A Michael Jordan basketball card tucked away in a vault for nearly three decades by a McDonald's employee could sell for more than $250,000, and the story behind it may be worth more than the card itself.
Jeff, who has worked alongside his wife at McDonald's for 40 years, pulled a 1997 Flair Showcase Michael Jordan Legacy Collection card from a pack the night the product was released at his local card shop. He put it away, and never looked back.
The card is serial numbered to 100 - meaning only 100 were ever made. What makes this more valuable than any of the other 99 - it happens to be number 23 out of 100 - Jordan’s iconic jersey number. This jersey number match makes it one of the most scarce and sought-after Jordan cards in existence.
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For nearly 30 years, the card sat untouched through two Chicago Bulls three-peats, decades of the same daily routine, and through personal tragedy. Jeff and his wife recently adopted the children of a family member lost during the COVID-19 pandemic. With a mortgage payment looming and financial pressures mounting, Jeff decided the time had come.
There was one problem. Jeff had no roadmap for selling a card of this magnitude. The sports card market remains largely fragmented, and the path to connecting a rare collectible with the right buyer can be daunting for those outside the hobby.
Jeff turned to a Michael Jordan collector group on Facebook, posting a message asking for guidance. That post caught the attention of Jake Kent, a co-founder of Trove, a sports and collectibles media platform. A three-hour video call followed the next day.
Trove, founded in 2020 by Kent, Mat Sposta, Frank Hrelja, and Michael Cohen, built its reputation as an independent voice in the collectibles space, unaffiliated with any single auction house. Led by Frank’s deep storytelling format which has been called “ESPN’s 30 for 30 in 90 seconds,” the company has cultivated an audience of more than 800,000 highly engaged collectors and has worked with brands including eBay, DraftKings, and Goldin.
The team drove hours to meet Jeff in person and collect the card. From there, they handled everything – appraisal, grading, consignment, and preferred placement with a premier auction house partner. They also arranged a cash advance so Jeff could meet his mortgage payment before the auction closed.
For Jeff, the transaction represents something larger than a sale.
A card pulled on a quiet night at a local shop, set aside through a lifetime of hard work and hardship, is now positioned to change his family's future.
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