A T206 Eddie Plank card, one of the rarest and most valuable vintage baseball cards ever made, sold Thursday night at Mile High Card Company for $318,997.20.
Between PSA and SGC, less than 120 examples of the card have been authenticated. This PSA 4 copy is the highest price paid for the Plank at the grade and the second-highest price ever, behind only a PSA 7 example which sold for $690,000 in 2018.
The Plank is one of “The Big Three,” along with the T206 Honus Wagner and 1933 Goudey Nap Lajoie, a trio of vintage cards coveted by collectors for their incredible scarcity and significance in the hobby.
The origins of the card, and the reasons for its minuscule population, largely remain a mystery, helping make it such a desirable chase. Other cards from the set, such as the T206 Ty Cobb, can be found thousands of times in PSA’s census.
Thursday’s sale was the first time in 2024 a T206 Plank changed hands publicly, with 2023 featuring four sales and 2022 witnessing three. This Plank is the highest graded example to sell since October 2020, when a PSA 6 copy fetched $312,000.
The top sale from the T206 set to occur this calendar year belongs to a Cobb PSA 9 ($870,000). Another Cobb card from the set, notable for its extremely rare advertising back ("Ty Cobb, King of the Smoking Tobacco World”), sold for $432,000 in March. That leaves this PSA 4 Plank card as the third highest sale of any T206 card this year.
No T206 Honus Wagners have sold thus far in 2024, though, one copy worth an estimated $25 million surfaced earlier this year.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.