A seemingly endless parade of record-breaking sales for the Michael Jordan 1984 Star card keeps marching on.
At every grade, from PSA 6 to PSA 9 (there are no 10s), records have been set in rapid succession. Around the hobby, collectors have speculated as to the legitimacy of the market — with some lodging accusations of a “pump” — and others racing to join in on the rising market.
Peter Kandefer had been in the market for a Star card for nearly a year. Finally, the Chicago-based collector found his opportunity, thanks to a tip from an extended family member, who knew a seller looking to offload a Beckett Authentic/Altered example.
Kandefer pounced, paying around the same price as the most recent comparable sale for a PSA Authentic/Altered example, around $13,800.
The seller had sent low-quality images, and Kandefer had yet to even see the card in person when he went for a weekend vacation a few weeks ago. While he was gone, his brother received an offer for the card. He sent better images, and Kandefer stopped dead in his tracks.
“Yo, listen, like, this might actually not be altered,” he said to his brother, telling him to turn down the offer.
Kandefer, who is a financial analyst, began digging in to the details, speaking to members of a Star card-devoted Facebook group for advice. He soon heard of past examples of others submitting Star cards labelled as altered by Beckett and receiving a number grade from PSA.
The card was graded by Beckett in 2020, prior to PSA announcing it would resume grading Star cards for the first time in decades.
“There wasn't any evidence on the back of anything like a red sharpie bleeding through anywhere on the back edge. It just seemed to me like it just got pegged with the authentic altered grade for no type of reason at all,” Kandefer said.
His assessment was bolstered further when Eric Park, the moderator of the Facebook group, sent him an unsolicited message: “Hey, obviously do what you want, but I think there's a good chance that you're card’s not altered, like, it's actually real.“
Kandefer decided to go for it.
He cracked it out of the Beckett slab and submitted it at the highest PSA grading level.
“I would have been like, over the moon happy with a five.“
Earlier this week, the news arrived.
“I was in bed and my brother came in and shook me awake and was like, ‘Dude, no f---ing way. We got a seven’.”
The card became the 95th Jordan Star No. 101 to be graded a PSA 7, one of just 358 graded examples by the company in total.
In the span of three weeks, the formerly “altered” card had become worth somewhere around $50,000 to $60,000 based on the most recent comparable sales (triple what the card was selling for at the start of 2024).
Considering the massive discrepancy in prices between BGS and PSA, crossover grading for the Star cards appears on the rise, while few can claim to have quite the same come-up as Kandefer.
An autographed Jordan Star card recently graded by PSA as PSA 7/Auto 9 appears to be the same card previously in a Beckett slab graded a BGS 8/Auto 9.
As for the future of Kandefer’s adventures with Star cards, he’s unsure if he’s open to selling, despite the market at all-time highs. “Someone offered us $60,000 for it. I said no, which also might be crazy.”
Kandefer is certainly all-in on Star. He even picked up another PSA 7 example in recent weeks — before he had even received his grade for the crossover.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.