'Pawn Star' Rick Harrison

(UPDATE: The 30% referred to here is strictly auction fees. It has nothing to do with taxes.)

Don’t talk to me about auction prices. First of all, you need to pay 30% right off the top. So that alleged $250,000 is really $175,000. But how realistic is that even?

Who better to talk to about such matters than Rick Harrison of Pawn Stars fame. Harrison owns the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop in Las Vegas and deals with high-ticket items for cash all the time. For example, he bought a 1932 Lincoln for $95,000 in gold.

Harrison in a SNYWhyGuys exclusive told me, “It is a very limited market for items like the Jeter ball. It could go for $50K to $100K depending on who might be at the auction as potential buyers.”

But what about all those reports of the ball being worth $250,000? That’s perfect world, perfect buyer stuff. This wasn’t a unique ball in the sense that it established a big-league record. Getting 3,000 hits is a great accomplishment, but not unique like a 61-homer baseball was in 1961. Or even Mark McGwire’s 70th homer ball before he was tainted by steroids (sold for $3 million, now estimated at $150K). Jeter became the 28th man to do it. Craig Biggio is on the list. How much do you think his 3,000-hit ball would go for? You’d need multiple major Yankees fans at an auction with money to burn and the luxury market has dried up in this economy.

And if you read further in that Bloomberg article linked above, you see the conservative estimate is $75-$100K. Harrison says the low end is lower and I trust he knows more than most.

So what would Harrison have paid Christian Lopez if he took his ball and flew out to Vegas to his pawn shop and wanted cash money that night? “Probably $30-to-$40 thousand,” says Harrison.

That’s the floor. Or he could wait six months for an auction, lose the 30% for sure, put a hold on it that may or may not be met and figure out how to secure his ball in the mean time with everyone he knows asking him for money because they figure he’s hit the lottery. Sound like a plan to you?

Now what did he get? The four seats in a luxury sweet for all the remaining home games plus the playoffs would cost at least $60K. Plus he got a booty of signed memorabilia. And the signatures of Jeter on that day may end up being worth a lot to a Yankees fan considering this back story. So he’s right in the conservative auction range and double the street value of the Jeter 3,000-hit ball.

So let’s stop calling him a chump or a saint for putting his heart above his wallet. He’s neither. Lopez got a deal from the Yankees that was more than fair.