CROSBY, Minnesota. — A Minnesota sports card collector just made the sale of a lifetime.
About a month ago, a man contacted Caleb Baker, of Crosby, about the value of his 1961 Wilt Chamberlain rookie card. Chamberlain immediately set a number of NBA records that season with the Philadelphia Warriors, which still stand.
The original owner got it back in the 60’s in a deck of cards he bought with his brother. He took it out knowing it was worth something, but didn’t realize how much until he met Baker.
When Baker looked at the card, he couldn’t believe his eyes: he was looking at an “unprecedented” Gem 10 Mint card in mint condition.
WCCO
“I’m like, ‘I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but this could change your life,’ and I try to keep it from him because I don’t want to make an empty promise to him like, ‘Yeah, this is going to change your life,'” Baker said.
Baker had a contract with Goldin, an auction house, to sell the card. A private buyer eventually paid $1.7 million for it, making it the largest sale of a basketball card ever.
“Imagine going all the way back to 1961 and you open a pack now, the odds of that card being a Wilt Chamberlain in Gem Mint 10 condition are one in a million,” he said. “So many of those cards, the quality control in the ’60s just wasn’t what it is today. So the condition of the card coming out of the pack is not great.”
The original owner and his brother received the majority of the proceeds from the sale, but Baker tells WCCO he also received a nice commission.
John Lauritsen
