One collector appears poised to pull off an all-time flip this month at Infinite Auctions.
On June 1, a pair of Michael Jordan game-used Air Jordan X sneakers sold for $15,727.20 at Grey Flannel Auctions. Despite a letter of provenance from Jeff Schultz, a former Bulls executive, they lacked a photo-match.
Without a conclusive match to a specific game, the sneakers are worth considerably less.
But new evidence uncovered by RGU photo-matching has now found those sneakers were worn in Jordan’s second game back from his first retirement and first victory of the 1994-95 season. Few, if any, photo-matched sneakers from Jordan’s shortened 1994-95 season have surfaced at auction.
After the original publication of this story, some experts reached out to cllct casting doubt on the authenticity of the photo-match.
However, RGU is standing by the match.
"The sneakers match to every available image in Getty Images database with zero discrepancies for March 22, 1995," RGU's Marshall Perkins III said.
Jordan scored 27 points in the game, leading the Bulls to a 124-107 victory at Boston.
Infinite Auctions has listed the sneakers in its “Goat Collection” auction with a buy-now price of $1.5 million.
The auction also includes a LeBron James NBA Finals jersey and Kobe Bryant’s playoff debut sneakers.
Even if the pair sells for the price of standard photo-matched Jordan sneakers, without any added value garnered from the significance of the “I’m Back” season, they should sell for multiple times the original sale price from two months ago.
Photo-matching has come to prominence in recent years as not only a trusted authentication method, but also a powerful tool for collectors and investors to find arbitrage opportunities in the market — conducting their own research to acquire items at auction, match them to important moments and reap the rewards of the increased value.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct, the premier company for collectible content.