With just over seven hours left in the auction house, Shohei Ohtani‘s 50th home run ball against the Miami Marlins can already boast that it is on track to break every record imaginable if it continues the progression it started with.
Goldin Auctions opened bidding on the historic 50-50 ball at 7pm Eastern Standard Time at half a million dollars and it took just 17 minutes for the first bid to appear, increasing the value by around $50,000. The back and forth of the collectors led to nine more moves to double the initial auction value and surpass the million dollar mark.
The last action on Goldin’s website came at 2:32 am and reached $1,050,000, a figure that has all the makings of surpassing the all-time record value still held by Mark McGwire since 1998 with his 70th home run ball, which cost $3 million.
We should recall that a fan (Max Matus) filed a lawsuit in the 11th Judicial Circuit Court in Dade County, Florida, specifying that he is the true owner, and that the person who stole it (Chris Belanski), accompanied with the help of a friend (Kelvin Ramirez), forcibly took it from his hand.
Despite the ongoing complaint, Goldin Auctions took the decision to open the auction, which was already scheduled for Friday 27th.
It should be noted that the winner of the auction for Ohtani‘s pitched ball, which ends on Tuesday, October 17, will have to add VAT to that amount, which in the United States is 22%. So, to put it in context, the current highest bidder would have to fork out $1,281,000 to get his hands on the ball.
To get an idea of what the value of this ball means to baseball collectors, Goldin Auctions has several MLB-related auctions open, including the 40-40 ball that the Japanese player hit when the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Tampa Bay Rays 7-3, the first player from the Angel franchise to achieve that mark.
That significant ball in the history of the Dodgers ‘only’ has reached a maximum value of $77,100 and the auction ends this Saturday, September 28. On the auction house’s website it can be found as ‘Lot 66’.
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