GTA III Original&Anniversary Baseball Bat

[ChengizVlad09]

Release date:

The Original one was of course released some time around the Grand Theft Auto III release and the Anniversary model, ten years later.

Origin Info:

There's a certain chance that both of these were used as a promo material sent to various media, reviewers and similar as a gift or some kind of a reward, it's not confirmed, but it can be speculated. As far as we know, neither one of these have ever been a part of Rockstar Warehouse stock, but what can be said for certain, the Anniversary model was used in numerous giveaways held by prominent video gaming sites - most likely in cooperation with Rockstar Games.

https://www.destructoid.com/win-a-gta-iii-baseball-bat-figure-brass-knuckle-mug--215311.phtml

 

https://www.gamesradar.com/gamesradar-giveaway-win-badass-gta-iii-prize-pack/

http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2011/11/giveaway-win-a-limited-edition-gta-iii-claude-action-figure-baseball-bat-shirt-and-mug

Status and Availability:

Both of these could be graded as Extremely Rare and thus extremely hard to find, but having the Original one tends to add some significant weight to it, since the original design is sought after by more serious collectors, not just in case of R*/GTA merchandise, but in general, originals always draw more attention. Truth to be told, the Anniversary model could be regarded as slightly more 'common', but they are pretty much the same in nature of being hard to find. There is no info on numbers as well, so we can't say for sure how many of these were ever released, but subjectively speaking, we would assume not more than couple of hundreds for each one, and that's stretching it.

Contents:

Original GTA III Baseball Bat / Anniversary GTA III Baseball Bat

Rating:

As mentioned and as usual, re-released items falls in lower rarity categories, but the nature of the Anniversary bat - limited numbers, general unavailability and being hard to find, only selected places and ways to acquire it - puts it in the same category as the Original one - Extremely Rare.

Price:

Unknown, but easily in the range of hundreds of dollars, for each, with the Original one probably being somewhat more expensive.

Trivia:

I remember reading somewhere about some gaming museum, I think somewhere in Canada, where numerous gaming memorabilia was exposed and there was this picture I saw on that (unknown) site and among the pile of GTA (III) goodies, there was the Original GTA III Baseball Bat. I think that the mentioned museum is closed for good now, reasons unknown.

Notes*

 

Special thanks: Hamza Aziz, 

 

 

Info Edit:

 

Another highly interesting piece of info emerged when one of our members was kind to provide us with some really cool stuff.

During the pre-release promotion of the Grand Theft Auto III on PC, the original bat was a part of the merchandise giveaway alongside numerous other limited edition specials, goodies and swag.

 

Here's the XML url, check it out, you'll find numerous other interesting things:

 

http://www.rockstargames.com/grandtheftauto3/flash/info.xml

 

Sadly, I'm not so sharp with all this web related things, so somebody could probably make it look more appealing.

 

 

 

Photo Credits: Mosavon

Owners: Mosavon