After being discovered along with more than 100 other vintage trading cards inside an old piano, a 1916 Babe Ruth rookie card sold for more than $130,000 this week.
For many years, Ruth's rookie card wasn't nearly as valuable as other items from fellow MLB legends such as Mickey Mantle, Ty Cobb and "Shoeless Joe" Jackson, according to the card's auction website. In fact, Beckett Goodwin, the card's auction house, estimated it would sell for half the price it eventually went for, per the New York Post's Jordi Lippe-McGraw. The same Ruth card -- in better condition -- went for $38,837 in 2009.
The Ruth rookie card depicts the longtime New York Yankees slugger during his days as a Boston Red Sox pitcher.
"At long last," Beckett said, "Babe Ruth's rookie card now stands at the precipice of becoming the Ruth of Sports Collectibles."
The big sale comes decades after Ellen Kelly, of Maryland, found the card in a player piano she bought for $25. According to Lippe-McGraw, Kelly purchased the piano, which was once owned by her aunt, at a 1992 estate sale. Shortly afterward, she had a broken pedal repaired and discovered trading cards inside -- cards she "suspects that either her father or uncle hid" years ago.
"Best $25 I ever spent," Kelly told Sports Collectors Daily.
According to the Post, an additional 110 cards found inside the piano were sold collectively at a separate auction, netting $4,420.
