![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/featured-905x590-NBA-national-basketball-association-kobe-bryant-michael-jordan-upper-deck-trading-c.jpeg\")
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A one-of-a-kind basketball card celebrating two legends of the game has sold at auction for nearly $13 million US, making it the most expensive sports trading card ever sold.<\/p>\n
The 1-of-1 card<\/a>, which was part of Upper Deck\u2019s 2007-08 Exquisite Collection and sold online by Heritage Auctions in Dallas, features NBA logos cut out of jerseys worn by both Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan, along with both players\u2019 autographs. It was rated in excellent-mint condition.<\/p>\n When the dust settled after more than 80 bids, the card was sold for $12,932,000 US. That surpasses the records for both the most expensive basketball card ever sold (an autographed Stephen Curry rookie card that was privately sold for $5.9 million<\/a> in July 2021) and the most expensive sports card ever sold, which was previously a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card<\/a> that Heritage Auctions sold for $12.6 million US in 2022. It also becomes the second-most expensive piece of sports memorabilia ever sold, trailing only Babe Ruth\u2019s \u201ccalled shot\u201d jersey<\/a>, which sold last year for $24.1 million US.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that this incredible world record price reflects two things,\u201d Chris Ivy, Heritage\u2019s Director of Sports Auctions, said in a press release. \u201cFirst, this is the finest modern basketball card in the world, and second, Heritage Auctions provides our clients with the best platform to generate world record results for your rare collectibles.\u201d<\/p>\n The gold NBA logo in the card comes from a jersey Jordan wore during the 1996-97 season, when his Chicago Bulls were the defending NBA champions. The Bulls would go on to win the NBA Finals again that season, which was the middle title in the Bulls\u2019 second three-peat of the 1990s.<\/p>\n In an interview with CNBC on Monday, Shark Tank star Kevin O\u2019Leary revealed himself as one of three investors who pooled their resources to purchase the card. The other buyers include collector Matt Allen (perhaps better known by his social media handle, @Shyne150) and Paul Warshaw.<\/p>\n \u201cWe formed a syndicate so we didn\u2019t have to compete with each other,\u201d O\u2019Leary told CNBC. \u201cWe bought it together. Yes, we did, and I\u2019m very proud to own it. I\u2019ve been looking at this asset class now for three years.\u201d<\/p>\n O\u2019Leary admitted he might not see much of the card in real life: \u201cThese cards stay in vaults in perpetuity. I mean, I may handle it once in my life, but it\u2019s an image that is passed around digitally.\u201d Still, for this writer whose formative years were in the 1990s, the situation can\u2019t help but evoke that time Bart, Milhouse and Martin pooled their resources to buy a copy of Radioactive Man #1 \u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A one-of-a-kind basketball card celebrating two legends of the game has sold at auction for nearly $13 million…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-98769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/card-front-NBA-national-basketball-association-kobe-bryant-michael-jordan-upper-deck-trading-card-au.jpeg\")
Courtesy Heritage Auctions<\/a><\/p>\n