Ty Cobb T206 card sells for near-record $870k

Sale comes within inches of record

Cover Image for Ty Cobb T206 card sells for near-record $870k
Only three Ty Cobb 1910-11 T206 cards exist at PSA 9, and none have ever been graded a 10. (Credit: Heritage Auctions)

A century-old Ty Cobb card came within inches of a new all-time sales record Friday night when it sold for $870,000 at Heritage against a $100,000.

The T206 Ty Cobb card, graded PSA 9 — a miraculous condition grade for such an old card — is a “Bat Off Shoulder” variations, one of four types featuring Cobb in the famed T206 set. Its card back is Piedmont 350, among the more common from the T206 set.

PSA has graded just 92 copies of T206 Cobbs of the same variant and card back, with only two PSA 9s and none higher.

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Neither Mint examples have ever sold publicly prior to Friday night, with sales of the next highest available grade, a PSA 8, appearing in public sales record just four times since 2016, most recently selling for $222,000 in November 2023.

The most expensive Cobb card ever sold publicly remains the $876,000 paid for another T206 variant, featuring the ultra-rare “Ty Cobb” card back and provenance tracing it to the legendary “Black Swamp Find,” considered one of the greatest discoveries of vintage baseball cards in history. That card, which set the record in 2020, is graded PSA 4.5.

Though falling $6,000 short of the record, the Cobb sale Friday night makes it not only the second most expensive Cobb card of all time, but also a Cobb record for the “Bat Off Shoulder” variant as well for any Piedmont back.

Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct. You can follow him on X at @Will__Stern.