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Joe Exotic uttered the famous line, “I am never gonna financially recover from this,” on ‘Tiger King’ … which is probably how the owner of one of Joe’s flamboyant shirts feels after he got hoodwinked on eBay.
It was almost official — the pink sequin button-up top Joe wore on episode 2 of the Netflix docuseries closed on the auction site Friday at $10,400 after receiving 43 bids from 21 bidders. The opening bid was $650 on April 12, but things really escalated in the final 2 days.
That probably should have been a red flag, as the shirt’s seller, Vincent Baran, tells TMZ … the winner of the auction claims he was hacked and not bidding himself, and will not be paying for the shirt.
Baran’s still hoping to turn a big profit on the item, though … he’s now re-listed the piece of Exotic memorabilia at a buy-now price of $10,300 — or best offer — until May 17.
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We broke the story … Vince told us he came across the Exotic artifact when he noticed Joe’s old stomping grounds, The Greater Wynnewood (G.W.) Zoo, was selling several of his shirts on Facebook.
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Baran says he managed to buy the pink shirt from Joe’s ex-business partner — Jeff Lowe, who now runs the zoo — for just $100, and he was initially hoping to get $650 or more for it … based on what some other Joe Exotic wardrobe items have sold for online.
So, cashing out at above $10k would have been an unprecedented new high — that’s enough to buy a few tigers cubs, after all — and as the saying goes … if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Good luck, Vince.