Retired NFL star Tom Brady is arguably one of the greatest of all time to ever play the sport.
Many are familiar with Brady’s story: He was drafted in the 2000 NFL Draft and became a seven-time Super Bowl champion. But most fans may not know that he also was a baseball player taken in the 18th round of the 1995 MLB Draft (507th overall).
What Happened: A three-sport athlete in high school, Brady played baseball, basketball and football. While many football cards of Brady exist, baseball cards of the legend are finding their way into packs thanks to a new announcement from Topps owner Fanatics.
Topps is releasing boxes of 2023 Bowman Draft baseball on Dec. 12, a date that can be written as 12/12 and celebrates Brady's famous NFL number.
The boxes will include rare cards and autographed cards of Brady with a Montreal Expos baseball jersey — a hypothetical look had the NFL star chosen to play baseball professionally.
Fanatics founder Michael Rubin shared photos of the cards and several trading card fan accounts took notice. The boxes will include a base card and several serial-numbered autographed editions. The auto cards are numbered 50 (gold), 25 (orange), 5 (red), and a 1/1 supersector, making 81 total autographs.
Rubin said the ‘what if’ cards are the "first-ever official Brady baseball trading cards."
Several of the autographed cards include unique inscriptions by Brady including "Allons Aux Expos," which is "Let's Go Expos" in French. The #12 of 50 gold serial number includes the inscription "if baseball doesn't work out, there's always football."
The hobby boxes of 2023 Bowman Draft include 12 packs and come with three autographs per box. The boxes had a pre-sale price of $479.99, with the price likely going up now on the resale market.
Related Link: 5 Things You Might Not Know About Tom Brady
What's Next: According to the Twitter account of Eric Whiteback, known as The Collectibles Guru, there is a $500,000 bounty for the #12/50 gold autograph with the baseball over football inscription. Whiteback said the bounty is from an anonymous Brady collector with no expiration.
This means that whoever pulls the rare card will be able to sell it to the collector for $500,000, or they could keep the card or seek a higher sale price.
According to Whiteback, the odds to pull a gold Brady autograph are 1 in 26,639 packs. Overall odds to pull a Brady non-auto card are 1 in 81 hobby boxes. Autograph cards have pull rates of 1 in 1,424 hobby boxes. Overall odds of pulling a Brady card are 1 in 77 hobby boxes of 2023 Bowman Draft.
Bounties have become more common in the sports card world in recent years with a Babe Ruth 1/1 card getting a $200,000 bounty and a rare Magic: The Gathering card, which was later bought by musician Post Malone, getting bounties of $1 million to $2 million.
The $500,00 price tag on the Brady card could make it the third most expensive card for the star ever sold. Brady has had two copies of this 2000 Playoff Contenders Rookie Championship Ticket Autograph, numbered out of 100, sell for $3.8 million and $2.8 million.
Several versions of the non-auto card have surfaced on auction site eBay Inc EBAY with listings for a numbered out of 999 card currently at $1,025 and a numbered out of 150 card currently at $300. It will be interesting to see what the final prices are for the auctions and what the first autograph cards that are pulled for go for.
Brady’s rights were previously held by the Expos, who have since been relocated and are now the Washington Nationals, but he would be an unrestricted free agent in the unlikely event of deciding to un-retire and switch to baseball.
© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
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