A Record Week for CryptoPunks and 121 Year-Old Cars

Howdy, Collectors. 

Tomorrow NCAA basketball’s all-time leading scorer Caitlin Clark will continue her quest to bring Iowa their first-ever national championship in roundball, with third-round action in the Big 10 Tournament tipping off. Among those pulling hardest for Clark to cut down the nets in Cleveland on April 7th is the C-suite at trading card company, Panini, which just announced a multi-year exclusive deal with the light’s out shooter. 

Clark’s cards are already some of the most chased-after in sports (her 2022 Bowman U Superfractor holds the record for the most expensive women’s basketball card ever sold, at $78,000), and with pre-orders for her new cards going on sale on April 1st, a lot is riding on a long run in the tournament for the Panini team. 

We try to stay impartial over here at Mantel HQ, but we’re pulling for Iowa to make it to the championship game because basketball is much more fun when Clark is on the court. 

Now let’s get into it. 

Collector’s Item

On February 21st, we asked, “Are NFTs back?” after catching wind that a set of 10 Autoglyphs from Larva Labs sold for $14.5M on auction platform, Fountain. Roughly two weeks later we got our answer…an emphatic, YES. 

This past Monday, March 4th, CryptoPunk #3100, an ultra-rare “Alien Punk”, sold for 4,500ETH, equal to $16M at the time of the sale, making it the most expensive NFT sold this year, and the 6th most expensive all-time. (The same Punk sold for $2,127 back in 2017, and then sold again during the 2021 NFT boom for $7.58M).  

For those unfamiliar, CryptoPunks are some of the earliest examples of collectible NFTs, released by Larva Labs (those guys again!) in 2017, with only 10,000 ever minted. When the NFT (and crypto) market exploded in 2021 (around the same time the sports card market went bonkers too), CryptoPunks caught fire, seeing multiple trades north of $1M. Sales of CryptoPunks have generated $2.72B to date, which is especially amazing given they were originally given away… for free. 

If it’s hard to fathom turning a once-free digital collectible into a multi-million dollar outcome, just imagine being one of the original owners who sold in the early days for a few grand, or even worse, lost access to their Punk. It’s been estimated that more than 500 Punks have been lost forever, stuck in inaccessible wallets, or permanently “burned”, which at today’s floor price of 55ETH means north of $100M in value is gone forever. 

And that “floor” is trending upwards. With crypto prices continuing to rise (BTC hit an all-time high of $69,000 earlier this week, and ETH is up ~$1,500 since the start of the year), we’re anticipating more record sales to come in 2024.

Penny Thoughts

• A 1903 Mercedes-Simplex 60 HP broke the record for the most expensive pre-1930 automobile ever sold when it hammered for $12.1M at Gooding & Company’s Amelia Island Auction last weekend. The car was the fastest production automobile in the world at the time, with a top speed of 68mph, and according to the auction house, is considered the world’s first “supercar”. Of the 102 originally built, only four survive today, and this particular example, which had been on display at the National Motor Museum in England for more than 60 years, was owned by the same family for an incredible 121 years, adding to its appeal. 

• Rolex continues to dominate the luxury watch market, with no signs of slowing down. In 2023, the Crown eclipsed $10B in annual sales for the first time in the brand’s 120-year history, claiming a greater than 30% share of the luxury watch market. Rolex produced more than 1.34M timepieces in 2023, which is remarkable considering we’re not aware of anybody who’s been able to find one for sale at retail since the start of the pandemic…  

As usual, we’re keeping our eyes on the auction calendar and are paying particular interest to Heritage Auctions’ Treasures from Planet Hollywood sale, which features items like Ernie McCracken’s bowling ball from the movie “Kingpin”, and Dennis Nedry’s dinosaur embryo-smuggling can of Barbasol from “Jurrasic Park”. We’ll be temporarily deactivating our Heritage log-in credentials for the next few weeks, so we won’t place a bid on the phone booth from “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure”, but we’ll make sure to get things back up and running in time to update the Mantel community on the sales biggest winners and surprises.