← Pablo Torre Finds Out
Pablo Torre Finds Out
23 and Me: Our Worldwide Hunt for the Missing, Million-Dollar Jordan Rookie Cards
00:46:01
Loading summary
Transcript346 lines
- [00:00]
A
Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out I am Pablo Torre. And today we're gonna find out what this sound is.
- [00:07]
B
And there's like 50 frickin Michael Jordan rookie cards all stacked up and I was like what? Where the did he get these?
- [00:15]
A
Right after this ad. You're listening to Giraffe Kings. Are you done fiddling with your gray hairs?
- [00:37]
C
Yes. For calling them white. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gray just makes me sad. White. And I'm like, okay, maybe it's stress induced.
- [00:44]
A
Well, I want to try to convince myself that I want to remind you why we're here today.
- [00:47]
C
Yeah.
- [00:47]
A
Which is another, I would say almost disturbing marker of our, of our senescence. The NBA drafted this week 40 years ago. Bradley. Michael Jordan got drafted 40 years ago.
- [01:03]
C
That's like completely different. Like we used to write letters back then.
- [01:06]
A
Yes, but even more important to me than paper is cardboard. Okay, so I don't know if you collected sports cards growing up, but I did. And I still viscerally remember the high, the high of opening up a pack of let's say 92, 93 skybox or upper deck and feeling as I put my fingers to the foil pack like everything was possible. Because a pack of cards was not just a mystery box. It was also my way of feeling connected to the athletes that I loved. I mean, think about what you do now to feel connected to an athlete. You play fantasy sports, you follow them on social media, you gamble on them legally, you maybe even buy an NFT or some. You do any of that stuff. Card collecting came before all of it and it was kind of like all of it in one. Now it is worth noting here that I cannot actually remember selling a single sports card for money. That to me was never the point. Even though I did read price guides of course, like Beckett's Basketball Monthly. As if, you know, I would one day monetize my collection. But I never did. Never monetized my collection. Not why I got into it. And to be very clear, that's not why Bradley Campbell returning Pablo Torre finds out correspondent got into the hobby either. All of which is to say that Bradley happens to be the perfect person to finally solve a mystery. A truly global mystery that brought us together and back in time today, cardboard for both of us.
- [02:57]
C
It was huge.
- [02:58]
A
Was almost everything growing up.
- [03:02]
C
God, I remember I used to beg my mom to like please drive me like the half hour, 45 minutes to Salem Center. Then I would like run out of the car, sprint upstairs, it was a two level mall into a card shop. And then I would join Other kids and we would just stare at like a Ken Griffey Jr.
- [03:18]
A
Rookie card.
- [03:19]
C
He has a little hat on.
- [03:20]
A
He's got. That was your rail.
- [03:23]
C
That was, that was like my Koh I Noor diamond, my like Star of India. It felt like it had some sort of like mystic power.
- [03:29]
A
Right. Something that you could not touch, but you almost just needed to look at to feel its power.
- [03:35]
C
Yeah, completely. It just, it held a magic that way.
- [03:40]
A
And for me, and this is, it's a little embarrassing to confess given that this show has been devoted to in some ways torturing his family and debunking the myths around him, but it's Michael Jordan, okay?
- [03:51]
C
Jordan for free.
- [03:53]
A
I'm that guy. I'm that kid. Like so Many millions of seven year olds in 1992 falling in love with the Dream Team and then the Bulls. So for me, when I think about my previous life as a card collector, which both of us were. Yeah. I actually think of my own trauma, which is I was a kid who collected Michael Jordan cards. That was my favorite thing. I just remember how I organized it. I had a binder, a three ring binder, as so many of us did. And I took it to the park one day and I remember passing around my binder exclusively but specifically sorted with Michael Jordan cards. And I remember getting it back from the kids I showed it to.
- [04:36]
C
Okay.
- [04:37]
A
Then later opening it back up and realizing that my Michael Jordan cards were stolen. And that was kind of in some ways like the end of my innocence. I never, I could never trust again. And I, I, I spent a lot of time obsessing over this card collection.
- [04:57]
C
Sure.
- [04:58]
A
And I remember to bring it back around to this week and the 40 years ago this week milestone of Michael Jordan getting drafted. Of course, the holiest of grails was a Michael Jordan rookie card.
- [05:10]
C
Oh, they're the, they're the biggest thing.
- [05:12]
A
Which I did not have the luck to acquire. I, I wish I could have gotten it, if only to have it stolen from me so I could have touched it.
- [05:19]
C
These are the coolest things.
- [05:21]
A
Yo. So, so the fact that you are, I mean, flex. We have so many, so many objects of varying strangeness that come through this, this studio, this though, this fleer Michael Jordan rookie card. Oh yeah, is, I'm trembling. It's hard to, it's hard for me to look. I mean this is the most valuable thing.
- [05:44]
C
I feel like we need nitrate gloves.
- [05:46]
A
What it looks like, Bradley, we need to explain for people who maybe are just listening to this why this is so iconic. I Mean, it's not just that it's Michael Jordan's rookie card.
- [05:57]
C
He's flying through the air, his tongue's out.
- [05:59]
A
It is exactly what I think of when I imagine him is actually this photograph. Ball in his right hand leaping towards the rim.
- [06:08]
C
Gravity doesn't apply to him.
- [06:10]
A
And the striping on the card, the red and blue and white and blue and red, feels both patriotic in a sense, and also like its own country, like it's a flag unto itself. The nation state, the empire of Michael Jordan began here. This card, which I want to put right here, very, very gently.
- [06:32]
C
It hasn't been graded yet.
- [06:33]
A
Yep, exactly. I want to point out that these cards are more than just like totems. They're assets.
- [06:40]
C
Yeah. I mean, it's wild. Is that they're not really treated like we treat them as kids.
- [06:45]
A
No.
- [06:46]
C
Or it's just like the kids now. It's like they grew up, got finance jobs and are now spending millions on these cards. And then they get them graded or rather authenticated.
- [06:56]
A
Yes. Like financial instruments.
- [06:58]
C
Completely.
- [06:59]
A
These cards now are not for kids.
- [07:02]
C
And that card in particular, who's in the back? Drake. He got to do something really cool. He kind of teamed up with Ken golden of Golden Auctions. They're like a big name in sports memorabilia. And he did an Instagram live where he opened a sealed 1986, 1987 Fleer basketball card set. And then he gets a Michael Jordan rookie card.
- [07:31]
A
Show up. Oh, my. So the legend of this card in particular, it brings us to the story that we're here to do today.
- [07:40]
C
Yeah.
- [07:41]
A
Because it's not about this specific card. It's about an even more valuable version. So explain what the hunt for 23 is, Bradley.
- [07:50]
C
The hunt for 23. It was started by the company Upper deck, and they bought back 23 of these Michael Jordan rookie cards from trusted sources. And then they had Michael sign each one, each of the 23. Then they hid little redemption cards in their packs, sent those out like golden.
- [08:10]
A
Tickets, completely Willy Wonka, randomly distributed throughout the packs around the world.
- [08:16]
C
And then if you open it up and you got one of these redemption, you could send it in and you could get one of these cards autographed by Michael Jordan. Kicker here, though, is that upper deck made a deal with Jordan to never sign another rookie card again. So these 23 were supposedly the last 23 cards that Michael Jordan ever signed.
- [08:38]
A
And so these autographed Michael Jordan rookie cards went for how much at auction?
- [08:44]
C
It went for over $1 million. That was in 2020. Two at the time, the most money anyone had ever paid for one of those 23 rookie cards.
- [08:56]
A
Right. So the hunt for 23. I want to describe the listing here on the Christie's website, Bradley, because there's a clause in here.
- [09:05]
C
Yeah.
- [09:06]
A
A clue that I think a lot of people just sort of didn't pick up on, but you brought it to me.
- [09:13]
C
Yeah.
- [09:14]
A
And I have been thinking about it ever since. So what is the part of this listing that. That you ended up having to investigate?
- [09:23]
C
Well, of the 23 cards released, only 14 cards are known, graded, and in the hands of private collectors, which immediately makes you think.
- [09:32]
A
Doing some math here. 23 minus 14 is 9.
- [09:37]
C
Where are they?
- [09:38]
A
Where are the missing 9 autographed Michael Jordan rookie cards? The last of their kind.
- [09:44]
C
Yeah.
- [09:45]
A
And so fans, collectors, me, now, like, we've all been competing to find out the answer to where these cards are, what happened to them, the millions of dollars that they contain.
- [09:59]
C
After three continents, four countries, and a long talk with an armored car robber, I have something to tell you.
- [10:29]
A
So, Bradley, on some level, this assignment is very simple, right?
- [10:32]
C
Yeah.
- [10:32]
A
It was to find out what happened to the nine missing hunt for 23 autographed Michael Jordan Fleer rookie cards. So how did you begin this task?
- [10:41]
C
By running directly into a wall upper deck. The people that ran the promotion, I'm like, I'll just call them. See what happened to the nine missing Jordan cards.
- [10:49]
A
Yes.
- [10:49]
C
Or just see what, like, what's going on? They wouldn't call me back. I called again. Wouldn't call me back. I. I called their general information line. They wouldn't call me back. I emailed them. They wouldn't email me back. I emailed all their PR people. Nothing, nothing, nothing. And I was like sitting there, I'm like, why aren't you getting back to me on something pretty simple?
- [11:11]
A
Right. This feels.
- [11:13]
C
I don't know, it feels kind of.
- [11:15]
A
It feels outright suspicious to me.
- [11:16]
C
Exactly.
- [11:17]
A
I mean, they could just answer the question. This is what happened to the cards. Here's what we did with them. Uh, they're worth seven figures again, individually, but for, I guess, the people who are unfamiliar with upper deck.
- [11:28]
C
Right.
- [11:29]
A
This institution, this apparently secretive card company.
- [11:32]
C
Sure.
- [11:32]
A
What's their whole deal then?
- [11:34]
C
Yeah. The Opus day of cards. God, their history is crazy. They started as a hobby shop, like a little card shop that we used to go to in Anaheim, California, next to a Chinese food shop. And then they got a little bit investment, and then a guy with incredible printing prowess, he actually did color separation for Architectural Digest. He went into the shop, saw the cards there, and are like, these are terrible. I can make better ones. And so they got into business to create their own cards, and in several years, they became like the power player in kind of $1.2 billion business at the time. This is, like, 91, right?
- [12:10]
A
And I remember Upper Deck. I remember them as aesthetically gorgeous, prettier than the rest. The holograms that they use, all of it making it feel like this was trending towards a currency.
- [12:23]
C
Definitely. And they had the foil packs, all of it.
- [12:25]
A
Feeling like they were certifying this. Yes, they were great.
- [12:29]
C
And the biggest thing they did was they made an investment, like Nike, like the Bulls in Michael Jordan. If you wanted to get anything autographed by Michael Jordan, if you want to get any sort of authentic memorabilia, you had to go to Upper Deck.
- [12:44]
A
Right. They were exclusively the home of Michael.
- [12:46]
C
Jordan, both exclusive and also incredibly clever with their advertising. So with all he's achieved, can you believe somebody in Chicago would raise the sacrilegious idea of trading Jordan? Well, somebody did. It turns out the billboard was the brainstorm of the Upper Deck company to help advertise its basketball trading cards. I think we got what we expected, that it would create a real buzz about, who is this that has the gumption to say, trade Jordan out there in the marketplace? And then the following year, 1993, MJ heads to the baseball all star game in Camden Yards, and he's, like, decked toe to toe in Upper deck swag.
- [13:23]
A
Wait, what does this swag look like?
- [13:25]
C
Oh, you have, like, a baseball helmet with, like, a big Upper deck bumper sticker on the side of it. And he's flexing on Tom Selleck in the home run Derby, which Jordan wins.
- [13:35]
A
I was going to say, as Michael Jordan would in the 90s. No big surprise that Jordan out hit everyone else to wind up the game's top scorer. Of course, this was all in fun, and so was Jordan's ragging on another champion, Kirby Puckett.
- [13:50]
C
And I think the wildest part is, like, Upper Deck, you just see this thing growing, and they're just like, okay, we have Jordan. We have money. Let's go get his rookie card. But instead of just, like, buying up all of the rookie cards, they just bought Fleer. Right.
- [14:04]
A
And so flir, again, is the manufacturer of the holy grail rookie card that you brought to this desk. It's the one that I'm trying not to run out of the room with right now. Like, this is Fleer. This is their work, and it's beautiful, but it's also. It feels analog compared to what Upper Deck was doing.
- [14:22]
C
Completely.
- [14:22]
A
It feels almost like an ancient artifact. Compared to Upper Deck.
- [14:26]
C
Yeah, definitely. And so what they did is they went and again, they bought back 23 of those cards from trusted sources and then they launched the hunt for 23.
- [14:36]
A
And so your hunt for the missing nine cards, where does that take you in the present tense?
- [14:42]
C
Australia. I mean, you're imagining men at work, aren't you?
- [14:47]
A
I am.
- [14:54]
C
Hello, Matt. Cassie, hello. Hey, how you doing?
- [14:59]
A
I'm good.
- [15:00]
D
I've just got some serious reverb.
- [15:03]
C
Oh, no. It looks like. So because Upper Deck wouldn't talk to me, I had to go find, like, experts in the hobby industry. And one of them happened to live in Brisbane, Australia. His name was Matt Cassidy. He started a website all about Jordan cards and he called it Jordancards.com when.
- [15:20]
D
I set it up, the domain name I just bought because it was about Jordan cards and I wasn't going to fluff around.
- [15:27]
C
I like it. It's bronze. What it says on the can.
- [15:31]
D
That's right.
- [15:32]
A
Yeah.
- [15:33]
C
He was this huge Luke Longley fan.
- [15:36]
A
I mean, of course.
- [15:36]
C
So of course he loves. Yeah, yeah. So of course he loves the Bulls. And you have Jordan on top of that. And you have again, the Michael Jordan rookie card. Dude loved it.
- [15:46]
A
Yeah.
- [15:46]
D
It was a perfectly designed card for the time, I think. But then of course, Upper Deck had taken to the next step with this of having him sign them, limiting it to 23, and then making him sign a contract where he's never allowed to sign this card ever again. So that's it.
- [16:06]
A
Yeah. So Upper Deck was also ahead of its time insofar as it was manufacturing the scarcity. They knew how to drive the value of an asset up. It's to have fewer of them available.
- [16:15]
C
Yeah, I like the beers, man. Seriously. So I talked to Matt. I wanted to get intel on the whole Christie's auction and the hunt for the remaining nine. And I was going on and setting up the whole thing and finally he interjected, like, might. I've been on that hunt too.
- [16:30]
E
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [16:31]
D
They put 23 out. And I've never been able to verify from Christie's how they found this out, but Christie's said there were only 14 redeemed. So I wrote to Upper Deck, basically saying, hey, what happened to the rest? Surely you didn't destroy them? But total radio silence.
- [16:48]
C
I contacted Upper Deck about it and I didn't get anything back. So I called their customer service line and then I Asked them again and they were like, we just don't give any information out. It was strange. It was one of the stranger conversations I've had with the company before.
- [17:06]
D
I don't know if they're in a vault somewhere or. I even just asked for, you know, what's your policy on unredeemed collectibles like this that are potentially worth a million dollars each? And they just said, we don't comment on that. So I reckon that means they probably still got them.
- [17:29]
A
So the global community of Michael Jordan stands has been turning its eyes towards Upper Deck and they're not giving anybody anything. And so did you actually find someone, Bradley, who pulled one of these redemption cards, these golden tickets?
- [17:42]
C
I did. And that takes us to Belgium.
- [17:46]
A
Yeah, like. Like a child detective, I suppose. Yeah.
- [17:52]
C
My hero, Tintin, just like him. I tracked him down, the gentleman I wanted to find Ivan Weddington, who could be a good character in a Hersch novel. But I got him to tell me the story of how he acquired a sealed box of Fleer from a collector that he met Online in 2007.
- [18:10]
F
What actually happened was that back then you had this German based forum called Daskardboard Euro and one of the boxes was 2006, 2007 FLIR EX I think it was called at the time. But one of the cards that I pulled was Redemption. I don't even exactly remember what the exact wording was of the redemption, but it said something like Redemption for Michael Jordan autograph card.
- [18:46]
C
And so he filled out a form on the Upper Deck website, punched in the, you know, kind of secret redemption code, added his address and then just like boom, hit redeem.
- [18:54]
A
I must have been so viscerally excited.
- [18:56]
C
Oh my God. Yeah.
- [18:58]
F
Not that long after I got an email from FedEx saying we, we have a parcel on the way for you from Upper Deck.
- [19:07]
C
So.
- [19:10]
F
Few days later the doorbell rang and There was the FedEx guy with my Upper Deck parcel. I kind of had a hunch that I had to record it for people. So I had my wife film the opening of the parcel.
- [19:26]
A
And it's the one.
- [19:29]
F
It is the autographed Michael Jordan flare rookie card. The one and only. It's got a hologram on the back to authenticate it. It's autographed in blue ink.
- [19:52]
A
That video which you can see and should see on YouTube with Drafting's network. It makes me happy because he is so nervously and genuinely excited and shocked and I mean again like holding this thing which isn't even autographed, that gives me that Feeling by proxy. I can only imagine what he is. Is actually going through.
- [20:16]
C
Pablo, it's a fake.
- [20:22]
A
This?
- [20:23]
C
Yeah, it's. It's a counterfeit. I bought it for, like, 10 bucks from a collector.
- [20:29]
A
Wait, hold on. Wait. So why. Why. Why would. Why would you do this? And number two, real question.
- [20:38]
C
Yeah.
- [20:38]
A
How do you acquire a counterfeit Michael Jordan Fleer rookie card? This thing that. Now that. Now that I look at it, I guess I should not. I should not feel any of the feelings that I'm feeling.
- [20:51]
C
It's pixelated as hell. It's like a reprint of a.
- [20:55]
A
Sorry, I'm now looking closer.
- [20:57]
C
I thought this would make a good gag, and now I'm like, oh, God, I've really heard.
- [21:00]
A
It's just. It feels like pts.
- [21:03]
C
Sorry.
- [21:03]
A
I started this with a story about how sorry it was cruel. I thought it would be good.
- [21:07]
C
I thought it'd be a good moment in the show.
- [21:08]
A
And now it's happened again.
- [21:10]
C
I guess not. Jeez.
- [21:12]
A
Where did you. Where did you get this? Not to sound like a cop, but where did you get this?
- [21:16]
C
I can't. I can't. I can't give out my source. But you. You can't be surprised, though, dude.
- [21:20]
A
So, like.
- [21:21]
C
Like, everyone's chasing the same card. It's like, of course there's going to be counterfeits. It's. It's Michael Jordan, but.
- [21:27]
A
Okay, so if you can't tell me where you got it from, Mr. Campbell, do we know who. What kind of people were making them like this? Black market? Like, who was behind it?
- [21:40]
C
A friend of an armored car robber who I talked to a while back.
- [21:47]
A
Of course.
- [21:49]
C
Have you ever heard the tale of the football player turned armored car robber?
- [21:53]
G
It's a story so wild, it almost seems fake.
- [22:02]
A
All right, so that description was not an exaggeration. I feel obligated to just jump in here and point that out. The story of Anthony Curcio, if you are not familiar, is the story of a football star from Idaho who then pulls off one of the most creative bank heists in American history. The guy used an elaborate system of pulleys and disguises to rob a Brinks truck and then escape down a river using an inner tube. Now, Curcio eventually wound up an inmate in federal prison, but more crucial for our purposes here is the fact that he also wound up the subject of a separate podcast series reported by one Bradley Campbell. Bradley had spent hours upon hours interviewing Anthony Curcio in person, and you'll hear Curcio's voice in just a Second here, because luckily for our purposes, Bradley saved those tapes.
- [23:03]
C
This is where it felt like the world just got absolutely small. Because within that story about Anthony Curcio, there was one part that we actually had to cut. And this was this entire hustle that he did with sports cards. And it started at a friend's house in Ellensburg, Washington, which, if you get on the map, just go right to the center of Washington. That's where the hustle took place.
- [23:25]
B
I go over there and, man, you know, we're. We're young. And he's got this. Everyone else has these crappy college apartments, and he's got this massive, like, rented house and all these. He is like three or four four wheelers, snowmobiles, all these toys and stuff. It's like, damn, dude. Like, you're really going freaking hardcore. I was just like, how the are you doing this? This is amazing. Like, how do you have all this? And he brings me into this room and I think opened. Oh, he opened one of those, like, under the table, slide out, like, pencil drawer things. And there's like 50 fricking Michael Jordan rookie cards all stacked up.
- [24:10]
C
And like, they're not in cases or anything.
- [24:12]
B
And I was like, what? Where the did he get these? They were reprints of the Michael Jordan rookie card. Even back then, you know, Michael Jordan is so popular that that was probably what created it. And so nobody had them. Nobody knew that they were out there. So nobody was really made to be, like, fearful of them.
- [24:35]
C
So Anthony looked up his buddy's ebay history.
- [24:39]
B
Okay, I see that about one Jordan every two months is being sold. I don't get it. It still doesn't add up.
- [24:46]
C
So the friend finally explained how the hustle worked.
- [24:50]
B
You think that I'm ending the auction to one person? I'm really contacting all of them, saying that the first person didn't. First person flaked out on me. Are you still interested in the card? I saw that you bid, blah, blah, blah, then you go to the next one.
- [25:08]
C
So he's just not selling one, but he's selling several, contacting the bidders offline, who lost out.
- [25:16]
B
And he said there's no better way to convince someone to buy something than just telling them it's not available. That was one thing I learned from this dude and absolutely nothing else.
- [25:24]
A
Why would anybody trust these people?
- [25:26]
C
Bradley Gray, EBAY rating. But more than that, it's because this guy owned his own card grading company. So he would fake. Authenticate his own fake Jordans and sell him as real.
- [25:42]
A
So Now I'm just impressed. The idea that you are also the security department.
- [25:47]
C
Right.
- [25:49]
A
Verifying all of this stuff is legit.
- [25:52]
C
And the rumor that I had was that the printing plates that made this original Jordan rookie card, someone got their hands on them and was using these.
- [26:01]
A
Plates, like the physical plates.
- [26:03]
C
Yes. And was using them to counterfeit Jordan rookie cards. So that might have been how Curcio's friend got such authentic looking cards. So I checked out this rumor. I tried to corroborate it with a private collector who has what's believed to be the largest private collection of cards in the world. And he was like, oh, yeah, I've. I've heard that too.
- [26:27]
A
So there's just a lot happening here.
- [26:30]
C
Sorry.
- [26:30]
A
There are two mysteries here that we're now dealing with. One is the mystery of the missing printing plates that you just dropped on us.
- [26:38]
C
Yes.
- [26:39]
A
And the other is the hunt for the missing nine autographed Michael Jordan cards.
- [26:43]
C
And they're linked.
- [26:45]
A
And they're linked because, of course, if you have a thriving black market of counterfeits, what that does is it drives up the value of anything that's actually.
- [26:54]
C
Legitimate, that, you know, that is authentic.
- [26:56]
A
That is graded and known. And as the Christie's auction listing indicated.
- [27:02]
C
Numbered. Numbered, yes, yes.
- [27:06]
A
And that's why you're getting over a million dollars each for the things that we set out to identify.
- [27:10]
C
Part of the reason, seismic events that happened. One that changed the course of history, and then another that spiked the value of all things Jord. So the first two installments of the Last Dance, this is that 10 part series. It aired on ESPN last night. It looks at Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls rise to the top of the NBA.
- [27:46]
A
So if you're listening, you may remember this.
- [27:48]
C
I mean, how can you. How can you not.
- [27:50]
A
The one, two punch of COVID and the Last Dance, it sends the card industry into that asset class financial stratosphere.
- [28:00]
C
Yeah.
- [28:00]
A
Cause everyone's locked inside and we're all developing weird hobbies. But something a lot of us were doing that we hadn't done since we were kids was, yeah. Watch Michael Jordan dominate on television.
- [28:11]
C
And then once we were done, it's like, wait, do I have any Jordan rookie cards?
- [28:16]
A
Right.
- [28:16]
C
And so people were climbing, like going back into, like, their gear storage and then going up in their attics and their basements, searching for me.
- [28:25]
A
O. I bet it did.
- [28:26]
C
I bet it did.
- [28:27]
A
This moment in time, it's not going.
- [28:29]
C
To hurt you as bad as it hurt my friend, Michael Fox.
- [28:32]
H
And so one morning, my wife was going through a box and she's like, oh, look at this love letter. She found all these different love letters from, you know, before me. And so I got a little jealous and I was like, in my head, I was like, well, I have love letters. I'm going to go find them and I'll show you.
- [28:52]
C
So off he went, searching for an emotional salve.
- [28:55]
H
I went up into the attic and as luck would find it, I didn't find many love letters. Apparently. Apparently I thought they had existed but didn't. But what I did find was boxes and boxes of sports cards.
- [29:10]
C
So they'd been sitting there for years.
- [29:12]
H
I'd been transporting them to different houses that I lived in and it had been assuring my wife that they were going to someday pay for the kids college education and that that's why I was worri worth carrying them. These just massive totes of cards.
- [29:27]
C
But he was shuffling through the cards and it was, it was legit, like time traveling.
- [29:32]
H
I was a Jordan fanatic, man. I was born at 82, I grew up in Portland. So I was like a rip city kid. Bust a bucket. Kevin Duckworth Drum, Chrissy Clyde the Glide, like. And then as the 90s happened, it was the Bulls. And you know, one year the, the Trailblazers made it to the, to the finals. And that was like the classic Jordan is on fire. And he does this to the came say, I grew up, you know, loving Michael Jordan, collecting cards, but not really knowing what I was collecting. And I opened up this box and I found two 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan rookie cards.
- [30:12]
C
And like in his head he's like, man, I can, I can send my kids to private school now, right?
- [30:17]
H
It all came rushing back. I was like, holy cow. I remember, I remember this card. I remember getting it opening in the pack, like looking at it with friends. And then I turned it over and I remembered it was also signed by mj.
- [30:34]
A
Hold on. It feels like you're burying the lead here. Your friend has two Michael Jordan autographs.
- [30:40]
C
MJ autographs.
- [30:43]
H
It was signed first by Jeremy Banning, one of my close childhood friends. He had got. He had pulled it in the package and you know, I was like, why? I knew that was a good card. I didn't know how good of a card. But he quickly wrote J on the card because he wanted to make sure everyone knew it was his. And at some point, I don't know if I packaged, you know, a bunch of trailblazer cards or what I did to finally get that 86 Jordan, but I Traded for it. And of course, what is it? What does a five or six year old do when he gets that card? He crosses out the J and he writes M. Next to was Michael's card. So back during the pandemic, I found two 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan rookie cards that are marked MJ, one by Jeremy Benning and one by Michael Fox.
- [31:38]
A
So again, for people who are just listening to this, these are actual, Actual. Not counterfeit. Actual Michael Jordan Fleer rookie cards.
- [31:47]
C
Yeah.
- [31:47]
A
Except they've been autographed.
- [31:49]
C
On the back. Yeah, on the back. Two children, like two six year olds or seven.
- [31:53]
A
Not the actual mj.
- [31:54]
C
Oh, man, terrible handwriting. Like, they're gripping the pencils like a fist, just going M and J. And he even tried to like erase the J once it was his and stopped halfway, like, oh, no, no, what am I doing? What am I doing? Yeah. But, yeah. So anyway, I think the obvious takeaway from this is just don't teach kids how to write.
- [32:10]
A
Correct.
- [32:10]
C
Yeah, correct.
- [32:11]
A
One thing modern society is moving towards.
- [32:14]
C
Yeah. Is we're going to avoid this in the future.
- [32:16]
A
But what we're getting is this sense of why these cards, these artifacts, are in fact so valuable again.
- [32:24]
C
Yeah.
- [32:24]
A
Because they were held, protected by children.
- [32:28]
C
Yes.
- [32:29]
A
And so they ruined them sometimes. And. And they did not get secured as what they would be in the future, which are multi million dollar assets.
- [32:40]
C
Right, right. So you have those two things. You have the counterfeits over here, you have kids being kids over there. And then you have these authentic 23.
- [32:47]
A
Right. And so the hunt for the missing nine.
- [32:50]
C
Right.
- [32:50]
A
The missing nine of those 23, which you promised me you would get to.
- [32:54]
C
Yes.
- [32:54]
A
So it takes you across three continents and four countries. Yes. The armored car robber, your friend's attic. But how close did you actually get to finding the nine missing autographed Jordan rookie cards? Did you find a way even to, like, get closer to upper deck?
- [33:15]
C
No. No. I mean, I was legit defeated. I'll be honest here. Completely. Just sitting by myself, like, I have nothing to turn in. You know, it's kind of like it felt like in baseball where you track a fly ball from home plate and.
- [33:28]
A
You'Re sprinting after it.
- [33:29]
C
Yeah.
- [33:29]
A
You're Griffey.
- [33:29]
C
You run, you hit the warning track and then you just run into a wall and like nothing is there. And at that point I was just like, is there a savior out there who kind of gets me that could help me out? And then, God, one appeared.
- [33:49]
E
All right, hang on. Oh, I got. I see it. All right. There we go. We got matching hats.
- [33:54]
C
Oh, no. All right, so we got good taste.
- [34:00]
E
Yeah, well, I'm from Brooklyn. I'm from Brooklyn originally, so.
- [34:05]
C
Man, I live near Ebbets Field or the former Ebbets Field.
- [34:08]
E
Yeah, it's. What's his apartments now.
- [34:10]
C
Oh, my God.
- [34:11]
A
You.
- [34:11]
C
Paula, I just. I did not plan this.
- [34:13]
A
What happens is you show up to a Zoom call with this stranger. You're wearing your Brooklyn Dodgers cap, which I've seen you wear around the office. Yeah, A lot. And the guy whose face materializes happens to be wearing the exact same thing.
- [34:27]
C
It was incredible. It was incredible.
- [34:29]
A
Who is this man?
- [34:30]
C
He's this great, great guy named John Newman. He owns a podcast called Sportscard Nation. I mean, we ended up talking for an hour and a half about cards, about life. Like, it just got deep. And then I got comfortable just to confess to him. Like, I, I, I had failed as a reporter, and I had, like, no contact. I could not get anyone from Upper Deck.
- [34:55]
E
The problem you would have there, I'm not saying it's impossible, is a lot of people that were there at that time are somewhere else or not in the space. You're not in the hobby space anymore. You know, my guy, Chris Carlin was the face of upper deck for 24 years. He was just there. He was like a rookie.
- [35:18]
C
Oh, man.
- [35:18]
E
I would reach out to Chris. He's a good friend of mine. You can name drop me. That will help not to be cocky.
- [35:25]
C
And then that's the moment where I came into the studio, where we are a while back. I'm like, all right, Pablo, I'm going to a card show in Toronto to see a guy who hopefully might solve the mystery of the missing Jordan cards. And you were like.
- [35:40]
A
Yeah, I was like, I, I like an expense report heat check. I do.
- [35:45]
C
Dan doesn't.
- [35:45]
A
But. But Levitard, when he. When he realizes, when he finds out that we're sending you to yet another country.
- [35:53]
C
Yeah.
- [35:55]
A
I had doubts as to whether this would even be worth it. I mean, honestly, like, the idea of, like, you bounding in. I'm going to Toronto. And I was like, we should prepare for you to find out nothing at this random card show you're going to show up to.
- [36:09]
C
Yeah. But I felt like we had to take a chance. I mean, I mean, to sound a little cheeseball, it felt like, you know, if you want to find a card, you got to open the pack.
- [36:22]
A
All right.
- [36:23]
C
I made it here to Toronto. It's raining today, but we're here at the Sports Guide Expo. It's out in an industrial plaza. Let's go inside.
- [36:33]
A
So you're in Canada, obviously. Hockey country. How much Michael Jordan is there?
- [36:39]
C
It was crazy. He's everywhere. It's like, among Hanson jerseys and Connor Bedard and Connor McDavid and Wayne Gretzky and Gordie Howe. And then Jordan.
- [36:53]
A
Right, the Jordan LeBron thing.
- [36:55]
C
No, it doesn't exist in the hobby industry, in car collecting. It's just Jordan's there by a mile. Craziest part about the expo was you saw that stratospheric rise in cars because everyone was carrying around these little briefcases that had combination locks which they would store their graded cards in. Almost like they had the nuclear codes, like the nuclear football they were toting around.
- [37:16]
A
Those guys, unlike me and your friend with the attic, it seems like they actually knew the value of the stuff in their collections. Like they were not settling for the three ring binder.
- [37:26]
C
No, no, definitely not. Definitely not. So anyways, I went through, wandering these giant airplane hangars full of cards and people and collectors searching for Chris Carlin. Not the New York radio personality, right? Not that Chris Carlin. Another Chris Carlin. The guy at Upper Deck and the person that hopefully had the intel on the missing nine Jordan cards. All right, so the contact that I have said that for me to come to psa, he should be in the booth. All right, here we go. I'm gonna stop recording. So I finally tracked down the booth that he's at, and I shake his hand. He's like, actually, could you come back in an hour? And I was like. And he walks away. And I'm like, am I getting dark?
- [38:19]
A
It's happening again.
- [38:20]
C
It's happening again. It's happening again. I just get filled with this absolute feeling of pure defeat. But then, thankfully, hour passes. He comes back.
- [38:31]
G
My name is Chris Carlin. I worked with Upper deck for over 24 years.
- [38:35]
C
It was cool listening to him. He told me what went into a.
- [38:37]
G
Good hunt in trading cards. There's a lot of Willy Wonka type of promos, golden ticket types of things. But really, what anyone who works at a trading card manufacturer worth a salt is trying to give collectors something to talk about. Trying to give customers something that they appreciate and want, which, in the case of Michael Jordan, is anything Michael Jordan.
- [39:00]
C
And so in regards to the hunt for 23 promotion, the thing was huge, MJ.
- [39:06]
G
Signing those rookies was. Was a pretty big deal.
- [39:09]
C
And the coolest thing is when he was talking about the hunt for 23 promotion, he said it was specifically Designed for kids.
- [39:17]
G
You know, we're trying to get that next generation of collector in. And Jordan was such a perfect way to drive interest in opening up packs of cards, whether it be getting something signed by MJ or winning a trip to his flight school. It was pretty exciting for people back then.
- [39:37]
C
And then I gotta ask Chris the question. Yes, there is a question that I came to Toronto. Yeah.
- [39:44]
A
Your expense report. Your expense report was riding on this literal multimillion dollar question that both of us have been obsessed with, which is what happened, Bradley, to the nine missing Jordan cards?
- [39:57]
C
The weirdest part, Pablo, is he really didn't seem to know what the hell I was talking about.
- [40:04]
A
Where are they?
- [40:05]
G
Yeah. All I could say is that Upper Deck made sure that they were all distributed.
- [40:10]
C
So what that means.
- [40:11]
A
What does that mean?
- [40:12]
C
All of those redemption cards, those golden tickets.
- [40:14]
A
Right.
- [40:15]
C
Not all of them were sent into Upper Deck. So that means not all of the signed 23 Jordan cards were immediately sent out to people that found him in packs.
- [40:24]
A
So basically, Upper Deck had whatever the leftovers were. The unclaimed. Unredeemed.
- [40:29]
C
Right.
- [40:30]
A
Jordan autographed rookie cards.
- [40:32]
C
And their company policy stated that all prizes had to be distributed. They couldn't just be collected or kept by Upper Deck employees.
- [40:39]
A
Which would have been a real coup if you're an Upper Deck employee. Exactly. I'll take this home with me.
- [40:44]
C
Yeah, sure, sure.
- [40:45]
A
So what was their policy?
- [40:46]
C
Well, they had to devise a workaround to make sure that they got out to fans of Upper Deck.
- [40:53]
A
Wait, so what was the workaround? Who got these cards?
- [40:57]
C
You remember how I said that the promotion was all for kids?
- [41:01]
A
Yes.
- [41:02]
C
Well, they decided to award these cards to kids who did things that kids today no longer do. Write letters.
- [41:12]
G
I would often see bins of mail coming in from people who were trying to participate in some type of sweepstakes for the price of a postage stamp instead of the price of a pack of cards.
- [41:22]
C
So after the hunt for 23 ended, Chris just simply called and then sent these fans any leftover autograph Jordan rookie cards. Like the last of their kind.
- [41:32]
A
So these seven figure fortunes were just mailed out to kids?
- [41:36]
C
Yes.
- [41:37]
A
By envelope because they wrote a letter.
- [41:40]
C
Yes.
- [41:41]
A
And so, okay, the missing nine, the hunt we've been on.
- [41:45]
C
Right.
- [41:46]
A
Do we know who got those cards?
- [41:49]
C
So the answer to the mystery of the missing nine Jordan cards is that they were never missing. Like they're out there in the world. If you remember, Christie's was saying, there's only 14 cards that are known and graded.
- [42:04]
A
Right.
- [42:05]
C
These nine cards aren't treated like everyone expects them to be treated.
- [42:10]
A
Right.
- [42:11]
C
In some ways, they're treated like they were when we were kids.
- [42:16]
G
A lot of times they end up in personal collections. And these private collectors, you know, they say that they're private for a reason. You know, they. They don't like other people knowing what they have.
- [42:26]
A
So we always get as prizes to keep in a personal collection. Right.
- [42:31]
C
Like binder.
- [42:32]
A
Maybe even a binder. Binder.
- [42:34]
C
Yeah.
- [42:35]
A
That they, this time, smartly of them are not telling anybody about it.
- [42:41]
C
Exactly.
- [42:55]
A
So, Bradley, even more than I want to congratulate you on getting to the bottom of this mystery, I want to salute you for truly lowering the value of the 14 known autographed Michael Jordan rookie cards that Christie's has, in fact, cited.
- [43:10]
C
Sorry. And, oh, I should add on that, too, they're not the last autograph Jordan rookie cards that Jordan signed, despite the.
- [43:18]
A
Exclusive contract with Upper Deck.
- [43:19]
C
Yeah, he broke it when he lost a bet with Kurt Busch. The nascar.
- [43:22]
A
It always sounds like the gambling of Michael Jordan. I mean, anyway, what we're doing, though, across the board here is we are moving.
- [43:30]
C
Moving market.
- [43:31]
A
Moving markets. Oh, yeah. So the one unanswered question on that note that I have has to do with the other mystery that you cited, which is that there were these original printing plates that your armored car robber friend and his friend had acquired. So what happened to those?
- [43:49]
C
So if you remember, Upper Deck bought FLIR when FLIR went bankrupt. And I asked Chris Carlin, where did they go?
- [43:58]
G
You know, a lot of times they were just pitched. So if someone was dumpster diving, they might have got lucky. But I don't know that particular sets, they weren't widely collected or looked at the same way they are today as an assets rather than a tool to make the trading card.
- [44:16]
C
So the rumor holds.
- [44:17]
A
Okay, so the bad news for everybody who has the Michael Jordan cards that I have lusted after.
- [44:24]
C
Yeah.
- [44:24]
A
For my whole life, basically the bad news for them is that actually there may be no shortage of Michael Jordan rookie cards in reality because the technology exists to make them apparently forever. Maybe.
- [44:39]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [44:41]
A
Someone. Someone's college tuition is. Is now gone thanks to your But.
- [44:47]
C
Pablo to make it up for you.
- [44:48]
A
Yeah.
- [44:50]
C
I had time after I solved the mystery to walk around the card show and was able to. To buy a package for you to hopefully replenish as.
- [45:00]
A
As an apology.
- [45:01]
C
Hold an apology for what I put you through and hopefully find one of those Jordans.
- [45:06]
A
Oh, you got. Okay.
- [45:07]
C
I got to admit, though, I also bought a present for myself. I have the. The upper deck. 1989.
- [45:12]
A
I sound a foil. I can hear, right? I mean, yeah, you got me. Skybox 92. 93. Which is like PR again. Dream Team era. Like this is.
- [45:21]
C
Yeah.
- [45:22]
A
Oh, boy.
- [45:23]
C
I got the 89. So anyway, you ready?
- [45:25]
A
I think there's only one way to end this episode. And that is.
- [45:27]
C
Let's rip.
- [45:28]
A
Yeah, this has been Pablo Torre Finds Out a Meadowlark Media Production and I'll talk to you next time, Sam.