Former president Barack Obama‘s No.23 Punahou High School basketball jersey has officially been listed to get auctioned off. Considering how rare the jersey is, it is expected to sell for more than $100,000 in the current market. As of right now, the current bid sits at $30,000 with a couple days still remaining.
According to Heritage Auctions, the jersey was worn by Obama during his senior year of high school, as part of the team’s 1979 Hawaii State varsity basketball team. According to Heritage Auctions, the jersey was almost thrown away when the team received new jerseys, but the player who wore the jersey number after Obama made sure to keep it.
“It was fortuitously rescued from being discarded when the new varsity jerseys arrived on campus only because our consignor Peter Noble, three years behind Obama at Punahou, had worn the same number “23” jersey while on the junior varsity team. We can see the multiple years of wear in the softness of the tackle twill identifiers and the “Rawlings [size] 40″ label at lower right front tail, and even a scattering of small stains consistent with blood, perhaps Obama’s. A patched repair at lower front left likewise documents the long, rough-and-tumble history of the historic garment,” the site states.
When talking about basketball previously, Obama stated that, “I’ve always loved basketball because it’s about building a team that’s equal to more than the sum of its parts. Glad to see this expansion into Africa because for a rising continent, this can be about a lot more than what happens on the court.”
