Bill Russell Boston Celtics rookie card fetches $660k to become the ‘third-most expensive vintage basketball card ever’. Check it out here.

Bill Russell rookie card sells for $660K at auction.

This 1957 Topps Bill Russell rookie card – graded to a PSA 8.5 and awarded a PWCC-A Eye Appeal designation – sold for $660,000, now the third-highest public sale of a pre-1980 basketball trading card according to public data sets.

Bill Russell rookie card sells for $660K at auction.

A new all-time sales record for a Bill Russell trading card was set Thursday night (5/11/23) in PWCC Marketplace’s May Vintage Premier Auction!

The card sits behind these two sales:

  • 1948 Bowman George Mikan rookie card, graded to a PSA 9, which sold for $800,000 in March 2022
  • 1961 Fleer Wilt Chamberlain rookie card, graded to a PSA 9 and awarded a PWCC-S designation, which sold for $670,000 via a confirmed private sale in June 2022.

“It’s worth looking beyond the sales price and taking a moment to appreciate the quality of this card from a historical perspective,” said Jesse Craig, Vice President of Sales at PWCC Marketplace. “There are no PSA 10 copies of this card and just three PSA 9 copies in existence. None of those 9s have ever surfaced at public auction.

There are two copies of the card graded to a PSA 8.5 and this copy holds above average eye appeal according to our experts.

When you take all of that into consideration it is possible that this is the best-looking copy of the card to exist in the world.

What isn’t debatable is that we’re in the museum-quality range with this card. We’re looking at a true artifact celebrating one of the all-time greats.”

Bill Russell’s rookie is one of eleven vintage basketball cards to set new player records over the last week through PWCC.

Bill Russell rookie card sells for $660K at auction.

The following records were set in the PWCC Weekly Auction or Vintage PA:

  • Calvin Murphy (90k – Topps rookie PSA 10)
  • Elvin Hayes (78k – ’72 Topps PSA 10)
  • Earl Monroe (40.8k – ’70 Topps PSA 10)
  • David Thompson (37.2k – Topps rookie PSA 10) Vintage PA
  • Jack Marin (36k – Topps rookie PSA 10)
  • Artis Gilmore (28.2k – Topps rookie PSA 10) Vintage PA
  • Bob Weiss (24.6k – Topps rookie PSA 10)
  • Guy Rodgers (24.6k – ’69 Topps PSA 10)
  • Mel Counts (24.6k – Topps rookie PSA 10)
  • Greg Smith (25.8k – ’69 Topps PSA 10)

Bill Russell was one of the best players in NBA history, so it should come as no surprise that one of his rookie cards sold for a fortune.

By Rishabh

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