Did A 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle PSA 10 Card Sell for $50 Million?

A report that one of the three PSA 10 examples of the iconic 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle sold privately for an astonishing $50 million sent a jolt through the sports card hobby this week. But as of now, there is significant reason to question whether the transaction actually took place.

Alt shared the claim on X, citing entrepreneur, media personality and collector Patrick Bet-David. In a video clip, Patrick Bet-David said a PSA 10 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle had sold privately for $50 million, a price that would make it the most expensive trading card ever sold. Bet-David claimed to know because he was one of five buyers looking at the card. BetDavid also claimed the reason he card sold is because a father passed away and the kids were not fans of baseball cards like the father.

There is no question about the card’s extraordinary rarity. PSA’s current population report lists only three copies of the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle #311 graded GEM MT 10, with none graded higher.

What is very much in question is the reported $50 million sale. Ken Goldin, founder of Goldin, responded directly to the reports on X and rejected the story. “That is false news,” Goldin wrote. He called it “an aggressive rumor that is not true” and added that he could state “with 100% fact” that a 1952 Mantle had not sold for $50 million.

Sports business reporter Darren Rovell offered a somewhat different account that suggests there may be something behind the origin of the rumor, just not a completed transaction. “While this transaction has been more than contemplated, I have been told that it has not been consummated,” Rovell wrote.

That distinction is important. A potential private transaction involving one of the three PSA 10 Mantles may have been discussed or negotiated without ever reaching the point where money changed hands and ownership officially transferred. At this point, no buyer or seller has been publicly identified in connection with a completed $50 million deal, and no auction house or other party to a transaction has publicly confirmed the reported sale.

The enormous figure is not outside the realm of possibility given the card involved. The 1952 Topps Mantle is one of the most valuable cards in all of the vintage sports card market, and the three PSA 10 copies represent the highest-graded examples recognized by PSA.

One of those PSA 10 cards sold privately for $275,000 in 2001, according to PSA’s own historical coverage. That transaction occurred at a very different point in the sports card market, more than 25 years before the current $50 million rumor.

Another high-grade 1952 Topps Mantle produced one of the most famous sales in hobby history in 2022, when an SGC Mint+ 9.5 example sold through Heritage Auctions for $12.6 million. That card held the sports-card auction record until 2025, when the one-of-one 2007-08 Upper Deck Exquisite Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant Dual Logoman Autographs card sold through Heritage for $12.932 million.

While the $50 million card sale has not been verified, a verified $50 million transaction for a PSA 10 Mantle would by far surpass the existing public auction record for a sports card, and it would also set a record that probably wouldn’t be broken for a long time.