A LeBron James rookie card — in which he wears the Cleveland Cavaliers jersey — recently sold for $1.845 million, ESPN reports.
The card — an Upper Deck rookie Pitch parallel card from the 2003-04 season — sold at that price, which was the highest ever paid for a basketball card. It is the highest price for a card from 1980 or later.
(Funny enough, the previous record was held by a Mike Trout card, which sold for $923,000 back in May, per CNN)
Lob.com CEO Leore Avidar bought the card.
“When you’re talking about a card that was literally produced 17 years ago and is for a guy still playing in the NBA, it’s just shocking news to a lot of people,” Goldin Auctions CEO Ken Goldin told ESPN. “It’s really where my particular industry has been going for several years.”
What makes the card so rare? Per USA Today, “Upper Deck only produced the number of cards that corresponded to the player’s jersey. So instead of the usual 99 rookie cards in a standard set, there were only 23 of these rookie cards.”
Bidding started at $150,000. It received 34 bids during the 26-day auction, according to CNN.