A warmup jacket worn by NBA legend Wilt Chamberlain during the 1972 NBA Finals, discovered by a teenager for $3.07 at an Oregon thrift store, sold for $89,600 at auction on Monday. Quinn Brown, who resells used clothing online, purchased the jacket at a Goodwill store near Portland in January.
Sotheby's, the auction house handling the sale, had estimated the jacket's value between $150,000 and $250,000. The item received 48 bids before the auction closed. Described by Sotheby's as an "extraordinary piece of memorabilia," the short-sleeved yellow jacket was worn by Chamberlain when the Los Angeles Lakers defeated the New York Knicks in the 1972 NBA Finals, a series in which Chamberlain was named Finals MVP.
Brown has been reselling thrifted clothes online for three years, with his previous most valuable sale being a Sub Pop Records T-shirt for $250. After purchasing the Chamberlain jacket, he began researching its authenticity. He found a photograph of Chamberlain wearing a similar jacket and noted matching stitching details on the Lakers patch. He also compared measurements of the jacket to those of Chamberlain's other known jerseys, finding they aligned closely.
"I didn’t even think that finding something like this was possible," Brown stated. "I got very, very lucky."
Upon posting a photo of the jacket on social media, Sotheby's contacted Brown about consigning the item. The auction house conducted its own photo verification, confirming it was worn by Chamberlain during the 1972 Finals.
Wilt Chamberlain, a Hall of Famer, played in the NBA from 1959 to 1973. He won two championships, one with the Philadelphia 76ers in 1967 and another with the Lakers in 1972. He also holds the record for most points in a single game with 100 points in 1962. Chamberlain's game jersey from the 1972 Finals sold for $4.9 million at Sotheby's in 2023, making it the fourth most expensive NBA jersey ever sold by the auction house.
"Photomatching a piece of game-worn clothing to a specific Finals series, for a player of this era, is genuinely exceptional," Sotheby's said in its description of the jacket. "As photomatched items worn by Chamberlain become exceedingly rare, this jacket is a piece of sports history."