Potential Worth of Soccer Cards as Market Grows

[cardshopmd]

Originally Posted by mfw13

Well, that's what happens when the only people ripping soccer are in China

And if nobody is ripping, then there are no singles for the secondary market!

My theory is that all the gamblers/breakers/flippers who were ripping soccer have now moved on to Pokemon, which is apparently very hot right now.

And given that roughly 90% of all soccer products being released are overpriced, nobody else is opening anything....

overpriced The wholesale case pricing is insane. The market is dead and yet they keep driving prices up I just don't get it. Its almost like they are trying to cover their losses from the case pricing. The economy is not doing well at all. That is not helping us as a seller at all.

[cardshopmd]

Originally Posted by mfw13

Well, that's what happens when the only people ripping soccer are in China

And if nobody is ripping, then there are no singles for the secondary market!

My theory is that all the gamblers/breakers/flippers who were ripping soccer have now moved on to Pokemon, which is apparently very hot right now.

And given that roughly 90% of all soccer products being released are overpriced, nobody else is opening anything....

Here is another thing that is killing the market
eBay now runs a Marquee Auction that is taking buyers away from sellers on its site and they are bidding on the Marquee Auction that the items are sitting in the eBay vault. Now you can buy items and have it sent out to PSA for grading and eBay will place your card in the Vault.

[gomiamigo]

How does that hurt the market, I honestly do not understand...it's just a different form of eBay auction right?

[cardshopmd]

Originally Posted by gomiamigo

How does that hurt the market, I honestly do not understand...it's just a different form of eBay auction right?

It takes the money off of regular eBay auctions and keeps it in the premium auction. You are not talking pennies, you talking about tens of millions of dollars. Ever since eBay started Premium auctions sales have dropped, Once you go in to the premium auction site of eBay that is all you see.

[mfw13]

Originally Posted by cardshopmd

It takes the money off of regular eBay auctions and keeps it in the premium auction. You are not talking pennies, you talking about tens of millions of dollars. Ever since eBay started Premium auctions sales have dropped, Once you go in to the premium auction site of eBay that is all you see.

I think that depends on what you're selling.

Investors and slabheads may be attracted to "EBay Premium Auctions"....but most collectors couldn't care less.

[YayNJ]

'investors'

I wonder how many of those are doing.. that were spending thousands of James Maddison cards.

[cardshopmd]

Originally Posted by mfw13

I think that depends on what you're selling.

Investors and slabheads may be attracted to "EBay Premium Auctions"....but most collectors couldn't care less.

You are correct it does depend on what your selling. right now with soccer unless your giving it a way you lucky if you can get $1 for a common autograph

[gomiamigo]

To be fair common autos in all sports you're lucky to get $1.

I also do not understand how money is 'kept' in the premium auction. Surely the sellers are free to spend their $$$ buying cards anywhere on and offline...?

[cardshopmd]

Originally Posted by gomiamigo

To be fair common autos in all sports you're lucky to get $1.

I also do not understand how money is 'kept' in the premium auction. Surely the sellers are free to spend their $$$ buying cards anywhere on and offline...?

I use to get $1.99 for non chrome autos and $1.99 for chrome autos $2.99 for anything with a color Now nothing is selling on eBay's site it seems. I use to have no problem selling complete sets, player lots and insert sets

Now I am sitting on thousands of sets , I have player lots between 50 to 200 of each player. I use to break 10 to 100 cases of a product depending on if i wanted to do a master set for myself.

After the fire at my house and my eBay inventory was removed Its just not worth my time to relist it and research the prices anymore. Thank god the only room in the house not damaged by the fire was my office, Because my insurance would have never cover it.

[YayNJ]

sold for just under $400,000.

I don't even know where to begin. Sticker Auto.

[dubsea]

Also, look at the size of the red boarder on the right compared to the left.....yet it got a 10 for being that off center.

[YayNJ]

Weird, the picture of the Yamal has been removed?

[Mrpokey]

As someone who isn’t a soccer fan but decided to buy a few cards years ago. 5 years ago Jadon Sancho? He was one of the top chases then and a star in the making. Now he’s literally worthless. What’s the story with him?

[YayNJ]

Originally Posted by Mrpokey

As someone who isn’t a soccer fan but decided to buy a few cards years ago. 5 years ago Jadon Sancho? He was one of the top chases then and a star in the making. Now he’s literally worthless. What’s the story with him?

Manchester United ruined him, and a bad attitude.

[cardshopmd]

Originally Posted by YayNJ

Manchester United ruined him, and a bad attitude.

A bad attitude. Will ruin almost every pro soccer player. When you get on a decent team, work with the program they have in place or your career will end just as fast as it got started When his has no place else to go he will end up in the MLS or USL or even worse Playing Professional Indoor soccer and making $2,500 a Month for a short 6 moth season.( No the number is not a typo )

[mfw13]

Originally Posted by YayNJ

Manchester United ruined him, and a bad attitude.

I think that's a bit simplistic.

It's more that he simply turned out not to be as good as the hype made you believe....which is the reality for most young players.

Lots of players can be good for a month or two, or even a season or two.

A lot fewer can be consistently good for 5-10 years.

[BiggNuttz]

I was just wondering if anyone on the boards had attended the NSCC or the Soco Expo and had any feedback or thoughts on the state of the soccer card market?

I saw something about a 2018 Messi Green Kaboom sale for $1,200,000 (!!) and Goldin touting a "Record High" sale of a 71BIS for $825,000. Seems like an awful lot of hype and a not so subtle attempt at pushing market prices higher.

Thanks in advance for anyone who has comments.

[mfw13]

Originally Posted by BiggNuttz

I was just wondering if anyone on the boards had attended the NSCC or the Soco Expo and had any feedback or thoughts on the state of the soccer card market?

I saw something about a 2018 Messi Green Kaboom sale for $1,200,000 (!!) and Goldin touting a "Record High" sale of a 71BIS for $825,000. Seems like an awful lot of hype and a not so subtle attempt at pushing market prices higher.

Thanks in advance for anyone who has comments.

I don't think there is a soccer card "market", per se....

Flippers and investors are flipping and investing.....but collectors have been largely priced out of current releases.

I can count the number of soccer cards I've bought this year on one hand....

Waiting for the 25-26 UCL products, since they'll have Newcastle cards in them again....

[mikee1186]

High end soccer is wild. Everything else is subpar.

[Torro]

Id stay away from high-end "soccer", feels like manipulated or flippers selling to flippers. Everything is ultra modern and there is too much "rare" low numbered stuff, and they will keep printing more and more each year.

But I do enjoy "low-end" stuff, like Topps chrome / Merlin / Stadium club / Finest rookie refractors, these cost almost nothing, even the gold refractors are very affordable. Same goes for Prizm, Select and Mosaic. Been collecting Cole Palmer and Yamal for the past year with my son and its been an awesome hobby experience for both of us, and very affordable as well

[yiguiri2002]

I've barely picked up any soccer boxes this year. Pretty much all I've opened are boxes I already had. Just bought some retail that was decent priced and that's it.

There's more PC stuff so I've been picking up cards but boxes are a different story.

[YayNJ]

^^ a lot of the 'high' end that's listed these days is at completely unrealistic prices.. like thousands over what it's worth in a lot cases. It's just so messed up. I question how much of it actually moves at all.

[dubsea]

If you look at card ladder stats, soccer as a whole is way up this year and doing better than any other major sport. HOWEVER, I would be very very curious to see what some of their indexes look like once you remove Messi and Yamal. The Yamal pump alone has to have moved that needle in a major major way. The fact that he has just about 1 million different rookie cards commanding ridiculous prices is insane. Mid to high end Messi moving up notably also is likely to be driving up that index on its on.

From what Ive seen, beyond ultra high end, yamal, messi and high end goat cards, most of the stuff Ive got (PreMo, and a few ultra modern) has seen modest increases.

I think the big question is - Does the high end hype + the WC incoming result in the any sort of trickle down or collectors that stay in the soccer space after the pump? Of course whenever the flippers see blood in the water, they chum chum chum away so Id be pretty conservative buying cards that have seen a big bump YTD. I certainly would not touch anything Yamal with a 10ft stick. Ive sold all but one of my Yamal cards and that one I have left will be going up for sale after it comes back from PSA.

One thing I will say that feels positive is that it seems SOCCER itself is growing in the US and that is good for the collecting space. My 10YO son started playing in the "more serious" local league 2 years ago. at that time, they barely had enough kids to field a full team. This year, there were 65+ 10YO kids at tryouts.

[YayNJ]

You don't have to answer if you don't wish, as it's private, but are you paying to have your son be on the team? We've got so many family and friends back in the US that are paying through the nose for their kids to be on teams and it's frankly scandalous.

Back in the UK is largely free. Academies of all ages associated with any football club will be completely free. Local grass roots clubs are all but free, you generally contribute a 'sub', but there's a growing number of academies being set up, many by ex-footballers that promise the earth and charge it too - most of them are dogdirt.

So many kids getting priced out of the game. So many parents getting taken advantage of.

[mikee1186]

Originally Posted by YayNJ

You don't have to answer if you don't wish, as it's private, but are you paying to have your son be on the team? We've got so many family and friends back in the US that are paying through the nose for their kids to be on teams and it's frankly scandalous.

Back in the UK is largely free. Academies of all ages associated with any football club will be completely free. Local grass roots clubs are all but free, you generally contribute a 'sub', but there's a growing number of academies being set up, many by ex-footballers that promise the earth and charge it too - most of them are dogdirt.

So many kids getting priced out of the game. So many parents getting taken advantage of.

That’s the way it is here. Pay to play is the model and I don’t see it changing. I live in a fairly large metro area and there’s no option for even moderately quality soccer for my kids. There are 2 primary clubs that are constantly vying against each other to be the top dog, and then a few very small other clubs around.

I know of some areas where, for example, folks are okay with higher property taxes in return for a more robust parks and rec program. But that is the exception.

I wouldn’t say we are getting taken advantage of as parents because we know the cost is high when we sign up. For lots of reasons, we hold our noses and choose to do it with eyes open. But it is appalling still. And this model certainly contributes to the low quality of soccer that we typically see at the highest levels here, since we are limiting the player pool so drastically.