chetzoid's blog: "Chetzoid's World"

Nope it's not Honus Wagner or Micky Mantle.  It's the rookie card for Washington Nationals phenom Stephen Strasburg.

From an article in Asylum dtd 25 June 2010 by Brian Fairbanks it seems Topps Trading Card Company released the autographed red border rookie card of Stephen Strasburg.  There was only one copy of this card released.  Yes only one copy.  So this card is very rare indeed.  According to the author at the time of his article the highest bid on the card was for, now get this, $999,900.00.  That is not a misprint.  The article stated the auction has days to go.  When I clicked on the author's link to the auction the page informed me the auction was over.  When I googled for the card several links verified the amount.  The link to the Washington Examiner also confirmed the amount and that was around midday of the 25th of June.  The Washington Examiner also contained more info.  It seems due to the large amount of the bidding the owner of the card added restrictions with permission from Ebay.  The bidder had to have 10 feed backs and had to contact the owner prior to bidding for approval.  All those that had bidded also had to contact the card owner.  This dropped the high bid to $501,000.00 by the evening of the 25th of June.  That's still half a million dollars for a players card and his rookie season hasn't even ended. 

To put some perspective to this, the card of all baseball cards is the Honus Wagner card sold in 2007 to a private collector for $2.8 million.  Topps highest selling card was a mint condition 1952 Micky Mantle rookie card that sold for about $125,000.00.

Ebay has alot of other Stephen Strasburg card auctions going on currently with prices ranging from 99 cents to almost $900.00.  There are also buy it nows ranging up to $1,999.00. 

Stephen Strasburg was one of the most hyped pitchers even before draft day.  With so many busts happening in baseball its no wonder people didn't take notice.  When Strasburg was called up earlier this month and pitched against the Pittsburgh Pirates in his debute everyone did take notice.  Here's his line from that game:

7 innings pitched; gave up 4 hits; allowed 2 earned runs for 2.57 ERA; NO walks; and 14 strikeouts.  Oh yes and he was the winning pitcher.  He has since pitched in 3 more games and has 2 wins with 1 loss. 

Now getting back to the card auction.  As I stated earlier the auction has closed.  Have spent almost an hour trying to find out the winning bid.  No luck so far.  The announcement will come and most of you will no doubt already hear the amount paid.  I will post the winning bid anyway when it is announced.

Pretty damn impressive for a rookie through his first 4 games.  Now to wait and see what else he can do.