Michael Jordan basketball cards

By Chris Olds | Basketball Editor

A Pristine copy of Michael Jordan‘s 1986-87 Fleer Rookie Card sold for six-figures in a Memory Lane Inc. sale Sunday evening.

The card, graded a 10 by Beckett Grading Services, fetched $100, 000 in the Tustin, Calif.-based auction house’s Own it Now sale, which launched not long before the sale.

There are just three copies of the famed card graded as a BGS 10 out of more than 5, 500 cards submitted. This particular copy was the first to receive the grade and once appeared on the cover of Beckett Basketball Card Plus, now Beckett Basketball, magazine. The card sold to a collector on the West Coast.

“It was the first time we had the opportunity to sell the card, and we are really happy with the sale, ” said Stephanie Evans of Memory Lane. “It’s a landmark modern sale for us, and it just goes to show that when you have something as rare as a Beckett 10 come available, the demand still warrants six figures.”

The last known BGS 10 Jordan sale came in August 2009 when a collector paid $82, 000 for this same card. It was reportedly sold for $150, 000 in 2006. However, that sale never was confirmed. The card’s subgrades included 10s for its centering, edges and corners and a 9.5 for its surface condition.

The first BGS 9.5 copy of the Jordan RC went for $77, 600 in a June 2003 deal. The Jordan RC is not the only high-profile BGS 10 of a 1980s icon to sell for big bucks in the last few years as a Joe Montana 1981 Topps RC sold for . That card carried the third-highest pricetag of any football card sale ever documented by Beckett Media.