'Pawn Stars' seller wanted $20,000 for baseball card — walks away as Corey Harrison sticks to $7,000
The seller refused to accept a lowball bid for his signed, rookie Mickey Mantle card.
Oct. 17 2025, Published 12:45 p.m. ET
"Pawn Stars" boss Rick Harrison is known for making sellers cut down on their demands so that he can squeeze out a deal at a lower price. But one of them stood his ground to reject a $7,000 offer for a single, signed, 1951 Mickey Mantle rookie card. The guest named Matt came into the shop seeking $20,000, claiming it was one of the rarest baseball cards in the world. However, Corey Harrison and his expert begged to differ. In the end, Matt and Harrison couldn't make a deal as the asking price and the offer were too far apart.
Matt claimed that he bought the card off a friend, and that the same card went for up to "$45,000" at some auctions. "I have three kids in college. If I'm able to sell the card, I'll use the money for those college costs," the seller said in his interview. "Mickey Mantle, he's in the top 10 best baseball players of all time. I mean, he was a 20-time All-Star. That's insane," Harrison said, stressing the significance of the card.
After the seller told Harrison that he was looking for $20,000 for the item, his response was, "One of my problems with Mickey Mantle is that he had a pretty long career after baseball. And he made more money signing autographs than he ever did playing baseball. But he didn't sign many of those rookie cards." He then called in his expert, Dan, to come take a look at the card.
Dan immediately noted that it was a significant card for collectors. "Mantle is the key guy you want on a rookie card. A lot of these have surfaced in recent years because collecting autographs on rookie cards has become really popular," he noted. He further added that there weren't many of these signed rookie cards, and they were in demand. However, after inspecting the card closely, the expert noted that it was in extremely poor condition and had been cut and altered. After giving it a rating of less than 1 out of 10, he estimated that the card could bring $10,000 at the right auction.
After the expert left, Harrison delivered the bad news to the seller, saying, "I know you had hopes and dreams at $20,000, but I'm looking at around $7,000." To this, the guest replied, "Wow, that's kind of way off between twenty," before lowering his ask to $17,000. However, Harrison refused to go above $7,000, and the deal fell through. "I have to trust Dan. He's been in this business a long time. If he tells me 10, if I buy it from you at 7, possibly I make 3 grand," Harrison reasoned.
"I think I'm going to have to walk, man. I am pretty bummed out that we couldn't make a deal," the seller said in the end.
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