Potential Worth of Soccer Cards as Market Grows

[YayNJ]

Originally Posted by k13

I doubt people in Romania know who Sandy Koufax is.....
Europe is big and not just UK.

Plus NA demographic is changing fast so baseball will be dead and forgotten anyway.

One of the most popular sports in Romania is Oina, which is pretty much the grandfather of baseball. American sports are popular across most of Eastern Europe / Balkans, especially Basketball. I'd bet my house that average Romanians can name countless American sports stars, teams and factoids - where as I'm fairly certain if you stopped someone in the street in the NA, they wouldn't be able to name one Romanian. You might get extremely lucky and find someone that knows who Georghe Hagi is.

[k13]

I learned a lot of players from playing EA Fifa since a kid.
They have legends too so a lot of young people may know some from that.

[gomiamigo]

Virtually every soccer fan has heard of Pele, Maradona, Cryuff, Ronaldo and probably Beckenbauer unless they're under 18.

I mean, practically all these guys are in releases [not Cryuff for obv reasons].

Charlton - probably not unless they're UK based.

Whether or not their vintage will go up is a diff story.

[fadster]

Vintage has already become somewhat normalised, just looking at what collectors talk about on IG and discord etc and what is happening at the big auction houses. Looking at the spread by card year of sold items at pwcc for example football is similar in profile to basketball and NFL, but still some way behind baseball. I often see a familiar pattern of people getting disgruntled with prospecting /current box prices and turning to favourite players from their youth at some stage, and then they start looking at other older players from the same club/country, and things just go from there.

The demographics are encouraging too, the sport has young fans and collectors, and the average vintage collector is also much younger than in other sports as it's a relatively new thing for many collectors. The exception would be the UK where we have a lot of old-school cigarette card collectors (which has been a hobby since the Victorian days) that are more like the older baseball collectors, and to a lesser extent Germany for similar reasons. As time goes on and the stars of today become vintage I think that will further normalise things.

For those that are interested this month PSA magazine has a big article on vintage football super-collector Al Jurgela https://issuu.com/psamagazine.com/do...DhjZTUwNjE3NjQ

In general on vintage collecting resources, some links:
Here is the link to the PSA soccer registry newsletter that links also links to articles on blog (when it works): https://lp.collectors.com/Soccer-New...I0NzY1NzI3MgS2
This is the book by long-time collector Carl Wilkes https://www.amazon.co.uk/Football-Co...dp/1785315609/
A fairly new site but it has a great overview of many rare vintage sets, especially from South America https://www.classicsoccercards.com/
Likewise Nigel's webspace is great for UK issues from the 50s to 70s https://cards.littleoak.com.au/index.html
Alan Jenkins Cartophilic exchange is probably the most comprehensive site out there https://cartophilic-info-exch.blogsp...16/06/a-z.html
Laststicker (not just stickers!) is excellent for the 80's on and easy to search https://www.laststicker.com/

[YayNJ]

anyone else feel as if there's no wind in the sails at the moment?

feels boring and stagnant at the moment

[Gin&Juice]

Definitely seems to be a bit of a holding pattern at the moment. People turned off by the number of repetitive products and waiting for World Cup releases.

[Ianhatcher]

There's just no exciting rookies this year and most products are a rehash of past years products.

Haaland has seen an uptick but not as much as you'd expect. I've seen interest in Tete. Fati as well but he's still not starting for Barca and that hurts him.

The only people winning in the current market are breakers as people continue to throw money at worthless product. The WC won't change that.

The potential in the market is not for collectors anymore. It's for everyone else who took the profits from them.

If you are opening product hoping to get value you are a sucker. Singles is the way to go in today's market.

[k13]

Opening product was always for suckers for the last 30 years.

[cardshopmd]

Originally Posted by YayNJ

anyone else feel as if there's no wind in the sails at the moment?

feels boring and stagnant at the moment

Right now parents are broke from sending kids back to school. this always happens in august and September

[cardshopmd]

Originally Posted by Gin&Juice

Definitely seems to be a bit of a holding pattern at the moment. People turned off by the number of repetitive products and waiting for World Cup releases.

In December your going to see a major sell off of products they are pushing stuff out every week it seems now.

[Mitch]

Originally Posted by cardshopmd

Right now parents are broke from sending kids back to school. this always happens in august and September

Thought it would be the other way around. Send them back and save £££'s on childcare!

[k13]

Every market is dead. Bitcoin, stocks, housing, etc.

Just a lot of stagnating.

[cardshopmd]

Originally Posted by Mitch

Thought it would be the other way around. Send them back and save £££'s on childcare!

Kids clothing is not cheap.

[cardshopmd]

Originally Posted by k13

Every market is dead. Bitcoin, stocks, housing, etc.

Just a lot of stagnating.

I agree with you 100%

[avalanchefan21]

Once players retire their prices really drop off (few exceptions to the goats) super nice if you're a player / team collector

Can't enjoy it while their active lol but still fun

[daeve]

Originally Posted by avalanchefan21

Once players retire their prices really drop off (few exceptions to the goats) super nice if you're a player / team collector

Can't enjoy it while their active lol but still fun

What's going to be interesting will be to see how much the collector base grows as the sport gets more popular in the States, especially leading up to the WC.

Will it grow more in the area of gamblers/ only those interested in modern active players? Or will it be more balanced and have a greater mix of modern/active player collectors and those seeking the stars of the 80s/90s/00s as well?

There is certainly less to go around if there is a surge of interest in players that many Gen x / millenials grew up watching, compared to the other 'big 3' team sports. I still think this makes this time of 'stagnation' interesting as even if there isn't a huge surge in this regard, there will likely be some.

I also think Messi and CR7 retiring is going to draw more interest to other retired stars - something to keep in mind.

[cardshopmd]

Originally Posted by daeve

What's going to be interesting will be to see how much the collector base grows as the sport gets more popular in the States, especially leading up to the WC.

Will it grow more in the area of gamblers/ only those interested in modern active players? Or will it be more balanced and have a greater mix of modern/active player collectors and those seeking the stars of the 80s/90s/00s as well?

There is certainly less to go around if there is a surge of interest in players that many Gen x / millenials grew up watching, compared to the other 'big 3' team sports. I still think this makes this time of 'stagnation' interesting as even if there isn't a huge surge in this regard, there will likely be some.

I also think Messi and CR7 retiring is going to draw more interest to other retired stars - something to keep in mind.

I can tell you most of the soccer collector's collect USA cards or MLS cards Thats if their city has a team. I have tried to sell soccer cards at Professional indoor soccer games, Since I was the Photrapher for the fan club and the players. I tried selling singles and Custom packs for $1 to $5 each and most of the kids did not want them for $1 for a 25 card pack with a jersey card or autograph in them. In the 13 Games I set up in I may have sold 200 packs in total. I sold more 8x10 photos then anything at $5 each $10 if they were autographed. It helped raise money for the fan club so I was happy about that but it was just a waste of time selling the cards.

[k13]

Most are concerned with card condition for grading than actual card thus so many investors/speculators.

That's why you can buy /99 psa 9's cheaper than base psa 10's all the time.

[gomiamigo]

Topps /Panini are pumping out 8 [mostly pricey!]products a week it's totally unsustainable [across all sports].

Fanatics/topps still has no idea how they are going to run things or the right way to keep the hobby healthy. If they think the right way to promote the hobby is to give hot cases to early 20s breakers, who simply scream into an iPhone camera and whatnot, they are going to learn an expensive, expensive lesson.

We should all pray that does not happen. Breakers certainly have a role to play in the hobby but that ain't it.

[KhalDrogo]

Originally Posted by gomiamigo

Topps /Panini are pumping out 8 [mostly pricey!]products a week it's totally unsustainable [across all sports].

Fanatics/topps still has no idea how they are going to run things or the right way to keep the hobby healthy. If they think the right way to promote the hobby is to give hot cases to early 20s breakers, who simply scream into an iPhone camera and whatnot, they are going to learn an expensive, expensive lesson.

We should all pray that does not happen. Breakers certainly have a role to play in the hobby but that ain't it.

Fanatics is in trouble if they can’t successfully build the brand beyond new wax. The wax is becoming more irrelevant by the day. Whereas five years ago the bulk of the hobby money was going toward new releases, today it’s going toward grading and selling singles from old releases. New wax is prohibitively expensive. Costs too much when just wanting to have a fun rip, and costs too much when trying to find good ROI. When you consider how uninspired today’s sets are, and the declining production quality, it’s hard to see how they dig themselves out of this hole.

[Ianhatcher]

Until collectors have the ability to open wax, grade cards and make profit the hobby will continue to bleed out.

Wax is too highly priced and prices are not coming down even with overproduction because as long as breakers can make profit they will continue buy wax and open product.

Collectors can't open wax or join breaks and grade cards to sell to put back into the market which is hurting the market as a whole.

If wax is going to stay high then grading fees need to be affordable so people can grade base cards (yes, I said it) recoup money and put it back into the market.

The $22 Bulk that PSA just announced isn't going to cut it and until they lower their prices to $12-15 for Bulk the hobby will not recover.

The hobby needs to stop joining breaks and stop submitting cards to PSA but I don't see either of those happening. There are still too many people who think they are doing good joining soccer breaks right now. Spending $2k on 5 breaks of PSG to walk away with a Messi Beam Team and think they did good.

[k13]

Why should collectors need to make profit?
They are collectors not flippers.

Wax was always about losing money that was known for decades.

The business is made for companies to make money not people on the secondary market.

The reason wax has no value is because there's no collectors and there's so little demand for singles.

Idiots have always wanted to crack boxes and sell, no one was actually really interested in keeping the cards.

99% sellers 1% buyers.

[k13]

This section gets less action now than the hockey one that should tell you something and the hockey one is dead.

Player gets traded in hockey, demand goes up. Cards sell fast.
Player gets transferred in soccer, 99% of the time nothing happens.

Player gets goals on new team, lot of demand.
Player gets goals on new team in soccer, no one cares.

You could be a Top 5 player already and score a hat trick every game and demand will still be mediocre. Think how bad that is.

NBA has turned into that too, score 50 points in a playoff game, no one cares.

[Ianhatcher]

How can you be on these boards so much and still be absolutely clueless? It's one thing to be a negative jerk all the time but not understanding how things work is a whole different matter for someone who has been here since 2014.

It's buying product, keeping what you want and selling what you don't to put into cards that you actually want. That's not being a flipper, it's recouping money spent to put into other cards like higher end.

I opened tons of product in 2019-20, graded them for $10-12 a card and easily sold over $100k in 2020 and 2021 and I didn't spend 1/4th of that opening wax and joining breaks. I sold at least 200 rookies of Mbappe and Haaland so yes, it can be done with affordable grading.

I have barely bought any sealed product or joined breaks since April 2021 because I can't affordably grade stuff I don't want and resell it to put back into the market.

Luckily for me I have great job so I just buy singles now. If I can't recoup some of the money spent on opening wax and grading it or make some profit I won't do it. Simple as that. I'd rather do that then give some breaker money to fund their kids college.

[yiguiri2002]

Originally Posted by KhalDrogo

Fanatics is in trouble if they can’t successfully build the brand beyond new wax. The wax is becoming more irrelevant by the day. Whereas five years ago the bulk of the hobby money was going toward new releases, today it’s going toward grading and selling singles from old releases. New wax is prohibitively expensive. Costs too much when just wanting to have a fun rip, and costs too much when trying to find good ROI. When you consider how uninspired today’s sets are, and the declining production quality, it’s hard to see how they dig themselves out of this hole.

Originally Posted by Ianhatcher

Until collectors have the ability to open wax, grade cards and make profit the hobby will continue to bleed out.

Wax is too highly priced and prices are not coming down even with overproduction because as long as breakers can make profit they will continue buy wax and open product.

Collectors can't open wax or join breaks and grade cards to sell to put back into the market which is hurting the market as a whole.

If wax is going to stay high then grading fees need to be affordable so people can grade base cards (yes, I said it) recoup money and put it back into the market.

The $22 Bulk that PSA just announced isn't going to cut it and until they lower their prices to $12-15 for Bulk the hobby will not recover.

The hobby needs to stop joining breaks and stop submitting cards to PSA but I don't see either of those happening. There are still too many people who think they are doing good joining soccer breaks right now. Spending $2k on 5 breaks of PSG to walk away with a Messi Beam Team and think they did good.

I don't think the problem is wax being too expensive at all. There are currently hobby offerings at less than 50 bucks. Hobby boxes with guaranteed auto at under 100. Even UCL Chrome can be found at under 100 for Lite. These might not be great releases or have great return but they aren't expensive.

The problem is there is an insane overproduction right now and releases are hurting. And that's without the upcoming World Cup products. Market cap is too big for the season, makes no sense to bust wax at a lot of these prices.

The good thing I noticed is that prices are falling. Slowly but it's happening. It's been a while since I've busted this much soccer and will continue doing so as prices fall. It'll get there and hopefully Topps/Panini realize they messed up and adjust for next season (not counting on it).