Kobe Bryant’s Lower Merion high school jersey sells for $2.18 million at Sotheby’s

A game-worn Kobe Bryant jersey from his junior season at Lower Merion High School sold for $2,176,000 at Sotheby’s on Wednesday night, Oct. 28. Sports Collectors Daily reported the price is a record for a high school basketball jersey.

The maroon No. 33 is from the 1994-95 season. It sold in a single-lot sale called “Before the Mamba,” with a $1 million to $2 million estimate. The same jersey and its shorts sold through Goldin Auctions for $51,400 in 2013, so the price is about 42 times what it brought 13 years ago.

The sale

The jersey drew 26 bids from seven bidders, Sports Collectors Daily reported. Bidding opened Oct. 16. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported a high bid of $450,000 with 11 bids on opening day.

Sotheby’s displayed the jersey in 2025. The owner then decided to sell it this fall, according to Sports Collectors Daily and PhillyVoice.

Provenance and photo match

The chain of ownership runs from Bryant’s mother, Pamela, to the 2013 Goldin sale, and then to a private collector, per Sports Collectors Daily. A signed letter from Pamela identifies it as a jersey her son wore in high school. SIA Photo Match matched it to photos from 1995.

The jersey’s first auction appearance came after a legal dispute between Bryant and his mother over the sale of his early-career items. A settlement allowed some of that material to be sold, with some proceeds going to charity, Sports Collectors Daily reported.

Brahm Wachter, Sotheby’s head of collectibles, told PhillyVoice before the sale that high school jerseys are rare. Players usually have only one home and one away jersey per season.

Why the number 33

Bryant first wore No. 24 at Lower Merion. He switched to No. 33, the number his father, Joe “Jellybean” Bryant, wore in high school. With the Lakers, No. 33 was retired for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, so Bryant started his NBA career in No. 8, Sports Collectors Daily noted.

The 1994-95 season ended with an overtime playoff loss to Hazleton. Bryant scored 33 points in that game, PhillyVoice reported. The next year, he led Lower Merion to a state title and went straight to the NBA.

Why it matters

The best comparison is LeBron James’s St. Vincent-St. Mary jersey, which sold for $1.3 million in September 2024. Bryant’s jersey beat that by about $876,000. In our view, this result shows that pre-pro material from the biggest names now trades like top-tier pro memorabilia. That’s especially true when the photo match and family provenance are this strong.

One sale isn’t a trend. Few high school jerseys have this kind of paper trail. Most won’t come close to this price.

By the numbers

• $2,176,000: final price, a record for a high school basketball jersey
• $51,400: what the jersey and shorts brought at Goldin in 2013
• 26: bids, from seven bidders
• $1.3 million: LeBron James’s high school jersey in 2024, the closest comparison
• $1M–$2M: Sotheby’s pre-sale estimate

Sources: Sports Collectors Daily (Oct. 28, 2026); The Philadelphia Inquirer (Oct. 16, 2026); PhillyVoice (Oct. 15, 2026)

Featured image: Photo: Lower Merion High School.jpg by Montgomery County Planning Commission, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons