The Beginning and Bellingham

This is my first edition, of many where I will be writing weekly pieces regarding all things football and cardboard related.

This isn't a deadly serious blog type of scenario, it is just on the back of my own views and personal opinions. I will try to make it an easy read, but I do tend to ramble on so apologies in advance.

This week I was really interested to see what was going to happen for the Jude Bellingham market, especially after his Golden Boy award. At this time it is staying steadily high (based on rookie autograph data), which would imply it is still the time to sell investments or surplus PC extras. I would be careful if you are looking into buying anything rookie material during this period, after all, can he get to a much higher height than he currently is achieving?

Understanding the Current Card Market

Feelings for a small down in the card market currently seem to be of a mutual respect between collectors currently. I cannot help but think there are two main factors to this change, extortionate print runs and the struggles for cash flow.

We can look at original sets from Topps such as 2017 Chrome and Panini providing Prizm 2014 and see the obvious changes, but if we look more recently around the 2020 period and now, the changes are excessive. If we take Topps Merlin Chrome as a main example, the highest numbered card you could find in a hobby box was #/299. In the 2023 release, you can now find cards numbered as high as #/350, but at a first glance this does not really look like much of a difference, right? After researching into the different variant and card types you could get in the set, there was a total of 15 different numbered cards in the 2020 set. The new 2023 set has 21 different numbered cards, an increase of an extra 6 numbered cards (2 x /25s, 2 x /15s, 2 x /199s, and a couple of extra numbers added such as a #/275).

So why does this affect the card market? Well it is devaluing numbered cards pulled in boxes because of the sheer number of cards and variants available, making them theoretically less rare. This resulting in flippers competitively pricing their cards on places like eBay, where they undercut each others prices and accept low offers just to clear out bulk excess. Driving the market down continuously until players have good games or have 1st team breakouts.

The second factor to the market being on a down trend does not need to be explained too far and similarly links to the idea of bulk excess.

The general population is struggling with cash currently due to the increase of the cost of living. This resulting in less buyers for certain cards and sets and contributing to the undercutting of prices when selling cards. On the other hand it does have one advantage, it is creating a buyer heaven with cheap prices and plenty of availability.

Tip of the Month (November)

Don't always buy what others rush to buy.

Short Review of Current UK Card Shows

UK card shows have been appearing like wildfire. We have seen 4 new card shows in just the last year with 2 of them being sports only. It is hard to be able to name all of them, but since I haven’t seen anyone else do this yet, I am going to do a short write up on the shows I have been to and the experiences of them. Click this link to find my reviews.