1984-85 Star Michael Jordan #288

the card

notes

Card 288 is the last card in the 1984-85 Star set, and it closes a short run of award winners. Bernard King took the scoring title that season, Moses Malone the rebounding, Mark Eaton the blocks and Isiah Thomas the assists. They sit at 284 to 287. Jordan is 288, and the line under his name reads 1985 Rookie-Of-The-Year.

He averaged 28.2 points as a rookie, started the All-Star game on the fan vote, and made the All-NBA Second Team. The award was not close.

It is also the only one of his three cards in this set with a blue border. Star coloured each card to its team, so the Chicago cards including the #101 rookie are red, and the Olympic subset at 195 is red for the USA jersey. The award subset went blue.

That makes the three cards easy to tell apart in a photograph, which matters more than it sounds. Listings routinely give the year and the player and not the number.

The population is the smallest of the three. PSA has recorded 400 copies against 576 for the #101 and 551 for the #195. The most common grade is a 6, with 205 - more than half the graded population sitting on one number. Four are PSA 8 and that is the PSA ceiling.

Beckett has recorded 767, nearly twice PSA's total, and its ceiling is a 9 with six copies. CGC has two. SGC has none.

Across three companies and 1,169 recorded copies, nobody has awarded this card a 10 - the same result as the #101 and the #195, and the same reasons. A difficult first print run, soft plastic bags, and borders that show every chip.

One detail worth carrying. A Beckett 9 sold in February 2023 described at the time as one of seven, none superior. Beckett's current figure for that grade is six. Populations are usually reported as only going up, and this one has not - a card can be cracked out, resubmitted, crossed to another company or lost. It is a small reminder that a population report is a record of what a company currently holds in its files rather than a census of what exists.

population

PSA

graded elsewhere

recorded 29 aug 2026. figures are a snapshot on that date, not a live count.

recorded sales

dated past results, not an estimate of what a copy is worth today. figures published by an auction house normally include the buyer's premium, so they are more than the seller received.

where to buy one

This is the most affordable of Jordan's three cards in the set, and the gap is smaller than the difference in fame suggests.

In a single Heritage auction on 11 July 2026 all of the following sold: a #288 in PSA 4 for $10,980, a #288 in PSA 5 for $16,470, a #101 in PSA 6.5 for $94,550, and a #101 in PSA 6 carrying an eye-appeal sticker for $118,950. Same day, same room. The rookie is a different market from the award card, and the sticker is a different market again.

Set your expectations to a 5 or a 6. PSA's most common grade here is a 6 and it holds more than half the population. Four PSA 8s exist and nothing above them. If you want the card rather than the grade, the middle of this ladder is where it lives.

Beckett is the deeper record with 767 recorded copies against PSA's 400, and it graded Star material throughout the years PSA would not. A Beckett holder is not a lesser holder on this set.

Recorded sales cluster tightly at the low grades and thin out fast above them. A PSA 6 made $25,620 in August 2026, a PSA 5 made $16,470 that July and a PSA 4 made $10,980 in the same sale.

Buy graded and verify the certificate. Everything true of the other two Star Jordans applies here.

what to check before you buy

Check the border colour before anything else. This card is blue. The #101 rookie and the #195 Olympic card are both red. If a listing shows a red border and says 288, one of the two is wrong.

Read the line under the name. This card says 1985 Rookie-Of-The-Year. The Olympic card says 1984 Gold Medalist. The rookie says Guard - Chicago Bulls.

Verify the certificate number with the grading company. US Marshals once seized more than 125,000 cards believed to be Star counterfeits and PSA declined to grade the material for years afterwards.

Expect chipping along the blue border and check all four edges.

Expect the card to be off-centre. Star's printing was poor by its own standards and miscuts were common enough that cards were destroyed rather than sold.

And check the year on the label as well as the number. Jordan has further cards in the 1985-86 Star issues, and a listing that gives only Star and 288 is not telling you enough.

sources