A look at some of the most interesting sales on the sports auction block

The Detroit Tigers' Prince Fielder is a pretty big guy. But he's nowhere near the stature of his latest signature baseball card. The first baseman has graced the world's largest baseball card in anticipation for the Topps Series 1 baseball cards for 2013. At 90 feet tall by 60 feet wide, a massive 5,000-plus square foot image of Fielder covered just about all of center field at Peterson Park, near the Tigers' spring training camp. Topps noted that it would take 82,944 baseball cards and 83,966 official Major League baseballs to cover the surface area of the massive Fielder card.

It begs the question: Will there be a running series of them? What would the cost of the cards be? Would they become collectors' items? And where would you store them? In giant-sized plastic sleeves or amongst the spokes of behemoth bicycles? In all likelihood, this jumbo card isn't going to pave the way for a future series of collector's cards. But years from now, the giant image of Fielder could become the prized possession of some obsessive sports keepsake collector.

How much would you pay for a piece of sporting history? $10,000? Maybe a million? Plenty of fans, and some serious collectors, are always willing to splash some cash to buy valuable sports stuff, from hockey sweaters worn by the stars to rare trading cards. Wondering why anyone would pay a small fortune for such things? Sometimes, as with a piece of art, an iconic item of sports memorabilia is a sound investment that's almost sure to appreciate in value. Here's a look at some of the most interesting sales on the sports auction block.

Bing: More stats on the world's largest baseball card