A near-impossible collection of every single issue of Sports Illustrated released from the first in 1954 through 2023, totaling 4,039 magazines, and thousands of autographed issues has arrived at auction with an estimate of $200,000 and up.
Heritage Auctions, which is selling the massive selection of sports journalism history, previously sold the same lot from the original collector in August 2023 for $204,000.
Among the collection are 2,154 autographed copies, 1,751 of which are signed by the cover athlete or subject.
Beginning with the iconic Sports Illustrated No. 1, signed by cover athlete Eddie Matthews, the haul traces through the decades, dotted with six signed Ted Williams covers, four signed Mickey Mantle covers and an astounding 21 Muhammad Ali-signed magazines.
As the hobby of magazine collecting has attracted more attention in recent years, fueled by grading companies such as CGC assigning condition grades to magazines similar to comic books, there have been multiple record-breaking sales for the most coveted issues.
The record for the most expensive Sports Illustrated cover is Michael Jordan’s third appearance and his first in a Bulls uniform: “A Star Is Born.” A CGC 9.8 copy sold for $126,000 in 2023.
Jordan’s autograph appears on nine issues in the collection, including “A Star Is Born,” his debut issue in 1983 as a college player for North Carolina and his highly collectible “Sportsman of the Year” release from 1991, which featured his holographic image on the cover.
Signed copies of Jordan Sports Illustrated magazines are extremely rare. One of the scant few examples of his “A Star Is Born” issue with his autograph sold for $19,800 in August 2024.
Heritage compares the collection to “The Monster” a.k.a. the T206 set, which is the ultimate challenge for card collectors due to its endless list of players, varieties and rare issues, saying “the offered lot makes that trading card set look like a docile pet hamster by comparison.”
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.