October 15, 2026
Provided Images/Sotheby's
A uniform of the late Kobe Bryant that was worn during his junior year at Lower Merion High School will be up for auction starting this weekend. Online bids can be placed from Oct. 16-28.
A jersey Kobe Bryant wore during his playing days at Lower Merion High School will be up for auction starting this weekend.
Sotheby's will be hosting an online sale from Oct. 16-28. The burgundy No. 33 away uniform was from the NBA legend's junior year in 1994-95. That season ended on March 18 with Lower Merion losing 64-59 in overtime to Hazleton in the second round of the Class AAAA state playoffs despite Bryant scoring 33 points and grabbing 15 rebounds. Auction officials expect the uniform will sell for over $1 million.
This is the second time the jersey has been listed. It was last sold in 2013 by Bryant's mother, Pamela. A representative from Sotheby's said the auction house exhibited the jersey in 2025 before the seller decided to place it up for sale this fall.
Brahm Wachter, Sotheby's head of collectibles, said high school jerseys are particularly unique in the sports collection world. While pro players can wear a different jersey every game and collegiate athletes have several different options throughout a season, the same isn't true for high schoolers.
"When you get to high school, it's pretty common that there's one jersey that's home and one jersey that's away per season," Wachter said. "So it's really, really rare to handle something like this."
Bryant, who died in a helicopter crash in 2020, began his basketball career at Lower Merion wearing No. 24, but he switched to No. 33 — the same number his father, Joe Bryant, wore in high school — for his junior season.
Wachter said the auction house used a process called photo matching, which involves looking at the individual details and fabric makeup of the jersey, to check for misprints or alterations to ensure authenticity. He said the experts checked for "the smallest little details" and compared it to photos of Bryant wearing the jersey in high school.
Bryant was known for his "Mamba mentality," a philosophy to put in the work to be the best version of oneself. Wachter said that drive was even apparent in high school.
Years before he became a five-time NBA champion, Bryant was already a main attraction at Lower Merion, drawing huge crowds for games, posing for photos and signing autographs. The state championship that the Ardmore school won in 1996 was the subject of an episode in a profile of Bryant on the ABC series "Superstar."
High school jerseys can be difficult to price, Wachter said, and this one last sold for $51,400. His home jersey, which is white with red lettering, was stolen from a case at Lower Merion High School but was returned ahead of his memorial in 2020. It was placed up for auction for $50,000 in 2021, although auction house Lelands did not immediately return a request for its sale price. A Los Angeles Lakers jersey worn by Byrant during his rookie season was sold in 2022 for $2.73 million.
Comparatively, the St. Vincent-St. Mary High School jersey worn by the Sixers' LeBron James, which he wore on a famous cover of Sports Illustrated in 2002, sold for $1.3 million in September 2024.
Wachter said that with the rarity of a high school jersey, it's an opportunity to purchase something that "only comes around every so often."
"When we put something like this up at auction, it might come up and then it might be gone into a private collection for another 10 years or 15 years," Wachter said. "The last time this sold was 13 years ago, so I think just the opportunity to acquire pieces like this are quite rare."
