The most expensive baseball card in history just sold for $12.6 million

Priest auctions off his baseball cards 0:51

(CNN) --

Get out your old baseball cards.

They could be worth eight figures at auction.

A 1952 Mickey Mantle baseball card sold for a staggering $12.6 million early Sunday morning, according to a press release from Heritage Auctions shared with CNN.

The sale makes the card the most valuable sports collectible in the world, according to the auction house.

The price nearly doubled the previous record for a set of baseball cards, when a rare Honus Wagner sold for $6.6 million last year.

And it also broke the record for any sports memorabilia, surpassing the $9.3 million sale of Diego Maradona's famous "Hand of God" jersey.

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The Mickey Mantle card is especially valuable because it is so well preserved.

The card was rated "Mint+ 9.5" by the Sportscard Guaranty Corporation, according to Heritage Auctions.

Mantle spent 17 years playing for the New York Yankees and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974. The record-breaking card is from his rookie season and was produced by trading card giant Topps.

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Topps Mickey Mantle baseball card from 1952.

For the auction house, the sale represents the growing appeal of sports memorabilia.

"An eight-figure result in the sports market was a fantasy just a decade ago," Chris Ivy, director of sports auctions at Heritage, said in the statement.

"We always knew this letter was going to break records and expectations. But that doesn't make it any less exciting to be part of an auction where a single item breaks the eight-figure threshold for the first time. It's an extraordinary achievement for our wonderful Heritage Auctions team of sports experts. And of course, we couldn't have done it without our consignor, Anthony Giordano, who put his trust in Heritage to bring this incredible card to market."

Anthony Giordano bought Mantle's letter for what was a record price in 1991: $50,000.

He kept it hidden for three decades before taking it to Heritage Auctions, according to the statement.

"He has the best qualities any 1952 Topps can possess: perfect centering, registration and four sharp corners," Ivy said in the release.

"That this Mantle rookie card has remained in this state for 70 years is truly a miracle."

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