Alex Rodriguez Appleton Bat

[joelsabi]

Why would someone mark the knob entirely in black and still think it was used by Alex Rodriguez?


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Alex-Rodriguez-Signed-Game-Used-1994-Appleton-Foxes-Bat-Full-PSA-DNA-JSA-COA-/190707850848?pt=US_Baseball&hash=item2c6712de60

I asked the buyer for a better image of the LOA and have not been replied back to and then I found that it was sold thru Huggins last month at sold for $475



The PSA/DNA LOA reads (in part): "The C271 model was used by Alex Rodriguez at this stage of his professional career. A review of Alex Rodriguez's Professional Bat Ordering Record (PBOR), on file at Louisville Slugger Inc, indicates that as early as 1993 the Mariners were ordering bats for Alex Rodriguez bearing his name in block letters. We should also note that there are two orders for 33.5 inch bats in 1993. However, we cannot find an order for a 33 inch bat anywhere on Rodriguez's PBOR. Rodriguez's first signature bats were produced in the fall of 1995 and continued to the present day. We have been told that the owner of the subject bat acquired it from Alex Rodriguez in 1994 while he was a member of the Appleton Foxes, the Mariners Minor League affiliate."

I don't see anything said above that would associate this bat to ARod.

[joelsabi]

I just want to clarify that the seller of this bat has been cooperative with me. He offered to take photo of the PSA/DNA LOA for me prior to me discovering the image of the LOA on Huggins Auctions. He even answered two of my follow up questions. His bat is not advertised in the Game used section on Ebay but the phrase game used appears of the Auction title. Having the seller advertise his bat in the Card section on Ebay is probably doing a disservice to himself. He is entitled to sell his bat for any price he wants, which in his case he is asking $1899.95 or best offer. The seller originally bought the bat for $558.13 from Huggins auction. He mentioned to me that he bought the bat primarily because of the vintage autograph and the eye appeal of the bat in general.


The reason I asked for a photo was because I like to read the document for itself as it is educational and the findings come directly from PSA/DNA. I was especially curious how PSA/DNA could pass this bat as a game used bat of Alex Rodriguez because of the black out knob. The resolution of the 2 paged images of the PSA/DNA LOA on Ebay was too low to read and the zoom feature was not functional for this image so I requested the seller to email a better, readable image.

While rereading the description of the item, I notice the wording “more on our website” so thinking it was from a dealer I copied and googled the description and came up with this link

http://may12.hugginsandscott.com/cgi-bin/showitem.pl?itemid=45883

The ebay seller basically copied and pasted Huggin’s auction description from where he bought it from for his won Ebay listing. I also noticed that Huggins had the image of the PSA/DNA but instead of two pages long, it was three pages long. The missing page mentions in more detail the conclusion PSA/DNA came up with and the general logical conclusion PSA/DNA comes up with when there is blacked out knob.

In my opinion, a blacked out knob is a major alteration but that is just me.

Here’s the three page document to form your own conclusion about the bat.

http://may12.hugginsandscott.com/pl/45883d_rodriguez_bat.jpg

I welcome some feedback.

[3arod13]

Unless blacking out of the knob is a characteristic and norm of a player, the blacking out of the knob definately makes me question the bat and wonder if something else was written on the knob that would let you know is was used or was someone elses bat. For me, I would purchase it for the Arod signature only.

This is without question an Arod early signature.