Topps Sapphire Soccer

[WHyFLy]

Originally Posted by Vinniebrasco

Knowing nothing about soccer, sold 1 box for 500, opened the other.
Got a haaland which I sold already

Joao Felix image variation
Kane /25
Ismaily /99
Decent base lewandowski and pulisic
Rc of douglas Santos, junuzovic, kang-in Lee, Abraham, Driussi, Okugawa
Future stars of Vinicius and Davies
Be willing to offload everything except the Kane /25 bulk to someone as I have no desire to post and ship individually.

I mean if you are looking to move these cheap, I will take a price on the entire lot or if willing to break up on the Lee, Abraham, and Davies

[psumac]

Originally Posted by reddragonthe

I think someone that does a ton of volume and is ok with lower margins on returns, grading currently works if you have the time to wait for a sub to return.

But I think most people are pointing out why for many, the reality is much less exciting than the theoretical. And that the future is at least a risky one with the volume going to grade now. I believe we are moving into a "junk slab" era. Everyone saw what happened to things like the Trout topps RC and then some of the basketball base rookies so now EVERYTHING goes to slab. This is creating an incredible amount of new volume. I mention the Messi 18 World Cup base a lot and that went from like 17 PSA graded copies in May 2020 to 600+ today... and it's going up pretty rapidly now that everyone's basements were raided for their base cards in July after the price spiked and PSA got through those bulk subs.

With PSA getting tougher on grades, too, the days of 80% blind submissions of 10s is over. So someone not paying a lot of attention can quickly get back not just cheap cards slabbed 10s... but a lot of cheap cards slabbed lower than that. Let's take the Pulisic example...

Currently sells for: $20 (I expect this to be </=$10 within 3 months - but this is the theoretical return now)

His 17-18 Chrome "RC" or "First Chrome" depending on your perspective can be had for <$10 raw... but it isn't blue with a fragmented pattern... but find me a comparable situation where there 3rd year sapphire sells for more than their 1st year in any previous sapphire release in baseball...

Cost for grading: $20 (through someone like Jewcer)

Turnaround time: 5 months

PSA 10 Price in June: $60 (just for a number - seems reasonable)

PSA 9 Price in June: $10 (raw value)

PSA 8 or below Price in June: $10 (assuming you put a Min-9 on it so back to raw)

My guess on a random 20 card submission of these Pulisic cards:

PSA 10 - 5
PSA 9 - 10
PSA 8 or below - 5

"Today" you could sell these for: $400

In 5 months you could sell these for: $450 (but you paid $400 to get them slabbed - so $50 profit)

If you just pretend these WON'T go down and DOUBLE the return for both raw and slabbed... you get a WHOPPING $100 more than selling raw for $400 for taking the risk of submission and the time to do it.

To me, you are betting a lot on your eye to get a 10. And you are betting on the market to continue at the same pace as the week the product is released for a guy on their 3rd year card. I love Pulisic. I have a lot of faith that US soccer cards have a lot of potential given how gullible we can be for potential.

lol just assume that the value will double and then you'll obviously profit. why didn't everybody think of that?

[mnvikingstwins]

Gotta side with the negative nancies, grading isn't worth it you'll get 30% gem rate and lose money and it'll take 8-18 months

[reddragonthe]

Originally Posted by psumac

lol just assume that the value will double and then you'll obviously profit. why didn't everybody think of that?

Read it again. Didn't assume a double. Assumed it would stay the same value as it is now. Thereby "doubling" the original estimate that assumed it would drop to $10. But I appreciate your comment and thanks for (kind of) reading.

[notoriousrmb]

Originally Posted by mnvikingstwins

Gotta side with the negative nancies, grading isn't worth it you'll get 30% gem rate and lose money and it'll take 8-18 months

This.

Quit grading $20 cards. Seriously.

Just stop it.

[psumac]

Originally Posted by reddragonthe

Read it again. Didn't assume a double. Assumed it would stay the same value as it is now. Thereby "doubling" the original estimate that assumed it would drop to $10. But I appreciate your comment and thanks for (kind of) reading.

you're right, i was confused by statements like "If you just pretend these WON'T go down and DOUBLE the return for both raw and slabbed..."

still double your own stated personal expectation.

[orion9578]

I bought all of my boxes via eBay. 5 sellers, all 2 boxes each. This far in, I only have 1 shipped notice. Not sure if that's a bad sign or not yet, but it looks like I'll at least get 2 of the 10! Haha.

I'm going to hold out hope that all 10 get here. Plan is still to open 5 and "try" to keep 5 sealed for later. I rarely sell wax but if they get up high enough in a few years, maybe I will...maybe.

[jjeanius]

Hoping boxes dip to 400 again so I can buy some more. Hovering @ 450+\- now on eBay, but maybe there are some deals to be had privately

[jeff24k]

Originally Posted by orion9578

I bought all of my boxes via eBay. 5 sellers, all 2 boxes each. This far in, I only have 1 shipped notice. Not sure if that's a bad sign or not yet, but it looks like I'll at least get 2 of the 10! Haha.

I'm going to hold out hope that all 10 get here. Plan is still to open 5 and "try" to keep 5 sealed for later. I rarely sell wax but if they get up high enough in a few years, maybe I will...maybe.

I've actually received shipping notices on 7 of my 14 via eBay. Although one has already told me that the plastic wrap has big holes on the side .. so I guess I am ripping those. Hopefully not all of them are like that.

[WHyFLy]

Originally Posted by jeff24k

I've actually received shipping notices on 7 of my 14 via eBay. Although one has already told me that the plastic wrap has big holes on the side .. so I guess I am ripping those. Hopefully not all of them are like that.

I received a tracking on mine, I will see if there is a hole on mine or not. It will determine whether I rip or hold.

[Ianhatcher]

I have shipping confirmation on 14 of my 18 I bought on Ebay all between $250-475 and I plan on ripping all of it but 1-2 I'll keep for my sealed collection most likely. Weirdly it's the higher end ones that haven't shipped so I'm ok with that atm lol

I'd be surprised if boxes go down much especially with what looks to be another stimulus check coming in the USA. If they pass the $2k check things are going to boom again across the board imo.

[psochaps]

Ripped two more, Haaland in those. Maybe I’ll see a Fati in my final two boxes.

[netmasters]

Originally Posted by jeff24k

I've actually received shipping notices on 7 of my 14 via eBay. Although one has already told me that the plastic wrap has big holes on the side .. so I guess I am ripping those. Hopefully not all of them are like that.

The hole in the plastic is surely a thing I've seen going around. It does look like a factory hole if there is such a thing.

[87toppsproject]

Originally Posted by netmasters

The hole in the plastic is surely a thing I've seen going around. It does look like a factory hole if there is such a thing.

My two boxes from Topps were just delivered and upon opening I saw that both of them had a hole in the shrink wrap where a seam should be. They both on the same side of the boxes, one is bigger than the other.

[trendy26]

Originally Posted by 87toppsproject

My two boxes from Topps were just delivered and upon opening I saw that both of them had a hole in the shrink wrap where a seam should be. They both on the same side of the boxes, one is bigger than the other.

Noticed that with mine. Was planning to sell them sealed. Guess I’m glad they had the break in the wrap because my first box contained (2) Fati’s, with one of them being an Orange Parallel /50.....

[reddragonthe]

Originally Posted by mnvikingstwins

Gotta side with the negative nancies, grading isn't worth it you'll get 30% gem rate and lose money and it'll take 8-18 months

I'm not even a negative Nancy! My boxes arrive today and I can't WAIT to open them. I'm just not sending a $20 raw Pulisic into get graded.

[slogue2]

I enjoyed opening these a lot. I don't know much about soccer, but was able to pick out the big names. I posted my haul in the 582 thread, but figure it belongs here instead. 1 Haaland, 1 Fati, 3 Ronaldo (1 of which was the image variation), 2 Mbappe, 1 Virgil van Dijk image variation, 1 Trippier Orange /50, 1 Jonathan Tah Green /75, 1 Stankovic Green /75, and 1 Meret Future Stars Green /75. Already sold the Haaland for $500 and sent the Fati off to PSA this morning. A soccer pal told me that one should be held onto. Lots of fun to open for a sport I don't follow.

[DiamondDevil]

Originally Posted by netmasters

The hole in the plastic is surely a thing I've seen going around. It does look like a factory hole if there is such a thing.

Definitely. Both of my had the same issue. I sold one and let the buyer know. Fortunately the buyer understood. I was leaning towards sitting on my second, but this may push me to acting now.

[reddragonthe]

Originally Posted by DiamondDevil

Definitely. Both of my had the same issue. I sold one and let the buyer know. Fortunately the buyer understood. I was leaning towards sitting on my second, but this may push me to acting now.

They just did a shoddy job with the shrink wrapper on these. I'd bet it's endemic in a ton of them. I think buying them like it isn't SUPER risky - someone could replicate it but it feels like a reasonable amount of work and you'd have to be pretty damn good at extricating the box and then re-shrink wrapping.

[87toppsproject]

Originally Posted by 87toppsproject

My two boxes from Topps were just delivered and upon opening I saw that both of them had a hole in the shrink wrap where a seam should be. They both on the same side of the boxes, one is bigger than the other.

After posting I saw more than a few eBay listings with photos that included the partial opening of the seam. Rather than deal with any possibility of a return I opened both boxes.

First box had a Haaland base RC and few other decent cards.

Second box had decent cards, but both of my colored parallels (Yellow) were damaged. One had what looks like some fingerprints under the top coat and the other is a Future Stars Tammy Abraham with a 1/2" thick scratch smear from the top edge to the bottom edge. It's not a normal smear, but a legit deep scratch.

[reddragonthe]

Mine were hole-less (but you can see it was the b-team doing the shrink wrapping).

"average" 2 boxes - Haaland but no Fati. Variations were Felix and Ronaldo. 2 Denayer parallels. Felix (var) /99. Rodrigo /99.

Some of the same condition issues described by others on a few cards (though my parallels were clean). One other - the Ronaldo Variation had a corner that wasn't dinged or bent... but it's a bit like the laminate didn't take on the back part of the card so it's bubbled up - about half of the stock. Like you could peel the whole back off. Pinned it to the wall as punishment.

Tons of fun at $80. Would be a lot less fun at current prices. Excited to see where they go. $450 feels like it may be about right for a bit at current singles prices.

[ATLOTP]

Ripped my two. Fati, Haaland, Joao Variation, Messi Variation, 4 nunbered parallels. Sick!

[psochaps]

Originally Posted by ATLOTP

Ripped my two. Fati, Haaland, Joao Variation, Messi Variation, 4 nunbered parallels. Sick!

You WIN! Nice break 💥

[Mostown]

My two boxes got put on the Fed Ex truck for delivery... after waiting all day at 5:50pm it updated as "Delivery exception, driver requested delivery another day". He/She must have gotten tired. LOL

[mnvikingstwins]

Haaland purple /25 any good?