http://www.sportscollectorsdigest.com August 16, 2019 / Sports Collectors Digest 23
and $1,052. A signed game-
used glove, however, sold
for the bargain price of
$220. A lack of authentica-
tion watered down the price,
although the seller had 100
percent positive feedback
after hundreds of items sold
on eBay.
- Mike Mussina: The top-
yielding Mussina item in re-
cent months was a 2005 Leaf
Limited 1-of-1 card. Bearing
a Major League Baseball
patch from a game-used jer-
sey, the card sold for $400. Also, a 1991
Mussina from the Procards minor league
set sold for $249; it had been graded 10
by PSA. A 1991 Leaf Gold PSA 10 card
of Mussina was even cheaper: $170.
- Roy Halladay: Anything auto-
graphed and authenticated by Halladay,
who died tragically in a plane crash in
2017, gets attention. As such, a baseball
with PSA/DNA authentication sold for
$999 shortly before his induction, while
a signed Phillies jersey with a JSA cer-
tifi cate brought $559. The highest-selling
Halladay item, however,
wasn’t autographed: It was
a 1997 Bowman Chrome
International Refractor card
that inspired 27 bids and
sold for $1,591. It had been
graded 10 by PSA.
TROUT FIX — Usual-
ly, any Mike Trout card that
appears on our Top 10 list
is a 2009 Bowman Chrome
Refractor. Amazingly, it’s
absent from our chart this
time out, although there is
a 2009 Bowman Sterling
Prospects Gold Refrac-
tor Trout ($17,500). The card had been
graded BGS 9.
Since we’re taking a break from
Chrome Refractors, let’s sample some
other big prices recently paid on eBay for
unusual Trout treasures:
- $10,000 for a 2011 Panini Prime
Cuts card graded PSA 10. It’s marked
#22 of 99 and is only the second to be
anointed with a 10 in PSA’s population
report.
- $8,989 for a 2011
signed Topps Finest Gold
Refractor graded PSA 10.
It’s one of only six cards with
a Gem-Mint grade in PSA’s
population report.
- $8,056 for an auto-
graphed 2011 Finest Mosaic
die-cut card. Graded PSA 8,
it’s one of only 10 made.
DONNY BASEBALL
— Without the back injuries
that compromised and ulti-
mately shortened his career,
we’d probably be calling
him “Hall of Famer Don
Mattingly.” Alas, Donny
Baseball’s era as a top-tier
uber-productive hitter was
all too brief. For a short
spell, he was “the next big
thing”: From 1984 through
1988, he batted .343, .324,
.352, .327, .311, and .303
while blasting 160 homers.
But by 1990, at age 29, a
back injury began taking its
toll. He would
hit .300 only
one more time
over his fi nal
six years, retiring at age 34
in 1995.
Yet Mattingly cards and
collectibles still have ap-
peal. After all, he did play
his entire career in the hot
spotlight of New York, and
a generation of Yankee fans
grew up watching his every
move. Plus, he’s remained
in the game, fi rst as a coach
under Joe Torre, then man-
ager of the Dodgers and,
since 2016, the Marlins. So when
a prime-condition Mattingly item
hits the auction block, it can sell
for high prices.
Consider the late-July sale of
a PSA 10-graded 1984 Donruss
rookie card of Mattingly. It sold
for $12,999, buoyed greatly by
Mattingly’s autograph on the
card. Non-autographed examples
of the same card in 10 condition
have sold in recent weeks for $1,450 and
$1,391.
We also spotted 1984 Topps Mattingly
rookie cards that sold for prices of $1,300
and $1,190, both of them in PSA 10
slabs. A less common Tiffany variation of
that same card fetched $2,006.
ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN
— So what landed outside our Top 10?
Here’s a list of the next 10—an eclectic
group featuring a Ty Cobb tobacco card,
multiple Kawhi Leonard inserts, the
Mattingly card noted above and Dodger
legends named Robinson and Koufax.
- $15,400: 1909-11
T206 Piedmont Ty Cobb
(green portrait) (SGC 4.5)
- $15,085: 1951 Bow-
man Mickey Mantle (PSA
5.5)
- $14,889: 2012-13
Panini National Treasures
Kawhi Leonard, #86/199,
auto patch (BGS 9.5)
- $14,889: 2012-13
Panini National Treasures
Kawhi Leonard, #41/199,
auto patch (BGS 9.5)
- $13,999: 2007-08 Up-
per Deck Exquisite LeBron
James Limited Logos,
#1/50, auto patch (ungraded)
- $13,300: 2018-19 Panini National
Treasures Luka Doncic, #/10, auto patch
(PSA 10)
- $12,999: 1984 Donruss Don Mat-
tingly (PSA 10)
- $12,643: 1948 Leaf Jackie Robinson
(PSA 6)
- $12,102: 1955 Topps Sandy Koufax
(SGC 8.5)
- $11,558: 2012-13 Panini National
Treasures Kawhi Leonard, #113/199, auto
patch (BGS 9.5) ◆