Even though this is a pokemon forum, I am sure a lot of us collect sports cards as well. Since most sports card subreddits and such are cesspools, I wanted to create a thread for anyone here to talk about all things sports cards.
Show off your cards, discuss new sets, ask questions, or just chat.
I’ll start by showing off my favorite sports card in my collection.
This is a 2008 triple patch card featuring game-worn patches of Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, and Eli Manning, numbered to 75. This card is special to me because 16 of the last 20 Super Bowls featured one or more of these quarterbacks. This card truly encapsulates dominance of the sport. There have been one or two cards with these players together recently, but being from 2008, this is one of the only releases that happened before their rivalries were fleshed out.
Let me know what you think, and I’d love to see some collection pieces of your own!
I follow boxing religiously, but for some reason I’ve never bought any boxing cards or memorabilia, and every time I go to Boxing Sports Cards thread my brain goes “Hey idiot! Buy some of those Allen & Ginter cards! They are amazing!”
My Young Guns Crosby rookie is my most expensive sports card I own. I grew up in the same town as him and got to watch him play on and off for years. Met him once at Subway and he has brought the Stanley Cup back to our town 3 times. Even with his injuries, he has lived up to his hype since day 1. Very happy to own this!
I used to collect hockey cards, but then I sold them off and put the money into other hobbies. I’ll probably never collect hockey ever again unless I get a decent job after college. For the most part I really liked collecting the cards and would even go to sport card shows in Toronto, but overall I never had any good experiences collecting hockey cards as a kid and teen. I also had way better experiences in the Pokemon community compared to hockey.
The only good thing about hockey cards I liked is I had pretty good luck with pulling cards, but whenever I would sell or buy negotiations were not favorable at all. My favorite story was when I was 13 I made a trade with a old guy at a card show, then at the last second he changed the deal and also asked for $10 to pay for half of his show table. I said fine but it soured the experience for me.
This is the only sports card I own, but I really don’t know anything about it. There are a few athletes I like, but collecting their cards doesn’t really appeal to me, though I appreciate the history of some of them. There is one Tiger Woods card I think is cool, but not enough to buy.
David Beckham however, in this kit, is one of the iconic figures of the late 90s.
I agree with you on the allen and ginter cards. I am not a huge boxing fan but vintage boxing cards look beautiful and are so cheap compared to their baseball counterparts. I have a 1910 T225 Jas J Jeffries who was a heavyweight world champion and famous for the “Fight of the Century” on July 4th 1910 versus Jack Johnson. You can find great historical pieces like this for under $100 which is wild.
Sorry to hear that, stories of adults ripping off kids for a few bucks is always sour. I have personally never gotten terrible deals like that, but maybe I am just lucky. I encourage you to try again if you have some disposable income, because some of the card shows I’ve been to have been extremely fun and the people are very down to earth. Lots of cards I go after are pennies on the dollar.
All my good vintage cards are currently in my pwcc vault (I can post some screenshots or links but that’s not as cool lol) but I like to grade cheaper, raw modern cards that I think look nice from time to time. Here’s a few:
I collect solely former LSU athletes, Pelicans players and Saints player, with the exception of Dirk cards. I have this group of cards currently back with CSG to get the new labels. Still need the 2020 Joe Burrow Mojo /49 auto and 2021 Ja’marr Chase Mojo /25 auto, but Joe’s are hard to come by and Ja’marr’s are redemption only right now… Gross
Thought I’d share another one of my favorite sports cards in my collection. This Walter Payton 1986 1000 Yard club card is very special to me not for the card itself, but for the auto. Walter Payton tragically passed away over 20 years ago due to a rare liver disease. Because of this, autographed cards of his are extremely rare. He ran for over 21,000 yards and 125 touchdowns in his 13-year career, in which he only missed one game. Do you guys have any autos of late greats?
Ive never collected sports cards because where I’m from it’s all about football (soccer). And the biggest thing collecting for those has always been stickers and sticker albums while I was growing up and even for my dads generation. Recently cards are becoming more popular though, but I have no interest in them.
What you posted intrigues me though just because of the history, and it feels more special, almost borderline falling into the antique category.
As a sports card collector how do you feel about Charizards that are less than a year old being sold for significantly more than something like this? It’s obviously all relative but just seems mad to me.
That’s a phenomenal question, and I think to some extent it is mad. Personally I like cards that have a story, so in sports I collect childhood heroes, autos, etc, and in pokemon I collect niche promos from interesting campaigns and such. Things that if someone asked me about them I could tell them a blurb. The fact that modern pokemon cards are going for exorbitant prices in my opinion boils down to people really valuing the chase, as well as baking in future value. Things like alternate arts are some of the most beautiful cards I have ever seen, but I see alot of people saying “these are the next gold stars”. Things like that worry me about something holding value long term because the market underestimates how many are out there, and the fact that every single copy is going right from the pack to a sleeve to PSA, so there will be no condition rarity in the future like we have with gold stars. (this is happening in sports cards too where rookies are being valued as if theyre already hall of fame caliber before they step on a professional field)
Personally would I rather have a $200 authenticated auto over a $200 modern set chase card, but with how beautiful most modern pokemon cards are, I don’t knock their decisions too hard. Collectors will collect what they like, and I guess I am glad that alot of the stuff I like is fairly unpopular hobby-wide. What are your thoughts on this?
Why would you collect a card of a player who doesn’t play for your team?
Coming from following football and tennis, collecting cards just doesn’t seem like a natural extension.
Also, most (or all?) TCGs have artwork which functions like a piece of art, whereas the sports cards shown above, I mean, I guess I just don’t see the appeal of a photograph of a person.
And having said all that, what else could potentially be turned into trading cards or collecting or whatever.
Thanks for giving your thoughts. It is, as always, a case of them being worth whatever someone pays. I don’t collect modern cards and I don’t collect sports card, so was just interested in the opinion of someone who has experience with both. I would imagine if you had that 100 year old boxing card and a modern charizard, and walked down a busy street offering one or the other to people, the majority would choose the boxing card. It’s as old as the titanic and for something of such a material to be in such good condition 100 years later is worthy of antique category listing. Even old Pokémon cards are only vintage.
Like some people have mentioned, this primarily comes down to collection for personal enjoyment vs. collection for personal investment. It’s why I only collect vintage, because that’s what I really like and enjoy as it was my era and really don’t care if value goes up or down. There was a recent thread on here about undervalued cards within the Pokémon TCG, but I think from an investment perspective, those type of sports cards that are now ~100 years old are really undervalued.
I’d ask a hypothetical if anyone wants to play and chime in. If the Pokémon franchise ceased to exist in the 2030s and an entire generation passed by (say 100 years). If these two cards were auctioned in 2130. The boxing card (by this point 200 years old) vs a modern charizard (by this point 100 years old charizard), what do you think would get a higher sell price?
But yeah, people will collect what they enjoy, and that’s what’s so great about these hobbies we all have. Just find it strange how low valued such historic cards would be, regardless of whether you know the player or sport! It may even be enough to hook me into the hobby at some point in the future, I think I enjoy the history more than the cards sometimes, and I already spend far too much on collecting vintage Pokémon cards haha.
I mean, in that kind of timeline, a common card could be the actual rarest card given that most of them would over the years be lost due to their actual lack of value. Even now, with how people treat holos as bulk, I wouldn’t be surprised to see less mint copies than the URs after a period of time.
Whether that is ever reflected in demand is another thing.
Yes sports cards are in sets similar to pokemon. Only difference is that sets are primarily grouped by different price points, unlike pokemon where most booster boxes MSRP for similar prices. In sports youll have cheaper product geared towards kids, and then more epxensive products geared for adults that have higher quality autographs, more autographs/patch cards, etc.
I collect players outside of my team because I have a love for the history of the game. I am a Pittsburg Steelers fan, but I love collecting the greats from the league that came before my time such as Otto Graham, Joe Montana, Lawrence Taylor. Players that were on other teams but were historical in their own rights.
I see sports cards as pieces of art as well. Photography is certainly a form of art. When I look at a 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan card, I can picture his high-flying dunks that the card is an action-shot of.
It depends on what you mean by “lose relevance”. Yes, Charizard can’t tear his ACL, and a player can have a nasty injury and his prices may drop.
I think you under estimate how many people love sports for not only the players they grew up watching, but for the history before that. When a player dies, people don’t just drop all of his cards and walk away, moving on to the next rookie. I never watched Jas Jefferies box Jack Dempsey in 1901, I never watched Jackie Robinson break the color barrier, never watched Ted Williams bat .406, never watched Bo Jackson become an All-star in 2 sports at the same time. Despite this, I collect their cards and research their history. They stay relevant to fans of the sport, and are immortalized in that sport’s Hall of Fame.
Anime characters live forever yes, but the spirits of the great players do as well, which is why I collect both.
