The year 2022 has been an incredible one for the baseball card hobby. We’ve seen legendary rookie cards sell for record prices and rare vintage gems emerge from attics and basements to fetch enormous sums. With so much activity in the market this year, identifying the true heavyweight champions—the single most valuable baseball cards—requires close examination of everything that exchanged hands. Here are the royals that reigned supreme in 2022.
At the top of the list is inarguably one of the rarest and most iconic cards in the entire hobby—the 1909-11 T206 Honus Wagner. Only around 60 examples are known to exist, making each discovery of a high-grade Wagner completely unprecedented. In 2022, a PSA NM-MT 8 example—one of the finest known—sold for $6.6 million through Goldin Auctions, setting a new record for most expensive basketball card ever sold. The previous record, $5.2 million set in 2016, was also for a T206 Wagner. Finding another Wagner of comparable quality that might beat $6.6 million seems next to impossible.
The next card on our list is another pre-WWI gem: The 1914 Baltimore News Babe Ruth rookie card. According to Beckett, the population of high-grade (PSA 8 or better) Ruth rookies numbers around 10-20 examples. In August, a spectacular PSA NM-MT 8 sold for $2.88 million through Goldin, more than doubling the previous record. Like the Wagner, finding an equally impressive 1914 Ruth to challenge that $2.88 million figure will be exceedingly tough. Such condition rarities have arguably never been in higher demand.
Rounding out our top three is one of the most storied vintage cards period: The 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle rookie. While not quite as rare in top-pop as the above cards, mint 52 Mantles regularly eclipse the million-dollar threshold. In May, Heritage Auctions sold an unprecedented PSA Gem Mint 9.5 Mantle rookie for $12.6 million, setting a new record for sports card ever sold. With roughly 30 high-grade examples population-wide, there is always headline-grabbing potential when a fresh Mint 9.5 Mantle hits the market—though surpassing $12.6 million won’t be easy.
Moving into the modern era, perhaps no single card defined the hobby in 2022 quite like the 2009 Bowman Chrome Blue Refractor 1st Edition Auto Patch of Shohei Ohtani BGS GEM MINT 10. Ohtani mania reached a fever pitch when this impossibly rare 1/1 pulled in an astounding $3.936 million through Goldin back in August, making it not just the most expensive baseball card ever sold but the most expensive card period. With its status as Ohtani’s sole logo-man Auto Patch card issued by Bowman as an international signee, even the deepest of pockets will struggle finding a comp to dethrone it.
Shifting to the rookie class of 2021, the biggest news was the emergence of Fernando Tatis Jr cards as truly heavyweight contenders in the market. His prized 2018 Bowman Chrome Color Refractors in BGS/PSA 10 routinely crept past the $100,000 mark throughout 2022, with a January sale of a PSA 10 via PWCC setting the then-record at $236,000. No single 2021 rookie has more monster card potential moving forward than Tatis in the longestversion.
Rounding out our list of the greatest individual cards of 2022 are two entries that illustrate how rare vintage can still cause a buying frenzy. In April, a 1913 Ultra Rare R314-R315 Ty Cobb proved just how much demand there is for true one-of-a-kind cards when an ungraded example containing two different Cobb images sold for $2.88 million through Goldin. Meanwhile, in December, Sotheby’s Heritage Auctions sold a magnificent high-graded 1914 Cracker Jack Lefty Grove rookie BVG 9 for an astronomical $960,000—a sum unfathomable even a few years ago for non-flagship vintage cards in top pop. Both Cobb and Grove sales prove there is still blue-chip potential left to unearth from pre-war collections.
2022 showcased jaw-dropping prices across every era, from game-worn memorabilia to artifacts over a century old. Headlines were dominated by pedigreed icons like Mantle, Ruth and Wagner, as well as modern phenoms like Ohtani, Tatis Jr. and more. With interest and demand at an all-time high, a new generation of serious collectors are ascending who view the top cards more like works of art than cardboard. The cards highlighted here perfectly captured that zeitgeist and took valuations to astronomical new levels—levels that may be tough to surpass for some time. With so much uncertainty looming in the global economy in 2023, only time will tell how long this bull market can continue its charge. But 2022 is now firmly etched as one of the single greatest years on record for high-end baseball cards. The cards and the collectors that propelled them to the summit have earned immortality within the collecting world.
