NEW YORK (AP) — A mint situation Mickey Mantle baseball card bought for $12.6 million Sunday, blasting into the document textbooks as the most ever paid for sports activities memorabilia in a market that has grown exponentially far more profitable in modern a long time.

The scarce Mantle card eclipsed the file just posted a couple of months ago — $9.3 million for the jersey worn by Diego Maradona when he scored the contentious “Hand of God” aim in soccer’s 1986 Planet Cup.

It conveniently surpassed the $7.25 million for a century-outdated Honus Wagner baseball card just lately marketed in a private sale.

And just past month, the heavyweight boxing belt reclaimed by Muhammad Ali for the duration of 1974’s “Rumble in the Jungle” bought for almost $6.2 million.

All are component of a booming sector for sports collectibles.

Charges have risen not just for the rarest objects, but also for pieces that may have been amassing dust in garages and attics. Quite a few of all those items make it on to shopper auction sites like eBay, whilst others are set up for bidding by auction homes.

Mainly because of its in the vicinity of-excellent ailment and its legendary subject, the Mantle card was destined to be a best vendor, claimed Chris Ivy, the director of sporting activities auctions at Heritage Auctions, which ran the bidding.

Some noticed collectibles as a hedge against inflation in excess of the earlier few yrs, he mentioned, when others rekindled childhood passions.

Ivy stated savvy buyers observed inflation coming down the highway — as it has. As a result, sports activities memorabilia grew to become an alternative to regular Wall Street investments or serious estate — specifically amid members of Era X and older millennials.

“There’s only so a lot Netflix and ‘Tiger King’ men and women could watch (through the pandemic). So, you know, they have been finding again into hobbies, and obviously sports activities accumulating was a portion of that,” claimed Ivy, who pointed out an uptick in calls among likely sellers.

Add to that desire from rich abroad collectors and you have a confluence of factors that made sports activities collectibles in particular appealing, Ivy explained.

“We’ve type of…