Ortiz exceeds expectations on Harry Potter book
Daniel Ortiz checked on it every day: His J.K. Rowling-autographed "Deathly Hallows" Harry Potter book was being auctioned for charity on eBay.
He went to bed before the final day of the auction, finally content with a $2,500 bid that had arrived. But by noon the last day, another bid had almost doubled that amount. The deluxe edition of the book and the accompanying "Ultimate Harry Potter Package" sold for $5,413.
The starting price was $100, and the bids came in slowly at first. The 10-day auction picked up quickly the second and third days, with bidding going from $100 to $500 in a matter of minutes. By day four, the book had a bid of almost $3,500.
"I was hoping to just get $3,000, for it," Daniel said.
He was ecstatic. Then that $3,500 bid dropped by $1,000. Someone had backed off.
"That angered me," Daniel said. "It was for charity. ... They jeopardized the charity."
Luckily for Daniel, the price not only went back up to that $3,500 level, it exceeded it by $2,000.
Daniel had planned to split the money between the MS Society of Sarasota and Habitat for Humanity. But with the unexpected jump in the bidding, he was able to allocate $500 to the relief effort in Haiti. The newspaper at his school, Pine View in Osprey, matched that amount, he said.
Mary Grandpré, the illustrator of the Harry Potter books, had drawn a one-of-a-kind illustration of Potter for the book. Daniel said he had been able to talk with her after the auction; she congratulated him on his work, pleased the money was going to good causes.
"Everybody is super happy and ecstatic," he said. "Everybody at school knows me as ‘the Harry Potter geek’ now and that’s fine. With a book, I was able to help thousands of people ...."