World Record Prices for Soccer Cards!

[aljurgela]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

The thing that strikes me about your post, Al, besides the good analysis, is that all of the countries listed except Brazil were stable, Western, first-world democracies at the time of issue of these cards and have basically remained that way since. Brazil was a developing country with substantial political instability over the decades. Big populace but poor. Perhaps that difference has something to do with it.

Big populace, but poor. Absolutely the case. However, you have seen these cards? They are slightly more than paper and must have been extremely cheap to make.. why? Because even the poor could afford them. That is my hypothesis. I am not 100% sure, but that is my thought. Still whatever the numbers, they will pale in comparison to the number of 1950's Topps baseball cards... I just think that there will be substantially more found when/if word gets out of the value and the TPGs continue to grade them. It is still shocking to me that the VAV number is so low. Significantly more scarce than I have expected prior to researching the population reports.

[Ulidia]

Originally Posted by aljurgela

I just think that there will be substantially more found when/if word gets out of the value and the TPGs continue to grade them. It is still shocking to me that the VAV number is so low.

This is an important point. I have almost zero knowledge of cards but the more traditional soccer collectibles were incredibly hard to find from Southern and Central America through the 1980s and 1990s which was frustrating for collectors due to the World Cups being held in Uruguay in 1930, Brazil in 1950 and Chile in 1962.

Items such as programs and tickets from those tournaments were incredibly hard to find and when they did come up for auction, commandes high prices.

However, a number of high profile auctions (esp. by Sothebys in London in Q4 1999 which included one of the two finest collections of 1930 World Cup memorabilia) helped to highlight the money that could be made from such items. The result over the subsequent two decades has been a deluge of memorabilia from these regions and focused on these World Cup - some of the memorabilia has been high quality, some low quality and much is fake (esp early poster and tickets).

The net result, unsurprisingly, has been a sharp drop in prices, with the fake items leading to contagion in terms of prices realised for even the very good items with solid provenance.

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by aljurgela

Big populace, but poor. Absolutely the case. However, you have seen these cards? They are slightly more than paper and must have been extremely cheap to make.. why? Because even the poor could afford them. That is my hypothesis. I am not 100% sure, but that is my thought. Still whatever the numbers, they will pale in comparison to the number of 1950's Topps baseball cards... I just think that there will be substantially more found when/if word gets out of the value and the TPGs continue to grade them. It is still shocking to me that the VAV number is so low. Significantly more scarce than I have expected prior to researching the population reports.

The stock makes card survival even less likely. Look at the paper Cuban issues. A Montiel that isn’t near trashed is rare.

I am sure more will emerge. That has been the case with my beloved Argentinean boxing issues. When sellers realized there’s a US market for the cards they started selling on eBay and now you can find the more common issues regularly.

[aljurgela]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

The stock makes card survival even less likely. Look at the paper Cuban issues. A Montiel that isn’t near trashed is rare.

I am sure more will emerge. That has been the case with my beloved Argentinean boxing issues. When sellers realized there’s a US market for the cards they started selling on eBay and now you can find the more common issues regularly.

Agree with you that survival in good condition is near impossible, but if housed in the album, I think that many will make it. Noticed the same thing for the Argentine soccer cards. They are more available, but still very tough to get.