The Daily Three: Michael Jordan

Every day, we are scanning the sports cards landscape in search of gems that could be raw-to-grade plays. We present the data, you make the decision to make the play or not. Today, we've got three Michael Jordan plays that could play to your and your bank account's favor. Here we go! Twenty years after he retired for real, MJ's card universe remains extremely liquid and lucrative. There are the obvious cards to dive into, but at In The Cards, we want to look deeper at his cards to find some hidden gems for raw-to-grade plays.

1993-94 Upper Deck Michael Jordan #23

Look, I love this card! I'm going to love it even more in a PSA slab! You can scoop these cards up raw for $3-$5 and send them to grade and wait for the return on your investment. All in with $32 grading and shipping is between $35 and $38. It doesn't leave much of a runway as PSA 9's are pretty much a break even. A PSA 10 is going to get you around $250 so you'll scoop around $180 if you gem mint.

Here's the play: Buy five cards raw to grade. You'll need one of your five to gem and hit a 10 and the other four are gravy! Comps courtesy SportsCardsPro.com

Card	PSA/ship	All-in	PSA 10	PSA 9	PSA 8	ROI/10
$3	$52.98	$55.98	$247	$40	N/A	302.5%

1993 Fleer Ultra Inside/Outside #4

Each of these three cards pass the eye test for me. This one steps up a little bit in raw price, but you can scoop them up for between $10 and $15. Send them off and wait the 75ish days for PSA to do their thing. The great part of Jordan's eco-system is that it will always be solid and steady. You've got a longer runway for this raw-to-grade play as well as PSA 10's go for $6,000, 9 grades are getting $350 and 8's are basically your break-even point.

Card	PSA/ship	All-In	PSA 10	PSA 9	PSA 8	ROI/10
$12	$77.99	$89.99	$6,000	$350	$71	5902%

1995 Skybox Premium #278

Affordable, yet the highest raw price of the three cards. eBay has these cards going for $27 raw but again, you'll have a little longer runway to make money on this flip! The PSA 10 upside isn't as big as the 93 Fleer, but it's still well worth the play!

Card	PSA/Ship	All-In	PSA 10	PSA 9	PSA 8	ROI/10
$27	$67.98	$94.98	$1,987	$168	$62	1785.7%

There you go! Three solid raw-to-grade plays on MJ cards that are a little outside the box!