{"id":824402,"date":"2026-05-27T00:58:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T00:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/824402\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T00:58:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T00:58:13","slug":"victor-wembanyama-rookie-card-sells-for-a-record-5-11-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/824402\/","title":{"rendered":"Victor Wembanyama rookie card sells for a record $5.11 million"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Victor Wembanyama<\/a> is making news these days as a third-year player who has led the San Antonio Spurs to a 2-2 series tie with the defending NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference finals.<\/p>\n

A sports card from the 7-foot-4 French star\u2019s rookie season has also made headlines. Wembanyama\u2019s 2023-24 Panini Prizm one-of-one Black parallel card recently sold for $5.11 million in a private deal brokered by Fanatics Collect.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the highest known price paid for a non-autographed NBA card and the fourth-highest for any NBA card, according to price guide website Card Ladder. The buyer told the Athletic that he believes it will remain the best card for a player whose superstar potential is practically unlimited.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a sort of obvious ceiling for him, just as an athlete, that I think is higher than most people that are like the ordained superstars, like the next guy that we anticipate them being pantheon people,\u201d said the buyer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. \u201c… If you take all these players and you say, \u2018What\u2019s their ceiling?\u2019\u2029I think Victor Wembanyama\u2019s [ceiling] is substantially higher.\u201d<\/p>\n

Professional Sports Authenticator graded the card a Gem Mint 10, which the PSA site says is reserved for \u201cvirtually perfect\u201d cards.<\/p>\n

The previous record amount spent on a Wembanyama card was $860,100 paid for his rookie Panini Prism Nebula Choice one-of-one card in early 2025, according to Fanatics Collect. That card had a PSA 9 grade.<\/p>\n

The grade for the recently purchased card came with controversy. Collector Cavelle McDonald pulled the card from a pack he purchased at NorCal Sports Cards in Roseville, Calif. A video posted to the store\u2019s YouTube account in 2024 shows McDonald and NorCal Sports Cards owner Thomas Lindenthal getting the card graded. <\/p>\n

After learning the card\u2019s grade, Lindenthal gave \u201ca huge shout-out\u201d to Kurt\u2019s Card Care. \u201cYour product is phenomenal,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

According to its website, Kurt\u2019s Card Care makes \u201c100% handmade Cleaning sprays and polishes free of artificial colors and scents. Perfect for cleaning and restoring your card collection.\u201d PSA says on its website that it \u201cwill not grade cards that bear evidence of trimming, re-coloring, restoration, or any other forms of tampering\u201d and lists \u201cevidence of cleaning\u201d as a factor in the company returning a card without a numeric grade.<\/p>\n

Some people in the video\u2019s comment section speculated that Lindenthal\u2019s shout-out may have indicated that the Wemby card had been tampered with in a way that should have disqualified it from being graded. NorCal Sports Cards did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Times.<\/p>\n

McDonald told the Athletic that \u201cKurt\u2019s Card Care has nothing to do with me or the card.\u201d The new buyer told the publication that he was unaware of the situation before purchasing the card, but said it wouldn\u2019t have made any difference if he had known.<\/p>\n

The largest amount known to be spent on any sports card<\/a> is the $12.932 million paid last year for the 2007-08 Upper Deck Exquisite Collection Dual Logoman Autographs card featuring Kobe Bryant<\/a> and Michael Jordan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wembanyama had 41 points and 24 rebounds in the Spurs\u2019 double-overtime victory against the Thunder in Game 1 of the conference finals and 33 points, eight rebounds, five assists and three blocked shots in San Antonio\u2019s Game 4 victory on Sunday. Game 5 is Tuesday in Oklahoma City, with the winner of the best-of-seven series advancing to play the New York Knicks in the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Victor Wembanyama is making news these days as a third-year player who has led the San Antonio Spurs…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":824403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[72525,37402,338710,338706,1910,213829,119909,15772,1260,338708,338704,338709,338705,62,338707,67,132,68,4714,989],"class_list":["post-824402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-buyer","tag-card","tag-comment-section","tag-double-overtime-victory","tag-game","tag-grade","tag-kurt","tag-mcdonald","tag-nba","tag-non-autographed-nba-card","tag-norcal-sports-cards","tag-obvious-ceiling","tag-psa-site","tag-sports","tag-third-year-player","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-victor-wembanyama","tag-video"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116643830524877253","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/824403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}