Ryan Cohen pulled in a hefty sum from his baseball cards, merch, and gaming collectibles, thanks to his eBay listing stunt.
The CEO of GameStop posted a collection of items for resale after announcing his unsolicited bid for eBay, which the company has since rejected. “I’m selling stuff on eBay to pay for eBay,” he wrote on X earlier this month.
One week later, the listings have closed, and the items have sold.
Cohen’s total haul: $168,421.39.
The highest-earning item was a large Master Chief statue from “Halo 2.” The statue was listed for local pickup in Grapevine, Texas — where GameStop is headquartered — and sold for $15,100. It received 105 bids.
Other top earners include two store signs from shuttered GameStop locations ($14,921, 105 bids) and two collectible statues from “South Park” ($13,400, 87 bids).
Cohen also sold a collectible card picturing Donald Trump’s 2016 swearing in, which was graded as a PSA 10. The card sold for $6,470 with 44 bids. The buyer seemed pleased, leaving Cohen a positive review, calling it a “smooth transaction” with “excellent communication.”
The lowest-earning item was a 1995 baseball card of Vladimir Guerrero. It pulled in $1,694 and 69 bids.
Of course, the haul is a drop in the bucket of GameStop’s $55.5 billion bid, which Cohen has said would be “half cash, half stock.” The $168,421.39 total is about 0.0003% of the deal total, emphasizing the publicity stunt nature of the item listings.
Cohen’s profile was briefly suspended by eBay after its system flagged high price points. EBay restored the account — but not before Cohen posted about it on X.
One casualty of Cohen’s initial vision for the listings was his socks, which at one point had attracted bidding over $14,000. Used underwear and socks violate eBay’s used clothes policy.
Cohen now faces an even steeper uphill climb toward his goal of becoming CEO of a combined eBay and GameStop entity. EBay earlier this week rejected GameStop’s offer, and its chairman, Paul Pressler, called the proposal “neither credible nor attractive.”
After the rejection, Cohen responded with an email to Pressler, writing that the company “should not dismiss a $125 per share proposal without engaging on its substance” and that “shareholders deserve the opportunity to evaluate them,” FT reported.
In an interview with Piers Morgan, Cohen signaled he wasn’t done fighting for a deal.
“They have a job to do the best for shareholders and engage on this, and if they don’t then we’ll do whatever we need to do,” he said.
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