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Even in retirement, Michael Jordan is still breaking records. But this latest one has experts scratching their heads.
A signed 1986 Fleer Jordan rookie card sold at auction Thursday for $2.5 million, the highest price ever paid for that particular card, according to Darren Rovell’s sports collectibles media platform Cllct. It significantly leaps a signed 1986 Fleer Jordan rookie card that went for $1.008 million in 2022.
The deal comes with some mystery. The winning bid of $2 million was the only bid—the total value of the sale rises to $2.5 million because the auction house, Joopiter, charges a 25% buyer’s premium (experts say that’s pretty standard).
“It’s a shocking amount of money,” Will Stern, a reporter and editor at Cllct, tells Front Office Sports. “I don’t think there’s anybody who I spoke to within the industry that expected this.”
That opinion is shared by Michael Osacky, president of sports cards and memorabilia appraiser Baseball in the Attic, who tells FOS that the “fair market value” of this card is about $1 million.
“I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I have some doubts [about the auction],” he says. “The value seems so preposterous.”
Although there was only one bid, Joopiter tells FOS the “sale had strong activity from potential buyers in 50 countries.”
The buyer is not being identified, which Osacky says is typical “unless the buyer has a big enough ego and purposely wants to disclose it was them.”
The sale is a big splash for Joopiter—which was founded in 2022 by singer and music producer Pharrell Williams and is backed by venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners—as it represents the company’s first foray into sports items. Previous items auctioned by Joopiter include Williams’ own clothing and memorabilia, as well as special edition Nike sneakers.
There are valid reasons for why the Jordan card would be so highly valued. Not only did it receive a nine out of 10 grade for its condition and 10 out of 10 grade for the autograph, it’s part of a batch of the Fleer rookie cards that Jordan secretly signed last year in Florida. The fact that Jordan journeyed to Florida to sign these cards—he didn’t even get paid to do so, according to Cllct—is more than surprising.
“Something like this only comes around so often,” Osacky says.
Joopiter has plans for further sports auctions, although it would not share any specifics. Caitlin Donovan, global head of sale for the auction house, tells FOS “we look forward to building on this milestone as we continue to offer extraordinary pieces in this dynamic market.”
The sports collectibles market had been somewhat dormant before reigniting during the COVID-19 pandemic. Card collecting has attracted the all-important youth demographic. Interest in trading cards is high among Gen Z and the younger Gen Alpha, who in particular are chasing numbered, rare, and ultra-modern cards, manufactured in the past eight years.
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