It looks like a $2,075 investment in a sketch by then-no-name artist and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama could really have paid off. The doodle, drawn as part of a 2007 “National Doodle Day” charity event, is now said to be worth in the six figures.


The Chicago Tribune:

This doodle by then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama sold for $2,075 last year in a charity auction. Pictured are fellow Sens. Charles Schumer (from left), Harry Reid, Dianne Feinstein and Edward Kennedy.

Barack Obama has many talents, but only the most generous of critics would include art among them. Still, this doodle by the president-elect could be worth an amount many professional artists would envy.

Memorabilia collector Wayne Berzon of Northbrook paid $2,075 for the sketch during a 2007 online auction to benefit Neurofibromatosis Inc., a charity dedicated to the genetic research of tumors that form on nerves.

Now that Obama is set to be sworn in as the nation’s 44th president in January, Berzon says an attorney tried to buy the piece this week on behalf of an unnamed client and told him it could fetch six figures on the open market.

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