State Treasurer Roby Smith says a rare trading card from a pro basketball star’s rookie season has sold for $5400.
The 1986 Michael Jordan card was in a batch of unclaimed property Smith’s office put up for auction online this spring. When Smith was made aware of the card’s potential value, though, he ordered an appraisal. It found the card was authentic, in near mint condition and worth at least $4000.
“The basketball card industry, especially the last several years, has really taken off,” Smith says. “The trading cards have become really valuable.”
Smith has seen photos of the card, which was in an unclaimed lock box turned over to the state years ago. A very limited number of people have handled the card. “The more times someone holds a card, there’s chances of damaging it,” Smith says, “and I didn’t want anything like that to happen.”
Banks turn unclaimed lock boxes over to the State Treasurer’s Office if the owner can’t be tracked down. The $5400 made from the sale of this Michael Jordan card will go into an special state-managed account, just in case the owner or an heir steps forward in the future to claim the money. The state maintains the Great Iowa Treasure Hunt website where people can search for any unclaimed property.
“We want to get the message out for people always to check the unclaimed property website to make sure a family member or friend doesn’t have a baseball or basketball card there — or any type of valuable,” Smith says. “If they do, make sure they fill out an application. It’s really quick. It’s really easy and we can reunite them with it.”
Each year, the State Treasurer’s office receives up to 300 safe deposit boxes that have been abandoned and the treasurer’s office is running out of space, so some of the boxes that have been in the state’s possession for several years are selected for auction. The state still has about 3000 unclaimed safety deposit boxes in storage.