https://www.beckett.com/news/1986-87...t-1-8-million/

It’s one of the most iconic sports card sets of all-time. And now a sealed case of 1986-87 Fleer Basketball has the price to show just how popular it has become. It sold for $1,789,717 through Collect Auctions on August 6.

With 132 cards on the 1986-87 Fleer Basketball checklist, that means there could be three or four Jordans per box or roughly 40 in the case (39.27 is what the math works out to).

But there’s also the Michael Jordan sticker. The simple insert set has just 11 cards, meaning there’s a strong likelihood of at least three being in each box and about 40 in the case.

It’s not just Michael Jordan that drives the set, though. Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing, Clyde Drexler and Dominique Wilkins are just a handful of the other Rookie Cards on the loaded checklist.

And it’s not just the cards and stickers that carry value. During the same auction, an empty case along with the boxes and wrappers topped $10,000.

Originally, 1986-87 Fleer Basketball was a tough sell at less than $0.50 per pack. There are numerous anecdotes of it collecting dust, sitting on store shelves. But as time went on, its popularity exploded. Even in recent years, prices have skyrocketed. In 2017, single boxes were going for $75,000. More recently, they’ve been topping $100,000. With the sealed case, the price per box was $149,143. Of course, the rarity of the case adds a significant amount to the overall value.

The $1.8 million case, which is the only one known to exist still sealed, came from the collection of the late Larry Fritsch, founder of Fritsch Cards.