We have a mystery about a baseball card that came to national interest when the bids on eBay nearly reached the million dollar mark.
As I reported on Friday a Stephen Strasburg Topps Bowman Red-Boarder signed card for sale on eBay reached an eye-popping $999,900 bid by mid-afternoon. However, by later that evening, the bid dropped back to a still impressive $501,000.
The red-bordered autographed card, part of the Topps Bowman series, was discovered by a Melbourne, Florida, collector when he purchased a jumbo box of 2010 Bowman cards, the seller said on the eBay listing.
But over the weekend on Sunday the seller pulled the card off eBay hours before the auction was scheduled to end.
A representative from eBay confirmed to me via email that “It was at the pulled by the seller before the Monday sale date.”
According to Warren Friss, general manager of Topps Sports & Entertainment, who I spoke to last week:”It’s autographed, and that’s the big difference between this card and the other one that was sold recently.”
The other card Friss was referring to was sold for $16,403 in May on an eBay and is a different one-of-a-kind Topps Strasburg card.
The two cards are the only “one-of-one” Strasburg cards in the Bowman brand, which specializes in rookie cards. Some other one-of-a-kind Strasburg cards will be made available in other Topps brands, Friss said.
Speculation in the trading card community is running rampant that there was a side deal done. We may not know at least for a while just what the card went for $500,000, a $1,000,000 or if was sold at all.
We do know that there are pages of Strasburg memorabilia for sell on eBay and his T-Shirts are selling at every ball park the Nationals visit. On Monday night in Atlanta they had a crowd of 42,888 – 21,000 bought tickets after it was announced that Strasburg would be pitching against the Braves.
The Nats rookie remains a brand that continues to rise. But for now his rare rookie card remains a mystery.
