The home where one of baseball's greatest sluggers learned to bat is being sold to tens of thousands of people. Collectibles investment company Rally is using its "fractional ownership" model with real estate for the first time and plans to offer 47,000 shares in the home for $7 each in an Oct. 27 initial public offering, the Athletic reports. The offering values the home in the small city of Commerce, Oklahoma, at $329,000, almost twice what Rally paid for it last year. Rally, which said in a regulatory filing that it plans to turn the home into a museum, has spent around $50,000 in refurbishments and plans to keep a stake of between 1% and 5% in the property, reports ESPN.
Rally plans to offer free shares to Commerce residents, who number around 2,500. Many of them have personal connections to the New York Yankees legend, who died in 1995. "We want to make sure they know that we are maintaining this piece of history in the middle of their town," says Rally co-founder Rob Petrozzo, per CBS Sports. Shareholders in the home will be able to vote on its future. Petrozzo says the company will hold a town hall meeting next week to reassure residents that the home will be maintained and treated" as the collectible that we feel like it should."
As per Mantle's wishes, the two-bedroom bungalow is largely unchanged and the metal barn he used as a backstop is still standing. "It really is a time capsule, but it's one that has withstood the test of time," Petrozzo says. A plaque next to the front door notes that when Mantle's father and grandfather pitched, any ball Mantle hit over the home's roof counted as a home run. ESPN notes that while fractional ownership allows collectors to own shares in expensive sports memorabilia, it is "rarely, if ever lucrative." In October 2020, Rally sold 6,000 shares in a signed Mickey Mantle bat for $25, but they are now trading at $16.25. (More Mickey Mantle stories.)
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