He won’t be back on the field for a while but Mike Trout is still putting up big numbers.
One of the five 2009 Bowman Chrome Draft Prospects Red Refractor Trout autographed cards sold for $922,500 through Goldin Auctions Wednesday night. Graded Gem Mint 9.5 by Beckett, it is now the most expensive modern day baseball card ever sold at auction.
The price also tied the record for any modern sports card ever sold publicly, matching the 2003-04 Upper Deck Exquisite All-Access 1/1 Michael Jordan/LeBron James sold by Goldin earlier this year.
The seller of the card was Dave Oancea, a.k.a. “Vegas Dave” who bills himself as a sports information consultant. Oancea made a hefty profit after buying the same card about a year ago.
The Trout card was among the top items in Goldin’s May auction catalog. Bidding was supposed to have ended last weekend but an auction software crash forced the company to re-start in extended bidding Wednesday.
Only the 1/1 Trout Superfractor, which sold for $400,000 in 2018 (also owned by Oancea) and the four Printing Plates (all 1/1) were harder to pull from ’09 Bowman Chrome packs.
A 2009 Bowman Chrome Trout Orange Refractor numbered to 25 in the same grade sold for $190,000 in Goldin’s winter auction. Last month, a PSA 10 Gold Refractor Trout auto sold for $125,000 on eBay. In March, a PSA 10 Refractor auto numbered to 500 sold for $25,000.
Autographed Trout Refractor parallels from 2009 have been among the best performing modern era trading cards in the market over the past decade.
“This event clearly demonstrated a trend we have seen coming for the past year,” said Ken Goldin, Founder of Goldin Auctions. “The sports memorabilia industry is strong, and a new generation of collectors have spoken and moved Mike Trout, Michael Jordan, LeBron James and Kobe Bryant to the head of the class.”
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