Hobby Musings: Blowout Cards’ Fish offering $60K for Ohtani gem

by Kelsey Schroyer | Apr 24, 2018 | Baseball, Hobby Musings, Products, Sports, Trading Cards

Hobby Musings: Blowout Cards’ Fish offering $60K for Ohtani gem – Shohei Ohtani has been the new hot star of the 2018 baseball season. Riding the rollercoaster that is the hobby world, several premium Ohtani cards have fetched big money because of his early successes. His 2018 Bowman Superfractor autograph, quite possibly the biggest and most valuable of his cards, will be available starting Wednesday, April 25th, 2018 when the product releases. The 1/1 gem is going to be in hot demand, especially after an enticing offer made by Thomas Fish. The Blowout Cards co-owner advertised that he is willing to pay $60,000 to the person who pulls it.

There are some conditions. The card has to be graded a 9.5 by Beckett and delivered to the Blowout offices by May 11, 2018 to be eligible for the offer. For more on why he is offering this much for a card pre-release, I had the chance to catch up with Mr. Fish. The following interview was conducted via email.

KS: I have to start with this question. What inspired you to offer this amount for the Ohtani card?
TF: Bowman Baseball is the most anticipated releases of the years for speculators and prospectors. The Auto’d Ohtani Superfractor will be the biggest pull from the release. I have had several inquiries regarding the card and hope to acquire it for either sale or future promotion. In the past we have procured some significant Superfractors, including Cam Newton, Colin Kaepernick, Robert Griffin III, Yasiel Puig, to name a few.

KS: Have you ever made an offer like this on a card pre-release before?
TF: Blowout Cards has never made an offer of this size for any card prior to a product’s release.

KS: In the offer notification released by your company, it was said that you had “fielded a number of calls from international buyers seeking to own” the Ohtani card. In all the years you’ve been dealing trading cards, have you ever seen this kind of excitement for a player, more specifically, one of his cards?
TF: Over the years I’ve seen excitement before but nothing like this. The demand both domestically and internationally for Ohtani is incredible.

KS: When talking about the international card market, it seems like basketball tends to have one of the bigger international presences. That being said, what kind of international traffic do you typically see with baseball card sales?
TF: The last few years we have seen a tremendous uptick in sales internationally for both MLB and NBA trading cards.

KS: How has Ohtani affected that international sales traffic, especially with the release of his domestic mainstream cards?
TF: All releases that contain Ohtani are in demand internationally. Domestically I didn’t think we could top the Judge/Bellinger craze we saw in 2017, but if Ohtani can keep it up, 2018 will be a record year for sales and web traffic.

KS: It was noted that the card had to be delivered to the Blowout Cards offices by May 11 to be eligible. What is the reason for that date and would you still entertain offers for it after May 11?
TF: Absolutely we will entertain offers after 5/11, as a matter a fact, Ohtani’s performance will dictate whether that offer increases or decreases over the course of the season.

KS: The $60K offer stands if the card rates a BGS 9.5. If by chance it comes back at a 9 or lower, would you still be interested in getting it a different price?
TF: Yes we want the card! With any collectible, condition plays a big factor in value. We will factor in the grade when we make offers

KS: Conversely, as rare as it is, if the card rates a 10 through BGS, would the offer be raised?
TF: Absolutely, if it came back a 10, our offer would be significantly higher.

KS: I’ll get you out of here on this. Baseball has had a number of big rookies the past few seasons, including Aaron Judge last year. Your offer aside, with Ohtani and other names like Ronald Acuna this season, how do you expect 2018 Bowman to stack up to previous years?
TF: 2018 Bowman is going to be one collectors talk about for a long time!!!!!!!!!! Our team at Blowout Cards is excited for the Wednesday release and we can’t wait for some lucky collector to find this “Golden Ticket” and to quote Willy Wonka, “The suspense is terrible…I hope It’ll last.”

For more information about this story, check out the article over at Blowout Cards HERE.

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Kelsey Schroyer

Kelsey Schroyer is a longtime hobby enthusiast and avid collector. His interest in collecting began when watching Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez give Babe Ruth a Hank Aaron rookie card in “The Sandlot.” Since then, he’s never looked back, focusing primarily on adding to his baseball Hall of Fame collection. He lives in Plainville, Connecticut with his wife Danielle.

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