There has all the time been a market for the non-public playing cards of necessary folks, however the humble ceremonial private card (aka enterprise card, visiting card, calling card, Carte de Visite) has by no means obtained a lot consideration at public sale, and has typically been used as a part of a major lot to focus on provenance and authenticity.
Private playing cards are the final word in authenticity – they’re the playing cards crafted by and handed out by historical past’s giants to signify them.
By simplifying all different components right down to a rectangle of cardboard, they don’t seem to be simply storied objects, they’re the very essence of a storied object in that they are all story and never a lot object.
Regardless of having much more authenticity than the present collectible card currencies being minted which largely pay homage to a star with {a photograph}, they’re at the moment value MUCH LESS. Historic perspective suggests this is not going to be the case within the distant future
Few enterprise playing cards inform a story fairly like this one (centre) did when it bought with Buffalo Invoice’s pistol as a two-part lot for $239,000. William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody clearly engendered belief and friendship in these he met as a result of he enrolled some outstanding folks (Sitting Bull, Texas Jack, Wild Invoice, Annie Oakley and plenty of extra ) in creating Buffalo Bill’s Wild West in 1883, a smash hit travelling present that toured America then Europe for 3 a long time.
One of the vital well-known figures of the American Old West, Cody left house at 11 years-of-age, and by the point he was 12 he was a member of Jim Lane‘s Free State Military (also referred to as the Jayhawkers), an antislavery vigilante group lively within the new territory throughout the Bleeding Kansas period. Wild Invoice Hickok joined the group too, and recounts assembly a 12-year-old William Cody for the primary time. The 2 grew to become lifelong mates.
Cody gained huge notoriety as a crack shot in his youth, changing into a U.S. Military scout at 14 years-of-age and proving his value as a frontiersman many occasions in his early teenagers before getting a job on the “pony express” at 15-years-of-age. He subsequently made a fortune supplying beef to the railroads by taking pictures bison (the place he received his nickname for his prodigious variety of kills). He lived to a ripe previous age and have become one of many world’s most profitable showmen.
We could not checklist this card within the prime 100 as a result of little doubt the overwhelming majority of this lot’s worth was within the gun and never the cardboard. We will discover no different William Cody enterprise card (and there are many them) to have bought for greater than $2000.
Enterprise playing cards are slowly shifting onto the public sale block radar
Most occasions, we suspect, the calling playing cards of serious societal figures weren’t deemed worthy of troubling the cashier, and there might be a hidden inhabitants of such playing cards in attics, barns, autograph books, and storage services.
The calling card had forebears that date again hundreds of years in China (bamboo sticks) and Egypt (clay tablets), however with the arrival of the printing press in Europe, the printed calling card grew to become commonplace throughout the nineteenth century and performed a major function within the improvement of society, being on one degree, an analog precursor to social media.
The calling card therefore gives a 200 yr window on historical past, those that made it and people who made a distinction to the trendy world: the musicians, the artists, the statespeople, the entertainers, the sportspeople, the captains of trade and the pioneers of science and expertise and exploration and flight.
Our recent story on the business cards of science and technology pioneers advised that the authenticity of a Enterprise/Calling Card and its worth at public sale is especially primarily based on the energy of that particular person’s private model, as all calling playing cards are only a piece of cardboard and a reputation.
So we determined to take a look at the costs of all enterprise / visiting card / calling playing cards and signed Carte de Visites (the signature made it a private hand-out) to see how the non-public model names of world historical past stacked up in opposition to one another measured by the worth their playing cards fetched at public sale.
As soon as we’d constructed the checklist (we’ve got a High 100) it grew to become apparent that there should be much more to the worth of a card than only a model identify.
Somewhat-discussed however important think about accumulating is that of the continued relevance of any topic to the shopping for public.
Remarkable Rarities’ Bobby Livingstone gave us some fascinating insights into this aspect of the public sale market. Bobby is RRAuction’s rainmaker, perpetually travelling the world seeking an important memorabilia and collections.
“Even the most well liked stars have a “shelf life” at public sale”, Livingstone advised me.
“As soon as upon a time, Jean Harlow and Greta Garbo have been the intercourse symbols of their respective occasions. They introduced huge costs at public sale for his or her time, but it surely solely takes a technology or two for his or her reminiscence to be misplaced to the better public, a pure factor that occurs as time passes. You possibly can inform the actually timeless stars as a result of they continue to be in demand even once they have ceased making motion pictures, releasing music or hitting house runs.”
“The superstars of yesterday not often generate the identical feelings within the subsequent technology, and I see it on a regular basis the place a collector has spent a lifetime making a memorabilia assortment solely to search out that their youngsters don’t share the eagerness, the spouse undoubtedly doesn’t and the eagerness disappears when the collector passes.”
“Some personalities seem timeless”, says Bobby! “Babe Ruth is in that class, so too is Michael Jordan. I’m assured Paul McCartney will go into the identical league, together with the Beatles, Michael Jackson and Bob Dylan.”
“Mohammed Ali ought to be in the identical invincible class as Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan however he signed such a ton of stuff that the large provide depressed his costs and that makes an enormous distinction to costs in the long term.”
“How a lot memorabilia has been signed is a important think about the long run costs for any particular person”, says Livingstone.
“Neil Armstrong is certainly one who’s so necessary by way of world historical past that there’ll all the time be demand for his memorabilia. Armstrong’s costs ought to be a lot greater, however he was all the time, like Ali, prepared to speak and signal and he was all the time extraordinarily respectful to his public.”
“Even Marilyn Monroe is now softening, and something she’d touched was as soon as pure gold. It’s unlikely that she’ll preserve the midas contact she undoubtedly as soon as had, as a result of regardless of being an enormous star in her time, she is now not within the highlight and that makes a distinction.”
“James Dean was as soon as enormous, however Dean is now largely forgotten, and for some purpose, Sinatra was by no means value all that a lot at public sale to start with.”
As we assembled the checklist of the very best priced playing cards, it grew to become ever extra intriguing, and the deeper we received, the extra intriguing it grew to become. In the event you assume there are just a few surprises within the prime 10, the following tier of costs (#11-20) incorporates names like Vladimir Putin, George Custer, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Frédéric Chopin, George Washington and Ulysses S. Grant and after that it turns into fairly unpredictable – many with names you will not instantly recognise till you perceive the context. Generally the context is self explanatory.
You already know the highest 10 from the opening visible, so listed below are the main points behind them.
1 | $181,250 Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
Bought: HA.com | December 2023
Abraham Lincoln (12 February 1809 – 15 April 1865) was the sixteenth president of the United States, serving from 1861 till his assassination in 1865. He led america via the American Civil War, defeating the Confederate States of America and enjoying a serious function within the abolition of slavery.
2 | $181,183 Steve Jobs (1955 – 2011)
Bought: RRAuction.com | March 2024
Steven Paul Jobs (24 February 1955 – 5 October 2011) is to enterprise playing cards as Babe Ruth is to baseball bats, in that he dominates this quickly rising market like no different. Jobs was an American businessman, inventor, and investor greatest recognized for co-founding the expertise firm Apple Inc. Jobs was additionally the founding father of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar. He was a pioneer of the personal computer revolution of the Seventies and Eighties, alongside along with his early enterprise accomplice and fellow Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. The enterprise playing cards of Steve Jobs have bought for $181,183, $103,750, $45,426, $15,344, $13,289, $12,905, $12,080, $11,898 and $10,050.
X | $179,250 Atlantic Baseball Membership of Brooklyn
Bought: HA.com | July 2015
This card isn’t from a person, however we thought it value itemizing right here due to its historic significance. The Atlantic Base Ball Club of Brooklyn was baseball’s first champion and its first dynasty. The staff was additionally the primary baseball membership to go to the White Home in 1865 on the invitation of President Andrew Johnson. The totally different perceptions of worth from totally different components of the collector group is clear right here – the cardboard sells for a pittance in comparison with different baseball playing cards but it could sit on the prime of the rankings if it have been a real calling card.
3 | $106,250 | Jacqueline Kennedy (1929 – 1994)
Bought: HA.com | December 2022
Jacqueline Lee Kennedy Onassis (28 July 1929 – 19 Might 1994) was an American author, ebook editor, and socialite who served because the first lady of the United States from 1961 to 1963, because the spouse of President John F. Kennedy. A well-liked first woman, she was thought to be a world icon for her distinctive vogue selections, and her work as a cultural ambassador of america made her highly regarded globally.
Jackie was the primary particular person to confer with the JFK administration as “Camelot.” In late November 1963, simply days after her husband’s assassination, she gave a uncommon interview to Kennedy household good friend, Theodore H. White, components of which have been printed within the December 6, 1963 difficulty of LIFE journal as, “For President Kennedy: An Epilogue.”
In that transient however extremely illuminating trade, she expressed that iconic, indelible phrase that got here to outline the transient Kennedy presidency. She recalled that, “At night time, earlier than we might fall asleep, Jack preferred to play some information; and the track he liked most got here on the very finish of this document. The strains he liked to listen to have been: ‘Do not let or not it’s forgot, that after there was a spot, for one transient shining second that was generally known as Camelot.” She then went on to emphasise that, “There will be nice Presidents once more – and the Johnsons are great, they have been great to me – however there’ll by no means be one other Camelot once more…and it’ll by no means be that means once more.”
The document that Mrs. Kennedy referred to within the interview was the Camelot Unique Broadway Solid Recording issued in 1960, with lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. It’s primarily based on the legend of King Arthur as tailored from T.H. White’s 1958 novel, The As soon as and Future King. President Kennedy had been a classmate of Lerner at Harvard College.
After Jackie’s printed interview, an necessary affiliation developed in public consciousness between Camelot and the Kennedy White Home, and the significance of this affiliation continues to today.
4 | $81,250 | Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960 – 1988)
Bought: HA.com | Might 2023
The extraordinary Jean-Michel Basquiat (22 December 1960 – 12 August 1988) first achieved fame as a part of a graffiti duo throughout his late teenagers. Within the following eight years, beneath the patronage and mentorship of Andy Warhol, he rose to worldwide prominence, then died of a heroin overdose. In these eight years, the whirlwind of creativity was prodigious, and Basquiat is now established as one of many world’s Most worthy artists. His document at public sale is $110.5 million (“Untitled” | Sotheby’s | 18 May 2017), adopted by this portray at $93.1 million (“In This Case” | Christie’s | May 2021), with different excessive costs together with $57.3 million (“Untitled (Devil)” | Christie’s | 10 May 2016), $50.8 million (“Versus Medici” | Sotheby’s | 12 Might 2021), $48.8 million (“Dustheads” | Christie’s | 15 May 2013), $45.3 million (“Flexible” | Phillips | 17 May 2018) and $41.9 million (“Warrior” | Christie’s | 23 March 2021). Basquiat still has a web site.
5 | $52,500 | Christopher “Package” Carson (1809 – 1868)
Bought: HA.com | October 2019
Christopher Houston “Kit” Carson (24 December 1809 – 23 Might 1868) was an American frontiersman, fur trapper, wilderness information, Indian agent and U.S. Army officer. He grew to become an American frontier legend in his personal lifetime via biographies and information articles; exaggerated variations of his exploits have been the topic of dime novels. His understated nature belied confirmed stories of his fearlessness, fight expertise, tenacity, in addition to profound impact on the westward expansion of the United States. Though he was well-known for a lot of his life, historians in later years have written that Package Carson didn’t like, need, and even totally perceive the celebrity that he skilled throughout his life.
6 | $47,500 Charles Remond Douglass (1844 – 1920)
Bought: Swann Galleries | March 2022
Charles Remond Douglass (21 October 1844 – 23 November 1920) was the third and youngest son of firebrand abolitionist Frederick Douglass. He was the primary African-American man to enlist within the army in New York throughout the Civil War, and served as one of many first African-American clerks within the Freedmen’s Bureau in Washington, D.C.
7 | $39,238 | Elon Musk (born 1971)
Bought: RRAuction.com | March 2024
Elon Reeve Musk (born June 28, 1971) is a expertise entrepreneur recognized for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter) and DOGE. Musk has been thought-about the wealthiest person in the world since 2021; as of Might 2025, Forbes estimates his net worth to be US$424.7 billion.
Born to a rich household in Pretoria, South Africa, Musk emigrated in 1989 to Canada. He obtained bachelor’s levels from the College of Pennsylvania in 1997 earlier than shifting to California, United States, to pursue enterprise ventures. In 1995, Musk co-founded the software program firm Zip2. Following its sale in 1999, he co-founded X.com, a web based fee firm that later merged to type PayPal, which was acquired by eBay in 2002. That yr, Musk additionally grew to become a American citizen.
In 2002, Musk based the area expertise firm SpaceX, changing into its CEO and chief engineer; the corporate has since led improvements in reusable rockets and commercial spaceflight. Musk joined the automaker Tesla as an early investor in 2004 and have become its CEO and product architect in 2008; it has since grow to be a frontrunner in electrical autos. In 2015, he co-founded OpenAI to advance artificial intelligence analysis however later left; rising discontent with the group’s course and their management within the AI boom within the 2020s led him to determine xAI.
In 2022, he acquired the social community Twitter, implementing significant changes and rebranding it as X in 2023. In January 2025, he was appointed head of Trump’s newly created DOGE. His different companies embody the neurotechnology firm Neuralink, which he co-founded in 2016, and the tunneling firm the Boring Company, which he based in 2017. He was named Time journal’s Person of the Year in 2021.
8 | $36,000 Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882)
Bought: Christies.com | June 2007
Charles Robert Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, broadly recognized for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that every one species of life have descended from a common ancestor is now usually accepted and thought of a basic scientific idea.
In a joint presentation with Alfred Russel Wallace, he launched his scientific principle that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a course of he referred to as natural selection, by which the struggle for existence has the same impact to the bogus choice concerned in selective breeding. Darwin has been described as some of the influential figures in human historical past and was honoured by burial in Westminster Abbey.
Darwin’s early curiosity in nature led him to neglect his medical training on the College of Edinburgh; as a substitute, he helped to analyze marine invertebrates. His research on the College of Cambridge’s Christ’s School from 1828 to 1831 inspired his ardour for natural science. Nevertheless, it was his five-year voyage on HMS Beagle from 1831 to 1836 that actually established Darwin as an eminent geologist. The observations and theories he developed throughout his voyage supported Charles Lyell‘s concept of gradual geological change. Publication of his journal of the voyage made Darwin well-known as a preferred creator.
9 | $32,500 Frederick Douglass (1818 – 1895)
Bought: Swann Galleries | March 2021
Frederick Douglass (14 February 1818 – 20 February 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, author, and statesman. He was an important chief of the motion for African-American civil rights within the nineteenth century.
After escaping from slavery in Maryland in 1838, Douglass grew to become a nationwide chief of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York and gained fame for his oratory and incisive antislavery writings. Accordingly, he was described by abolitionists in his time as a residing counterexample to claims by supporters of slavery that enslaved folks lacked the mental capability to perform as impartial Americans.
10 | $32,426 Bruce Lee (1940 – 1973)
Bought: Nate D. Sanders | February 2021
Bruce Lee (27 November 1940 – 20 July 1973) was a Hong Kong-American martial artist, actor, filmmaker, and thinker. He was the founding father of Jeet Kune Do, a hybrid martial arts philosophy which was fashioned from Lee’s experiences in unarmed combating and self-defense—in addition to eclectic, Zen Buddhist and Taoist philosophies—as a brand new college of martial arts thought. With a movie profession spanning Hong Kong and america, Lee is thought to be the primary international Chinese language movie star and some of the influential martial artists within the historical past of cinema. Identified for his roles in 5 feature-length martial arts movies, Lee is credited with serving to to popularize martial arts movies within the Seventies and selling Hong Kong motion cinema.
The following a part of this collection of the most costly enterprise playing cards ever bought, masking #11-20, will drop within the subsequent few days, and the names get much more fascinating and various: Vladimir Putin, Basic George Custer, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Frédéric Chopin, George Washington and Ulysses S. Grant.
