Rare Michael Jordan Rookie Card Causes Stir After Being Discovered At Iowa Auction

Michael Jordan Fleer rookie card

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Michael Jordan is one of the greatest basketball players (if not the greatest) to ever step foot onto the hardwood, so it comes as no surprise that memorabilia associated with the NBA legend has a tendency to sell for some truly exorbitant prices.

Earlier this year, a pair of sneakers he wore during his last appearance in the NBA Finals sold for a record-breaking $2.2 million less than a year after the jersey he donned in the first game of that series garnered a staggering $10.1 million.

While those items may be one-of-a-kind, there are more than a few valuable artifacts to be found in the wild in the form of the incredibly sought-after rookie card Fleer released in 1986 in the wake of the inaugural 1984-85 campaign that ended with Jordan securing Rookie of the Year honors.

The value of that particular card has fluctuated a bit in recent years.

In May of 2020, a PSA 10-graded (a.k.a. mint condition) card sold for close to $100,000 thanks in no small part to the hype generated by The Last Dance, and another sold for $420,000 just a few months later.

The hysteria reached a new level when two of them were offloaded for $738,000 apiece at the end of 2021, but it appears the market has collapsed a bit when you consider one traded hands for around $169,000 in April.

Now, an auction in Iowa has landed in the news courtesy of a lot of cards that were set to be sold off after being retrieved from an abandoned safety deposit box only for the organizers to reassess the listing after realizing the collection may have included one of the Jordan cards in question.

According to KCCI, the State Treasurer of Iowa (which organized the auction) opted to stop the bidding on the lot in question after discovering it may have been home to one of the Fleer cards.

It’s unclear what the top bid was when the listing was taken down before being reposted without the card, which is currently being evaluated to confirm its authenticity and (if indeed genuine) determine an appropriate value.

With that said, if it is real, it’s safe to assume it’s going to fetch much, much more than the $600 that is currently the top bid for the rest of the items.