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The screen name “Dr. Moist Muffins” regularly appears within the live-stream chats for the Rochester, N.Y. based sports card retailer WeTheHobby.
WeTheHobby’s Joey Carrion guided a relatively minor 2024 Panini Prizm football box break on New Year’s Day. Not too many watchers bought into the live team auction, but one who did was “Moisty.”
He didn’t have much competition at the onset, allowing him to land the Washington Commanders at random with the spin of a wheel and secure the set’s most coveted team for only $36. The Commanders are of particular interest to football card collectors now because of quarterback Jayden Daniels, this year’s biggest rookie card chase.
After buying a few teams, Dr. Moist Muffins turned out to be real-life Dr. Ojash Raval from Des Moines, Iowa. Raval was entertaining his visiting mother and brother that morning while keeping one eye on his laptop to watch which cards might fall into Moisty’s lap.
Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit, husband of all-time tennis great Serena Williams, and a lifelong Commander fan, put a $200,000 bounty on the Jayden Daniels Black Finite 1/1, just under a week before Carrion pulled the card.
Determining the value of a card like the Daniels Black Finite or the 2024 Topps Chrome Update Paul Skenes MLB Debut Patch is difficult, as a person is selling hype as much as the scarcity of the card. How do you know you’re maximizing the value of the card? That’s the sweat. That’s the gamble.
That’s part of why accepting a bounty offer for a card might seem like the way to go. Some of the more notable bounties of late include:
* Ohanian’s $200,000 offer on the Daniels card in late December.
* The Pittsburgh Pirates’ multi-layered package for the Skenes card, which included two season tickets behind home plate for 30 years. Livvy Dunne, Skenes’ girlfriend and gymnast/social influencer, added tickets to a suite with her for a Pirates game to the team’s offer.
* Dave & Adam’s $1 million offer on a 2023-24 Upper Deck Series 2 Connor Bedard Young Guns Outburst Gold one-of-one rookie insert card (which was abruptly rescinded after less than a year of going unclaimed).
* Chicago hobby shop Mint Memorabilia put out a $25,000 bounty on a Caleb Williams autographed Topps card inscribed with “Green Bay sucks,” which caught the Bears quarterback’s eye.
Fanatics Collectibles CEO Mike Mahan, who oversees Topps, said he’s all for a public bounty. If you want this card and you have all the money in the world, you’re not entitled to the card. Fortunately, in the world of social media, there is a megaphone to say, “Hey, I want this card and I’m willing to pay for it.” And it’s been effective for people. A lot of people get the cards they want that way.
Chris Ivy, director of sports auctions for Heritage Auctions, said for a card worth as much as the Skenes MLB Debut Patch card, limiting yourself to one person publicly offering a bounty wouldn’t be the recommended route for a seller. Nine times out of 10, auction is going to yield them the best results. Because you’ve got to think of it, if one person reaches out to them and they’re willing to pay that number, there are probably several dozens of other people in the world out there willing to pay that number, if not more. So an auction is the fairest way for them to bid against each other and find out what the true market value is for a piece like that.
As for Raval, the questions compounded quickly. Who are these people reaching out? Does he have to fly to pick up the card because neither he nor WeTheHobby trusted the card in the mail? How would he receive the payment for the card? The speed and intensity of the whole process overwhelmed Raval. I was trying to be pretty anonymous about it and just stay out of the way.
As it turned out, WeTheHobby helped him field five legitimate offers, including the bounty offer from Ohanian. WeTheHobby kept the card in their shop’s vault to avoid any shipping hiccups, meaning Raval never had the high-value card in his possession despite owning it. Ohanian basically set the starting price for the card because of his public offer. Even though he didn’t take the offer, the bounty seemed to pay off for Raval as it set a market for the card.
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