PSA 9 Alifabolaget Pele Sells for $57,000
 

Yesterday Heritage sold a PSA 9 Alifabolaget Pele rookie for $57,000 USD. Heritage put an estimate at $60,000 USD and the auction house almost got that price for it. If Heritage had put the estimate at $100,000 USD, then do you think the price would have gone higher? I do.

I also want to point out that this auction house sold a PSA 8.5 example for $26,400 USD over the summer. I used to be the owner of the PSA 8.5 card and the guy I sold it to took a huge risk by listing it auction-style, so I'm happy that he made profit. The PSA 8 Quigol also belonged to him. And finally, I wouldn't be surprised if the PSA 9 Alifabolaget was his card as well. He sure did make a killing, but like I said, it takes a lot of guts to spend thousands of dollars and then list your stuff auction-style.

That's for sure. I got slaughtered on my consignment, huge loss.

I was pretty surprised it sold.

If I remember correctly, the auction was hovering around $20-25K when the reserve was announced at $47.5K (w/o BP) and got no action until last night.

I'm hope the consigner was happy with the hammer price and the buyer got a tremendous card but I'm still not sure there's a market to hold up these crazy prices for the non-big 4 sports, i.e. these last three Pele cards along with the Cassius Clay earlier this year at Heritage and the Bobby Jones Lambert in PWCC that approached $20,000.

I don't know about the Quigol and Alifabolaget 8.5, but you obviously mitigate some of the risk with an auction when you put on a reserve price.

That is crazy $$$$$
 

Wow, I can't believe that it sold for that much!!! Part of me is really kicking myself for not buying high-grade Pele rookies and instead working to collect one of each Pele issued.

Oh well, hopefully a rising tide lifts all boats and I will do just fine. Plus, I really enjoy the collecting aspect of it and that was what I decided this hobby was for me, fun and not only an investment.

I wasn't aware that he had a reserve price on his cards. Either way, we still have to give this guy credit for thinking outside the box. When most collectors were going nuts over cards from the big-4 sports, this guy meanwhile was putting his money into boxing, soccer, etc. He is rolling around in money now.

Not if he put it into boxing...I did that and I am rolling in losses right now.

Adam, he bought the waterfront cards in top grade.

And why didn't you put a reserve on your stuff?

That Pele is killing me - I had my PSA 9 Alifa listed on this board at $5K in 2015 and nearly got laughed off the board, though I did end up selling it for $5K via another venue. A couple of people told me that was probably the highest sale price for a soccer card ever!

And this happened - ouch. Can I have a mulligan please?!

Yeah... right?
 

I am shocked that these cards are going for these prices. It feels to me that the thinly traded cards are being bid up by some people who just do not know much about soccer cards. Which is great if you are trying to sell a high grade rookie card (the prices seem disproportionately distributed to the highly graded copies), but I can definitely see the bottom falling out of this price up-tick.

I am not saying that it will happen (we could be on a Ruth rookie trajectory), but I would not be surprised if things didn't come back to earth after these "collectors" or "investors" move on to something else.

At the time that $5k was outrageous for a PSA 9 Pele, I picked up at PSA 8.5 for under $2k.... so boy have times changed... that is for sure.

I have said for quite some time that the ALFIA Pele rookie is his best (due to the dating issue of the Quigol).

Anyway.... WOW is the comment for the day!

The Exhibits?
 

Adam,

You took the loss on the exhibits?

It seems to me that boxing has made a bit of a comeback in the last few years in general. Do you not feel that that is the case more broadly (excepting your consignment)?

I want to add something else to this thread:

I think this PSA 9 Alifabolaget Pele is the highest price ever paid for a soccer card. However, when it comes to popularity, this card ranks in second place (below the Quigol). A PSA 9 Quigol would probably fetch $100,000+ PSA hasn't handed out this grade yet, but I can see it happening soon.

That's about right, Al.

And yeah, I took the loss. I was hoping for a gain but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

"Waterfront cards"? Not ringing a bell. is that a set?

I didn't put on a reserve for a variety of reasons including needing to cash out for other endeavors.

I was curious about the waterfront cards, as well.

Arthur

Are you guys asking me to name you all the waterfront cards or are you asking me to define it? If you use the search feature on top of the page, then you will see lots of threads where collectors frequently use this term. This term probably originated on this forum. :)

Waterfront Cards
 

I would assume a "waterfront" card is a real estate reference, correct?

Real estate near a lake or ocean goes for a premium so a waterfront card would be a 1 of 1, highest graded, PSA 10, etc. of an iconic athlete. Just my guess.

I think someone meant to use watershed and instead used waterfront and it just stuck.

Arthur

You got it, my friend.

So a collector going after the waterfront cards would add a well-centered PSA 7.5 Roberto Clemente RC, a strong PSA 5 T206 (green background) Ty Cobb, PSA 8 Wilt Chamberlain RC, PSA 7 1951 Parkhurst Gordie Howe RC, etc.

Another thing I want to point out is that not all waterfront cards are rookies. A 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth is not a rookie, and neither is the 59/60 Quigol Pele :)

Actually, I think the term is a bastardized version of "beachfront", which is why I didn't understand it. The waterfront is usually a lousy area of industrial docks and logistics stuff. Beachfront is desirable residential.

Apologies for drumming up an ancient post but I thought it relevant. This month, the aforementioned Pele RC at a "meager" PSA 6, sold through PWCC for 175k. Unreal.

I try to avoid the destructive hindsight thinking about cards I have passed on, but hard not to in the face of sales like this.

As you know, Peter, you can talk to yours truly, who sold a PSA 9 Alifa Pele in January 2015 for $5K and got so many pats on the back for finding a buyer at such an insane price.

OUCH.