Potential Worth of Soccer Cards as Market Grows

[mfw13]

Originally Posted by YayNJ

I'd say 90% of what I buy on eBay now comes from either China or South Korea.

Yep.....I'm collecting all the Newcastle cards from this years Topps Champions League releases, and almost all by purchases are from Asia.

[phooey]

Do the wheels ever fall off from the seemingly never ending expansion of soccer cards, especially for Premier League / Champions League clubs?

I can't get my head round the number of sets and them seemingly all selling out, or at least seldom making it to clearance. Who is buying them? Will their money ever run out? Will they ever hit the resale market? Are they all destined to stay in storage cupboards for eternity?

In comparison there are tiny volumes of vintage cards out there with prices completely out of step (low) compared with modern cards. I get there isn't the interest in vintage players but is that the only reason? How big a factor is a the lack of awareness and knowledge of vintage cards? Is there going to be a boom in the vintage market when that changes? Why do vintage cards of US sports sell so well?

I've given up on modern cards and spend my money on vintage cards which to me seem to be an absolute bargain in comparison. Maybe I've got it wrong and I'm the idiot wasting his money?

[mfw13]

Originally Posted by phooey

Do the wheels ever fall off from the seemingly never ending expansion of soccer cards, especially for Premier League / Champions League clubs?

I can't get my head round the number of sets and them seemingly all selling out, or at least seldom making it to clearance. Who is buying them? Will their money ever run out? Will they ever hit the resale market? Are they all destined to stay in storage cupboards for eternity?

In comparison there are tiny volumes of vintage cards out there with prices completely out of step (low) compared with modern cards. I get there isn't the interest in vintage players but is that the only reason? How big a factor is a the lack of awareness and knowledge of vintage cards? Is there going to be a boom in the vintage market when that changes? Why do vintage cards of US sports sell so well?

I've given up on modern cards and spend my money on vintage cards which to me seem to be an absolute bargain in comparison. Maybe I've got it wrong and I'm the idiot wasting his money?

Lots of thoughts in your post to respond to, but as someone who has been collecting soccer cards since the 90's and feels much the same as you do, I'll try to put together an informative response.

First, if you get pleasure from buying what you buy and collecting what you collect, you're NEVER wasting your money.

Second, the glut of releases is primarily a function of the existence of breakers, especially in Asia. If I had to guess right now, I'd guess that 60-80% of all product is being opened in Asia.

With regards to the vintage vs modern debate, it has to do with both the lack of collector knowledge AND the lack of consistent production. While stickers have been around forever, many people don't collect them, and production of cards didn't really start until the 90's (around the same time the number of manufacturers exploded). And even then, production was scattered and inconsistent. You didn't have cards produced for many leagues every year, there were no multi-league Champions League style sets until 2016 (aside from the 1995 Estrellas Europeas set), and aside from Upper Deck's terrific 1994 release, World Cup sets were largely a joke until 2014. Basically, prior to the last decade, collecting soccer cards has been a jumbled mess.

And now that it's a bit more organized, you have overproduction and ridiculously high wax prices. Topps releases it's basic UCC set at a reasonable price every year, but just about everything else is targeted towards breakers. Even now, unlike in other sports, you don't have any products focused on retired players (aside from 2017 Nobility), even though that's a HUGE part of soccer history and what many collectors are most interested in.

[fadster]

With vintage v modern it's something we see in every sport, it's not unique to football and certainly has nothing to do with stickers v cards. In the big vintage groups I am in, which are roughly 40% North American, I've never heard any complaints about whether something is a card, sticker, cigarette card, square, circular, or rectangular, the only complaint I ever really see is about oversize issues that don't fit in a regular size holder.

The real answer is much simpler and general - people like to gamble on prospects and rookies. Vintage is slow and steady like bonds, ultra-modern is high risk, and high reward like crypto. It's the same reason why the likes of Namath, Baugh, Unitas, Elway or Graham are a fraction of the price of whichever young QB is the flavour of the month.

[cardshopmd]

Honestly the soccer card market is dead. I use to make a good living breaking cases and selling singles on eBay and now if I am lucky when I run 500 items in the auction I might sell 20. I have never seen things this bad in my life.

I am at the point that i am honestly about to sell my entire inventory and move on to another business venture.

[YayNJ]

I wouldn't say it's dead, new victims are entering everyday and hoovering up Leaf, Futera and Topps on demand boxes, while trying to sell their disappointment at Dynasty prices on groups. The hobby is in a really weird place at the moment.

[fadster]

If you're trying to make money the overproduction really sucks but purely as a collector, it's not all bad as you now have much more choice. For example, if you've waited for a Zlatan auto he's now in everything so if you really want an auto for a particular club or set you can just pick up the single. Over the last year I've been able to change up some of my autos either to on-card or to better looking cards.

[YayNJ]

I have no idea how it's happened, but patch cards are all the rage at the moment with new UK buyers.

You can't sell them fast enough.

[CiaranGQ]

Not cards, but Carlsberg & Erdinger produced a limited edition of 491 bottles of beer to commemorate each of Klopp’s 491 matches in charge of Liverpool. They were auctioned yesterday with proceeds going to the Liverpool FC Foundation.

Always difficult to assess given the charitable aspect of the auction can drive bids higher. However, the bottle commemorating his last match in charge sold for £9k (approx $11.5k):

https://bidlive.grahambuddauctions.c...7-b17101781c24


The bottle commemorating the 2019 Champions League semi-final second leg match vs Barcelona when they famously overcame a 3-0 first leg deficit sold for almost as much, at £8k.



Probably even worse ‘investments’ than most modern cards.

[YayNJ]

That's more absurd than Klopps teeth that emit pure sunlight.

[gomiamigo]

I've been slowly adding mid-high level Messi cards all at lower than near-past prices. I do think some people are panic-selling soccer.

[mfw13]

Originally Posted by cardshopmd

Honestly the soccer card market is dead. I use to make a good living breaking cases and selling singles on eBay and now if I am lucky when I run 500 items in the auction I might sell 20. I have never seen things this bad in my life.

That's because you're a middle-man....and middle-men are the first to get squeezed out in any market contraction.

The soccer card market is only "dead" when compared to the level of activity during the pandemic bubble. If you compare it to activity levels during 2017/18/19, it's about the same as always.

The difference is that Panini and Topps have ramped up production and are releasing far more products (and at far higher prices) than collectors are interested in buying.

It all depends on your time frame and perspective....

[dubsea]

I work in the bicycle industry where we saw a similar boom during the pandemic. It's pretty standard now for the bean-counters to be ignoring 2020-2023 and comparing numbers to the last "normal" year - 2019.

I collected cards as a kid and am now just getting back into it with my soccer crazed kid. Im sure glad im getting in now and not during the pandemic years when things were unrealistically inflated.

At the end of the day, soccer cards are no different than any other supply/demand marketplace. One thing Im amazed by getting back into the hobby is the sheer number of different product releases for any given card brand (but Topps seems to be a particularly egregious offender). The constant releases fuel the breaker biz because it gets everyone hyped for a few weeks on release X until the next one drops. The value of recent release singles seems to peak right after release and then crash once the interest has moved on to the next release. After that, all but a few chase rookies and mega stars are basically worthless.

I cant help but get the impression that production and print runs are thru the roof because of this model and we are seeing a repeat of the late 80's / early 90's. You can go a day without seeing multiple different 1/1's pulled and plastered all over the interwebs. 1/1's for EVERYONE!!!

One of the reasons I like Futura aside from the clean looks is that it seems like more of a fringe product that might not be seeing these crazy high print runs. That said, it's clear a lot of people don't like it because the value of even some of the bigger player singles is a fraction of topps/panini. Maybe im way off base there. Seems like if you are in it to make $ as opposed to enjoying the hobby and collecting, things are pretty rough right now.

[DCUnited96]

Relevance matters

Using Germany as an example (going with what I collect)

Panini:

Only three of the nine Germans in 23-24 Donruss are on the Euro roster

I don't see any products on the horizon for the Euros

Topps:

Bundesliga Chrome hasn't been released. The season is over.

Soccer is seasonal. Products need to capitalize on hope and magic of the season.

Player selection has always been suspect, but even worse since they decided to focus on teenagers.

Maximilian Mittelstädt is on the Euro roster. Brilliant season. He has no major cards and he may have fewer stickers or Match Attax than anybody with 199 senior level appearances).

[tupacgr13]

Originally Posted by DCUnited96

Relevance matters

Using Germany as an example (going with what I collect)

Panini:

Only three of the nine Germans in 23-24 Donruss are on the Euro roster

I don't see any products on the horizon for the Euros

Topps:

Bundesliga Chrome hasn't been released. The season is over.

Soccer is seasonal. Products need to capitalize on hope and magic of the season.

Player selection has always been suspect, but even worse since they decided to focus on teenagers.

Maximilian Mittelstädt is on the Euro roster. Brilliant season. He has no major cards and he may have fewer stickers or Match Attax than anybody with 199 senior level appearances).

I had the same observation. There are some players who they are really good and they have very very low population of cards. Simme Vrsaljko(now retired) and Mkhitaryan have been 2 players I recently checked. Ok there not the best names in the market but they have their fans.

[mfw13]

The reality is that Topps/Fanatics neither understands soccer card collectors, nor cares enough to learn about them.

Soccer is unique among sports because the stars are scattered across a variety of leagues in a variety of countries, which reduces demand for single-league products that only contain SOME stars. So while there is little enough demand for even one Serie A/Bundesliga/La Liga product per year right now, there is virtually no demand for 3-4 Serie A/Bundesliga/La Liga products each year, especially if they get released after the end of the season when players have already started to transfer.

The only products that come close to having most of the best players are CHampions League products and World Cup products, but even then, the manufacturers have failed to understand that collectors want A LOT MORE retired player content than they are getting.

[Peter Days]

I am not so accustomed to high end market of football cards. I saw a Futera Viktor Gyökeres sold for a lot on Ebay, was over 30k euros. Is the player a big name for the future? Also this year I noticed Topps called it his rookie card but strange he never had any cards before this season.

[YayNJ]

Welcome to fake auctions, brother. I've noticed he's the latest hot thing to pump and dump in groups.

.. also should point out, that anyone piling any amounts of cash into a 26 year old 'rookie' that's only performed at the second tier of English and German football, and the dire Portuguese league is setting fire to money.

[yiguiri2002]

Originally Posted by YayNJ

Outside of the big teams, the standard is bad. The middle on par with the Turkish or Greek league. The flotsam at the bottom of the league wouldn’t look out of place even lower than that. Some games see less than a 1000 people in attendance. To put that in perspective, that's similar to the sixth tier in England.

Only five teams have ever won the Portuguese League in the past 86 years, and out of that five, one of them have only done it once, 70 years ago.

Granted it’s been a few years since I attended a game in Portugal, but not much has changed.

.. and less of the personal abuse Captain Keyboard.

That's pretty much every league outside the Top 5.

[mfw13]

Originally Posted by yiguiri2002

That's pretty much every league outside the Top 5.

That's pretty much every league outside of the EPL and Serie A.

Nobody outside of Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Atletico Madrid (twice) have won La Liga in the past twenty years.

Bayern Munich has dominated the Bundesliga for the past decade, although that seems to be waning. PSG has dominated Ligue Un, although that may change with Mbappe's departure.

[fadster]

I do think Gyokeres is a trap transfer for someone waiting to happen. His goals this season in Portugal are probably more due to situation rather than talent. He has a physical edge there that he would not have in the Premier League for example, which was also exposed so to some extent against Atalanta. I'm not sure how he'd do against the low blocks he'd face playing in a top team against other strong teams, he feasted in Portugal on overmatched opposition who leave lot's of space for him.

I think he's an interesting signing for Spurs or West Ham, but not sure he fits any of the bigger sides, and certainly not anywhere near his buyout clause.

[yiguiri2002]

Originally Posted by mfw13

That's pretty much every league outside of the EPL and Serie A.

Nobody outside of Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Atletico Madrid (twice) have won La Liga in the past twenty years.

Bayern Munich has dominated the Bundesliga for the past decade, although that seems to be waning. PSG has dominated Ligue Un, although that may change with Mbappe's departure.

I was talking about the first part. Middle of the table and bottom teams in some of these leagues are not very good.

[YayNJ]

Originally Posted by yiguiri2002

I was talking about the first part. Middle of the table and bottom teams in some of these leagues are not very good.

Indeed, but the bottom of La Liga, EPL, and the top of the Championship (second division) etc are lightyears ahead of the majority of clubs that make up the numbers in leagues such as the Portuguese League, Turkey, Austria.

as an aside, this was an actual stadium of a top flight Portuguese side until recently

[Mitch]

Originally Posted by Peter Days

I am not so accustomed to high end market of football cards. I saw a Futera Viktor Gyökeres sold for a lot on Ebay, was over 30k euros. Is the player a big name for the future? Also this year I noticed Topps called it his rookie card but strange he never had any cards before this season.

I'm convinced this was some sort of f**kery. 4 feedback account sale or something too.

[mfw13]

Not hugely shocking, but China were held to a home draw by Thailand and now are highly likely to not even make it out of the second round of WC qualifying, which would be a new low for them.

China is three points ahead of Thailand in the standings going into the final round, but play away to South Korea in their final match, while Thailand host Singapore.