On Oct. 26, 1984, a family of four attended Michael Jordan’s NBA debut at Chicago Stadium for a total price of $54.
A little more than, 41 years later, the family wound up with a hell of an additional prize. While it’s unclear what their final cut is, the four tickets sold for $957,100.
That’s the total haul from the ticket stubs they saved from that day. The final stub sold Saturday night at Heritage Auctions for $341,600.
When the raw tickets were submitted to PSA earlier this year, not only were they in exceedingly good condition, but they were the most coveted kind — the red season ticket as opposed to the box office blue or the Ticketmaster rainbow version.
Up until that point only seven red tickets had been submitted, none better than one graded a 3. Forty others from that game had been graded by PSA — 18 box office blues and 22 rainbow Ticketrons.
“It was unbelievable to see sequential red season version ticket stubs,” said Matt Fuller, PSA’s chief ticket authenticator.
When Fuller and his team were done, the tickets were graded the highest yet — a 4, a 6 and two 8s.
The PSA 6 and first PSA 8 sold for $189,100 and $280,000, respectively, in August. The PSA 4 sold for $146,400 in September.
The record for a Jordan debut ticket is the $468,000 paid for the only existing full ticket in February 2022.
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Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectibles market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.