Aaron Judge Baseball Card Sells for Modern-Day Record, Reaching Past $5 Million
Aaron Judge's 2013 Bowman Chrome Draft Superfractor Autograph just sold for $5.2 million ... and it wasn't even his official rookie card.
Aaron Judge's 2013 Bowman Chrome Draft Superfractor Autograph, a one-of-one card pulled the same year the Yankees selected him 32nd overall in the MLB Draft, sold through a private sale brokered by Fanatics Collect this week, setting a new record for the most expensive modern baseball card ever sold. Both the buyer and seller requested to remain anonymous.
The number itself is staggering, but the trajectory is what really puts it in perspective. The same card sold for $157,200 in 2020. Two years later it fetched $324,000. Now it's worth $5.2 million — a 16-fold increase in value in roughly four years, driven almost entirely by what Judge has done on the field since.
@blackgoldsportscards What are your initial thoughts on the $5.2 million dollar Aaron Judge sale Fanatics Collect announced earlier today? ⚾️???? #sportscards #thehobby #news
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The Most Expensive Baseball Cards Ever Sold
The sale puts Judge in extraordinarily rare company. He joins Mickey Mantle, Honus Wagner, and Babe Ruth as the only players in MLB history to have a card top $5 million — and three of those four players wore Yankees pinstripes. It also surpasses the previous modern baseball record, a signed Mike Trout Superfractor that sold for just under $4 million in 2020, and Shohei Ohtani's $3 million Logoman card from just three months ago.
The card received a BGS 9.5 Gem Mint grade, with perfect 10 subgrades for its surface, centering, and autograph — meaning it arrived in nearly pristine condition despite being more than a decade old.
The record may not stand long. A dual Ohtani-Judge Gold Logoman Autograph card is currently live at auction through Fanatics Collect, with bidding already past $1 million and the sale closing March 19. Betting markets have set the over-under at $5.5 million.