A fun side to gambling is sports cards. And unlike 20-30-40 years ago the “modern” hobby is picking up (baseball) players right when they are drafted (or signed, international) In the Bowman product these cards are marked with a “1st” in the upper corner. Even more rare are the 1st cards that are autographed.
Even more rare than an autographed card is a refractor card. A base non numbered auto 1st there can be 1000 plus of. Bowman has a numbering convention based by color. So a blue has 150, green is 100, yellow is 75, gold is 50, orange is 25, red is /5………
But the real “chase” is known as the “superfractor”. Its made out of a gold vinyl and is 1/1.
The yankees prospect “the martian” Jasson Dominguez Bowman 1st autographed Superfractor was bought by a speculator for $474,000. This was 2 years before he hit his first HR in the bronx.
I was lucky enough to pull a Bo Nix (QB Oregon) Superfractor out of Bowman U football and I sold it within 2 hours for 3,500. So to put it mildly superfractors are a huge deal to collectors.
Welp they fucked up….
So in english there are 95 1/1 cards out there that are 2/1 and to keep the sanctity of the 1/1 Topps/Bowman is offering over 300K in bounties to buy back one of the two cards, first come first serve.
The #1 chase is Ethan Salas the #5 prospect in MLB who plays for AA San Diego Padres. His buy back alone is $75K
This was all announced tonight and prices for cases have jumped $600 a case or $50 a box instantly.
Should be fun to watch how this turns out.