Stephen Strasburg: Unhittable. Unshakable. Recession-proof?
The bidding on
eBay for the rare signed Strasburg baseball card
we told you about last week was hot and heavy, with bids at one point nearly reaching $1 million.
That’s right: an autographed piece of cardboard a bit smaller than the index card you used to practice your multiplication tables was going for more than most houses cost -- even in the D.C. area.
But just days before the auction was supposed to end, it was canceled by the card owner, according to eBay rep Veronica White. Instead, it looks like the card could be auctioned off by a
Silver Spring auction company.
Bill Huggins,
of Huggins & Scott Auctions, said he's flying the card owner in from
Florida on Friday to finalize the deal. If the paperwork is signed, the card is expected to go to auction July 14-28. And that July 14 date can't come soon enough for Huggins, who is tentatively setting the minimum bid at $9,000.
"Certainly the whole key on this is timing," Huggins said. "You want to sell it when it's still as hot as it is."
As long as Strasburg continues posting gaudy strikeout numbers and reaches 100 mph on the radar gun, Huggins will be a happy man. We assume the card owner will be, too. But if Strasburg hits a cold streak in his next couple of starts, there could be trouble in cardboard paradise.
"In my business, no one would love to see him succeed more than me," Huggins said.
So why did the owner pull the card off eBay? Huggins didn't know the whole story, but he said that once bidding was restricted to pre-approved eBay shoppers only, the winning bids started to decrease. And no one wants their prized possession to go down in value. So that may be why the bidder pulled it off the market.
As for us, we're on our way to the local sporting goods store. We just got our first non-grade-school urge to start buying baseball cards again.
