For those looking for a Christmas gift for the poker player in your life, another World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet is in its final hours of bidding at the online auction site eBay.
Brad Daugherty has put his 1991 WSOP Main Event bracelet up for sale on eBay, following in the footsteps of several other former winners. Daugherty’s bracelet is somewhat different, however, in that his first name is prominently engraved on its face with each of the four suits in the corners. On the back of the bracelet, the words “1991 World Champion of Poker, Binion’s Horseshoe” are engraved.
According to the eBay specs on the item, Daugherty’s bracelet is 96 grams of 14K gold and does not have any of the jewels that you see on bracelets today. With this in mind, the scrap value of Daugherty’s 1991 WSOP Main Event bracelet is $2,484.50 at current exchange rates. It also appears that Daugherty is the man behind the sale, commenting on both the eBay auction and his own website, “This bracelet supplied by Neiman Marcus to the World Series, symbolizes my win of the 1991 World Championship, and the first ever first prize of $1,000,000.”
The WSOP bracelet is the only one Daugherty has won in his career as a poker player. It is also historic in the fact that it was awarded to the first ever winner of $1 million for capturing the WSOP Main Event championship. Daugherty is also famous for writing poker books, most notably “Championship Satellite Strategy and No Limit Texas Hold’em for New Players” with fellow Main Event champ Tom McEvoy.
What may be a bit surprising considering the scrap value of the WSOP bracelet is the price the auction is currently pulling. As of this afternoon – with less than 13 hours left in the bidding – Daugherty’s 1991 WSOP Main Event bracelet has 11 bids, with the top one coming in at $15,001. However, there is a reserve on the item that has not yet been met, meaning that if the reserve is not been reached, the seller has the right to pull the item from the auction block.
Over the course of 2010, there have been several WSOP bracelets that have found their way to eBay. At the start of the year, a bracelet won by poker legend T.J. Cloutier was sold through eBay after he pawned it to a Plano, Texas pawnshop. In the 10-day auction, 13 bids were placed before the bracelet sold for $4,006. The online poker site Cake Poker was its buyer and promptly returned it to the five-time WSOP bracelet winner.
The action for WSOP bracelets picked up towards the end of the year when 2008 WSOP Main Event winner Peter Eastgate put his bracelet up for auction to benefit UNICEF after he announced his retirement from poker. In a frenzied auction, 116 bidders – including poker pro Tony G, who was looking to make the poker trophy into a dog collar – drove the price of the bracelet to $147,500. At this time, no one has stepped forward to publicly claim ownership.
Around the same time as Eastgate’s auction, Paul “Eskimo” Clark’s 1999 Razz bracelet was put up for auction. In the case of this bidding war, the seller was not Clark himself, but rather a mysterious owner in Ireland. Even though the seller wasn’t its original winner and the memorabilia wasn’t the jewel-encrusted version of WSOP bracelets that we see today, it still sold for $4,050.
The 1999 WSOP bracelet won by Hassan Kamoei in the $2,500 Pot Limit Omaha with Rebuys event went through its 10-day bid process and received no action from its starting price of $3,800. Last week, the sale of Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Rousso’s 2007 Lamborghini Gallardo on eBay ended after no one offered the asking price of $126,500.
The poker community has been discussing the recent Daugherty sale through several outlets. Over Twitter, UB.com sponsored pro Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin opined, “Will be hilarious how much less than Eastgate’s the bracelet goes for with a monstrous ‘BRAD’ on the front. Twisted part of me wants it.” He followed up later with a proposition for his followers, “Office pool guess on final sale price: $34,750. Anyone want in on a group bracelet timeshare?” Baldwin already holds one bracelet himself.
