NBA: Bill Russell’s rookie card is sold for $660,000 at auction
Bill Russell 1957 Boston Celtics rookie card raises $660,000 to become ‘third most expensive vintage basketball card ever’
- The Celtics great passed away in October, but pre-sold 700 of his NBA items
- Hunt Auctions made about $9 million in profit auctioning the collection
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A 1957 Topps Bill Russell rookie card has sold at auction for $660,000, making it the third most expensive vintage (pre-1980) basketball card of all time, according to ESPN.
The collectible also set a record for every card from the 11-time NBA champion who died last year, per Card Ladder. The transaction was listed on PWCC Marketplace, the largest trading chart platform in the world.
The only other pre-1980 basketball cards to sell for a price higher than that of Russell’s rookie season were a 1948 Bowman George Mikan rookie card ($800,000 in March 2022) and a 1961 Fleer Wilt Chamberlain rookie card ($670,000 in June).
This whole season has been a tribute to Russell, who passed away in October 2022, with all teams posting his number 6 in midcourt and all players wearing it on their jerseys.
And on All-Star weekend — one of the NBA’s most popular events — the great Boston Celtics were honored with remarks from Boston All-Star Jaylen Brown, former on-field rivals Julius Erving and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Hall of Famer Grant Hill.
Topps Bill Russell PSA 8.5 sold for a record-breaking $660,000 at PWCC auctions on Thursday
This entire NBA season has been a tribute to Russell, with all teams wearing number 6, all teams posting his number 6 in midcourt, and all players wearing it on their shirts, after the Celtics legend passed away in October 2022.
Russell was virtually unknown in the world of sports memorabilia until he was involved in auctioning more than 700 items from his Hall of Fame career in June 2021. The collection was made available from December 2021 to April 2022 and Hunt Auctions earned approximately $9 million profit.
Some of the items sold back included Russell’s Celtics jersey from his last NBA game in 1969, which he wore in that year’s NBA Finals. It sold for over $1 million.
In the wake of the collection’s mass auction, Russell ensured that the proceeds went to various charities, such as Mentor – a Boston-based non-profit he co-founded – and Boston Celtics United for Social Justice, which works for addressing racial injustice and social inequality in the greater Boston area.
After his passing last year, another NBA great, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, called Russell “my friend, my mentor, my role model.” He was 14 when he first met Russell.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (far left) and Russell (far right) were good friends off the field
The Celtics used Power Memorial’s gym in New York, Abdul-Jabbar’s high school, to practice. Russell read The New York Times and Celtics coach Red Auerbach suggested he meet the player then known as Lew Alcindor.
How Abdul-Jabbar remembered Russell’s answer, “I don’t get up to meet some kid.”
They met anyway and became very close over the years, with Russell – notorious for his aversion to autographs – even signing a Celtics jersey for Abdul-Jabbar a few years ago. And that day, Russell Abdul-Jabbar, as he had done half a century earlier in that high school gym, called “kid.”
“There’s a lot more truth and love and respect to my 60-year relationship with Bill Russell,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “Not just as one of the greatest basketball players ever, but as the man who taught me how to grow as a player and as a man.”