Kobe worn mask sells for $67,000

[yankees24]

The Los Angeles Lakers guard auctioned off the mask he wore this season after breaking his nose and suffering a concussion in the NBA All-Star Game to raise money for the Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation.

Bryant said that wearing the mask felt like a sauna on his face and joked back in March that he planned to auction off the mask to "see if anybody's dumb enough to buy that sweaty mask."


The auction ended Tuesday with a winning bid of $67,100. The opening bid was $250, and there were 129 total bids. Bryant also autographed the mask before putting it up for auction.

The money will go toward the Bryant Family Foundation's initiative to help eradicate homelessness in Los Angeles. There are nearly 50,000 homeless people living on the streets of L.A., and an estimated 7,000 to 10,000 of those homeless are younger than 24, according to the website for My Friend's Place, a youth homeless shelter that Bryant supports.

http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/s...harity-auction

[UTeric3232]

That's insane....jeez

[sportscentury]

Here is the bidding history for the auction:

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d...m=170832152836

[trsent]

Here is the bidding history for the auction:

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d...m=170832152836

The seller left the buyer their first feedback.

The winner was new eBay user: hpopat

You had to pre-qualify to bid, so even though it was a couple of new eBay users bidding, I assume both were very legitimate.

[Jags Fan Dan]

Somebody just making a big donation to charity. Nobody can possibly believe it is really worth that much or have any interest/hope in trying to re-coup the money at a later date.

[sportscentury]

The seller left the buyer their first feedback.

The winner was new eBay user: hpopat

You had to pre-qualify to bid, so even though it was a couple of new eBay users bidding, I assume both were very legitimate.

You did not have to pre-qualify to bid -- see the cancelled bid for not pre-qualifying.

I am not sure what happened in this auction, but, between the seller and multiple bidders, there were too many zero-feedback participants for me to assume anything was "very legitimate" (whatever that means). If the winning bidder were to relist this item on open auction, he'd be lucky to realize one tenth of his purchase price.

[jppopma]

I have noticed that many of these charity auctions that are advertised in mainstream media will have alot of new "0" ebayers. While I have often thought that something that amiss, it could easily be someone who is not an ebay regular that hears about the auction and wanted to get it on it. They would have to open a new ebay account in order to bid and then likely have some screwy bidding patterns since they are not used to how the auctions work.

[sportscentury]

I have noticed that many of these charity auctions that are advertised in mainstream media will have alot of new "0" ebayers. While I have often thought that something that amiss, it could easily be someone who is not an ebay regular that hears about the auction and wanted to get it on it. They would have to open a new ebay account in order to bid and then likely have some screwy bidding patterns since they are not used to how the auctions work.

It may have been a legitimate auction. Or it could be that one or more of the underbidders were shills. Who knows? I hope everything was on the up and up and I'm glad to see the charity benefit from the high price.

[trsent]

It may have been a legitimate auction. Or it could be that one or more of the underbidders were shills. Who knows? I hope everything was on the up and up and I'm glad to see the charity benefit from the high price.

I'm going to guess that The Kobe & Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation doesn't employ shills.

[sportscentury]

I'm going to guess that The Kobe & Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation doesn't employ shills.

I know you love to argue, buddy, but I'm not all that interested in it, so this will be my last post. You are free to assume and guess all you like, of course, but as a long-time hobbyist, I'm sure you know that shills are not always employed by or even associated with the seller. Folks use shill bids to drive up auction prices all the time, simply to manipulate the market. If you think that this does not happen on a daily basis on eBay, then I don't know what to tell you. Did it happen here with the Kobe mask? Again, I don't know. But I am always hesitant to assume everything is kosher when I see that kind of bidding history. That is all I was trying to say.