A 2003 Higher Deck Beautiful Assortment Beautiful Rookie Patch Autograph LeBron James card offered for $1.159 million, together with purchaser’s premium, at Goldin Auctions on Saturday evening. It is the second James RPA from this set to eclipse the $1 million plateau with Goldin Auctions in 5 weeks.
In the identical public sale, Caitlin Clark’s 2024 Panini Prizm WNBA Signatures Gold Vinyl Prizm card — numbered 1-of-1, receiving an ideal 10 grade with a ten autograph grade from grader Skilled Sports activities Authenticator — offered for $366,000, together with purchaser’s premium.
It set a file for a girls’s sports activities card, shattering the earlier mark of $266,400 paid for a 2003 NetPro Serena Williams RPA in Might 2022.
The 2003 Higher Deck Beautiful Assortment — one of the profitable NBA units of all time, that includes RPAs of Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade and James — options base Beautiful Rookie Patch autographs numbered to 99, parallels numbered to the rookie’s jersey quantity and a rainbow parallel numbered 1-of-1.
The $1.159 million James card is numbered to 99 whereas the James RPA offered 5 weeks in the past — for $1.22 million — is numbered to 23. In keeping with inhabitants experiences, there’s just one James Beautiful Rookie Patch Autograph within the base, parallel or rainbow variations with the next grade than the 9.5 grade the $1.159 million James RPA obtained from Beckett Grading Companies.
In early 2021, a numbered-to-23 parallel James RPA from this set offered for $5.2 million privately by way of PWCC Market (now owned by Fanatics, rebranded as Fanatics Accumulate), which set the still-standing file for costliest basketball card ever offered.