Pope's
autograph card tops $70,000 in cyberspace bidding
May
16, 2005
A
John Paul II signature card drew a $72,484 top bid in an eBay auction initiated by a Modesto, Calif. baseball card
merchant that concluded on Sunday.
The
online auction, which ended at 9 a.m. Pacific time, attracted 103
legitimate bids. Two potential buyers submitted bids in excess of
$100,000, however both offers were retracted. About 20 other bid
attempts were either withdrawn or disqualified under eBay auction rules.
The
seller, Jeff Hoekstra, purchased the card for "four figures"
from an unnamed Stockton, Calif. collector one day prior to the
pontiff's funeral, according to a May 10 Modesto Bee-published
story.
Earlier
media reports indicated Hoekstra completed a sale of the John Paul card
for $8,100 to another California resident. However, the
transaction failed to be completed.
Hoekstra
then offered the card on eBay for $6,999 in a "Buy it Now"
listing. No takers came forward.
Manufactured
by Topps, the John Paul II autograph collectible is part of the World Treasures
chase card subset that supplements the corporation's first series of baseball cards that had been released in November.
The 48
one-of-a-kind cards bear signatures of historical figures such as King
George III, Napoleon Bonaparte and 19th Century British prime minister William
Gladstone. Six U.S. presidents, including Franklin Roosevelt, John
F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, also appear in Topps' World Treasures
checklist.
Each
signature had been excised from documents purchased by the trading card
corporation. The "autograph cuts," as they are termed in
the industry, are embedded between two pasteboards. A card's
reverse side provides brief biographical data on the represented
historical figure.
In
the company's Series 2 baseball card product, Topps has included
a Power Brokers chase subset of 51 one-of-a-kind signature
cards.
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