Welcome to my Sports Illustrated/TIME magazine blog – Your collector’s guide to the latest hobby updates and insight into what’s trending now.
Today we have a fun topic. Jordan, James, Brady. Who doesn’t love collecting these guys? The fun in collecting these G.O.A. T’s is that they are easily attainable unlike earlier vintage stuff. Their covers number 50, 25, and 20, respectively. What a fun trek.
Many hobbyists have taken to complete the highest registry subset possible and they haven’t needed to break the bank to do it. Although difficult to find, CGC 9.8’s are available and sometimes even come up for public auction. I get charged up just thinking about owning a 9.8 in one of these icons.
This is a great time to start/continue a collection of one or all of these generational talents as they are all still relatively affordable. I suspect, in a year or two, that won’t be the case. And don’t be limited to Sports Illustrated. SPORT and SLAM, with others, have solid entries in this arena and will rival SI in time, if they don’t already.
Magazines are so much more esthetic and presentational. The stories they tell bring you back to when the events were live and you can almost taste the hotdogs and feel the same emotions you felt when you read about or experienced them firsthand, for the first time.
The question is “what are these covers worth in the highest grade?” In my opinion, in today’s market, a Jordan, James, or Brady CGCG 9.8 common should start at roughly $1000 and go up from there depending age and/or event. James and Brady first covers are readily available which keeps their buy price down but don’t count on that for long. Iconic collectables tend to make huge jumps in price when they start to move.
Pricing on CGC 9.8 mag covers are constantly accelerating. Every month you don’t sell your 9.8, its value has not just increased, it has accelerated.