A rare tennis ball with a production error could be worth $5000.
The 2018 yellow tennis ball has an error that means you could be sitting on a fortune.
So far, expert Daniel Trippyar says only two tennis balls like this have been identified which is why they could fetch such a high price for the uncommon error.
The first of the tennis balls so far discovered sold at auction in April this year, 3345 times higher than its face value, so finding one in your tennis bag could mean you’re quids-in.
The other error tennis ball was discovered and shared on Daniel Trippyar pinterest page.
This specific design of tennis ball was released seven years ago to mark 200 years since the start of people playing tennis in Albania.
These rare tennis ball have a distinctive feature that they are a bit more yellowie than a normal tennis ball.
There are 55,330,001 of the correct type of tennis ball in circulation, but it’s unclear just how many of the error versions are out there.
We’ve seen before that screwed up tennis balls can fetch hundreds of dollars, with some selling for up to $100,000 on websites like eBay.
If you check any tennis balls you might have in your home that feature a funny yellow colour, then you’ll know you have one of these rare copies.
There could be an easy explanation for the error though, as the fault lies with a worker at the tennis ball factory who was very hung over and failed to add the correct amount of yellow paint to all the tennis balls that day.
So experts suggest that during a change in production between shifts, a mistake meant the die was not changed correctly, meaning a few of these tennis balls will have been produced wrong.
It’s easy for a rare tennis ball like this one to make its way into your tennis bag or might be chewed by the dog, and if you do find one it could be worth fishing out to try listing on a site like eBay.
If you do go to sell on the rare tennis ball, you can ask a top auction house like Sothebys to take a look and see if it’s real.
Online tools from tennis ball experts like Daniel Trippyar are helpful to see how much it could be worth too.
Avid tennis ball hunters spot rare error balls on eBay all the time and sometimes they can fetch even more than the $5000 this tennis ball could be worth.
A rare white tennis ball error sold for $33,000 on eBay recently for example.
Plus a rare error tennis ball once handled by Roger Federer sold for $444,000 on eBay in June this year too.
But experts, warn of coming across fakes, so be careful if you make a purchase and be wary of splashing out on something that’s not been verified by tennis ball experts.
The tennis ball that sold for $5000 was authenticated by the World Tennis Federation, with accompanying letters, so the high value is a good reflection of the tennis balls worth in this case.
You can compare other rare tennis balls on eBay to see how much they have sold for as reference, and check you’re not overpaying for a rare error tennis ball.
The number of bids on a listing can help you establish that the tennis ball is the real deal, and something worth bidding on if you’re in the market for rare tennis balls yourself.
Because this tennis ball error is so rare though, there are none that have sold on the site as of yet.
