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If you haven’t been following the world of high-end sports memorabilia and trading cards, things are absolutely bonkers right now. Like… Crazier than the secondary market for hot Nike releases like those Grateful Dead sneakers the other week and the stock market, fueled by lots of FOMO-ing and speculating from Robinhood-level retail investors.
For example: A LeBron James rookie card just sold for $1.845 million. Last year, a rare Honus Wagner baseball card sold for over $1 million at auction. Baseball card collectors considered the 1909 Honus Wagner card the white whale of baseball card collecting – only one of 56 copies of the T206 Honus Wagner card were printed. At 111 years old, it sold at auction in a condition that was far from mint, as many antiques and collectables of that age would be.
In October 2016, an well-preserved Honus Wagner T206 sold for $3.12 million at auction, marking a record price for a trading card. The previous record for a baseball card was $2.8 million, which was paid for a different copy of the exact same Honus Wagner card in 2007.
As of today, that record was smashed. An immaculately-graded Mike Trout 2009 Bowman Chrome Draft Prospects Superfractor card was sold by Goldin Auctions for $3.84 million. The buyer is unknown, but with a premium added, the final purchase price totaled $3.936 million, according to Beckett.
This marks the highest price ever paid for a trading card.
@Topps 2009 Bowman Chrome Superfractor @MikeTrout graded @beckett_grading 9.5 sells for $3.93 million at goldin auctions “ goldin elite” tonight. Session 2 ends Sunday night at 10pm …highest priced ever for ANY trading card.. pic.twitter.com/axV4sXjMcC
— Goldin (@GoldinCo) August 23, 2020
So who flipped this rare Mike Trout card?
Dave Oancea, the ex beau of Holly Sanders – the notorious sports betting “consultant” known as Vegas Dave. According to a Reuters report when the card first hit auction, Vegas Dave originally purchased the card back in 2018 for $400,000 on eBay from a seller based in Taiwan. It sold for $900,000 back in May and the valuation kept rising before hitting auction again in early August.
“A lot of people had a lot of negative things to say, that I was crazy, you know. ‘You could have bought a house’, ‘You could have bought this and that,’ that I’m stupid and it’s a piece of cardboard. But it’s ironic now I’m going to make four or five million dollars.”
He added: “Mike Trout’s the best modern-day baseball player that we’ve ever seen. We’ll probably never see another player like this again. And it’s also supply and demand. There’s one in the world and right now the baseball card market is booming.”
Last night, Vegas Dave started Tweeting about his trading card investment, stunting on his haters.
I’m still confused about what Vegas Dave’s total haul looks like on this flip, but it seems like he came out extremely well.
But I’m so sure about that “….which required no manual labor” brag. Don’t think that’s going to sit well with a lot of people, Vegas Dave.
https://twitter.com/itsvegasdave/status/1297410249083633665?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1297410249083633665%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.totalprosports.com%2F2020%2F08%2F23%2Fvegas-dave-flexes-on-his-haters-after-selling-mike-trout-card-for-nearly-4-million-tweets%2F
https://twitter.com/itsvegasdave/status/1297418938439983107?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1297418938439983107%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.totalprosports.com%2F2020%2F08%2F23%2Fvegas-dave-flexes-on-his-haters-after-selling-mike-trout-card-for-nearly-4-million-tweets%2F
Will be curious to hear if the buyer is ever revealed or if it gets flipped again for another record price.
$3.9 million is an absurd amount of money for a card. The sports card market is starting to resemble the rare art market, where rare paintings and works are regularly sold for seven figures and beyond.
BREAKING: This Mike Trout Superfractor card has just been sold for $3.84 MILLION in the @GoldinAuctions sale, breaking the record of the Honus Wagner ($3.1M) for the highest price of a card ever sold.
Consignor @itsvegasdave paid a reported $400K for the card two years ago. pic.twitter.com/RtFkq5rb7s
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) August 23, 2020