Last updated: October 12, 2026
$12.932 million. That is the current record for any sports card sold at public auction, set in August 2025 by a 2007-08 Upper Deck Exquisite Dual Logoman of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. Not a T206 Wagner. Not even the 1952 Topps Mantle most collectors would guess first. Here is the real ranking, what each card actually is, and why the hobby's most famous card is not its most expensive one.
Sports card sale prices get reported inconsistently, different outlets round differently, mix up private sales with auction hammer prices, or confuse one Wagner copy for another. The figures below are the ones that check out against multiple primary reports (auction house records and wire coverage at the time of sale).
| Card | Grade | Price | Sold |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007-08 UD Exquisite Jordan/Bryant Dual Logoman | PSA 6 | $12.932 million | Aug 2025, Heritage |
| 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle #311 | SGC 9.5 | $12.6 million | Aug 2022, Heritage |
| 2026 Topps Chrome Ohtani Dual Gold Logoman | Ungraded 1/1 | $11 million | Jul 2026, private |
| T206 Honus Wagner | SGC 2 | $7.25 million | Aug 2022, Goldin (private) |
| 2003-04 UD Exquisite LeBron James RPA (1 of 23) | BGS 9 | $5.2 million | Apr 2021, PWCC (private) |
Three things jump out. First, autographed 1-of-1 patch cards from 2003 onward now out-earn every piece of vintage cardboard except the single best Mantle in existence. Second, the gap between the top five is small: less than $8 million separates a basketball insert from 2007 and a LeBron rookie from 2003. Third, the single most famous card in the hobby, the T206 Wagner, is not even in the top three.
The Wagner card was printed around 1909 to 1911 as part of the American Tobacco Company's T206 set. Production stopped early and only an estimated 50 to 60 genuine copies survive today, across every grade from Poor to near-mint. Honus Wagner, a Hall of Fame shortstop, reportedly objected to his image being used to sell tobacco, although some historians think a contract dispute with the printer is the more likely reason output stopped. Either way, the result is a card so scarce that almost no one alive has held a raw, ungraded copy in hand.
That scarcity is exactly why it never built the kind of price ladder a 1986 Fleer Jordan or a modern Logoman has. There simply are not enough copies at a wide enough range of grades for the market to stress-test a true gem-mint example. The single highest confirmed sale, $7.25 million for an SGC 2, a low grade by any standard, shows the name and the story carry real weight even on a beaten-up copy. A true high-grade Wagner, if one surfaced, would likely reset the whole list, but a card that condition-sensitive from 1909 almost certainly does not exist in the population today.
A Logoman is a swatch cut from the league's own logo patch on a player's game-worn jersey, the small gold NBA, NFL, MLB, or NHL crest, not a piece of the team logo or a plain jersey scrap. Because a jersey carries exactly one league-logo patch, a true Logoman card is inherently a 1-of-1. The 2007-08 Upper Deck Exquisite Collection record card pairs patches and autographs from both Jordan and Bryant on a single card, which is why its $12.932 million sale carries two Hall of Fame signatures rather than one. For more on how this category works and where it ranks among Jordan's own card history, see the full history of Michael Jordan cards.
The $12.6 million sale is for the single finest known copy of the 1952 Topps Mantle #311, graded SGC 9.5. That same exact card sold for $2.88 million in 2018 and $5.2 million in 2021 before hitting $12.6 million in August 2022, a four-year run that outpaces almost every other asset class, not just cards. Lower grades of the same card trade for a tiny fraction of that: a well-preserved copy sold for $417,450 in August 2026, and worn, low-grade copies trade in the low thousands. The gap between an SGC 9 and the 9.5 is not a premium, it is a different market entirely, which the full breakdown of the 1952 Topps set covers in more detail.
Three of the five cards on this list were made in this century, and the newest, Ohtani's Dual Gold Logoman, is from a 2026 product that was on shelves this summer. It sold for $11 million within days of being pulled, less than four months before this article published. Modern manufacturing lets companies build 1-of-1 scarcity on purpose through serial numbering and patch autographs, instead of collectors waiting a century for attrition to do it. That is the single biggest change in how the record list gets built, and it means next year's entry on this list is more likely to come from a hobby box opened last week than from a vault that has sat untouched since the 1950s.
None of these sales move the price of your own cards. A base Jordan insert did not get more valuable because a different card sold for $12.9 million. A few rules that keep collectors and dealers out of trouble when a record sale makes headlines:
For everyday pricing decisions, this is also what real comp-based pricing is for: pulling the actual recent sold data for your card's exact grade, instead of anchoring on the one sale everyone is talking about that week.
A 2007-08 Upper Deck Exquisite Collection Dual Logoman autograph patch card of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, graded PSA 6, sold for $12.932 million at Heritage Auctions in August 2025. It holds the record for any sports card sold at public auction.
A 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle #311, graded SGC 9.5 and considered the finest known copy, sold for $12.6 million at Heritage Auctions in August 2022. The same card sold for $2.88 million in 2018 and $5.2 million in 2021 before that sale, which tells you how fast the top of the market moved in just four years.
The most it has sold for is $7.25 million, in a private sale brokered by Goldin in August 2022 for a copy graded SGC 2 (Good). That is well below the Mantle or the Jordan/Bryant Logoman, which surprises people given how famous the Wagner card is. Rarity made it legendary; it did not make it the single most expensive card.
A 2003-04 Upper Deck Exquisite Collection Rookie Patch Autograph of LeBron James, one of only 23 ever made and graded BGS 9, sold for $5.2 million in a private sale through PWCC in April 2021. It tied the record for most expensive sports card at the time.
Yes, in third place overall and second among baseball cards. A 1-of-1 2026 Topps Chrome Ohtani Dual Gold Logoman autograph sold privately for $11 million on July 31, 2026. It sits less than $2 million behind the all-time record despite being a brand-new card, not a decades-old vintage piece.
Age, mystery, and population. It was printed around 1909-11, pulled from production early (the most common story is Wagner objected to his image being used to sell cigarettes, though the American Tobacco Company's own production records are the more likely reason), and fewer than 60 genuine copies are known to exist today across every grade. Scarcity and backstory built the legend decades before eight-figure sales existed in the hobby at all.
Only as context, not as a pricing guide. A record sale tells you where the ceiling sits for a specific card at a specific grade, not what your raw or mid-grade copy of anything is worth. Price every card you own or sell to a recent sold comp at its actual grade, never to the headline number everyone is talking about that week.
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