Considering that neither card is overly appealing to me (sold a Jordan rookie years ago), I'd take the Jordan 10, sell it and load up on old judges.

Plank v Jordan
 

Plank, not even close. Trent King

As a big basketball card collector, I’d have to take the GOAT- Jordan. I realize I’m in the tiny minority here on this forum!

+1

Now if it was a PSA 10 Star #101 I change my vote to the Jordan card.

Future resale value is irrelevant in a hypothetical situation though. Which card would you rather have? Don't worry about the fact that you would be spending $180K on it. That's not the point of the poll.

Edited to add: I guess what I'm saying is, if one of these two cards was going to be given to you and you couldn't sell it in your lifetime or profit from it at all, which would you rather have? Take all value out of it. I'm certainly not trying to start an argument or anything, just trying to simplify the hypothetical situation. ;)



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I would purchase the most iconic card of my lifetime: Jordan. Almost positive my son would prefer this as inheritance rather than Plank.

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Jordan really is the best to ever play the game - both ways too! But when you take the fact that there are SOOOOooooo many of his '86 Fleer cards out there, even in high grades, it's just insane.

Given the original post, at the current capital is almost equal - the clear choice is the Plank imo.

Look at the 1980 Topps Henderson at PSA 9 - current auctions are going for $1700 and there are 2100+ of those bad boys graded by PSA.... I'll take an e92 Dockman Cy Young at a PSA 4 at the same price and a pop <15....

full disclosure, I am certainly biased here!

Plank

As a t206 collector, I am taking the Plank, but I already have both. The Jordan RC is the most iconic post war card, the rookie card of the greatest athlete of the 20th century. I would definitely take it over a mass produced second year Mantle card.

So you’ll take a 3rd year Jordan card over a 2nd year Mantle card??!!!

The 1986 Fleer is the iconic card only because PSA refused to grade the Star cards. Now that PSA is grading them, the Star #101 Jordans are hitting the market and completely destroying the 1986 Fleer Jordans in the same grades. Admittedly, the sample is small but so far, at 6 and 7 levels, the Star cards sell for multiples of the Fleers. It is only a matter of time before PSA churns out 8-9-10 examples and they outsell the Fleers head to head. I think in the end the Fleer will end up comparably priced to the 2nd year Jordan Star cards and some of the oddball Star issues from the 1st-2nd years.

Are you speaking about basketball cards? Hasn't the Doncic surpassed it?

I think people under 35 think Michael Jordan is the guy in the Creed movies. And people over 60 would say Wilt or Kareem or something like that.

I would put the Jordan Fleer 86 in the ballpark of the 84 Donruss Mattingly.

No, the Jordan RC is iconic because it created the basketball card collecting hobby in 1988-1989. It was a $50 card when the Magic/Bird RC was a $1 and key vintage RCs were all much less.

The Star will never pass the Fleer RC. The quality of the printing was poor. They are all off centered and being loose on the top of a bag, the corners were damaged. Unless PSA gives out "gift" grades, you won't see any higher than a 7. Few cared about the Star in the 80s or 90s and I don't see it changing. It is like people trying to hype the Bond Bread Jackie Robinson. That didn't stop his Leaf RC from skyrocketing.

Highest sale price for a PSA 10 Mattingly RC 8k. Highest sale price for a PSA 10 Jordan RC 738k.

No, I am taking the Michael Jordan RC over a 2nd year Mantle card. When I wanted to buy a Mickey Mantle card, I bought his rookie card, not the second year card.

Haha, I mean in this forum could you really expect many people to choose the Jordan?

yeah, the premium for a 9 vs a 10 is very very silly. And that goes for cards, comics, everything.

Would “walk the plank” as they say…

Plank is a no brainer in my mind due to population. Doesn’t hurt that I’m a T206 guy as well!

I might be more inclined to pay a premium for a 10 if PSA hadn't moved the goalposts on us multiple times and then demonstrated absolute incompetency since the pandemic with respect to grading. The number of truly pristine cards (even under 30x magnification) I've seen in PSA 9 holders in the last year or two is absolutely bonkers. I used to average ~86% gem rate with my PSA submissions on modern cards. My last bulk submission with them was about 30%. I'm done sending them cards, and I'm done chasing 10s. Now I look for gem mint cards in PSA 9 holders (and even some in 8 holders).

The card did not make the hobby; PSA made the card. That was the power of the PSA registry and hype machine at work. Some people did not care about the Star cards because PSA refused to grade them. Also, you might want to check your history a bit. The Jordan card did not overtake the 1957 Russell. In 2004 a PSA 8 Russell was a $3500 card. In 2004 a PSA 8 Jordan was a $400 card. The Jordan 8 has never overtaken the Russell 8. We can't compare 10s because there are no Russell 10s. The 8.5 Russell went for $630,000 and the 8 Russells are $200,000 cards.

The Jackie Robinson is an interesting question. I see the parallel at first blush, but it does not hold up under scrutiny. Clearly, it was not issued in his rookie or even his second year. It is a 1949 card. However, it is akin to the 1952 Topps Mantle in that collectors do not seem to care that is not a RC when both are presented in the same grades by the same TPG: the 1952 T card sells way better than the 1951 B card. By contrast, until now, we have not had PSA graded Fleer and Star cards. We had Beckett, which is meaningless for comparables. We can now start to compare apples to apples. The PSA Star cards that have sold so far have beaten the PSA Fleer cards decisively in the same grades. Look it up on PSA's auction results function. The most recent Star 7 to sell went for $19,200 in the October 22 Heritage auction. The most recent Fleer 7 to sell went for $4,600 on eBay on 11/2.

Now, as I said before, this is a small sample based on the # of cards graded and sold thus far, but as the pop grows, as the cards make their way into the Jordan registry, and as we see some 8-9-10 Star Jordan cards, I think they will continue to beat the Fleer card in comparable grade. Time will produce the evidence to answer the question.

As for aesthetics. everyone likes what they like. I happen to think some of the Star cards are beautifully done.