Last Updated on April 26, 2026 by Matt Musico
Baseball card collecting has produced some incredible discovery stories over the years, and we can now add another one to the list thanks to what one lucky thrift store shopper stumbled across recently.
Tucked inside a $1 book was a 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth card. It wasn’t framed or stored in a sleeve. This legendary piece of cardboard was being used as a bookmark.
According to an Instagram post from thriftingtreasurepage, the card ended up getting graded and sold for an amount that made this person’s return on investment quite unreal.
Editor’s Note: Looking to Sell Sports Cards? Here’s How to Do It Quickly & Easily
A $1 Book That Turned Into a $24,144 Payday
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Let’s talk about what actually happened here, because the details are almost too good to be true. Someone walked into a thrift store, browsed the book section, and paid one dollar for what they thought was just a book. But inside was a 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth #144 that had been sitting between the pages and functioning as nothing more than a page marker.
After the card was submitted to SGC for grading, it came back as a VG/EX 4. That’s not a pristine gem mint example by any means, but it’s a presentable mid-grade condition for one of the most historically significant cards the hobby has ever produced. And after investing just $1 on this book, the card eventually sold for $24,144. Now that’s what you call a solid ROI!
This is also a reminder that thrift stores, estate sales, and flea markets still hold surprises. Cards from this era weren’t stored in a way that many collectors do it now. They were shoved in shoeboxes, rubber-banded together, tucked in books, and passed around like they were nothing.
What Makes the 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth #144 So Special
The Goudey #144 is one of four Babe Ruth cards that appear in the 1933 Goudey set, carrying card numbers 53, 144, 149, and 181. All four are important, but the #144 holds its own as a legit centerpiece card for anyone building a serious Ruth collection or a complete 1933 Goudey set.
Condition plays a huge role when it comes to valuation. The SGC VG/EX 4 that sold for $24,144 is a card with visible wear, but still maintained its structural integrity and visual appeal. Step up to a higher grade, and the price climbs fast. According to Sports Cards Pro, a PSA 7 example sold at Heritage for $138,000.
The card features Ruth in his classic Yankees pinstripes with a yellow background. This design choice has become one of the most recognizable card images in the hobby. Even in mid-grade condition, it’s an eye-catching piece of baseball history.
The 1933 Goudey Set: A Landmark Moment in the Hobby
The Goudey Gum Company released a 240-card set in 1933 as part of a promotion tied to their Big League Chewing Gum product. It included a simple concept: one card per pack, designed to give kids a reason to keep buying gum.
The execution, though, turned out to be anything but ordinary.
This release is widely considered the first truly mainstream baseball card set of the modern era. Before Goudey, the card market had been inconsistent, including tobacco inserts, strip cards, and caramel sets. Goudey changed the format and standardized what a baseball card could look like, pairing colorful painted portraits with player stats and biographical information on the back. It became the template that influenced card design for decades.
It doesn’t hurt that the checklist reads like a Hall of Fame ballot. Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Carl Hubbell, Lefty Grove, Pie Traynor, Tony Lazzeri…the 1933 Goudey set captured an outstanding snapshot of baseball’s golden age.
Ruth’s Full Presence in the 1933 Goudey Set
Goudey gave Babe Ruth a level of representation in this set that matched his status as baseball’s biggest star. As mentioned before, four separate Ruth cards appear across the 240-card checklist (#53, #144, #149, and #181), each featuring different and distinct design elements.
Having four cards of one player in a single release was unusual for the era, but it also shows how central Ruth was to the product’s appeal.
The other three Ruth cards carry comparable collector interest. The #53 and #149 are arguably the most well-known of the quartet and consistently trade at premium prices across all grade levels. The #181 is another fan favorite.
Mid-grade examples of any of the four Ruth Goudeys typically trade for tens of thousands of bucks, depending on the specific card and current market conditions. Higher-grade copies push well beyond that.
Whoever used the #144 as a bookmark had no idea what they were holding. The guy who paid $1 for that book figured it out pretty quickly, though.
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