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1916 Sporting News M101-4 #151 Babe Ruth rookie card: a black-and-white photograph of Ruth in his Boston Red Sox uniform at the end of his pitching motion, captioned with his name, the position P. and the card number 151
Public domain — published 1916

1916 Sporting News #151 Babe Ruth RC

Set
Sporting News
Year
1916
Sport
Baseball
Era
Vintage
Grades on record
12
Verified sales
19

No headline price

This card has a verified sale at 11 grades from a named grading company, across 2 grading companies (PSA, SGC). Across those, the two ends sit 6.4× apart: SGC 1.5 at $276,000 against SGC 7 at $1,770,000. Which one is the price depends on which slab is in your hand.

Notes on the file

Written from the record above. Every figure quoted here is one of the figures in the ladder; anything that could not be traced back to a verified sale was cut rather than corrected.

Most-traded gradePSA 7 · $1,372,500 · 4 verified sales

What this card is

The 1916 Sporting News Babe Ruth card, numbered 151, is one of the earliest widely collected Babe Ruth trading cards and is recognized as a rookie-era issue. It was released at the start of Ruth's major league career, before his transition to full-time hitting. The card is a cornerstone piece for pre-war baseball card collectors.

Longest-standing figurePSA 6 · $38,838 · last sold 02 OCT 2009

The set it came from

The card comes from the 1916 Sporting News set, an early 20th-century baseball card issue distributed during a period when cards were typically inserted with periodicals or sold as standalone strip issues rather than through wax packs. Card #151 in the set depicts Babe Ruth.

Spread across graded copiesSGC 1.5 $276,000 → SGC 7 $1,770,000 · 6.4×

Why the grades diverge

Professionally graded copies of this card exist and have been certified by both PSA and SGC, with recorded sales spanning low grades up through PSA 7 and SGC 7. No population or census figures are available.

Most recent verified saleRaw (ungraded) · $20 · 03 JUN 2026

What the record shows

Realized prices for this card have ranged from an ungraded sale of $20 in 2026 to $1,770,000 for an SGC 7 example in February 2023. Mid-grade copies between SGC 1.5 and PSA 5 sold for $80,900 to $384,000 across 2009-2024. A PSA 7 brought $1,372,500 in February 2025, and an SGC 5 sold for $552,000 in December 2024. The wide range reflects strong grade sensitivity across nearly two decades of tracked sales.

On the record4 questions the archive can answer
What is the 1916 Sporting News Babe Ruth card?
It is card #151 from the 1916 Sporting News set, an early Babe Ruth trading card issued during the start of his major league career.
Is this considered a Babe Ruth rookie card?
Yes, the 1916 Sporting News issue is designated as a rookie-era Babe Ruth card.
What is the highest recorded sale price for this card?
An SGC 7 example sold for $1,770,000 in February 2023, the highest price in the tracked sales record.
What grading companies have graded this card?
Recorded sales include copies graded by both PSA and SGC.
Where each graded copy sits — log scale8 priced grades
$276,000 SGC 1.5SGC 7 $1,770,000

The grade ladder

Every grade this card has a priced record in — nothing withheld — kept apart by grading company because a PSA 10 and a CGC 10 are different assets. 3 figures are marked disputed and should not be read as this card's price at that grade.

1916 Sporting News #151 Babe Ruth RC — value, evidence and recency for every grade on record
GradeValueLast verified sale Realized rangeSold / comps DepthBasis
PSA — graded 6 grades · 10 verified sales
7 $1,372,500 23 FEB 2025 $384,000 – $1,372,500 4 realized sales of 4 comps thin last comp · sold
6 $38,838disputed: Priced below PSA 3.5, a lower grade from the same company 02 OCT 2009 $38,838 1 realized sale of 1 comps thin last comp · sold
5 $80,900disputed: Priced below PSA 3.5, a lower grade from the same company 04 FEB 2015 $80,900 1 realized sale of 1 comps thin last comp · sold
4 $348,000disputed: Priced below PSA 3.5, a lower grade from the same company 23 MAR 2024 $215,100 – $348,000 2 realized sales of 2 comps thin last comp · sold
3.5 $528,000 20 AUG 2023 $528,000 1 realized sale of 1 comps thin last comp · sold
2.5 $384,000 06 OCT 2024 $384,000 1 realized sale of 1 comps thin last comp · sold
SGC — graded 5 grades · 7 verified sales
7 $1,770,000 26 FEB 2023 $1,770,000 1 realized sale of 1 comps thin last comp · sold
5 $552,000 07 DEC 2024 $552,000 1 realized sale of 1 comps thin last comp · sold
4 $360,000 13 DEC 2020 $360,000 1 realized sale of 1 comps thin last comp · sold
3.5 $324,000 14 MAY 2022 $324,000 – $444,000 2 realized sales of 2 comps thin last comp · sold
1.5 $276,000 13 MAY 2023 $11,353 – $276,000 2 realized sales of 2 comps thin last comp · sold
Raw — ungraded 1 grade · 2 verified sales Copies sold with no grade assigned by any company.
Raw $20 03 JUN 2026 $20 – $40,000 2 realized sales of 2 comps thin last comp · sold

How these numbers are made

Source
FLOAT's own verified-comp archive. A comp is a realized sale only when it settled as an auction, a fixed-price purchase or an accepted offer; marketplace asks and price-guide columns are counted separately as quotes and can never stand in for a sale.
This file
19 verified sales across 12 grades, computed from the archive as it stood on 07 AUG 2026.
Recency
Each grade shows the date of its own most recent verified sale. There is no refresh clock on this page and there will not be one: a graded card of this kind changes hands roughly twice a year, so a ticking counter would imply motion this market does not have.
Missing figures
A grade with no verified sale says so and shows no date. Nothing on this page is estimated, extrapolated or filled in from a comparable card.
Which grade is yours
Read the row for the company on your slab. The grade number alone is not enough — the same number from two companies is two different assets and trades accordingly.
Reading a row
"Value" is what the archive resolves that grade to; last comp means it is simply the most recent realized sale, carried forward. "Depth" is how much recent trade stands behind it — thin means fewer than three sales in the window, which is most of this market.
Disputed figures
A row marked disputed contradicts another row on this page: a grade priced below a lower grade from the same grading company, or an ungraded copy priced at or above a graded one. Both figures cannot be right and the archive does not say which is wrong, so neither is deleted and the less credible side carries the mark. Removing the row would hide the conflict rather than resolve it; 3 of the 12 grades on this page are marked. Disputed figures are never used for the spread quoted at the top of this page.