The same Jordan All-Star sold for $1,136 and $275

An SGC 9 took $1,136.11 on 24 bids. A raw copy of the same card drew 46 bids and took $275.00.

Two copies of the 1988-89 Fleer Michael Jordan All-Star #120 closed on Monday. An SGC 9 took $1,136.11 on 24 bids. An ungraded copy of the same card drew 46 bids — nearly twice as many — and took $275.00.

Why it matters

Four copies of that card cleared in one day and they line up by grade: SGC 9 at $1,136.11, PSA 8 at $665.01, PSA 7 at $449.00 and the ungraded copy at $275.00. The raw copy was the most contested sale in the group and still finished last. The gap is what buyers paid for certification, not a mispricing sitting there to be taken.

By the numbers

• 4.13x — the lead spread, on a gap of $861.11 between two copies of one card.
• $4,087.91 — the day’s widest gap: a 2003-04 Topps 1st Edition LeBron James rookie #221 at $8,615.00 in a PSA 9 against an ungraded copy at $4,527.09, both contested.
• 5.54x — the day’s widest spread: a 1997-98 Metal Universe #23 Jordan, PSA 9 $3,350.00 against a raw copy at $605.00 on 27 bids.

Zoom in

The deepest group was the 2003-04 Topps LeBron James rookie #221, with 11 copies sold. A BGS 9.5 took $2,175.00 on 65 bids, the most contested sale of the day on either player. An ungraded copy took $1,012.00 — more than all three PSA 8 copies, at $910.00, $895.00 and $890.00. Tiers of one asset do not price in even steps, which is why a quality curve is read tier by tier rather than averaged. OptimistFi runs the same evidence-led approach to stocks.

Reality check

No same-grade pair cleared our floors on Monday. Hold the grade constant and the contested sales land almost on top of each other: two PSA 9 copies of the 1994-95 Topps Finest Refractor #331 closed at $5,355.00 on 44 bids and $5,038.00 on 42, and two PSA 8 copies of the Topps #221 closed at $910.00 on 55 bids and $890.00 on 24.

The big picture

All 14 pairs that survived the hand review, richest evidence first. More in sports collectibles, and Sunday’s edition is here.

How we track this

RazMania compares completed eBay sales of the same card that closed on the same day. Two sales are treated as the same card only when the player, year, set, card number, parallel or photo variation, print-run serial, autograph status and altered status all match — so a Refractor is never compared against a base card. Best Offer sales are excluded entirely, because eBay publishes the seller’s asking price on those and never the settled figure; every price here is a confirmed paid price. Multi-card lots, reprints and customs are filtered out. We quote no comparable-sales median and no 90-day pool — both prices in every comparison closed on the same day. eBay reports sold date, not sold time. Seventeen pairs cleared these tests on this sales day and three were withheld after a hand review: two where the two sides turned out not to be the same card, and one where the cheaper copy disclosed edge chipping.