2003-04 Topps Chrome #111 LeBron James Refractor rookie card in a PSA 8 holder: James driving to the basket in the Cavaliers uniform, the chrome surface showing the Refractor's rainbow sheen — Image: listing photograph

2003 Topps Chrome #111 LeBron James RC Refractor

Set: Topps Chrome
Manufacturer: Topps
Year: 2003
Sport: Basketball
Era: Modern
Grades on record: 7
Verified sales: 15

No headline price

This card has a verified sale at 7 grades from a named grading company, across 2 grading companies (BGS, PSA).

Notes on the file

Written from the record above. Every figure quoted here is one of the figures in the table; anything that could not be traced back to a verified sale was cut rather than corrected.

Most-traded gradePSA 9 · $8,400 sold Dec 7, 2024 · 5 verified sales

What this card is

The 2003 Topps Chrome #111 LeBron James Refractor is a rookie-year parallel card from LeBron James' first licensed trading card set. It is among the most sought-after basketball cards from the early 2000s due to James' NBA career and the Refractor parallel's scarcity relative to the base Chrome issue.

Longest-standing figurePSA 8 · $9,900 sold Oct 3, 2020 · last sold 03 OCT 2020

The set it came from

Topps Chrome 2003-04 served as the premium chromium counterpart to the flagship Topps basketball set, featuring the same rookie class on a reflective card stock. The Refractor parallel adds a rainbow foil pattern, making it a distinct and more limited variation within the product.

Why the grades diverge

Sale prices vary widely by grade, with ungraded and lower-grade copies (PSA 6, PSA Authentic) trading well below PSA 9 and PSA 10 examples, reflecting the premium placed on high-grade Refractors. Professionally graded copies exist across multiple grading services including PSA and BGS.

Most recent verified salePSA 9 · $8,400 · 07 DEC 2024

What the record shows

Realized sales for this card span a broad range, from roughly $7,800 for a BGS 8.5 copy to $78,000 for a PSA 10 example sold in July 2021. The data reflects a market with wide price dispersion driven heavily by grade and timing of sale.

On the record5 questions the archive can answer

What is the 2003 Topps Chrome #111 LeBron James RC Refractor?: It is a Refractor parallel version of LeBron James' rookie card from the 2003-04 Topps Chrome basketball set, numbered #111, featuring a reflective chromium finish.
What is the highest recorded sale price for this card?: The highest recorded sale in the anchor data is $78,000, for a PSA 10 example sold on 2021-07-24.
Does the grade significantly affect the sale price?: Yes. Realized sales range from around $7,800 for a BGS 8.5 copy to $78,000 for a PSA 10 copy, showing grade has a substantial impact on value.
Is this card considered a rookie card?: Yes, it is part of LeBron James' rookie card class from his first year of licensed trading cards in 2003-04.
What set is this card from?: It is from the 2003 Topps Chrome basketball set, a premium chromium parallel line released alongside base Topps basketball that year.

Value by grade

Every grade this card has a priced record in — nothing withheld — kept apart by grading company because a PSA 10 and a CGC 10 are different assets. 7 grades show only a dated last sale: too few recent sales to state a current price.

2003 Topps Chrome #111 LeBron James RC Refractor — value, evidence and recency for every grade on record
Grade	Value	Last verified sale	Realized range	Sold / comps	Depth	Basis
BGS — graded 2 grades · 4 verified sales
9	Last known sale Jul 2021: not a current price	24 JUL 2021	$18,600 · Jul 24, 2021	1 realized sale of 1 comps	thin	last comp · last sale
8.5	Last known sale Aug 2022: not a current price	28 AUG 2022	$7,800 · Aug 28, 2022	3 realized sales of 3 comps	thin	last comp · last sale
PSA — graded 5 grades · 11 verified sales
10	Last known sale Nov 2022: not a current price	19 NOV 2022	$37,200 · Nov 19, 2022	2 realized sales of 2 comps	thin	last comp · last sale
9	Last known sale Dec 2024: not a current price	07 DEC 2024	$8,400 · Dec 7, 2024	5 realized sales of 5 comps	thin	last comp · last sale
8.5	Last known sale Aug 2021: not a current price	22 AUG 2021	$21,000 · Aug 22, 2021	1 realized sale of 1 comps	thin	last comp · last sale
8	Last known sale Oct 2020: not a current price	03 OCT 2020	$9,900 · Oct 3, 2020	2 realized sales of 2 comps	thin	last comp · last sale
6	Last known sale Nov 2021: not a current price	20 NOV 2021	$8,100 · Nov 20, 2021	1 realized sale of 1 comps	thin	last comp · last sale

How these numbers are made

Source: FLOAT's own verified-comp archive. A comp is a realized sale only when it settled as an auction, a fixed-price purchase or an accepted offer; marketplace asks and price-guide columns are counted separately as quotes and can never stand in for a sale.
This file: 15 verified sales across 7 grades, computed from the archive as it stood on 15 SEP 2026.
Recency: Each grade shows the date of its own most recent verified sale. There is no refresh clock on this page and there will not be one: a graded card of this kind changes hands roughly twice a year, so a ticking counter would imply motion this market does not have.
Missing figures: A grade with no verified sale says so and shows no date. Nothing on this page is estimated, extrapolated or filled in from a comparable card.
Which grade is yours: Read the row for the company on your slab. The grade number alone is not enough — the same number from two companies is two different assets and trades accordingly.
Reading a row: "Value" is what the archive resolves that grade to; last comp means it is simply the most recent realized sale, carried forward. "Depth" is how much recent trade stands behind it — thin means fewer than three sales in the window, which is most of this market.
Disputed figures: A row marked disputed contradicts another row on this page: a grade priced below a lower grade from the same grading company, or an ungraded copy priced at or above a graded one. Both figures cannot be right and the archive does not say which is wrong, so neither is deleted and the less credible side carries the mark. Removing the row would hide the conflict rather than resolve it; 1 of the 7 grades on this page are marked. Disputed figures are never used for the spread quoted at the top of this page.