A 1979 O-Pee-Chee rookie card of Gretzky with the Edmonton Oilers during the 1978-79 season fetched $1.29 million at auction Friday, the first hockey card to sell for more than $1 million.
"Baseball has a much longer history and has a lion's of the sports collectors market as a whole, but hockey has its place, and Gretzky definitely goes on the Mount Rushmore of greatest of all time,'' Chris Ivy of Heritage Auctions told The Canadian Press. "He's right up there with Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan."
The card was rated in perfect Gem Mint 10 condition. According to Heritage Auctions, the Dallas-based house that sold the card, there are only two in existence that are rated Gem Mint 10.
The same card sold for $465,000 in August 2016, the previous record for a hockey card.
Becoming the first million dollar hockey card, of course, is just one more high mark for Gretzky,
who holds 61 NHL records
.
"We're very excited and glad it got to (almost) $1.3 million," Ivy said. "It very easily could have sold for $1.1 million and it just as easily could have sold for $1.6 million. It comes down to who's willing to cut the check. It set a record ... one more record to add to Wayne Gretzky's tally.
"He deserves to have the highest-selling hockey card of all time."
