The most coveted baseball card of the year has been pulled from a pack like Charlie Bucket finding a golden ticket. An 11-year-old opened the fabled Paul Skenes 1-of-1 rookie patch auto, which is expected to reach $1 million or more when it hits auction.
To those unfamiliar with card terms, this means it’s a Skenes rookie card, with a patch of his jersey, including his signature, and only one of them exists. Highly sought after by collectors, this being a Skenes card pushed it to the stratosphere with the expectation the 22-year-old will become one of the great ones.
Before the card is sold the Pittsburgh Pirates are trying to get their hands on it so Skenes can own it. Their offer seems enticing at first, but it’s a joke.
The Pirates are not a premium team when it comes to ticket sales. Season tickets in the lower level are approximately $3,500 per season — so we’ll be generous and say that tickets behind home plate are $7,000.
This means in season tickets alone the cost would be $420,000. You have to really love the Pirates to want to watch them play for 30 seasons in a row. Not to mention the fact that you could just pocket the million (or more) from an auction, buy a HOUSE, and still buy tickets yourself if you wanted to.
It’s impossible to price the softball game offer. It’s more about how much you’d pay for it? $10,000?
Autographed Skenes jerseys are whatever. He signs a lot of jerseys, and they can be found for about $400 on eBay. Let’s go high from a reputable dealer where they’re sold, and framed, for $1,999.
A game with Livvy Dunne is the thing an 11-year-old would crave the most for the bragging rights. Another thing that’s basically whatever. Let’s say it’s worth $5,000?
That makes the Pirates total offer: $439,998. Even if we account for 30 years of inflation on the ENTIRE package it comes out to $881,930.14, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator.
Don’t get bamboozled, kid. Sell the card, buy a house, put yourself through college — save the rest.
