I’ve always ranked football cards among the very top choices of football memorabilia, and there’s enough evidence to show that, if done right, they could become a very decent investment.
Are Football Cards an ‘Investment’?
Well, let’s defined what an ‘investment’ is, shall we?
“An investment is an asset or item that is purchased with the hope that it will generate income or appreciate in value at some point in the future.”
Investopedia c. 2023
By that definition, yes – one can conceivably invest in football cards.
But what separates a genuine investment to hoarding is an appreciation of value, and therefore spotting opportunities to expand a collection based on that fact.
What Football Cards should I buy?
Well, as we’ve proven in our dedicated ‘Football Cards‘ section at Hobby FC, you’re spoiled for choice.
You can go ahead and do what everybody else does, and hoover up stock from your local supermarket when a brand new card collection comes out the woodworks.
Or you can scour second-hand marketplaces to find discontinued cards.
The second one will mean having to authenticate football cards – and we’ve already show how difficult that can prove to be with shirts here – but means that gems are always available.
And you know exactly what and who you’re buying than with new, sealed packs.
Which players have valuable cards?
There are two very obvious categories: rookies and legends.
In other words: players who could be good one day, or were great in their day.
Or you can just go for players who are already performing well right now, but remember, you could be riding the crest of the wave as the demand might not ever be higher.
You can presumably safeguard that with players like Jude Bellingham and Erling Haaland, but with them, you still have to hope the star shines bright for the value to stay on the upward curve.
I personally love a good rookie card, as well as cult heroes or legends at football clubs with big followings – like Manchester United, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Liverpool to name a few.
But there’s always a market for someone!
Should I get my cards graded?
Short answer: Yes.
Slightly longer answer: Maybe try and buy second-hand cards that are already graded (by the likes of PSA) because it can be unnecessarily long and expensive to do that for yourself.
As we journey through Hobby FC, we will be sharing a little bit more of the journey to get your football memorabilia officially authenticated, so keep your eyes peeled on that.
But for now, I can only say what I’ve personally done which is to search for PSA-graded cards on official second-hand marketplaces and use the data provided to fact-check on the authentication website to make sure things match up – which they usually do.
And when it comes to pricing, I would add an extra £20-25 on top of the original card value (on its own) when bidding. So, if a Musiala card is worth around £20 on its own, a well-graded one should cost north of £40 – provided it’s a PSA 8 or above (10 being the highest possible grade).
Summary
I genuinely believe football cards are a sound investment.
But like everything else, you can’t go into it blind.
Before buying any football cards with the aim of storing them, grading them and maybe re-selling at a later date, I would take some time to canvas the market to get a solid idea of pricing, and for what the demand might be if you were to list your own items.
And always either consult a financial professional first before buying, or do whatever due diligence you need to do on your end to take sound, appropriate fiscal action.
Do you think football cards can be an investment?