then teenager announced his talent to the world.
The Pele card, numbered 635, sold for $1.3 million in February 2022.
It was the first million-dollar football card, thanks to its rarity and a very high grade of 9 mint.
It was bought by a crowd-funded fractional ownership buyer.
The most valuable ice hockey card ever sold
A national hero, and a collector himself, it has to be Gretzky for ice hockey.
The most valuable ever ice hockey card is a Wayne Gretzky 1979 O-Pee-Cee card that sold in May 2021 for $3.75 million.
The card had a perfect condition rating of GM-MT 10.
In 2024 a sealed box of the cards from that season, expected to contain as many as 27 Gretzky rookie cards, was sold for $2.52 million.
Gretzy himself owned one of the Honus Wagner baseball cards listed above that was sold for over $1 million.
Collecting sports cards today
In a very developed market with a huge dedicated community around it, is it still possible to buy the most valuable sports collectible cards?
Absolutely.
We can see that a couple of recent buys - the Steph Curry card and the fractionally bought Pele card have been investment purchases.
And these are people who research before they shop.
They will also be following the best practice for all buyers, which is to look for certified and condition graded cards of the best condition and highest quality, featuring bankable stars.
A unique item with a game-used bat knob on the card, many of the most valuable modern trading cards are premium items as soon as they're made rather than against-the-odds survivals. Image from Topps.
Buyers also have a new way to gamble on this market through the new generation of created rarities.
Sports cards were created as packing ballast. For decades and decades they were mass-produced and given away. The odd issue became a sought-after rarity by accident, and because most were little-considered beyond their immediate entertainment value.
But, now, you can spend several hundred pounds on very high quality cards with built in sell-on attraction the shape of uniform swatches and signatures, including those very special 1-of-1 cards we now see setting records.
It’s certainly an area for collectors to consider shopping in themselves.
Modern sports collecting
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