The Michael Jordan cards every '90s kid seemed to have, and how much they're worth now

New York Times

5 days ago

Michael Jordan's rise and domination of the sporting world with the Chicago Bulls happened to coincide with trading card companies pushing their printing presses to unprecedented extremes. As a result, there might be more Jordan cards in existence than of any other athlete. And since this 'junk wax era' was also a time when people started to realize that sports cards can have some long-term value, a huge number of those Jordan cards were saved from the garbage bins that ate up a previous generation's Mickey Mantles. Because of that, as children of the '90s have been dusting off their old Jordan card binders over the last few years, hoping to discover that their preserved collections are now worth millions, they're faced with the reality that everyone else saved their many Jordan cards too, and so the vast majority of them are worth very little.
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Even though Jordan remains the most searched athlete on eBay month after month long after his retirement, the supply of his cards is just too large for all of them to be worth significant money. Granted, there are still a great many Jordan cards that are quite valuable today — and those values are starting to surpass what many believed were insurmountable pandemic peaks — but those don't fall within the core cards that every '90s kid seemed to have in their binders upon binders of Jordan cards. So what were the Jordan cards that every '90s kid seemed to have and what are they worth today? There are way too many to list in full here, but let's take a look at some standouts.
This is the most graded sports card and by far the most graded Jordan card by leading grader PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator), with a population over 63,000. Why is that? Well I'm pretty sure the government mailed this card out to every kid in America in 1990. I haven't ruled out that this card could multiply on its own like a Mogwai if you got it wet or fed it after midnight. You could go to bed with one and wake up the next morning with 15. Ungraded, this card usually sells for less than $10, but gem-mint PSA 10 graded examples are selling for north of $200 even though there are over 8,000 of them. While that's a large number for a PSA 10 population, it's just 13 percent of the total number graded, so you can't assume the one you've had sitting in a binder page for 35 years will be a 10.
And yes, this is just one of many mid-career Jordan base cards, but it features a cool image of him dunking and collectors seem to have a soft spot for it, so it carries some value in peak condition.
This is the second most graded Jordan card by PSA with a total population of about 35,000 and it shows what an anomaly the previous card is. So with a significantly smaller graded population, surely this card is worth more than the 1990 Fleer card, right? Not so fast. This one you can get for around $5 ungraded and $170 in a PSA 10 (population 6,200+). Why? For starters it's just a much more mundane image of Jordan and it isn't nearly as ingrained in the minds of an entire generation like the aforementioned Fleer card.
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This is the third most graded Jordan card by PSA and yes, it's a baseball card. Except this card predates Jordan's first retirement from basketball and foray into minor league baseball in the Chicago White Sox organization by a few years. It was a 'short print' — a card produced in more limited supply than the others in the set — with a photo that was snapped while Jordan took batting practice with the White Sox the previous season. The card caused a stir among collectors at the time, but since this was the early '90s, even the short prints were overprinted and there are now more than 30,000 in PSA's total population. Ungraded, this card sells for between $15-$20, but in a PSA 10 (population 2,500+) it's selling for around $500. That's because this card is tougher to find in gem-mint condition than the previous two. Of course, many more Jordan baseball cards would soon follow. This one holds a special place since it was the first, though.
There were a lot of great USA Basketball cards in this set, so #579 partially just a placeholder for all of them — but come on, this was Jordan's Dream Team card! Surely it would be worth millions one day! Nope. This card sells for about $5 ungraded and just $80 in a PSA 10 (population 2,300+). Turns out even Dream Team cards depicting awkward poses don't carry the same premium that cards featuring Jordan dunking in a Bulls uniform do.
I don't think there was anything that people in the '90s were more certain of than the fact that holograms were the most futuristic thing imaginable. And now that we're in the fantastical year of 2025, we can confirm that they are vital to passing the time while riding around in our flying cars. Despite possessing this mind-blowing technology, this card sells for $5-$10 ungraded. However, in a PSA 10 it sells for $800-$1,000 because only 147 of the more than 7,000 graded have achieved gem-mint status. The surface of these cards is just so susceptible to damage, yet it really did feel like something special when you pulled one out of a pack. There were other Jordans in this insert set, but the scoring champ one seemed to pop up the most.
This is a strong contender for best Jordan base card image ever. Just majestic. Ungraded it sells for $3 or $4, and in a PSA 10 it's selling for around $200 after jumping up from about $150 earlier in the year. It's a popular card and a lot of Jordans are on the rise again. This is another instance where the number of PSA 10s is relatively small (1,633 of over 11,500 graded).
These cards were odd — college cards produced long after Jordan turned pro. I have a few in my old Jordan binder but I have zero recollection of ever purchasing these cards. I've seen these in many '90s kid Jordan collections, but does anyone remember buying them? It's like if dozens of Jordan cards were left together in one place long enough they would combine to grow these Collegiate Collection cards amongst them. Ungraded, they sell for a couple dollars each and even PSA 10 examples of these cards sell for less than $100. But, 1,000 of each card were printed with a special gold foil border around the image and those sell for a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.
This is my all-time favorite Jordan card. It's the ultimate representation of the early '90s. From the primitive computer generated abstract background to the floating hoop, it's just spectacular. Ungraded it sells for a few dollars and in a PSA 10 (population 2,700+) it goes for around $90.
Fleer Metal sets produced some of the most popular cards of the mid-to-late '90s. It felt like you needed to put on a pair of Oakleys just to look directly at their metallic goodness. This Nuts & Bolts card seemed even more common than Jordan's #13 base card in the set, and the grading data supports that. The Nuts & Bolts card has been graded a total of nearly 8,000 times by PSA and the #13 card has been graded just over 3,000 times. Ungraded, the Nuts & Bolts card sells for around $10 and in a PSA 10 it sells for about $180 (up from around $120 earlier this year), with a population of almost 1,700. Meanwhile, #13 sells for about the same ungraded, but it's climbed to over $1,000 in a PSA 10 since the population is just 82.
Jordan's #13 base card in this set wasn't the most flattering, so maybe people gravitated toward this Hardwood Leader card instead? Whatever the case, this is a card that lives in a great many '90s kid collections and, keeping with the trend we have going here, it only sells for a few dollars ungraded. The 208 PSA 10s, however, are rising in value rather quickly right now. One last sold for $480, according to Market Movers, which tracks online trading card sales, up from $165 at this time last year.
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A passing of the torch that didn't quite work out because of Penny Hardaway's eventual injury woes, but at the time, this card was set aside as something special. Now? It sells for a dollar or two ungraded. The last PSA 10 sold for just $65, but that was in 2023 (there are only 28 of them). A PSA 9 sold for $89 earlier this month, though, which may indicate a jump in value for the next PSA 10 that hits the market.
Again, this is by no means a complete list — there were also cards like the 1992-93 Fleer Ultra #216, 1991-92 Upper Deck #44, 1992-93 Topps Archives #52, and the gold-foil-laden 1996-97 Jordan Collection, to name just a few more. Nineties kids had a lot of Jordan cards and the vast majority are only valuable today in borderline impossibly perfect condition given the shortcomings in print quality of the time. But there were others that were coveted by many yet only a lucky few were able to obtain, many of which hold far greater value (monetarily — all Jordan cards are priceless when it comes to nostalgia value) today. So next time, we'll look back at the Jordan cards that '90s kids wanted most.
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(All images: eBay)