... and I don't think it's coming back.
I had this dream of selling Ted Forrest's 1994 Lincoln Mark VII on eBay during the Series and blogging the sale in real-time. It would be doing Ted a favor, give me a chance to contribute to poker history, and give you all something in addition to the Series to watch.
It's not going to happen.
I'm back home in Scottsdale now. It's Thursday night but I'll be back in Vegas by Friday night, if not sooner. As I was leaving the Amazon Room for the last time on Tuesday, I see Forrest. I've seen him for a total of 2 minutes this Series and we traded hellos. I was in the middle of interviewing Phil Hellmuth for the cover feature for the August issue of BLUFF, the bane of my existence, so we didn't have much time.
So I asked him point-blank, "Ted, you want me to sell the Lincoln on eBay?"
"The Lincoln is gone. I sold it."
I swear, you could hear my howls echoing through the cavernous room. I not only couldn't believe it but I couldn't find a way to express my shock.
"Yeah, some guy who does body work came by and asked if I wanted some work done on it. I said no, so he offered me $800 for the car."
"I was going to sell it as a piece of poker history on eBay. Who knows what we could have gotten?"
At this point, I mentioned to Phil Hellmuth, who was getting paid his $74,000 (which he had to pay towards his debt to Phil Ivey back in the final table studio) that Ted sold his green Lincoln. This car had been won by Tom McEvoy as player of the year at a tournament in 1994, turned over the Hellmuth, who was backing Tom, and then eventually to Ted, who was backing Hellmuth. It was featured in the Introduction to SUICIDE KING and I only this year actually got to see the car. (Ted repossessed the BMW of a player he and some other pros were losing money on - the player won some money and did not pay his backers. He felt bad for the guy and gave him the Lincoln as a consolation prize.)
Ted said, "You probably could have gotten more for it. It WAS $800. He came back the next day and said something extra was wrong with the car. I gave him $200 back."
I was pretty upset at the time but it was probably all for the best. The way things were going, especially with that car's history, Ted probably would have ended up OWING money to the guy who bought it.
And I didn't come away empty handed either. When I first saw the Lincoln in Ted's driveway this spring, I snatched the "L" from the "Lincoln" off the front bumper. But keep it to yourself. That body-repair guy apparently has a lot of chutzpah and I don't want him coming after me for it.
