Complete 1986 Fleer Basketball Set in Gem Mint PSA 10 Sells at Auction
Finding a Michael Jordan 1986 Fleer rookie card inside a gem mint PSA 10 slab isn’t a walk in a park at all. Due to its status in the hobby and the premium price that goes along with it, only a select few can snag this card without any hesitation.
However, someone just upped the ante by completing the whole 1986 Fleer Basketball card set in PSA 10s. And those enticed by the prospect of owning this epic collection now have a chance to do so.
As seen in a video posted by Find Your Trove on Instagram, an anonymous collector owned a complete set of the iconic set at one point in time. While it isn’t known whether that individual had those 132 cards graded until each of them got a PSA 10 or purchased the slabs instead, the fact that a complete set slabbed with a gem mint grade does deserve some recognition.
Doing the math, a sealed box of 1986 Fleer Basketball containing 36 packs with 12 cards each is valued at $180,000 in the market. Back during its launch, though, this product was only sold for $10 to consumers for a box containing 432 cards. The thing is, it’s pretty hard to get a handful of them that’s going to be worthy of a PSA 10 grade.
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Take Jordan’s Fleer rookie card for example. Out of the 28,764 in PSA’s database, only 332 of them have been bestowed with a gem-mint condition. Moreover, one copy of the graded card is now worth approximately $200,000.
This makes the challenge of completing a PSA 10 set of these basketball cards an almost impossible feat to achieve. Apart from nabbing that Jordan card, getting the other offerings from the set and having them graded to a 10 is very hard to achieve.
Keep in mind too that the said set not only contains the Chicago Bulls legend. It also has key basketball rookie cards in the hobby, such as Clyde Drexler, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, and Hakeem Olajuwon.
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Apart from those players, the other challenge posed here is the difficulty of getting other 1986 Fleer Basketball cards slabbed with a gem mint label. Some players, such as Dominique Wilkins and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, have lower PSA 10 populations than that of the Jordan card.
Putting all of these factors together and one can end up with a challenge that’s almost impossible to overcome.
Rather than spend a huge amount of money chasing the cards in this set and having them graded, collectors would do well to just splurge in one go.
This is made possible for one able collector, thanks to Goldin Auctions.
Just recently, a listing for this impressive collection went live on their website. After 17 bids, it reached $325,000 and went to the anonymous winning bidder. After a buyer’s premium, the entire set of cards is now valued at $390,000.
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With the collection now off the market, it would be nearly impossible for anyone to replicate this feat. In any case, this will go down as a massive win for the hobby, especially with the set’s value reaching that high in the market.
Julio Munar is a sports and culture writer. His expertise revolves around the NBA, but his passion is sports cards and collectibles. He has written for ClutchPoints and The Manila Times, among other outlets.