Babe Ruth 1914 Baltimore News card sells for huge $3 million loss

The 1914 Baltimore News Babe Ruth rookie card, which sold for $7.2 million two years ago, fetched $4.02 million at Heritage Auctions over the weekend. The weekend's sale was $3.18 million less than what the consignor paid for it in 2023, likely making it the largest loss ever realized on a trading card.

It was a stunning result for the card, which was the third-most expensive baseball card ever sold in 2023, putting it just behind a 1909-11 T206 Honus Wagner and a $12.6 million 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle rookie.

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It’s Auction Closing Weekend! 🙌

What do you have your eyes on? 👀 https://t.co/1cp1xk5Xxp pic.twitter.com/ZQGnSEbndb
— Heritage Auctions Sports (@Heritage_Sport) October 24, 2025

Heritage estimated the card's value at $7 million, but bidding fell well short of that. Some observers think it was too soon to put the card up for auction after its historic sale in 2023. Despite its rarity —only 10 copies are known to exist —some believe that the card being put up for sale less than two years later hurt its value.

Even Heritage wrote in its description of the item, "Is there a rarer rookie card for any athlete of even remotely similar acclaim? Imagine, if you will, what the market for a PSA Gem Mint 10 example of the 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan rookie would be if 319 of the existing 329 at that grade simply vanished."

Just two days until one of the most coveted Babe Ruth cards in The Hobby joins a new collection

This is one of just ten known 1914 Baltimore News Babe Ruth cards

And only one has graded higher than this SGC VG 3 pic.twitter.com/q2rs2fj86r
— Heritage Auctions Sports (@Heritage_Sport) October 22, 2025

Other observers have written that some don't consider the trading card a rookie card in the traditional sense, since it features Ruth as a Baltimore Oriole, a minor league team in the International League at the time. However, the card is still historic because it's Ruth's first appearance on a trading card.

Taking a loss on trading cards is nothing new. If the Ruth card had sold for just a little less than the $7 million estimate, most observers wouldn't have batted an eye. However, for the card to sell for $3 million less is unheard of for a vintage card carrying the magnitude of being Ruth's rookie card. Which leads to a bigger question: how could this happen?