Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant signed card should command more than $6 million
This Michael Jordan/Kobe Bryant signed card should receive bids of more than $6 million, Heritage Auctions says. Credit: Newsday/Neil Best
You do not have to be a sports memorabilia expert to know that the industry traditionally has been built around baseball in general and the Yankees in particular.
But just as in real life, basketball has made inroads with younger generations of collectors, with stars from the past 40 years becoming modern versions of what Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle were before them.
Exhibit A currently is for sale by Heritage Auctions, a 2007 card signed by Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant that Heritage expects to command more than $6 million.
That would be a record for a basketball card, beating the $5.9 million for a 2009 Stephen Curry signed rookie card.
Until recently, numbers like that for basketball were unheard of.
“When I started at Heritage almost 20 years ago, modern basketball cards did not have this kind of value,” Mike Provenzale, production manager for Heritage Sports, told Newsday on Wednesday at Heritage’s Park Avenue gallery, where the card was on display. “Maybe five figures, six figures. But it has exploded.”
He added, “Basketball is making up a lot of ground, especially with the modern side of it.”
The Jordan/Bryant card is the best example yet. It is one of one and never will be duplicated because of Bryant’s death at age 41 in a 2020 helicopter crash.
The card was issued by Upper Deck in its “Exquisite” line in 2007 and includes game-worn NBA logo patches from the two stars, in addition to their signatures.
Bidding is set to close on Aug. 23. As of Wednesday, the top bid was $4.15 million ($5.063 million including buyer’s premium).
Provenzale said Upper Deck did other collaborations with Jordan through the years, but only one with Bryant, “so of course it’s the only one that will ever exist.”
The issuance of such cards that can be discovered randomly in a pack is part of a strategy of “manufactured rarity” that card companies have used for 30 years or so.
It has led to gems such as the Jordan/Bryant card being bid into a stratosphere previously reserved for baseball superstars of the past.
Immediately adjacent to the Jordan/Bryant card in the Heritage gallery was Babe Ruth’s 1923 World Series gold watch — in an era before championship rings were common — that is expected to command more than $3 million.
The record price for any piece of sports memorabilia is $24.12 million for the jersey Ruth wore when he “called” a home run in the 1932 World Series against the Cubs.
The record for a card is $12.6 million for a Topps 1952 Mantle that Heritage sold in 2022.
At the time, Chris Ivy, Heritage’s director of sports auctions, said, “An eight-figure auction result in the sports market was the stuff of fantasy just a decade ago.”
Now basketball is approaching that rare air.
“If you asked a 15-year-old, they know all about this card,” Provenzale said. “A 20-year-old, this is right in their wheelhouse. This is their Topps ’52 Mantle.”
The card has added appeal because of the connections between Bryant and Jordan.
“It’s obvious Kobe patterned his game after Jordan,” Provenzale said. “They had that same kind of intensity and fierceness.”
Bryant’s death added another layer to the story.
“He’s like the Lou Gehrig (figure), essentially,” Provenzale said of Bryant. “Jordan is Babe Ruth and Kobe is in that Lou Gehrig (category) because of his tragic passing.”
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
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