Base Cards in The Soccer Card Market | Their Role in the Past, Present, and Future

[@soccercardcollector999]

Top soccer channel! Keep up the good work.

[@SoccerCardCorner]

Great point on easy-to-understand parallels being the best play. Many participants -- especially new ones -- focus on base because of lower entry point and straightforward nature (I was guilty of this as well). I do agree, however, that there's a strong case to be made for paying up for a purple, blue, green, etc. if it will mean more long-term value. Nice combination of rarity and historical significance. Appreciate the insights. Great stuff!

[@jamescardsfc]

You're welcome! Like you say, the more easily understandable the better. It's already hard for experienced market participants to understand the rarity of things like "lava", "star ball", "carbon", "bubbles", etc. It's just impossible for a casual participant. True colors that are numbered I think are the best option for now. I have a video on that topic coming out soon.

[@SoccerCardCorner]

Definitely agree. Every time I'm looking at different Topps Chrome parallels, for example, I just go back to the 2017 Topps Chrome UEFA and target one of those parallels. Looking forward to the upcoming vid.

[@kranfisportscards9690]

Great points of view. 👍🏻

[@jamescardsfc]

Appreciate it!

[@shangyuanni3578]

Fantastic video and makes a lot of sense. Just wanna note a point that we cannot ignore some of the base cards released maybe few years earlier. For instance, I will say that it is wise buy some of 2014 wc prizm messi & Ronaldo match-up base cards. What’s your opinion bro

[@jamescardsfc]

Yeah like I said towards the end of the video, I think 2014 World Cup Prizm's base numbers in the long run could look quite small compared to some of the numbers from current years. If any modern product is going to have base cards worth something in the long run, it looks like it should be 2014 World Cup Prizm.

[@oj9791]

What about like mbappe wc prizm rookie, wouldn't that hold value because its his first one although its only his base

[@jamescardsfc]

Possible in the future, but for now we are in a "wait-and-see" period in my opinion because we are still waiting on the PSA 10 population to finish being graded. Once the backlog clears on those cards, they could be in a nice position for recovery.

[@shipleypestsolutions]

@@jamescardsfc PSA has cleared their backlog at this point. I think we may see a pop increase around World Cup, especially if France makes a deep run. I think his WC Prizm base (PSA/SGC 10) will be fine long run due to it being his first national kit and Word Cup having such a spotlight on it, particularly MBappe who may have another 3-4? Appearances left ?🤷‍♂️

[@ancient_cards2426]

Thank you for your valuable and interesting content. What do you think about the "All-star Rookie" Trophy on the soccer cards for the second-year players? Do you think this could make these cards more valuable in the following years? Could such a card be a cheaper option than an original rookie card but more valuable than a base card?

[@jamescardsfc]

Appreciate it! So usually when thinking about things like "how will this subset of cards do in the future?" I would look to examples from other sports, since their markets are much more defined. So baseball does the exact same "All Star Rookie" trophy cards for 2nd year players. Unless it is a very special case, like Juan Soto who had very very few rookie cards produced, the 2nd year cards trade at a massive discount compared to the rookies. And this makes logical sense, especially in the ultra modern market where production counts are huge. Let's use Jude Bellingham as an example: Jude is in both the Topps Chrome Bundesliga and Topps Chrome UEFA sets for 2020. He now also has the trophy card for 2021. Since rookies will be valued over the 2nd year trophy card, that means you have 50+ different variations of Jude Bellingham Topps Chrome cards that will hold value over the 2nd year trophy. That in total could amount to something like 5,000+ numbered cards alone. And that's not even including sets like Merlin, Stadium Club, Finest, etc. which are all rookies, and will all probably be preferred over the trophy card. So in summary: I think there's way too many rookie options for the 2nd year trophy cards to hold significant value. And even if your hypothesis is "the soccer card market will 10x in size in the future, so the 2nd year trophy cards will eventually have value", you're way better off targeting the rookies in this scenario, since they will receive a much greater % of the demand. I know it's boring, but I believe the best course of action based on what we understand about the market today, is to just target the obvious Topps Chrome and Sapphire rookie cards. There's just too much other stuff imo. A full video on this topic will be out later this week.

[@ancient_cards2426]

@@jamescardsfc Thank you for your feedback. I absolutely agree. In my opinion, there are too many products and hobby boxes to satisfy the demand. I am focusing on two or three target rookies per season and their numbereds and autos. I collected in the past and started again two years ago, but a lot has changed since then, especially the prices for a hobby box.