A 1914 Baltimore News Babe Ruth rookie card sold for $7.2 million, including the buyer's premium, just after midnight Monday, the third highest sum ever paid for a sports card.
It narrowly missed the $7.25 million paid for a T206 Sweet Caporal Honus Wagner card in August 2022. It's the most expensive Ruth item of all-time.
In 1914, a 16-year-old Baltimore paperboy named Archibald Davis collected baseball cards of his favorite Orioles — then an International (minor) League side — distributed in daily papers.
He was fond of one depicting a 19-year-old pitcher born on Emory St. named Ruth. This is that card. Davis' cards, 15 in total, would be passed down in the family for generations — often played with by children before they knew what they had — for 107 years.