An autographed Shohei Ohtani relic card from last season's historic 50/50 effort became the first of the Los Angeles Dodgers star to sell for more than $1 million at auction early Sunday morning.
The sale of the on-card-autographed, 1-of-1 numbered Ohtani card features the Major League Baseball logo from the pants he wore in Sept. 2024 while hitting his 49th, 50th and 51st home runs and stealing his 50th and 51st bases against the Miami Marlins. It sold for $1.067 million at Heritage Auctions, including buyer's premium, and is by far the most paid for an Ohtani card.
The card, however, fell short of unseating the $1.1 million Paul Skenes MLB debut patch autograph card as the most expensive non-Mike Trout modern baseball card.
Following Ohtani's establishment of the 50/50 club on Sept. 19, 2024, Topps acquired the pants and batting gloves that he wore. Topps then created a set dedicated to Ohtani's achievements, which included refractor cards, short prints, autographs, autographed relics -- all in a variety of numberings -- and Dynasty Black relics, of which there are only three cards: all on-card autographs, all numbered 1-of-1. The Dynasty Black autograph cards consist of: one boasting a massive batting glove swatch, one including swatches of both the pants and batting gloves, and the now-$1.067 million card.
The previous record for an Ohtani card was the $533,140 paid for a 2018 Bowman Chrome Rookie Autographs Orange Refractor rookie card, numbered to 25, with Goldin Auctions in November.
