Monday, June 21, 2010

Insanity on the Strasburg Doesnt Even Begin To Say How I Feel

I thought the final price of the Strasburg superfractor was absolutely ridiculous. Now, I use the word ridiculous pretty often, but that word means more in that type of situation because there is no way that anyone from the outside wouldn’t think the exact same way. When you think about $16,000 for a modern non-autographed 1/1 of a prospect who has less than a month under his belt, maybe ridiculous doesn’t even begin to describe the real feelings that 99.9% of america would think. Hell, even his base 1/1 with no discernable redeeming value other than the numbering went for close to 5K.

Then you see the price this card is currently at. With over a week left in the auction, the card is already above 20K. Its no longer the cost of a used honda, its more in the range of a new Lexus, bording on a new Mercedes. Granted, the bids on this card may be problem people muckraking the coverage of it, but some of them are probably legit. Yes, this card IS autographed this time, on card at that, but there is no reason why this card should be even close to the price its at with the recent Bowman Chrome previews that were just released. Just wait until the 1/1 autographed Superfractor hits eBay, that will be truly ridiculous in every sense of the word.

Without discussing the careers of Mark Prior and other fireballers who had similar but not equal hype to Strasburg, its not insane to think that this card would reach or surpass the modern card ceiling. In fact, im kind of surprised that Beckett didn’t chase the card, grade it a 9.5 and sell it for the seller under their account like they have so many times before. But to think that this Strasburg card is worth more than any modern card with a modern player on it sold in the last decade or so, makes me kind of queasy. Kobe/Jordan dual auto logoman? Not at this level. Lebron Exquisite rookie with a three color patch? Not even close. Peyton Manning contenders auto? Peanuts compared to Stras. Adrian Peterson Exquisite 1/1? Even Beckett couldn’t help it get to the Strasburg quotient. Joba Chamberlain superfractor? Laughably close, but no cigar.

I have said before that getting into Strasburg for a few hundred bucks is fine, especially if you one of the 10 previous fans of the Washington team. But when you start getting into the thousands or the tens of thousands, you need your head checked. At least the guy who bought the super wasn’t really a hardcore collector, so he really didn’t understand the dynamics. That is probably what is going to happen here too, but that is not an excuse. Getting in on the penthouse level, even for fans, makes absolutely no sense at this type of price, even if you have the money. Go remodel your movie theater or bowling alley in your house instead of throwing your money away. I even think Keith Olbermann has better things to do, and he makes a ton of money.

Bottom line, these bidders may laugh at us for not being in their tax bracket, but we will be the ones laughing when all is said and done.

5 comments:

  1. I wish I could remember exactly what card it was, but in LeBron's rookie year, some product had a dual logoman, auto card with LeBron and Jordan numbered to something ridiculously low (probably exquisite) and some Japanese collector paid about $50,000 for it.

    I'm not sure the auto'ed superfractor hits that much, but with the rate this card is going, I don't think $35,000 for the Auto Super would be out of the realm of possibilities.

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  2. that card of lebron and jordan did 80k and the kobe/jordan broke 100k. but they were not signed. just logoman. i remember like it was yesterday.

    anyways. someone just relisted the superfractor as well. its at 6k already and ends on the same day as the red 1/1 i believe

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  3. Ahhh...I rarely dabble in NBA cards, so I thought it was auto'ed.

    Meh.

    They still set the modern day bar for high end sports cards.

    Thanks for correcting me :D

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  4. The only thing that could make this even more awesome would be I'd the seller were Melbourne cowboy and he pulled it in a group break but did the shiftu drop and not show on camera

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  5. This auction is going to end in a non-payment. 100k+.....cmon. with the housing market as crap as it is houses would be a far wiser investment.

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