The jersey and shorts Wilt Chamberlain wore throughout the home games of his 1959-60 rookie season sold for $1.79 million at SCP Auctions Saturday night, setting records for a vintage basketball game worn item and anything associated with the late NBA icon’s career.
Worn in both regular season and playoff games that season, the white Philadelphia Warriors uniform was offered in a special one-item spotlight auction.
The buyer was once again Rob Gough, an avid collector, who also purchased the Wayne Gretzky final game jersey and a Kobe Bryant NBA Finals jersey in the last week.
Chamberlain began his NBA career with the most dominant debut season ever, arguably in any sport. He won his first of four NBA MVP awards as a rookie, averaging an unprecedented 37.6 points and 27 rebounds per game, setting a total of eight NBA rookie records along the way. Last year the NBA named the Rookie of the Year award the Wilt Chamberlain Trophy, in honor of the historic start to his career.
The home uniform was sourced directly from Chamberlain in the mid-1970s through a private collector. The jersey has been photomatched and authenticated by MeiGray, Resolution, Sports Investors Authentication and carries an A10 rating from MEARS. Among the matching photographs is a color image snapped by Neil Leifer on January 5, 1960, at Madison Square Garden showing the young 7-footer exiting the court after scoring 52 points in a victory over the Minneapolis Lakers in a neutral site game.
The uniform had been trading on the Collectable fractional shares platform before it was put up for auction. Collectable indicated a $3 million offer was made on the uniform in September of last year. Around that same time, a jersey worn by Michael Jordan in the 1998 NBA Finals set the record for any game-worn jersey when it brought $10.1 million.
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