Potential Worth of Soccer Cards as Market Grows

[jswek]

Originally Posted by Akphillips86

My honest 2 cents from someone that both buys and sells to put money into other things that aren’t cards (kids, house projects, keeping my wife happy with my trading card hobby) Full transparency here, I have nothing to hide...

I underestimated how fast and how much the prices would rise in the short term. I sold both Mbappe and Sancho way too soon because I thought their prices were going to plateau well before this. I love their potential, but not enough to miss out on grabbing some great Messi and CR7 cards with the profits. I stashed a couple just for insurance, but sold a blue Sancho refractor for $450 and an Mbappe Refractor for $350. Thought I was doing well haha.

The soccer market is just finding its legs. Right now the rise is meteoric and it will settle at some point, but it’s far from settling. It could realistically spike again with more fervor if card collecting increases sharply in other countries where soccer is king. I think this is likely to happen at some point in the near future as well.

Other players will start to see some trickle down effect soon, (Pulisic, Salah, Neymar, Kane etc.) but just a small bump on rarer stuff and rookies, nothing like the spike we just witnessed.

Prospecting will heat up on players from investors speculating on the next Mbappe or Sancho. Vinicius and Havertz are likely to rise in value next. Chrome releases of Haaland, Reyna, and eventually Camavinga are going to be HOT.

Soccer is also incredibly fun to watch and I think as it comes back on TV and people start watching their hobby investments, the interest will actually snowball.

At some point, the soccer naysayers will just have to admit defeat, but that probably won’t be anytime soon


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Agreed. Soccer cards were extremely undervalued for a long time likely due to some combination of its lack of history and the general lack of interest in soccer from the American market. Compared to trading cards of the Big Four, large scale production of soccer cards was a far more recent development. While chromium refractor cards were first developed and gained popularity in the early 90s, it took more than 20 years for the first widespread release of soccer refractor cards in Prizm World Cup 2014. Considering soccer is, by far, the most popular sport in the world, this is incredible.

The soccer card market is developing rapidly, but probably still has significant catching up to do. For reference, the most expensive recorded sale of a Pop 5 PSA 9 1958 Alifabolaget 635, the highest graded example of the most desirable rookie card of the greatest soccer player ever, was for $57000 in November of 2018. Now, contrast that with prices of the rookie cards of the greatest athletes in other sports. Be that is it may, unfortunately, chances are that the days of sub-$1000 cases for the most popular soccer products are already behind us.