One of 23 copies of Michael Jordan’s 1986-87 Fleer rookie card signed as part of a 20th anniversary promotion by Upper Deck sold for $1,008,00 at auction Tuesday.
The card, graded 8.5 with a 9 autograph by Beckett, was part of a Jordan only auction of shoes and other items conducted in New York by Christie’s. While the price set a record for a Jordan rookie card, it was well short of Christie’s pre-sale estimate of $2 million to $3 million.
Another copy, with a 10 autograph grade, had sold for $125,000 in May of 2020.
For its 2006-07 basketball product, Upper Deck rounded up the 23 Jordan rookie cards on the secondary market. Jordan, who has long been Upper Deck’s most famous exclusive signer, then autographed and numbered the cards.
So far, only 14 of the 23 are known to have been pulled and were in private collections prior to the auction.
The Jordan lottery was a prominent feature of the boxes and packs with imagery on the front of each. Boxes contained 36 packs of ten cards.
Today, those boxes are a fairly hot commodity on eBay and elsewhee, with prices climbing well over $5,000. Blaster boxes, which originally sold for $19.99, usually bring nearly half that.
There was no immediate word on who bought the million dollar card in the auction, in which over half of the participants were first time Christie’s bidders.
Also part of the auction were a pair of game-worn and dual-signed Player Exclusive Air Jordan Low XIII sneakers, which sold for $378,000, and a pair of dual-signed Air Jordan VII ‘Bordeaux’ sneakers, which realized $40,320.
