A 1987 Fleer John "Hot Plate" Williams card, graded PSA 10, sold for $5,836 on eBay on Thursday night.
Wait, what?
So, why would someone pay so much for a rookie card of the Washington Bullets small forward who was once suspended by the team for an entire season for being overweight? Well, two weeks ago someone paid $10,200 for a 1987 Fleer Alton Lister.
What is going on here?
It's actually one of those quirky card population stories.
The 1986 Fleer set, with the Michael Jordan rookie in it, sold so poorly Fleer didn't feel too confident about producing as much the following year. As a result, cards in great condition from that year are much harder to find.
PSA has graded 438,273 cards from the 1986 set and less than a quarter of that (101,374) from the following year.
Not only that, the most rare card in the 1986 set in a PSA 10 is actually Jeff Malone, with just 67 total examples.
There are 12 players in the 1987 Fleer set that have fewer than 15 PSA 10s, including John "Hot Plate" Williams (not to be confused with John "Hot Rod" Williams, who was playing for the Cavaliers on his 1987 Fleer card):
- Julius Erving: 0
- Thurl Bailey, Manute Bol: 8
- Dale Ellis, Terry Catledge, Alton Lister: 11
- Sidney Green, Gene Banks, Mark Aguirre: 12
- Michael Cooper: 13
- John Williams, Benoit Benjamin: 14
These are the most recent sales of these cards as PSA 10s, according to Card Ladder. You'll notice the top five sales all came this year:
- Alton Lister: $10,200 (2024)
- Mark Aguirre: $10,101 (2024)
- Dale Ellis: $7,565 (2024)
- Sidney Green: $7,237.67 (2024)
- John Williams: $5,836 (2024)
- Manute Bol: $5,655 (2022)
- Gene Banks: $5,237.87 (2024)
- Michael Cooper: $4,438.88 (2024)
- Thurl Bailey: $3,178 (2022)
- Terry Catledge: $2,999 (2022)
- Benoit Benjamin: $2,812 (2024)
Williams played five seasons with the Bullets, averaging double digits in scoring for four of his first five. He was then suspended for his weight issues for the 1991-92 campaign and traded to the Clippers in October 1992. When he returned for his final three seasons in the NBA, he wasn't the same players, and he was out of the league by 1995.
Editor's Note: An earlier version of this story said the 1987 Fleer card featured Cleveland's John "Hot Rod" Williams.
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct.com and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectible market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.