Joe Montana Super Bowl XXIV jersey fetches record $1.5 million price

On Thursday, the high-end alternative asset and collectibles venture Treasure Trove announced it had acquired a game-worn Joe Montana Super Bowl XXIV jersey for $1,515,000 -- a record price in the NFL's most important collectibles space. The jersey worn by Tom Brady in his final game had held the previous record since it was sold in November 2023 with a $1.39 million price tag. But even at a record price, its purchaser still sees untapped value. "When you zoom out and contextualize this jersey, but also a lot of game-worn jerseys by the GOATs, whether it be in football or basketball or whatever the sport is, you think about the trading card markets," AJ Scaramucci, CEO of Treasure Trove, told ESPN. "There are huge dislocations from an investment perspective in this market, and snagging this jersey, of which there's an unbelievably scarce number of these jerseys out there ... I would argue that game-worn sports memorabilia of this caliber is dramatically and just freakishly underpriced relative to, say, the trading card market." The jersey comes from Montana's final Super Bowl appearance, a decisive 55-10 win by the San Francisco 49ers over the Cincinnati Bengals in 1990. Montana was dominant, being named the game's Most Valuable Player as he threw for 297 yards and five touchdowns with a completion percentage of 75.9%. Montana's Super Bowl jerseys are part of a unique quirk in NFL lore: Though the Hall of Fame quarterback played in four Super Bowls, he only wore three jerseys across those games -- he wore the same threads in Super Bowl XXIII as he did in Super Bowl XIX. Scaramucci said that Montana's famously perfect record in Super Bowls helps ensure that the jersey is good value for its record cost. "I think Joe Montana, just in terms of the markets of collectibles, is such an underpriced person," he said. "I mean, yes, Tom Brady has more Super Bowls. But Tom Brady also lost a few Super Bowls." It's not the first time that a Montana jersey worn on the NFL's biggest stage has fetched a record price in the NFL collectibles space. In 2023, Montana's jersey from "The Drive" in Super Bowl XXIII -- the jersey he wore in two Super Bowls -- sold for a then-record $1.212 million.