Michael Jordan’s prom photo, Masters gnomes, Cllct launches and more: The collector’s notebook

Michael Jordan’s prom photo, Masters gnomes, Cllct launches and more: The collector’s notebook
By Nando Di Fino and Brooks Peck
Apr 11, 2024

Welcome back to The Collector’s Notebook — a fun and magical Brigadoon-style column that emerges from the clouds every couple months to feed you the weird and wonderful from the collecting world. This week, we’re pondering the value of Michael Jordan’s prom photo, texting our friend at the Masters to try to get us garden gnomes (or slightly-used eclipse glasses) and waiting patiently for the Cheers Rittenhouse set. Plus, Darren Rovell launched his new site, Cllct, and he talked to us a little about what to expect as it grows.

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But first…

Free Connor Bedard cards!

This Saturday is National Hockey Card Day. And you are excused if you’ve just learned about Upper Deck’s 15-year-old tradition now, as Connor Bedard mania has swept the collecting world. This year, there are three Bedard cards that collectors can try to obtain — two are available via five-card packs (as part of a larger set, so Bedards aren’t guaranteed) that will be handed out for free by your local card shops (list of participating stores here); the third you can get if you spend $10 on Upper Deck product.

We have no idea how much any of these Bedard cards will ultimately be worth… but they’re free, so who cares! Line up early, map out your LCS hopping, and make yourself a hockey fan!

Michael Jordan’s prom photo is up for auction

Robert Edward Auctions has a pretty awesome set of sneakers up for auction at the moment — a pair of Michael Jordan’s game-worn and signed Nike Air Ship sneakers from his rookie season. You may not have heard of Air Ships if you aren’t into sneaker culture, because he only wore them for a little while before the Air Jordan 1s debuted in November of that year. The opening bid was $100,000.

If you don’t have that kind of petty cash floating around, REA also has some sealed boxes of Nike’s 1985 “Sport Cards,” which features a $15 John McEnroe. And a several-hundred dollar Jordan.

And if that’s not unique enough for you, might we suggest Michael Jordan’s “Type 1” original prom photo? The opening bid is $1,000 and hasn’t had any action on it yet.

Because we also wonder the same things you do, we reached out to REA about how one obtains a Michael Jordan original prom photo — it seems like an incredibly rare thing, especially considering I don’t know where my own currently are.

“The photograph was consigned by a longtime collector who acquired it from another serious Jordan collector who had it for more than 20 years,” REA President Brian Dwyer explains. “While the image of Jordan at his prom has been seen online, this is the only time the original photograph has been made available for sale, to the best of our knowledge.”

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We asked how much it might ultimately go for, and Dwyer said items like this are “incredibly tough” to price because there aren’t a lot of comps. But he still guessed that, “it could sell for $3-5K or more by the time the auction ends on April 21.”

Darren Rovell launches Cllct

Six months ago, Darren Rovell uncovered the “CardPorn” scandal. It was a fantastic piece of investigative journalism with so many knots that needed to be untied. It frankly should have gotten a wider audience, but the memorabilia and collecting world is still kind of making cameos in the mainstream. Last week, Rovell launched his new site, Cllct (pronounced “collect”), which he hopes will fulfill several needs for a growing hobby that doesn’t have a ton of high-end coverage options.

“There’s a lot of education to be done.” Rovell told The Athletic. “I want to do that education side. I want to be a hobby watchdog when there’s some weird stuff going on. I want to applaud the hobby.“

Rovell is building out a studio in Cllct’s Times Square office to produce video that he estimates should be about 15% of the site’s offerings. He’s spent the last six months prepping the site and hiring staff and now is looking forward to being a collector again and creating content.

“I’m excited about getting back to cranking as a journalist,” he says.

A few more Rovell tidbits from the interview:

  • He’s definitely a collector. Not so much a seller. “I sell like 1 percent of my stuff,” he says.
  • On goals for the site: “I just want people to visit us daily and to be a force in the industry.”
  • On what he’s looking to buy more of in the next six months: “A little bit more historical. I have a (John) Hancock (autograph), I have three Kennedys, I have five Disney, I have a Jobs.”

The last two months have seen the launches of two high-profile collecting sites, with Alexis Ohanian and Brent Montgomery’s Mantel (disclosure: Mantel is run by the former GM of The Athletic) and now Rovell’s Cllct. And the audience is there for more.

“There are a lot of people with fishing poles on the dock,” Rovell says, “and there’s a lot of fish.”

The hottest Masters merch: Eclipse glasses and… gnomes?

Masters merchandise is some of the most highly sought after in all of sports, in part because of the exclusivity of it. Official Masters gear is only available one week a year — tournament week — on site at Augusta National. And during that week, it’s nothing short of a feeding frenzy. Attendees line up before dawn just to go directly to the shop. In 2022, Forbes estimated that the Masters would rake in $69 million, nearly half of the tournament’s total revenue, from merchandise sales alone.

One of this year’s hottest items didn’t generate any revenue for the tournament, however. On Monday, free Masters-branded eclipse glasses were handed out to patrons, and they instantly became a unique collectible for golf fans. They’re currently selling on eBay for about $20-$100.

The eclipse glasses aren’t the only oddball chase item at the tournament, though. What puts people in those early-morning lines unlike anything else is the Masters gnome. Yes, as in a garden gnome. Each year since 2016, the Masters has sold an official, white-bearded gnome in ever-changing outfits and each year, the cult of the gnome has grown.

In the merchandise tent, the gnome sells for $49.50, and they sell out fast. So on eBay, the full-size gnomes (there are also mini gnomes) go for north of $200-$300. Again, we’re talking about a garden gnome.

Cheers finally gets a set of trading cards

We’re sure you’re all like us and read every issue of Non-Sport Update cover to cover. The February/March issue was a 2024 preview and in the Rittenhouse Archives section was a little nugget about “Cheers Seasons 1 through 4” being released at a TBD date in 2024 — a set that includes the first-ever Ted Danson autographed cards.

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We asked Steve Charendoff, the President of Rittenhouse, about the set and he said the cards should be coming around Christmas, with autographs from Danson, John Ratzenberger, George Wendt, “along with other key stars and guest stars.” The set will include wardrobe relics, and what Charendoff says will be “many other interesting and collectible cards from the show.” He also teased “a few surprise guest signers from the world of sports.”

We’re Cheers fans. We’re not sure how you couldn’t be. And it’s pretty much the perfect nostalgia show with a ton of characters for a card collection — and done by the perfect company. Rittenhouse produced Twilight Zone cards that featured autographs from all kinds of characters in the series (my personal white whale/card regret is a Ruta Lee inscription that I came across once, foolishly decided $120 was too rich for my blood, and I haven’t seen it since. —Nando).

In fact, let’s do a quick…

Rittenhouse Appreciation Section

…here. Because the more we think about it, they’re pretty incredible.

Rittenhouse has produced a set of “Doctor Who” cards that features what is essentially a Brett Goldstein (a.k.a. Roy Kent from Ted Lasso) autographed rookie. But Goldstein also inscribed a bunch with lines from the show. And this is where Rittenhouse really shines — they produce entertainment sets and get the actors to inscribe famous lines. Remember Bronn from Game of Thrones? Jerome Flynn’s Rittenhouse cards include inscriptions of his lines like “Stay low” and “You wouldn’t know him.” Iwan Rheon dropped a “Come Reek” on his. Star Trek Discovery actress Avaah Blackwell plays along with her timeline bragging she’s “over 900 years old!” in hers.

Steve Charendoff, in a move he will likely regret in the near future, politely offered to answer any more questions we had as a follow-up to the Cheers one. Of course, we now needed to know about the inscriptions.

“Almost all of the actors we work with are willing and happy to add inscriptions to their cards,” he explains. “I typically give them some guidelines as to what to write, but the actors are always free to improvise as they see fit.  They often have favorite lines or sayings that they like to put with their signatures.”

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Charendoff says that Flynn had some of the more colorful inscriptions, although Rory McCann and Sean Bean “were notorious” for theirs.

“It’s always very cool when the actors get creative with their cards.”

Agreed. Shoutout to Rittenhouse.

Get ready for PSA 10 Eclipse cards

Topps printed an on-demand card celebrating the April 8 eclipse. As a fun twist they announced 100 of the cards would be glow in the dark.

The final print run? 23,896 in the 48 hour window it was available. Did I (Nando) buy one? Of course. But I got mine off eBay for $4.99 instead of the $8.99 on the official website because baking in a shot at the glow in the dark version seemed a little crazy. I just like having the little piece of history.

If you want a cool set of glow in the dark cards, though, might we interest you in the brilliant Allen & Ginter 2020 “Where Monsters Live” set? You can get all 10 cards for under $8 and then maybe grab a frame at Michael’s for $15 or so, painstakingly line them up in there, and hang it somewhere with a shot at absorbing enough light to glow for a little bit before you go to bed.

This is why we collect, right??

Speaking of past Memorabilia Notebooks…

Last time we were here Nando was bragging about his purchase of a DunKings track jacket. Well… it still hasn’t shown up. BUT shoutout to Dunkin Donuts for sending an email last week apologizing for the delay and saying they’re sending a $25 gift card with the tracksuits when they arrive.

It’s not like I needed it for April, right? and it may have possibly just escaped my mind that I even bought this track jacket. But I’ll still take the gift card! —Nando

 

(Top photo: Courtesy Topps, David Cannon/Getty Images, and REA Auctions)

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