Bobby Charlton Soirée card - a real rarity

Bobby Charlton Soirée card - a real rarity

Imagine a sports card, a rookie card of an all-time great, not just an International football hall of fame mainstay but a soccer legend in his own lifetime, of whom Sir Matt Busby said, "He was as near perfection as a man and a player as it is possible to be", a sports card that is 500 times rarer than the most valuable sports card known: the $12-Million-Dollar Mickey Mantle card.

That sports card is the Bobby Charlton Soirée Famous Footballers card, from Mauritius, of 1958. Only a handful are known and it is indeed 100's of times rarer than the 1952 Topps multi-Million-Dollar card of Mantle. 

The card will feature in Griffin's Auctions, in The Paper Sale, on 24 February 2026. 

Recently, a frenzied mêlée of buyers fought it out to own a similar Bobby Charlton Soirée card, bidding £10,000, then £15,000 and more.

The sale ended with a hammer-down price of £17,200, in November 2025.

The winning buyer paid almost £22,000 British Pounds Sterling for his Charlton prize.

Soirée tobacco cards were issued as part of the actual packet of cigarettes, needing to be cut out by collectors. This is why Soirée cards are known with different border widths. Some do not have any white borders showing, being cut badly and often into the picture itself, however, this clean and well-cut example has at least 2 clear white borders and all 4 of the original black frame-line borders. It's one of the best examples seen to date. 

Mauritius, where the cigarettes were sold, is a relatively tiny island east of Madagascar. What a giant card that island birthed! Recently, a well-known American collector of top-dollar, ultra-rare sports cards compared the 1958 Charlton Soiree cigarette card to the 1952 Mantle Topps gum card thus:

   "1991 was the first time the ‘52 Mantle sold for over $30,000. It went on to break the $100k mark in 1998 and then the $1 million mark 2016 and finally, the high water mark of $12.6 million in 2022. Today, many of the world’s biggest sporting auction houses are offshoot businesses built on those very foundations."

He added, 
   "the 1950's Mantle not only broke $12.5 Million in 2022 it left a legacy which boasts a host of multi-million auction houses born of itself."

Imagine, were there less than 10 Mickey Mantle '52 cards out there, what should its value be, today?

Here we have a less-than-10 card. Heaven only knows the value this card will enjoy in years to come!

This very card could be yours in February 2026.

Make sure to be in Warwick, England, UK, or on the phone to Griffin's team, or to be bidding by Easylive or the-Saleroom at Griffin's Auctions, The Paper Sale, on 24 February.