A Babe Ruth rookie card first collected from a 1914 Baltimore newspaper sold for $7.2 million at auction.

The card is the highest-selling Ruth item of all-time and the second-highest price realized at auction for a trading card, Robert Edward Auctions said on social media. The most expensive baseball card ever is a Mickey Mantle rookie card that sold for $12.6 million last year. The auction house did not identify the buyer.

As a paperboy on Baltimore streetcars, Archibald Davis collected the baseball cards included in newspapers and found the Ruth card in 1914. It depicts George Herman Ruth as a 19-year-old pitcher for the minor league Orioles.

Glenn Davis, Archibald’s grandson, said he remembered playing with them as he grew up in Towson in the 1950s and 1960s. The Davis family sold the card, which had been on loan at the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum in Baltimore since the 1990s, to a private collector in 2021.

The auction started at noon Nov. 15 at $2.5 million, and the price rose to $5.25 million by 9 p.m. The auction, which drew 15 bids, closed to new bidders at 9 p.m. Sunday night.

“The final winning bid was placed just before 9 p.m. when extended bidding begins,” Robert Edward Auctions spokesperson P.J. Kinsella said. “After that 9 p.m. deadline only bidders that have placed an initial qualifying bid may place additional bids. That extended bidding in the auction goes until midnight, at which point individual lots close if there is not a bid after 15 minutes.

The card received a $6 million bid at 8:53 p.m. Sunday night before the final $7.2 million bid was placed before the 9 p.m. deadline.

A Baltimore paperboy collected an Orioles Babe Ruth baseball card in 1914. Soon, it will be auctioned for millions.

The card is the highest-selling Ruth item of all-time and the second-highest price realized at auction for a trading card, Robert Edward Auctions said.

The 1914 Baltimore News Babe Ruth was issued in both red and blue, and there are only 10 known to exist in either color. The simple card features just Ruth’s last name on the front. On the back, it advertises the 1914 Orioles’ schedule against other International League teams.