For years, 1997 Metal Universe Basketball lived in the shadow of its own greatest creation. Collectors knew the set for Precious Metal Gems, the red and green parallel cards that became modern hobby royalty, while the ordinary base cards often felt like the inexpensive way to recognize the same checklist. In 2026, that relationship appears to be changing. Sales across several prominent base cards suggest collectors are no longer treating Metal Universe solely as the birthplace of PMGs. They are beginning to treat the full set as an attraction in its own right.
The shift is especially conspicuous because these are standard, non-serial-numbered cards from a product released nearly three decades ago. A PSA 9 Tim Duncan rookie base card recently sold for $395 after comparable PSA 9 sales were around $35 in April. The Michael Jordan #23 base card in PSA 9 rose from a $300 sale on May 27, 2025, to a $3,183 sale on September 7, 2026. PSA 9 examples of Kobe Bryant #81 likewise moved from $154 on September 6, 2025, to $1,650 on September 8, 2026.
Individual results can be affected by timing, buyer competition, eye appeal and the unpredictable nature of a thin market. Still, the pattern extends across names and grades enough to invite a bigger question: is 1997 Metal Universe becoming a defining basketball-card set of the 1990s?
Base cards are receiving the PMG halo effect
The central fact of Metal Universe is that it produced Precious Metal Gems. The green versions were numbered to 10, while red PMGs were numbered to 90. Their scarcity, distinctive metallic finish and unmistakable imagery have pushed major examples into the highest reaches of modern sports-card collecting.
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A BGS 8.5 green Kobe Bryant PMG, numbered to 10, sold for $2 million in 2022. A PSA 5 red Michael Jordan PMG, numbered to 90, sold for $640,000 in March 2026. In April, a Kobe PMG sold for $3.15 million. Another major Jordan result arrived on August 13, 2026, when a 1997 Metal Universe red PMG sold for $1.473 million.
Those headline figures matter to the base set because the visual identity carries over. The photograph and much of the art featured on a player’s PMG are also present on that player’s conventional Metal Universe card. A collector who cannot come remotely close to purchasing a Jordan PMG can still own the Jordan art that became synonymous with the parallel. On September 3, 2026, a regular Jordan base card with the same image sold for $1,400.
That does not make a base card a substitute for a numbered PMG. Scarcity remains the defining advantage of the parallel. But it can make the base card more than a checklist filler. It is an accessible version of the same visual artifact, from the same historically important release. As the PMGs became symbols of 1990s basketball-card excess and ambition, collectors may have started reassessing the underlying set that introduced them.
Related coverage includes Why 1997 Metal Universe Basketball Cards Are Surging in 2026.
A full-throttle 1990s design language
Metal Universe has another advantage that is impossible to quantify cleanly on a population report: it looks wildly different from most cards around it. Fleer/SkyBox was owned by Marvel Entertainment at the time, and Marvel artists contributed to a set that leaned into comic-book drama instead of traditional sports photography.
Its stars appear against cosmic scenery, fire, planets, moons, strange geometry and futuristic environments. The designs are loud, heroic and occasionally gloriously overbuilt. That is not a flaw. It is the product’s entire personality.
Jordan #23 is the clearest illustration. He is shown attacking the basket with a flaming ball while planets sit behind him. The composition makes no effort to blend into a binder page. It is meant to seize attention immediately, much like a comic-book cover. For collectors who value a card as an image rather than merely a statistical entry or investment vehicle, Metal Universe has a built-in case.
Modern collecting also offers evidence that this type of visual identity can matter. Comic-inspired insert designs, including Kaboom-style cards, have remained popular because they deliver a bold, instantly recognizable presentation. Metal Universe achieved a comparable sense of spectacle decades earlier, although with an aesthetic that is inseparable from the 1990s.
That nostalgia is likely part of the present momentum. Collectors who encountered these cards as kids are now older, with more disposable income and a stronger desire to reconnect with the era’s maximalist designs. In a market overflowing with releases, a card that immediately says 1997 has an advantage.
The checklist captures several NBA eras at once
Even the best design needs the right players. Metal Universe arrived at a uniquely crowded point in NBA history. Michael Jordan was still leading the Chicago Bulls, a dynasty that would secure its sixth championship that season. Kobe Bryant was beginning his second NBA season, while Tim Duncan and Tracy McGrady entered the league as rookies.
The rest of the checklist offers an equally strong snapshot of the period. Shaquille O’Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, Grant Hill, Scottie Pippen and Karl Malone were active stars. Allen Iverson was moving into his second season after an unforgettable rookie campaign. Kevin Garnett was also emerging as one of the defining talents of his generation.
That blend gives collectors multiple reasons to enter the same set. A Jordan collector can want the iconic artwork. A Kobe collector can pursue an early-career card. Duncan and McGrady collectors have rookie cards to target. Fans of Iverson, Garnett, Shaq or the 1990s big-man generation have a visually cohesive home for their player collections. Few products represent so many intersecting basketball narratives on one checklist.
Recent sales show attention moving beyond Jordan and Kobe
Jordan and Bryant are unsurprising leaders. Along with LeBron James, they remain among the hobby’s most consistently sought-after basketball names. The notable development is the growing movement in Duncan and O’Neal, where the Metal Universe rise has been difficult to dismiss as a single-player story.
Duncan’s raw rookie base card climbed from below $10 earlier in 2026 to more than $60. A PSA 10, which had sold for roughly $250 in April, recently reached $2,280. His broader card index rose 37% during the previous three months, but the raw 1997 Metal Universe rookie reportedly advanced 841% over the same period. That difference points toward demand focused specifically on this issue, not just a general revaluation of Duncan.
Shaquille O’Neal #50 has displayed a similar burst. PSA 9 examples sold around $30 in May, followed by a $550 sale on September 9. Shaq’s overall card market has been active, so the set’s momentum should not receive all the credit. Even so, a more-than-tenfold move in a base-card sale over a short period is striking.
McGrady is another name worth tracking rather than assuming an outcome. A PSA 10 of his rookie card recently sold for $600, compared with approximately $100 in April. That is a meaningful rise for a player who has not always occupied the hobby’s highest-demand tier. If collectors increasingly build around Metal Universe as a set, rather than choosing only its two or three most famous players, McGrady, Iverson and Garnett could attract further attention. That possibility remains speculative, not guaranteed.
Condition makes the supposedly common cards less common
“Base card” should not be confused with “limitless supply in every grade.” The original print run may have been far larger than a PMG’s run of 10 or 90, but surviving cards with elite centering, corners and surfaces are another matter. Metallic stock and dark, elaborate designs can also make condition sensitivity more important to buyers.
For Jordan #23, the PSA 10 population stands at 154, with 8,263 total graded copies in PSA’s population count. Those totals are far from ultra-rare by 1990s insert standards, but the Gem Mint number is not enormous. For perspective, the 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan rookie card has a PSA 10 population of 341 and a total PSA population of 31,361.
The comparison does not mean Metal Universe is the next 1986 Fleer. That set occupies a singular place in basketball history, containing Jordan’s rookie card alongside rookie cards for Charles Barkley, Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, Clyde Drexler and Isiah Thomas. No 1990s release can duplicate that rookie-class foundation.
But the 1990s have long lacked one universally accepted flagship set. There were simply too many products, inserts and parallel variations competing for collector memory. Metal Universe has a plausible argument because it combines an elite checklist, memorable art, desirable high-grade scarcity and the foundational PMG connection.
Momentum is not the same thing as permanence
The recent sales are exciting, but collectors should separate a compelling historical case from certainty about future values. Sharp increases can cool quickly, especially when a run of high auction results draws new supply to market. Grade, centering, surface quality and the exact auction setting can create large gaps among cards that share a label.
Still, 1997 Metal Universe has qualities that extend beyond a short-term price chart. It represents the Marvel-influenced, all-gas-no-brakes side of 1990s card design. It documents a loaded NBA moment spanning Jordan’s final Bulls championship, Kobe’s early rise and rookie seasons for Duncan and McGrady. And it gave the hobby Precious Metal Gems, a parallel family whose mythology has only grown stronger.
That last point may be the key. PMGs became legends first. Now collectors appear to be asking whether the base cards that supplied the same art, same players and same moment in hobby history deserve a larger share of that reverence. The answer will take more than a few months of sales to settle, but Metal Universe has clearly entered a new conversation.
