A few interesting items were sold last night in Premier Auctions, including a Frank Sinatra single-signed ball from the Halper auction. I can't remember seeing another Sinatra ball in the auction circuit and this one got up to $2,413 with the juice. That still may wind up being a bargain for that rare of an item with stellar provenance. The bidding was around $1,000 until the wee hours of the morning and I thought it might go for a steal price, but it didn't. They also had a George H. Bush single-signed ball from Halper's collection, which finished at $312.

Another really interesting item in Premier was a single-signed Pope Paul VI ball. PSA/DNA wouldn't authenticate it, but Premier felt it was authentic and it seems like the bidders felt pretty good about its authenticity too. It finished at $3,327.

Since I touched on presidential candidate single-signed balls a few blogs ago, did anyone notice the Barack Obama PSA 10 ball that sold in Mastro Auctions on Wed.? It finished at $2,760. That's absurd, but congrats to Mastro and the consignor. Who pays that sort of cash for a signature of a guy who might not even with the Democratic ticket? Crazy things like that happen all the time though in the auction circuit, as evidenced by the Margaret Thatcher ball that finished close to $3,000 in SCP/Sotheby's internet auction Jan. 31. A similar Thatcher ball finished at just $390 last night in Mastro. Go figure.