Michael Jordan entering rare air as hobby icon

Six NBA championships. Five regular-season MVP awards. Six NBA Finals MVP awards. Ten NBA scoring titles. A 30.1 career scoring average. Fourteen All-Star berths. Nine NBA All-Defensive awards. Two Olympic medals, an NBA Rookie of the Year award, Hall of Fame honors and, of course, a no-brainer place on the NBA’s 75th Anniversary team. 

Those accolades (and countless others) can point only to Michael Jordan.

All of it adds up to Air Jordan’s place in the hobby stratosphere, up there with Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle. Just like his style of play, there’s no “give” in Michael Jordan as a hobby icon.

Also See: Amazing find of rare Michael Jordan cards discovered in Arizona 

To wit: Between our Top 10 chart and our “next 10” list (see below), Jordan items hog 11 of 20 spots. And no, they’re not all Fleer rookie card sales. Seven of the 11 are other Jordan treasures, indicating that wallets are opening up for a wider selection of MJ rarities.

Anything bearing his signature and/or a game-worn patch is especially enticing. Example: A 1999-2000 Upper Deck Ovations Super Signatures insert sold for nearly $29,000. 

A 1997-98 Upper Deck Game Jerseys card (featuring a square from his 1992 All-Star jersey) exceeded $25,000. And a signed 2006-07 Upper Deck SP Legendary Fabrics patch card brought $20,200.

Also See: Top Michael Jordan cards to collect 

Meanwhile, the aforementioned Fleer rookie is settling into almost predictable price ranges, depending on grade. Two graded 9.5 sold for between $25,000 and $35,000, and two that had PSA 9 grades sold for between $18,000 and $20,000. With Jordan, however, nothing is certain, so those price ranges could suddenly jump.

Then there’s his 1984-85 Star card, which had very limited distribution and thus isn’t typically considered his true rookie card. An 8-grade specimen of that Star card sold for just under $27,000—fair enough. But when a PSA 4 example almost reached $20,000 on 63 bids, it reflected just how hot Jordan is.

Defense wins championships, which is why NBA legend Bill Russell won nine of them in an 11-season stretch. No, he didn’t put up the gaudy scoring numbers of his main adversary, Wilt Chamberlain. Wilt the Stilt doubled up the Celtics star, averaging 30.1 points during his career vs. 15.1 for Russell.

But Russell, leader of the Boston Dynasty of the 1950s and ’60s, usually got the upper hand. He and his Celtics teams had a 57-37 head-to-head record vs. Chamberlain’s teams. More importantly, Russell, in his 13 seasons, earned an amazing 11 NBA championship rings vs. two in 14 seasons for Chamberlain. Russell also won five MVP awards to four for Wilt.

We’re reminded of Russell’s dominance because of the sale on eBay of a rare treasure. An autographed 2004-05 Upper Deck Exquisite Titlists card brought $15,050 on 24 bids in a January auction. The ungraded card is marked #8/11.

Also See: Bill Russell collection nets $7.4 million, card sell for $1 million 

This beauty not only bears Russell’s signature in bold blue, but it includes a patch of a warm-up jersey. The card’s reverse offers this detail: “On the front of this card is an authentic piece of a warm-up worn by Bill Russell in an NBA game. This card was sent to Upper Deck directly from Russell.”

Furthermore, the card is a celebration of Russell’s win-first accomplishments. Listed along the left edge of his card is the year of each of his championship seasons: 1957, eight straight from 1959-66, and again in 1968 and ’69. Whew!

A month prior to that card’s sale, another eBay listing offered a 2010-11 Upper Deck Ultimate Dual Signatures insert signed by both Russell and Michael Jordan. (Collectively, that’s 17 NBA championships between two players.) Marked #6/25, the card pictures Jordan during his days at North Carolina and Russell as a college star at the University of San Francisco.

Perhaps surprisingly, the Jordan/Russell Dual Signatures card sold for around one-third the price—$5,536 on 54 bids—of the solo Russell-signed card.

While post-career signed Russell insert cards are enticing, his rookie card—from Fleer’s 1957-58 set—is a forever-popular item. However, it’s an extremely condition-sensitive piece: PSA’s Population Report shows no 10-grade examples and only three 9s. PSA also shows that 8-grade examples have sold for nearly $200,000 and 7-grade examples can fetch around $50,000.

If you’re on the hunt for a Russell rookie, eBay will yield options, albeit lower-grade examples. Recent results show a PSA 6 that brought $8,958 on 39 bids, a PSA 4.5 that sold for $5,000 on two bids, and a PSA 3 that fetched $3,844 on 35 bids.

Also See: Top 40 online card sales of 2024 

1. $80,000 on 1 bid: 2014 BBM Shohei Ohtani, Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters stadium event auto (PSA 8)

2. $38,300 on 98 bids: 1997-98 Skybox E-X2001 Michael Jordan Jambalaya (PSA 9)

3. $36,615 on 110 bids: 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle (ungraded; PSA authenticated; altered)

4. $34,600 on 86 bids: 1986-87 Fleer Michael Jordan (BGS 9.5)

5. $32,425 on 48 bids: 1998-99 Upper Deck SPx Spectrum Michael Jordan Finite Excellence, #7/25 (BGS 9.5)

6. $31,688 on 76 bids: 2018-19 Panini National Treasures Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, #74/99, auto patch (BGS 9.5, auto 10)

7. $30,000 on 87 bids: 2017 Panini Prizm Patrick Mahomes II Camo, #23/25, auto (BS 9.5, auto 10)

8. $28,988 on 51 bids: 1999-2000 Upper Deck Ovations Michael Jordan Super Signatures, #6/23, auto (BGS 9)

9. $27,858 on 72 bids: 1984-85 Star Michael Jordan #101 (BGS 8)

10. $25,370 on 53 bids: 1986-87 Fleer Michael Jordan (BGS 9.5)

Also See: Top auction card sales of 2024 

Thurl Bailey? Yes, we’ve got a Thurl Bailey sighting: a perfect specimen of his 1987-88 Fleer rookie card that sold for nearly $18,000. 

Bailey is rubbing shoulders with the Michael Jordans of the world not because revisionists are suddenly putting him in rarified air, or because it’s his rookie card (that would be his 1986-87 Fleer, which in Gem-Mint condition can sell for $1,000, give or take). No, it’s here because it’s one of very few Gem-Mint, 10-grade 1987-88 Bailey cards PSA has logged into its Population Report.

Did the buyer overpay? Not if he or she is building a complete set of PSA 10-grade 1987-88 Fleer cards. On the other hand, the week before this five-figure sale, another eBay bidder won a PSA 9-grade example of Bailey’s 1987-88 Fleer card for just $178. There’s usually a wide variance in price between 9 and 10 grades, but this example is extreme: $17,675 vs. $178.

By the way, let’s not disparage Bailey in any way. The man could play. A 6-foot-11, 215-pound forward, he spent 12 seasons in the NBA, averaging 12.8 points and 5.1 rebounds per game. In 69 playoff games, his numbers were even better (13.5 and 5.5.) And remember: Bailey’s career overlapped with true giants of the game. He went to battle against Bird, Magic, Jordan, Kareem, Isaiah, Ewing, Barkley, Drexler and a host of other Hall of Famers.

On to our full “next 10” list:

• $25,008 on 57 bids: 1997-98 Upper Deck Game Jerseys Michael Jordan, with patch from his 1992 All-Star game-worn jersey (BGS 8.5)

• $21,600 on 49 bids: 2018 Bowman Chrome Shohei Ohtani Blue Refractor, #124/150, auto (BGS 9.5, auto 10)

• $21,100 on 39 bids: 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth #181 (SGC 5)

• $20,901 on 36 bids: 2020 Panini National Treasures Jordan Love, #/99, auto patch (BGS 9.5, auto 10)

• $20,866 on 70 bids: 2018-19 Panini National Treasures Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, #69/99, auto patch (PSA 8)

• $20,200 on 8 bids: 2006-07 Upper Deck SP Legendary Fabrics Michael Jordan, #3/10, auto patch (BGS 9)

• $19,889 on 63 bids: 1984-85 Star Michael Jordan #101 (PSA 4)

• $19,100 on 2 bids: 1986-87 Fleer Michael Jordan (PSA 9)

• $18,500 on 1 bid: 1986-87 Fleer Michael Jordan (PSA 9)

• $17,675 on 36 bids: 1987-88 Fleer Thurl Bailey (PSA 10)