Rare, high-end NBA cards believed to be overseas in growing international card market

It could be considered the Loch Ness Monster of the trading card hobby.

LeBron James’ 2003 Ultimate Collection Logoman autographed 1-of-1 — James’ best card — has never surfaced in public.

The horizontal version of that card sold in 2016 for $312,000. However, the vertical example of this Superfractor has never been seen.

“It’s the ultimate chase card for LeBron,” said Jesse Craig, vice president of sales for PWCC Marketplace. “He didn’t have a 1-of-1 autograph Logoman in Exquisite, so this is the only vertical ’03 single Logoman signed by LeBron. It’s probably a $20 to $25 million card.”

So two full decades after Upper Deck released the rare James rookie, where could it be? Still sitting in an unopened pack somewhere?

Chances are, likely not.

“I’ve heard — this is the mystery of it all — it was pulled in China,” said Collectors CEO Nat Turner, who is also a big-time NBA card collector. “One of the dual Logomans from ’03 Exquisite, which I ended up getting, was in China. I’ve heard the Steph Curry 1-of-1 Superfractor might have been pulled years ago and is in China. No one has even been able to show me a picture of it. Like, who knows, you know.”

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Yes, that James rookie could be hiding out in a private collection — dust mounting on a sleeve or One Touch — overseas.

NBA cards are huge on the international market, and the elusive James 1-of-1 is a prime example of the sport’s popularity in foreign countries.

“There are monster cards hidden overseas, I guarantee that,” Craig said. “The LeBron card, it’s like this mythical creature, basically.”

When Upper Deck was going to release its Ultimate product in 2003, it made a simple mock-up of the James card, Upper Deck President Jason Masherah said. The only thing remaining 20 years later is a low-resolution image on the internet.

“It’s never been seen in the wild that I’m aware of,” Craig said. “There are Green PMG [Precious Metal Gems from 1997-98 Skybox Metal Universe] Jordans that are unaccounted for. I know a couple of those are overseas. Green Kobes, there’s Reds. A lot of these really high-end stuff from the ’90s and Exquisite stuff, I would imagine is stuck overseas.”

Earlier this year, PWCC took to auction a 2004 Exquisite Collection Magic Johnson Titleist, one of only five copies that exist. It sold for $50,000. The set is one of the rarest insert sets in the world.

“There are six Jordans, five Magics — they’re all numbered to the number of championships they won — and there’s only been two cards ever from that set sold at public auction,” Craig said. “One was in 2005 on eBay, and then we just sold one. It’s like a 40-something-card set. So, like where is all that stuff? Things like that make you go, a lot of that had to have been hit overseas and is just stuck over there in large collections.”

If Craig had to guess, he thinks 70 percent of these big, rare cards from high-end NBA products have been pulled and 30 percent are still in boxes. There are so few Exquisite boxes left that haven’t been opened.

When card flipper Dave Oancea sold his 2009 Bowman Chrome Mike Trout autographed Superfractor in August 2020, he told Sports Collectors Digest he purchased the card two years earlier from a collector in Asia for $400,000. Oancea sold the 1-of-1 for a then-hobby-record $3.9 million.

Turner, who was a part of a group that purchased Collectors, the parent company of PSA, in early 2021, believes collectors overseas are holding massive cards and aren’t saying anything.

“I guarantee it,” Turner said. “We have PSA China quietly open in Shanghai. We’re accepting submissions. We have a 100-person Shanghai office now, mainly for coin grading.”

Collectors’ PCGS coin grading facility overseas has helped collectors send cards to get graded.

“There’s no grading there yet for cards — we send them back to the United States — but we handle that for the customer,” Turner said. “What we’re currently doing in Japan, basically, we’re doing that in Shanghai. There is a lot of demand for card grading.”

One big reason Turner and Craig believe big cards are sitting in international collections is because of the lack of grading accessibility. It’s not easy for an international collector to send card submissions to the United States, clear customs and risk the possibly of getting cards lost or stolen, as well as deal with the wait time for getting the cards back.

“I bet you that — and this is just gut feel — that half of the ungraded cards in our market are overseas,” Craig said. “And a lot of it’s high end.

“What happens is, you mentioned the kind of money that there is in Asia in general, well, those guys will buy chunks of high-end retail products when it comes out, have it shipped to them and then they open it — because they love doing that, it’s what they enjoy — then what do they do with the cards? They can’t get them graded. There’s no grading services over there. So they just stay ungraded, and that’s been happening for 20 years.”

Ponderosa Y.S. Ltd. is a large card distributor in Taiwan and throughout other Asian countries. Assistant manager of sales Tony Yang has heard some stories over the years of some big pulls overseas.

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“The most impressive card is the 2016-17 Panini National Treasures Kobe Bryant Logoman auto 1-of-1,” Yang said. “We knew that there was a consumer pulled this card in Taiwan. In the earlier years of NBA cards market, many MJ big cards were pulled in Taiwan as well.

“There was a customer who focused on pulling the card packs and he collected dozens of Michael Jordan cards such as Exquisite auto patch, auto cards and so on. But he cleared out these cards [out of his] hands before 10 years ago, but he regrets that now. As you could imagine, the card value now is much higher than before. If they could keep the cards in hands, he could be a super-rich man now.”

Turner believes the appeal of basketball cards internationally stems from the success and exposure of the “Dream Team” that took the 1992 Barcelona Games by storm and then the following Olympics in ’96. Also when David Stern was the NBA commissioner, he pushed the popularity of the game across the Atlantic Ocean.

“I think China with Yao Ming in 2001 and then the outreach that the NBA did with using Kobe and LeBron, Stephon Marbury and all those that they would bring out there for exhibition games helped with popularity,” Turner said.

Ming and Marbury are two big reasons the NBA is so huge in China. Both former court stars now reside in China where Ming is the president of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) and Marbury runs successful basketball camps for youth players.

“They’ve really latched on and attached themselves to American NBA players,” Craig said. “Kobe, with his international reach, the fact that he spent part of his days growing up overseas and his dad playing overseas, Kobe has a cult-like following in Asia in general. The same goes for Steph Curry. They absolutely love Steph Curry over there. It’s like Kobe’s number one and Steph’s probably number two, even ahead of Yao Ming.”

Beckett Editorial Director Michael Payne said NBA cards are big worldwide, but the largest market is in China, he said. In the past 15 months, Beckett has gotten nearly 100,000 card submissions from Asian countries: 35,000 from Taiwan; 26,000 from Hong Kong; 17,000 from Japan; 16,000 from China; and 5,000 from Korea.

“Although there’s been some situations between the U.S. and China, and so I don’t know where that takes us in the future,” Payne said. “In Japan, they’ve had a couple of really good hobby shops there, and that has raised the level of the game there. It has raised awareness of the NBA and about trading cards itself, which I think is as important as anything; you have to be exposed to it to understand it to really like it.”

Craig added that along with a huge following in China, the NBA and cards are also big in Australia, Spain and the Philippines.

“Out of the four major leagues, the NBA has done a fantastic job with their global reach and they’ve done it for years and years,” said Craig, who noted that Pokémon is the largest media brand in the world.

MINT Co., Ltd. is the leading sports card dealer in Japan with more than 20 retail outlets and the country's largest wholesale distributor with direct partnerships with card manufacturers Topps, Panini and Upper Deck. 

CEO Tatsuo Shinke has watched NBA cards continue to grow over the years in the Asian markets.

“The 1992 ‘Dream Team’ made a huge impact on the Japan market,” Shinke said. “Michael Jordan inspired a lot of Japanese people. He came to Japan for a Nike promotion, and Charles Barkley and Scottie Pippen appeared on Japanese food and car CM at this era. And one of the most popular Japanese manga, ‘Slam Dunk,’ was running the same time — 120 million copies of ‘Slam Dunk’ comic books have been sold so far. The author of ‘Slam Dunk’ is an NBA fanatic.”

That book was turned into a movie.

“It’s a mega hit in Japan and other Asian countries,” Shinke said. “It is more popular than ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ in Japan.”

The NBA card sensation internationally started in the mid-1990s.

“It’s really like ’96 to 2005 is the sweet spot,” Turner said. “There’s a ton of LeBrons, there’s a ton of Kobe, and then there’s a lot of MJ inserts, parallels, autographs, that kind of thing in there. Then there’s Yao in there, Marbury. They have like cult followings of certain guys, like Marbury’s definitely one of them.”

NBA cards are hot in Japan, and Shinke and MINT Co. are reaping the benefits.

Shinke said about 20 percent of the company’s sales are from NBA cards. But it’s the gaming card market (TCG) that are the biggest in Japan.

“The size of gaming card market is 20 times larger than the sports card in Japan,” Shinke said. “Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! are the big two in the market. Duel Masters is also big contents. And the market added a world famous IP ‘One Piece’ card game last year.However, we are more of the sports card focus so far.”

Shinke said the popular players that collectors in Japan go after are Jordan and Bryant. But Japanese collectors prefer guard players, like Allen Iverson, Stephen Curry and Ja Morant.

“Luka Doncic is a big guard, but he is so popular. He was great during Tokyo Olympics,” Shinke said. “Of course, Rui Hachimura and Yuta Watanabe are also popular. I guess that all the Japanese collectors want to keep their cards.”

NBA collectors in Japan understand that vintage cards are a better investment than modern cards, but collectors like to watch games and pick up cards of current players that inspire them.

“I guess Japanese collector don’t think NBA card as the investment so much, they genuinely enjoy the collection,” Shinke said. “So, modern is the king in this market. Living in Japan, it is difficult to see the game on live in the U.S. Most of the NBA fanatics in Japan have never seen a live game in the U.S. Instead of seeing live game, we put our passion into collecting cards or sneakers.”

Shinke said Japanese collectors are more into buying packs and boxes than individual singles. Opening wax, not keeping them sealed, is a common practice.

“I would say there is the strong rip habit in Japan,” Shinke said. “Japanese baseball cards have over 50 years history. And character stickers are also common for long time. That’s why Japan has rip habit.”

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Once a collector in Japan opens packs, prior to PSA’s Japan launch in 2018, they are more likely to keep the cards in raw condition.

“PSA grading has become popular for these four years,” Shinke said. “However, people still keep a lot of raw cards, especially modern cards. Grading is more popular in gaming card market in Japan.”

Shinke noted that NBA collectors buy cards on eBay, but it’s not that common. Using Yahoo! Auctions and Mercari are preferred methods for card purchases for Japanese collectors.

Shinke believes NBA collecting in Japan will continue to rise as the years go on, especially with Japanese players in the league.

“Rui Hachimura and Yuta Watanabe play well in the league now. That is special for us,” Shinke said. “I couldn’t imagine that Japanese players play in the NBA until they entered the league.They inspire a lot of Japanese people so far. And ‘Slam Dunk’ is making huge number of basketball fanatics again.

“I feel that huge NBA movement are coming in Japan now. I want to see the NBA and ‘Slam Dunk’ collaboration trading card. It will boost the movement not only in Japan but also other Asian countries.”

Distributing trading cards internationally is a busy business for Ponderosa, Y.S., Ltd. It distributes cards from the NBA, MLB, NFL, WWE, UFC, soccer and much more to retail and hobby shops.

“The demand of NBA cards for Taiwan market is about four million U.S. dollars-plus,” Yang said.

Yang noted the most popular basketball products in Taiwan include Prizm, Contenders, Court Kings, Immaculate, National Treasure and Select.

“Most of the collectors enjoy pulling the card boxes but they also buy the individual card they like directly,” Yang said. “These two consumer behaviors don’t conflict each other. Of course, a part of collectors love to buy card packs and a part of collectors love buying the individual card. In average, it’s about 50 percent of each group.”

Turner is a big-time collector who has had a lot of luck with picking up some huge cards through overseas transactions.

He bought a PMG Green Jordan — there are only 10 of each PMG green in existence — overseas and knew it was altered prior to his purchase because it had been graded.

Turner also purchased a PMG Green Bryant from a collector in the Philippines in 2012.

“Most of my big cards have come from there,” Turner said.

Preferably, Turner would like a card graded prior to him purchasing it. It gives him a value of what it’s worth as well as protects him from fake cards.

The fact that cards are usually raw overseas can cause a big problem.

“I don’t think I’m out of line saying this, most of the ’90s fakes come from Asia and Canada, believe it or not,” Turner said. “For some reason, and I’m not speaking bad of any particular country, other than to say, in Taiwan there’s a lot of fake Skybox Star Rubies.”

On a lot of Turner’s high-dollar purchases internationally, he will use an escrow service or arrange to have one of his friends in a foreign country help broker the deal and arrange an in-person meeting to pick up a card and have it shipped to the United States.

“I’m a huge MJ collector and I bet you a third, maybe even more, of the big cards that I’ve needed and acquired were sourced from China or Korea or Singapore, the Philippines,” Turner said. “The [Kevin] Garnett, the PMG Green that I was able to find last year, that came from Shanghai. I have multiple friends in China who end up helping broker and picking up cards for me.

“I would argue there’s more big-dollar collectors with this stuff there than maybe even the U.S. when it comes to high-end basketball. It feels that way.”