"A federal grand jury in Chicago indicted sports memorabilia executives Bill Mastro and Doug Allen
on fraud charges, alleging that the pair — once the most influential
figures in the multi-billion dollar collectibles industry — routinely
defrauded customers, rigged auctions and inflated prices paid by
unwitting bidders." You can read more in the
New York Daily News HERE.
The focus of the story is an ultra-rare Honus Wagner baseball card that Mastro allegedly altered. What caught my eye was the price inflation on that card over the last 25 years.
"Mastro bought it for $25,000 in a Hicksville, L.I. memorabilia shop in
1985. Its owners have included NHL great Wayne Gretzky, who purchased
the card in 1991 along with Los Angeles Kings owner Bruce McNall for
$451,000... [T]he card was sold by Gretzky to Wal-Mart in 1995 for $500,000... It became the first million-dollar baseball card in history in 2000 when
Chicago collector Mike Gidwitz sold it for $1.27 million to collector
Brian Seigel. The card is now owned by Arizona Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick, who paid $2.8 million for it in 2007."
Why, I also wonder, was Wal-Mart buying a $500K baseball card?
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