The $2.88m baseball card rescued from a watery grave

Baseball cards that once sold for cents now fetch millions at auction. Chris Carter reports.

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The multimillion-dollar Mickey Mantle

A mint-condition baseball card from 1952 featuring New York Yankees baseball player Mickey Mantle sold for $2.88m at Texas-based Heritage Auctions last Thursday. But the price wasn't the most remarkable thing about it, says David Seideman in Fortune. Nor was the fact that it was printed with even borders instead of off-centre, as was often the case, or the identity of the seller former American football player Evan Mathis, who won the Super Bowl in 2016. Rather, it was that the card made it to auction at all.

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Chris Carter
Wealth Editor, MoneyWeek

Chris Carter spent three glorious years reading English literature on the beautiful Welsh coast at Aberystwyth University. Graduating in 2005, he left for the University of York to specialise in Renaissance literature for his MA, before returning to his native Twickenham, in southwest London. He joined a Richmond-based recruitment company, where he worked with several clients, including the Queen’s bank, Coutts, as well as the super luxury, Dorchester-owned Coworth Park country house hotel, near Ascot in Berkshire.

Then, in 2011, Chris joined MoneyWeek. Initially working as part of the website production team, Chris soon rose to the lofty heights of wealth editor, overseeing MoneyWeek’s Spending It lifestyle section. Chris travels the globe in pursuit of his work, soaking up the local culture and sampling the very finest in cuisine, hotels and resorts for the magazine’s discerning readership. He also enjoys writing his fortnightly page on collectables, delving into the fascinating world of auctions and art, classic cars, coins, watches, wine and whisky investing.

You can follow Chris on Instagram.