To LeBron James, it was Trash. To Collectors, Priceless.
A collector shows off a discarded sheet of LeBron James’s high school signatures at the Got Sole culture festival.
At first glance, it makes sense that the stained, crumpled sheet of paper covered in scribbles was once thrown in the trash. Take a closer look, and it’s clear why it was rescued and became a collector’s prized possession: The scribbles are signatures by NBA top scorer LeBron James. Even better, they’re from his high school career. No wonder the collector turned down a $100,000 offer.
The collector, who did not provide his name, took the sheet of paper, now preserved in a clear envelope, to Got Sole, the self-proclaimed “world’s greatest culture festival.” With events in five cities, Got Sole brings sneakerheads, trading card collectors, vintage fashion enthusiasts, and connoisseurs of luxury goods together to buy, sell, trade, and generally celebrate their collectibles.
The collector told the story behind the signatures in a YouTube Short shared by Got Sole. Apparently, teenage LeBron James was practicing autographs in high school. After he threw the paper away, a teacher pulled it out of the trash and put it up on the wall. Later, it came to the collectors’ market.
Plenty of kids practice autographs while dreaming of stardom, but, in high school, James was already on his way. Playing for the Fighting Irish at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron, Ohio, he was the first sophomore to be named Ohio’s Mr. Basketball, as well as the state’s first sophomore to make the USA Today All-USA First Team. In his junior year, he became the first high school basketball underclassman to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated, as the February 2002 issue declared him “The Chosen One.” Drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers as the first pick of 2003, he entered the NBA directly out of high school.
The collector showed James the paper and asked whether he remembered the signatures. The sports superstar affirmed that he did, although he acknowledged, laughing, that “this is terrible compared to the new ones.”
Even if James’s signing style has improved over time, the collector pointed out the resemblance of the high school signatures to official ones. For example, he compared one of the signatures on the paper to James’s “rookie autograph” as it appears on the 2003 Upper Deck Exquisite Rookie Patch card.
When asked about the value of the autographs, the collector said he “didn’t even want to put a number on it,” insisting “it’s not really for sale” and saying he had rejected a $100,000 offer for the sheet of paper.
LeBron James memorabilia sells for high prices. A UDA-authenticated framed Cleveland Cavaliers jersey with his autograph recently sold at Mynt Auctions for $12,000. In 2021, the St. Vincent-St. Mary jersey that he wore for the Sports Illustrated cover as well as in games set an auction record for high school basketball jerseys when it sold for $512,000 at Julien’s Auctions. The same year, his 2003 Exquisite Collection patch card sold for a record $5.2 million at PWCC Marketplace.
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