Boston Red Sox prospect Marcelo Mayer hasn't even taken a swing beyond rookie ball, and baseball card collectors are already placing massive bets on his future.
A recent auction proved the point, with a 2021 Bowman draft card of Mayer selling for a whopping $132,000.
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Graded PSA 9 (on a scale of 10), the autographed card was the only one of its kind released, making it incredibly desirable. The owner is betting that the No. 4 overall pick in last year's draft will one day produce at a level that makes the six-figure purchase price a bargain.
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Ken Goldin, founder of the collectibles marketplace that bares his name, noted the intense interest generated not just by Mayer's card, but a number of others at the same Goldin auction, including a complete set of 1975 Topps baseball cards that sold for $600,000, and a Joe Montana rookie in mint condition that sold for a little over $100,000.
It's a sign of the bullishness the market feels in Mayer's potential that his card sold for more than the Pro Football Hall of Famer's.
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"While the final price realized is a good measure of how popular an item is, an equally important way to judge how sought after something is is the number of bids it receives," Goldin said in a press release. "A healthy amount of bids in an auction signals overall good health in a business and an industry.
"A stratospheric, record-breaking number of bids like the 75,000-plus that we just saw suggests that we're still nowhere close to the ceiling in terms of interest in the hobby. 2022 is already off to a hot start and we can't wait to see what's next."