Bartolo Colon’s home run baseball card quickly rising in value

New York Mets pitcher Bartolo Colon will turn 43 later this month and he’s in his 19th season in the big leagues looking like he still has years left in the tank.

He hit his first career home run last week, which attracted significant attention nationally, including Topps deciding to feature the moment on its ToppsNow card, which the card maker sold until Monday morning. It closed as the highest selling ToppsNow card ever with  8,826 sold for $9.99 each.

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But some of those cards already are being auctioned on eBay for as much as six times the original price.

Colon is a popular figure in baseball because he’s fun to watch, he seems ageless and also like a guy who always has a lot of appreciation for playing the game. There have been dozens of cards featuring him made over the years by various companies, but this one is so popular because of the moment it captured and also the limited quantity, even though it happens to be the most abundant ToppsNow card ever.

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Colon spent the majority of his career in the American League with the designated hitter rule taking pitchers out of the batting order. Still, Colon has 228 at-bats in his career and had 20 previous hits, including two doubles before he finally launched one over the fence  becoming the oldest pitcher in MLB history to hit a home run. 

The rare achievement was more than enough reason for Topps to make a card from it. The fact that Colon is so well thought of made it an even smarter decision and fans are proving that with their wallets.

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Kyle Ringo is a contributing writer to Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KyleRingo