No. 70 Won't Appraise at $3 mil

Tom Finkelmeier of Cornell and Finkelmeier, an insurance agency in Wapakoneta, Ohio, specializing in sports and other collectibles, says the owner who paid $3 million for ball No. 70 won't be able to insure it for that much. "People have to sit down and have a meeting of the minds," Finkelmeier said concerning an appraisal of the ball. "To assess the insured value for such an item, we would bring in one or two major dealers in the country and come up with a happy medium to determine what the item is worth. If an item sells for $3 million, we wouldn't automatically say it's worth $3 million. It is something that would have to be underwritten very carefully and outside counsel would have to be involved. A problem arises in that we can't come up with anything that's comparable to it. By the time I usually get involved in the sale of major items, they've been sold twice, so there's a reasonable market within the parameters of the hobby for this particular item."

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