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BUSINESS -
Barry
Bonds' 715th Historic Home
Run Ball Sells for $220,100
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August,
2006
Sunday August 6, 2006 During the final hour of the listing on ebay , 20 bids were placed, jumping the price of the ball by nearly 45 percent.
Barry Bonds' 715th home run ball sold Thursday on eBay for $220,100 after receiving 69 bids. The winning bidder is Marc Chase, an eBay member since 1999 and owner of Symbolic Auto Group, an authorized new car dealer in the Silicon Valley (Calif.), La Jolla (Calif.) and Las Vegas. During the final hour of the listing, 20 bids were placed, jumping the price of the ball by nearly 45 percent. Chase placed the winning bid with just under four minutes left. There were more than 665,000 visits to the 715 home run ball description page -- a rate of nearly 48 visits per minute. It was the most watched item on eBay over the last 10 days with more than 25,000 people tracking it on their My eBay pages. The sellers, Andrew Morbitzer and his wife Megan, have committed 10 percent of the ball sale proceeds to Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. "The decision to sell this piece of history was a big one for us, but ultimately, we are happy with the ending price we received today," said Andrew. "It's been a chance of a lifetime, a lot of fun and we feel putting it on eBay allowed a lot of people to participate, either through bidding or watching. We're also very excited to help Big Brothers Big Sisters of America through our donation." "This 715th home run baseball is a huge piece of baseball history that broke the record of Babe Ruth, who I consider one of the game's greatest players," said Chase, who sells Rolls Royce, Bentley, Lamborghini, Aston Martin and others at his dealerships, and also sells cars on eBay Motors. "The ball also has a real connection between Bonds and his godfather, Willie Mays, my all-time favorite player who I watched growing up." "The historic 715 ball received a tremendous amount of attention and activity on eBay," said Jed Clevenger, category manager for sports memorabilia at eBay. "We're thrilled the Morbitzers chose to sell the ball on eBay and that it has gone to a buyer with a passion for baseball and appreciates the significance of this item." On May 28, Andrew caught the ball one-handed while in a concession line at AT&T Park in San Francisco. The listing began July 24 with a starting price of $10,000. With a lot of early bidding activity, the $125,000 reserve price was met just two days into the listing. Listing management services were handled by Auctionwire. About eBay Founded in 1995, eBay created a powerful platform for the sale of goods and services by a passionate community of individuals and businesses. On any given day, there are millions of items across thousands of categories for sale on eBay. eBay enables trade on a local, national and international basis with customized sites in markets around the world. Through an array of services, such as its payment solution provider PayPal, eBay is enabling global e-commerce for an ever-growing online community. (Business Wire) © Copyright: National Radio. Any use of these materials, whole or in part, is prohibited unless authorized in writing by National Radio. Contact: nationalradio@yahoo.com All rights reserved. |
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