Three Jordan rookies sold Friday at three prices

The one buyers fought over had a game-used jersey patch cut into it and carries no numeric grade.

Three copies of the 1986-87 Fleer #57 Michael Jordan rookie — the hobby’s benchmark Jordan card — sold on eBay Friday at $28,500, $10,500 and $7,300. The cheapest of the three took 19 bids. The most expensive took none.

Why it matters

On this card, the holder and the sale format decide the price more than the card itself does. Two of Friday’s three copies moved at fixed prices with nobody competing for them. The only one that went to open bidding is the one Beckett will not assign a number to.

By the numbers

• $28,500 — a BGS 9 copy, listed buy-it-now and bought at 0 bids. Friday’s highest Jordan sale.
• $10,500 — a PSA 8 copy, sold at auction on 1 bid.
• $7,300 — the altered copy, sold at auction on 19 bids, the most of the three.

Zoom in

The $7,300 card is a genuine 1986-87 Fleer #57 with a game-used jersey patch embedded in it after the fact. That modification is why the slab reads Authentic Altered — Beckett’s designation for a real card that has been physically changed — and why it carries no numeric grade at all. It still pulled 19 bidders, while a mint copy of the same card sat at a fixed price and a PSA 8 closed on a single bid.

Reality check

• 19 bids was the most of the three rookies, not the most of the day. Cheaper Jordan cards drew heavier bidding on Friday.
• The $28,500 is not fresh price discovery. The slab in the listing photos is the same certified copy we reported selling for the same $28,500 on August 9 — same fixed price, again with no bidding.
• We are quoting no comp multiple. The comparable-sales pool for a 1986 Fleer #57 ran $1,000 to $28,000 across 24 sales, a 28x spread that mixes grades and formats. Any premium calculated from it would be fiction.

What's next

Friday produced 43 qualifying single-card Jordan sales at a $440 median, against a $465 median across 147 sales over the trailing 90 days. That is an ordinary day with three unusual cards sitting on top of it. If you hold an altered or relic-fused vintage copy, Friday says the bid is there — but one day is not a trend, so watch whether it repeats in our daily card-sale coverage.

How we track this

RazMania monitors completed eBay sales daily, filtering out multi-card lots, reprints, and cross-listed items to isolate genuine single-card sales. Prices are final sold prices. Comparable-sale medians are calculated from 147 verified sales over the trailing 90 days. eBay reports sold date, not sold time.