Derek Jeter rookie card fetches $99K, most ever for modern baseball card

A Derek Jeter rookie card has sold for $99,100, the highest price ever paid for a modern-day baseball card.

Brent Huigens, CEO of PWCC, which conducted the eBay auction, confirmed to ESPN on Friday that winning bidder Adrian Proietti had paid the company for the card.

"In 2008, I was offered a PSA 10 for $25,000," Proietti said. "I passed on it. I think the $99,100 is still a very good deal."

Proietti said the purchase rounds out his obsession for the set, a 1993 Upper Deck SP, that began 25 years ago. Back then, Proietti said he was looking for the Don Mattingly card, but when he got back into the game 10 years ago, he started buying boxes of the set to try to get the Derek Jeter rookie card out of the packs.

He got more than 20 Jeters, but could never get the one that would grade out as a perfect 10 from the premiere hobby card grader, PSA/DNA.

The fact that it's a foil card makes it especially challenging.

According to PSA/DNA's population report on the card, they have graded 8,308 of those cards with an 8 out of 10, 560 as a 9 out of 10 and only 22 as a 10 out of 10.

"People have a much harder time understanding the nuance in the grading of modern-day cards," Huigens said. "There isn't the same difference from an 8 to a 9 to a 10 in modern cards as there is with vintage."

Huigens said he believes collectors will soon start to realize the premiums being paid for the best grade of modern-day cards as they have with the old stuff. A modern-day card is anything from 1986 or later.

Three modern-day cards have been sold publicly for more. A LeBron James rookie card sold for $312,000 in 2016 and two Tom Brady rookie cards sold for $250,000 and more than $100,000 this year.

Proietti paid nearly double the previous record for the card, which was $54,576, set just a week before Proeitti agreed to buy his. He said he paid a premium since the auction was conducted by PWCC, which will sell more baseball cards than anyone on eBay in 2018.

Proietti said he initially plans on enjoying the card, but could see himself putting it into a safety deposit box at some point.