T206 "Wagner" of Soccer Cards - Proposal

[Anish]

Originally Posted by Ulidia

I am a member and season ticket holder of Internazionale in Italy so I can say with some authority that cards / stickers are not the primary soccer collectable there. The money goes to shirts, especially vintage shirts, and pennants.

Walk into any of the large soccer museums in Milan (for example, the San Siro Museum) and you won't see anyone fawning over a card - rather it will be old shirts, photos, medals and trophies. Have a look at soccer auction results and cards don't get the largest prices.

That’s true for all sports and countries though, right? They don’t show off cards at Yankee Stadium, they have jerseys and other memorabilia. And that stuff generally sells for the most, but it doesn’t mean that cards don’t have a place.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Baseball is drowning in stats, but they do facilitate discussions of comparing players across different eras, which people always love. I think it's relatively harder to do that in a sport far less given to stats, and it could be (just theorizing) that the lack of stats is one reason casual fans may be less interested in greats of the distant past?

[Anish]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Baseball is drowning in stats, but they do facilitate discussions of comparing players across different eras, which people always love. I think it's relatively harder to do that in a sport far less given to stats, and it could be (just theorizing) that the lack of stats is one reason casual fans may be less interested in greats of the distant past?

I love stats...but it’s hard to capture much beyond goals and assists in soccer and even then numbers are not always meaningful or comparable.

Hockey has goal and assist numbers Pre-War (though assists were given out much less frequently) but Pre-War players are still dramatically underrated. A typical baseball top ten will be filled at least half with Pre-War players while a typical hockey one will not have any. I think baseball overrates Pre-War players since they played pre-integration (meaning that the “replacement level player” was much worse than today) but that hockey and perhaps soccer underrate them.

[Peter_Spaeth]

That's the thing, a midfielder can control a soccer game ( well, as much as any one player can) but not show up in the counting stats at all. At the other extreme, almost everything that happens in a baseball game can be measured and quantified.

[aljurgela]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Baseball is drowning in stats, but they do facilitate discussions of comparing players across different eras, which people always love. I think it's relatively harder to do that in a sport far less given to stats, and it could be (just theorizing) that the lack of stats is one reason casual fans may be less interested in greats of the distant past?

I think that is right, Peter... and I think the international aspect makes it even more difficult. There are so many leagues, so many players and historically not much play between them except the World Cup and the Olympics in the pre-war discussion... not many TV clips or game footage. So between stats, language and inability to compare it because harder to do that and there are no guides (that I know of) that consolidate the information. Many top soccer historians go a great job, but all the work is piece-mail. I am planning to consolidate some of this information in a book that I think will be helpful for collectors and I will base my information off of other people's historical efforts. In other words, I will try and show some collecting options of the players that most historians think were exceptional in their times which for me should always be the standard.

I generally like to look at the IFFHS site and read their articles. They try to rank clubs, leagues and players... They are now in the process of defining some legends that you can see here:

https://iffhs.de/iffhs-has-announced...egend-players/

Unfortunately they are even highly focused on post war players. If you look at all the people on this (somewhat political - note the inclusion of players from China and Kuwait) list only Stanley Matthews played many of his great years prior to WWII - so it is basically a post war list. This is phase one of their work and I am not sure how many phases there are. You can click on players and there are (albeit too brief) descriptions of the players and many have YouTube videos with clips of some of their antics. Check out the one on Zico and him amazing free kicks from outside of the box.

Anyway, it all starts with interest and education and I believe that, in time, these things will come to US collectors. Also when the World Cup in here in the USA, I imagine that there will be much more interest as well.

[Ulidia]

Originally Posted by Anish

That’s true for all sports and countries though, right? They don’t show off cards at Yankee Stadium, they have jerseys and other memorabilia. And that stuff generally sells for the most, but it doesn’t mean that cards don’t have a place.

I’m not suggesting for one moment that cards don’t have a place - just that the place they have will never be comparable to the place that baseball cards have had in the US.

Some of the earlier Spanish cards of the 1920s through to 1940s are great and can be picked up at low prices. I am not a card colector nor claim knowledge of cards but I do buy these types of items regularly and have other Irish cards of well known footballers of the pre war era that are very rare - albeit not necessarily valuable.

[aljurgela]

Originally Posted by Ulidia

I’m not suggesting for one moment that cards don’t have a place - just that the place they have will never be comparable to the place that baseball cards have had in the US.

Some of the earlier Spanish cards of the 1920s through to 1940s are great and can be picked up at low prices. I am not a card colector nor claim knowledge of cards but I do buy these types of items regularly and have other Irish cards of well known footballers of the pre war era that are very rare - albeit not necessarily valuable.

Thanks for sharing your perspective. It is always good to see what others see in their local markets!