NBA: Bill Russell’s rookie card is sold for $660,000 at auction

A 1957 Topps Bill Russell rookie card has been sold for $660,000 at auction, making it the third-most expensive vintage (pre-1980) basketball card of all time, according to ESPN. 

The collector’s item also set a record for any card of the 11-time NBA champion who died last year, per Card Ladder. The transaction was listed on PWCC Marketplace — the largest trading card platform in the world.

The only other pre-1980 basketball cards that sold for a higher price than the one 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 entire season has been a tribute to Russell, who died in October 2022, with all teams putting his No. 6 at midcourt and all players wearing it on their jerseys. 

And at All-Star weekend – one of the NBA’s most popular events – the Boston Celtics great was honored with remarks from Boston All-Star Jaylen Brown, former on-court 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’s been a tribute to Russell, with all teams wearing No. 6, with all teams putting his No. 6 at midcourt and all players wearing it on their jerseys, after the Celtics legend passed away in October 2022

Russell was virtually unknown in the sports memorabilia world until he was involved in the auction of more than 700 items from his Hall of Fame career in June 2021. 

The collection was made available from December 2021 to April 2022 with Hunt Auctions making a roughly $9million 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 was sold for more than $1m.

In the aftermath of the massive collection’s auction, Russell made sure earnings went to several charities, such as Mentor – a Boston-based nonprofit he co-founded, and Boston Celtics United for Social Justice, which commits to addressing racial injustice and social inequities 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 great friends off the court 

The Celtics were using the gym at Power Memorial in New York, Abdul-Jabbar’s high school, for practice. Russell was reading 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 response: ‘I’m not getting up to meet some kid.’

They met anyway, and became very close over the years, with Russell — notorious for disliking autographs — even signing a Celtics jersey for Abdul-Jabbar a few years ago. And that day, just as he did in that high school gym a half-century earlier, Russell called Abdul-Jabbar ‘kid.’

‘There’s a whole lot more truth and love and respect for my 60-year relationship with Bill Russell,’ Abdul-Jabbar said. ‘Not just as one of the greatest basketball players to ever live, but as the man who taught me how to be bigger as a player, and as a man.’