Rare Gretzky card case from Sask. back on the market after multimillion-dollar deal collapsed | CBC News

A multimillion-dollar box of hockey cards is going back up for auction after a failed transaction.

Back in April, CBC confirmed that Ontario-based real estate agent Jack Arshawsky won the auction for a case containing thousands of unopened 1979-1980 O-Pee-Chee brand hockey cards — the set that contains Wayne Gretzky’s rookie card — for $3.72 million US.

But Heritage Auctions, the Texas-based company that put the cards up for sale, said that money never came through and it is moving on after the botched deal.

In April, Arshawsky said he had not paid the full amount for the cards and wanted them to be safe at Heritage Auctions until he could find a good location for them.

In a phone call with CBC this week, Arshawsky said that he’s not sure what happened, but mentioned that when wiring large amounts of money, it can “disappear in cyberspace” and take a long time to track down.

“I’m not sure what happened with it. Did it go to the right account [or] account number?” Arshawsky said. “The thing [about] an amount like that, [it’s] pretty significant when it’s being wired.”

Chris Ivy, the director of sports category for Heritage Auctions, disputed Arshawsky’s answer.

“As far as I’m aware, that doesn’t sound like very much of that is accurate,” Ivy said.

“All I could say is that he did not, he never sent any form of payment for the lot.”

Going up for auction again

The box of unopened hockey cards was found in a Saskatchewan family’s attic. Heritage Auctions estimated there could be as many as 25 to 27 Gretzky rookie cards in the case.

A single rookie Gretzky card has previously sold at auction for $3.75 million US.

Ivy said the auction house estimated the value of the case at about $3 million US. When it goes up for auction again on Saturday, the required starting bid will be $750,000 US.

Arshawsky said that he might end up bidding for the same case again. 

Ivy shot that idea down.

“No,” he said. “Any person that participates in an auction and doesn’t pay, their account is permanently suspended.”

Ivy said this is a rare occurrence for the company, which is approaching $2 billion in sales this calendar year. Less than one per cent of lots it sells end up not being paid for, he said.

Clients like Arshawsky have to go through a vetting process to make sure they are “creditworthy” before bidding. 

Arshawsky said he was always good for the money, stating he has a fortune of upwards of $200 million.

Possible repercussions

Rich Mueller, the editor of Sports Collectors Daily, said on CBC’s The 306 radio show that he suspects something was off about the whole ordeal.

“Maybe he realized that there was going to be a cost to receive this thing and to have it shipped to him or to store it somewhere here in the States,” Mueller said.

Mueller said bidders in high profile auctions like this one typically enter into contracts with the auction company and there were likely multiple options on how to go forward after the deal fell through.

“I’m sure there were dozens of phone calls and legal options and conversations with the cosigner about, you know, ‘What do you want to do? You want to put it back up for auction? Do you want to sue this guy?'”

Ivy from Heritage Auctions said he didn’t want to comment on if legal action was considered, but that he spoke with the cosigners and determined re-offering the case was the best next step.

“I haven’t heard anything from my lawyers or anything like that,” Arshawsky said when asked by CBC if there were any legal repercussions.

Arshawsky said he didn’t deal with much of the auction business once he made the final bid, and was instead flying to Hong Kong on a business trip while his lawyers and accountants figured everything out.

“I was traveling internationally because I have some projects that I’m involved in outside of Canada, so I left that all up to the accountants and the lawyers,” he said. “I wasn’t really, like, hands-on.”