Cal Ripken Jr.'s first professional baseball card obliterated the modern minor-league card record Thursday night, as an orange version from the 1980 Charlotte O's police set sold for $69,000.
The card, graded PSA 6.5, not only features one of the greatest players in baseball history, but also is extremely scarce.
Huggins & Scott, which auctioned off the card, said the consignor was 12 years old in 1980, when a police officer, who was a family friend, handed him the card.
It stayed in a shoebox until recently when it was graded and received a 6.5. Of the 31 examples PSA has graded, only three are better (there are two 7s and one 8).
For the 1980 season, the Charlotte O's commissioned an unknown printer to make two sets: one with a blue border that would have the logo of local TV station, WBTV, on the front left of the card, and one for the Charlotte police department, which offered tips such as how to properly drive a bike on the road and to call 911 in case of an emergency.
The WBTV blue borders set was given out at one game at the team's stadium, Crockett Park, on May 30, 1980. Every child under 14 not only got in for free, with a paying adult, but got the set for free. The team was said to have made 1,400 sets, but with a paying attendance of only 2,036, there were many left over.
PSA has graded 92 total Ripken cards from the blue set, with the last one, in a PSA 8, selling at Robert Edwards Auctions in December 2022 for $9,000.
But having a Ripken Jr. orange border police card is hitting the motherlode.
Unlike the WBTV set, which came in a plastic baggy, the police sets were loose. Police officers would go to schools in Charlotte and hand out singles. So, it was the luck of the draw whether you'd get Cal Ripken Jr., Drungo Hazewood, John Buffamoyer or The Pepper Girls (the team's squad of ballgirls).
Because the cards were distributed as singles, it became less likely they would be saved over time.
The record paid for an orange Ripken, or any Ripken card for that matter before Thursday night, was when a PSA 6 sold for $24,401. Ripken's 1982 Topps Traded card in a PSA 10 sold for a high of $10,000 in April 2021.
The Charlotte Ripken card was the highest priced item in the auction, beating out a 1999 First Edition French Pokemon Booster Box ($39,600), a T-206 Sherry Magie error card ($31,200) and a 1933 American League ball signed by 19 players, including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Jimmy Foxx ($21,600).