Same Jordan Insert Sold for $3,805 and $380

Three copies of one 1995-96 Fleer Metal insert closed Saturday, all three at open auction and 10x apart top to bottom.

A PSA 10 copy of the 1995-96 Fleer Metal Michael Jordan Slick Silver #3 sold for $3,805.00 on Saturday. An ungraded copy of the same insert closed the same day at $380.00 — a 10.01x spread on a $3,425.00 gap, the widest of seven qualifying comparisons.

Why it matters

Both sides were open auctions: 19 bids on the slab, 34 on the raw copy. Neither figure is a seller’s asking price, which is usually what makes a gap this wide unreadable. Three copies of the card traded Saturday and every one of them was contested.

By the numbers

• $3,805.00 — the PSA 10, on 19 bids.
• $811.00 — a PSA 9 of the same card, 27 bids, the middle rung of a three-copy ladder.
• $380.00 — ungraded, 34 bids, the most contested of the three.

Reality check

Most of that 10x is the grade itself, not a mispricing. Six of the seven comparisons above are a slab against a raw copy, and that premium is what a collector should already expect. Two rows barely qualified: the 2003-04 Topps Bazooka LeBron cleared our spread floor by 2.7%, and the $2,099.99 PSA 9 2003-04 Topps #221 drew no bids at all while two contested PSA 9 copies of it closed at $1,603.42 and $1,584.99 — an asking price sitting above two sales.

The intrigue

The sharpest comparison of the day is one we refused to publish. Two PSA 8 copies of the junk-wax-era 1988-89 Fleer Jordan #120 — the day’s deepest card at 11 confirmed sales — closed at $769.00 and $574.00 on 33 and 40 bids. That gap is $195.00, under our $200.00 minimum, so it stays out. Four more same-grade pairs were refused for being closer still, the tightest just $31.00 apart.

What's next

Jordan’s confirmed paid median on Saturday was $577.00; LeBron’s was $660.00. If you hold a mid-grade copy of a card with a deep same-day ladder, the 1988-89 Fleer #120 is the one to watch — 11 copies in one session is real price discovery to sell into. More of the day’s comparisons sit on our sports collectibles desk, and Thursday’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.