Welcome to Sports Cards Insider for January 25th, 2022 – FREE Version. Each week we give you the scoop on undervalued, mispriced and hidden gems in Alternative Investing.
As a reminder, here’s my view on sports cards sectors for 2022:
-All soccer especially vintage
-Vintage basketball
-Vintage football
-Hockey except for ultra blue chip
-Golf
-Tennis
-Modern basketball
Table of Contents
Sports Cards in 2022
Sports cards continue to look for a bottom in fractional markets as they slide negative for the first time in a year.
Last Week in Sports Cards
Fractional secondary markets
A week after tier-one sports showed some leadership with positive returns, all three (four) go negative. Boxing and soccer lead the way.
Five of six categories were up on last week’s Alt index with only soccer showing a slight decline .
Month on month results from CardLadder continue to trend positive with football showing the biggest gains — probably due to the NFT playoffs.
Auctions
PWCC’s Premier Auction ended over the weekend with a number of useful results. Results were mostly flat to down overall. These are the lots were were keeping a close eye on:
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- PWCC and Goldin have nearly identical 2000 Playoff Contenders Tom Brady BGS 8 cards on offer. PWCC’s copy, which ends sooner, is up to $650k while Goldin’s trails slightly at $540k. There’s a BGS 8.5 graded copy at Collectable with a market cap of $1.8m, down from an IPO of over $2.1m.
- Keep an eye on the 2009 Topps Chrome Stephen Curry refractor. Curry cards are up 40% over the last couple of months. CardLadder values it at $156k, and it’s already up to $180k at auction.
- There’s a slightly faded 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle PSA 7 that’s currently set at $180k. Collectable is IPO’ing a nicer PSA 7 this week for $299k.
- One more Pele then no more. Keep an eye on this 1958 Alifabolaget SGC 7.5 Pele rookie. This exact card sold for $145k at Goldin in April 2021. It’s up to $140k now. It will probably go for somewhere between $150k and $250k; where exactly it ends up could tell us a lot about both the market for Pele and the relative value of SGC to PSA for vintage soccer.
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The Brady rookie finished up at $1.3m, which was right in line with expectations. Another copy is at Goldin ending soon, so keep an eye on that.
Curry finished up at $228k, which was a significant gain over previous results. Curry continues to outperform.
The slightly faded Mantle finished up at $336k, which makes the recent IPO on Collectable look very good value.
The Pele rookie sold for smack in the middle of our estimates at $216k. The market for Pele (and vintage soccer) looks strong.
This Week
Assets dropping on marketplaces
Two IPOs this week, both from Collectable.
1948 Leaf #32 PSA 9 Warren Spahn
- Market Cap: $80k
- Inferred Value: $105k
- Date: 1/25/22 on Collectable
- Our View: [Insiders Only]
Duncan | Yao | Dirk 2006-’07 Exquisite Triple Logoman 1/1
- Market Cap: $163,500
- Inferred Value: $150k
- Date: 1/26/22 on Collectable
- Our View: [Insiders Only]
Auctions
OnlyAlt’s got another liquid auction going on this week, and it the quality and quantity of cards continues to increase. It’s like that many cards will finish in the mid- to high-five figures, and one or two may breach $100k. The source of some of these cards continues to be less-than-transparent, unfortunately, as several of them appear to have been purchased off eBay within the last month or two.
The problem with this:
- Alt uses the recent eBay sale to set the value on the card
- If it’s Alt themselves buying the cards, it’s probably not a true comp – the price is inflated
To be clear, I don’t know if it is Alt making the purchases, but it’s possible.
Two more massive auctions right now at Heritage (ends in two days), Goldin (ends in 11 days). These are the lots we’re watching.
Heritage’s Winter Sports Card Auction. Here’s what we continue to keep an eye on:
- 1961 – 62 Fleer Wilt Chamberlain PSA 9. Look for anything above $300k to support a bull market in vintage basketball. Update: Currently $336k
- 1969 Topps Wilt Chamberlain PSA 9. Another Wilt card, this one from his move to the Lakers. The last sale was around $42k in March 2021. Update: Currently $72k
- 1986-87 Fleer Basketball Wax Box. A good barometer for the hobby. Anything near $300k is a good sign. Update: $174k
- 1985 O-Pee-Chee Mario Lemieux PSA 10. One of the premier semi-vintage hockey cards around, this has been in a slide lately. Look at $60k to halt the skid. Update: $41k
- 1953 Topps Jackie Robinson PSA 8. This card has been in great form lately up 56% over the last six months. Anything over $50,400 sets an all-time high (ATH). Update: $36k
- 1958 Topps Jimmy Brown PSA 8. We mentioned the PSA 5 version of this card above at OnlyAlt. Here’s a chance to get your hands on the same card three grades higher. $40k would support a bull market in vintage football. Update: $25k.
Two days to go…
Moving on to Goldin’s Winter Elite auction, which we covered in depth last week.
The most notable lots:
- 1937 Ogden’s Limited Jesse Owens. Goldin sold an identical copy for $32k just a couple of weeks ago, another for $13k in May 2021, and another in March 2021 for $39,600. That’s fully half the eight PSA 9s in circulation sold via one auction house in the last ten months. Update: $12,600.
- The hobby’s highest-graded set of 1980-81 Topps basketball cards (Bird, Johnson rookie) is available for the first time in forever. It comes with loads of add-ons including an uncut sheet of cards, team pin-ups, and an unopened wax pack. Someone is unloading a lifetime’s passion project. This should go for well over $1m. Update: $660k.
- All I could find out (after an embarrassing amount of time spent researching it, and it was in the lot listing anyway) about the 1957 Balas Futebol Pele is that it’s very rare. There’s one copy with SGC and one other with PSA and that’s it. Similar-ish cards have gone for around $200k. Update: $246k.
