New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft purchased a mint-condition Tom Brady rookie card for $120,000 at a Sotheby’s auction in New York City on Tuesday night.
With the legendary Patriots quarterback turned NFL commentator sitting next to him, Kraft won the card with a bid of $100,000, eventually paying $120,000 for the autographed piece of memorabilia.
Kraft joined Brady and Fanatics owner Michael Rubin at the Holy Grails auction in Harlem, where rare and special trading cards and items were up for sale.
According to Sotheby’s, the card Kraft purchased “commemorates Brady’s rookie season after being selected 199th overall by the Patriots in the 2000 NFL Draft.”
Tom Brady watched as Robert Kraft bought a rookie card of his for $120,000 on Tuesday
The card’s description goes on to say: ‘The piece, as well as Tom Brady rookie cards in general, is made especially rare by the fact that so few were printed due to his draft stock.
‘Compared to the best players in the draft, especially in today’s game, who appear in a variety of sets and variations, Brady’s status as a sixth-round pick slowed his overall circulation.
‘Brady only had about 135 mainline card designs printed for the 2000 production year and only 13 of them included an autograph. Of those, only four featured Brady in his iconic Patriots No. 12 uniform.’
This card Kraft purchased was one of four Brady cards up for auction Tuesday night.
The lowest-end card was a 2006 Upper Deck Ultimate Collection Holosilver card that was one-of-a-kind and sold for $21,600.
Kraft and Brady attended Sotheby’s “Holy Grails” auction in Harlem on Tuesday night.
The auction, conducted through Sotheby’s, saw this autographed Brady rookie card make its way to Kraft.
In addition to the card Kraft purchased, there was another autographed Brady rookie card once owned by the quarterback himself that sold for $192,000.
But the most expensive Brady card of the night was a 2015 Panini Immacculate Collection Premium Patches card that featured the NFL shield from one of Brady’s jerseys, as well as an autograph. This unique card sold for a whopping $480,000.
Surprisingly, this wasn’t the most expensive purchase of the night: that honor belongs to a 1955 Roberto Clemente rookie card, which sold at auction for a whopping $840,000.