From what I can tell using the 'Wayback Machine', the listing was started (or at least was new) on September 11th, when it was going for $29,995. My blog mentioned the listing on September 25th after a reader of this blog gave me the heads up that he spotted this listing. At that time the price had been cut down to $25,000. I tried to figure out when the listing was pulled but I was unable to find that info.
Fast forward to November 26th and CoinWorld posts an article (Here) in which THEY stated the matching pair "sold in a verified eBay transaction for $25,000 on Oct. 9". Well, if it did, it must of been outside of Ebay because otherwise the listing would show up when doing a search for sold items, and also when I clicked on the original listing link, it should say "sold" and not "This listing was ended". CoinWorld article states the seller "provided documentation of the sale.", but does not specify what that documentation was.
The only possible scenerio is the matching pair sold for $25,000 but did so outside of ebay, which could be against Ebay rules if a buyer or seller contacted the other through the Ebay listing and agreed to end the listing and do a deal on the side (outside of Ebay). Another possibility is the seller legitimately pulled their listing, and a few days (?) later a customer strolled into their coinshop, saw the matching pair, and simply had to have it for $25,000. Who know... maybe it did sell for $25,000, but I have severe doubt it was done one Ebay.
Now it gets weirder.
A seller with a feedback rating of (1)... which is always a case for exercising caution on Ebay... SOLD the same exact matching pair on November 26th. It was a 7 day listing, so it was posted November 19th. The winning bid was $4,504. Here is a screenshot:
What is PECULIAR is this seller's single feedback was from the same seller who apparently sold the same matching pair on October 9th for $25,000. The feedback was from 6 months ago, and the seller who gave the feedback chose not to make their feedback private (an option in which ebay replaces your Ebay nickname with random characters and asterisks).
More suprising is that the pair sold for only $4504. Assuming somone really did buy this matching pair on October 9th for $25,000 (according to CoinWorld), and did not sell the note to anyone else between October 9th and November 19th, then they managed the impressive feat of experiencing a loss of 81.98%, or $20,496!
But fear not readers! If you feel like you have missed out on this drama, a different Ebay seller, has a matching pair (different serial number) up for sale for a staggering $50,000. Check out that listing (HERE). Here's a picture of that listing in living color:
We live in interesting times. My advice to BOTH buyers and sellers is if the item has a value above $2000, it is best to go with a more trustworthy auction site, like Heritage Auction, Great Collections, or Lyn Knight Auctions. All of the ones mentioned will have a LOT more currency collectors in their bidding audience, and many with very deep pockets. These are the kind of auction houses that specialize in high value collectibles... the kind of rare banknotes that have $100,000 reserves.
January 27th Update:
Now a 2nd YouTube video (by "Old Money Prices") that is suspicious of the activity around these sales. Kudos to the video creator for noticing that both the first sale and the second sale were from the same town. Saint Augustine Florida, with a population of 14,500.
March 30th Update:
After more digging and finding the coin dealer (who will remain nameless) who was involved in these sales this was apparently one person that took a huge loss. The person who bought the pair at $25,000 was awash in cash from doing well in crypto. Crypto then swung the other was, and the buyer had to liquidate his pair at a big loss. Extracting this info from the coin dealer involved was like pulling teeth, so I suspect there is more to this story.
Useful Links
Serial Number Submission Form: https://project2013b.blogspot.com/p/submit.html
Project 2013B Database: https://project2013b.blogspot.com/p/2013bdatabase.html
My store (currency themed items): https://rdbl.co/3Ms0Jp8
My store (general themed items): https://1zin.short.gy/2013store
