There is a seller who is selling a 2013 Topps Tribute bat knob card of Derek Jeter numbered 1/1. If you do a quick search on eBay for 1/1 (use true 1/1 for an easier time) some 1/1s are listed for the price of a new car. Therefore it is only worth what a buyer is willing to pay for it. Part of this struggle is because there is nothing else like it to compare it too for a price. When something is so unique that it is a one of a kind collectable, it is hard to price. However, some sellers of these cards seem to think otherwise. However, a celebrity’s diary would be worth much more and could be sold and sought after.
My diary would not have any value and I could not sell it. If I wrote a diary it would be unique and a 1/1 item, but since I am not famous nobody (except maybe my girlfriend) would want to read it. Despite the fact that my cards are rare and the only ones in existence, they are nowhere worth the money of the T206 Wagner, even though they are not 1/1 and more than one is known to exist. This leads to my first point regarding 1/1s, they are not valuable just because they are rare. To put things into context my Mike Mussina and Clay Buchholz 1/1, I paid somewhere around $20 – $30 apiece for them. The Wagner can fetch anywhere from a couple hundred thousand dollars to a record breaking $2.1 million in April of 2013 depending on grade and condition. Less than 60 legitimate Wagner’s are known to exist today, at least three of which are stored in museums or libraries. Often considered the most desirable and valuable baseball card in the world is the 1909-1911 T206 of Honus Wagner. While a 1/1 is probably one of the highlights of most card collections, they are not the most valuable cards in the world. This is truly a one of a kind collectible.” Then above this is “1/1.” There are some collectors who argue the printing plates aren’t worth as much as cards because they technically aren’t cards, and they use four of them to make one card. Usually the back reads something along the lines of “Congratulations! You have received an authentic printing plate used to manufacture card (name of player and card #).
I have yet to see a printing plate that was not numbered 1/1. Printing plates come in four colors: black, cyan, magenta, and yellow. This is how most sports cards are manufactured and produced. When exposed to light, an image is transferred to cardstock using ink and will only reflect the image on the plate. An image is burned on the plate using a light of high intensity. Printing plates (in the card industry) are thin metal sheets the size of cards that are sensitive to light.