Question about Football card values..

[skelly]

Over the years I've spoken to a couple dealers at local shows and they comment on how they can always sell 70's football commons very well. They would much rather carry sharp football commons from the 70's than baseball. I tend to agree. I'll always stop to look through a 10 cent commons box of mid 70's football. I won't give a baseball box a second look. Just me.

[jefferyepayne]

In general, football cards are worth less when compared to baseball cards of the same year. There are obviously exceptions to this rule. For instance, the value of stars varies greatly depending upon the player and what year they are in in their career. Some sets in a given year are more popular (or less available) and that impacts value/price as well.

There is a lot of debate as to whether football cards will catch baseball cards in value as the popularity of football continues to grow. Some believe this popularity will eventually increase demand for football cards and prices will increase. Others believe football's growing popularity is so broad and diverse that this doesn't necessary mean more people will want to collect football cards.

Both baseball and football cards were massively overproduced in the early 90s resulting in a huge glut of sets and cards from that era. Most cards from that era are essentially worthless and you will have trouble getting someone to take them even if you give them away for free. I've heard dealers at shows tell sellers: "I wouldn't take up the space with your cards if you gave them to me". I've seen sets on ebay sit for months at 99 cents (with $10 shipping) with no takers. For the most part, if you're trying to sell sets from the early 90s, you might as well shred the cards and use them to pack other things with. Sorry to pop anyone's bubble who has a lot of cards from the early 90s they think they're going to retire on.

jeff

[tonyo]

Jeff,

thanks for the great post. Pretty much sums up what I suspected but wanted to verify!

Originally Posted by jefferyepayne

For the most part, if you're trying to sell sets from the early 90s, you might as well shred the cards and use them to pack other things with.

jeff

Hah! Over the years I've consolidated my football cards into one monster box of "cards I like" - 3/4 of them are 90's cards including complete sets of 91 TSC, 92 skybox, and 94ud cc silver teams.

Should've kept the 70's commons I suppose - but sounds like they wouldn't have been big money makers anyway as they were all in "played with as a kid" condition.

No worries....

Always liked the look of some of the early Bowman sets.

I put together a 52 bowman baseball set in good-vg condition a couple of years ago with only moderate difficulty and cost.

How would you rate the difficulty of similar football sets in good-vg condition as far as availability and cost goes?

Tony

[jefferyepayne]

Early Bowman football cards in G-VG are readily available on ebay and I love the look of the old Bowman cards ... in particular the 1950 Bowman and 1952 Bowman Large sets.

For some sets, baseball commons are more expensive than football while for others it's just the opposite. Regardless, completing the football sets is typically much easier than completing the baseball sets for a number of reasons:

1. The football stars are not as expensive to obtain. For example, early '50s Mickey Mantles are often very expensive as compared to the most expensive card in each football set.

2. Football sets are much smaller than baseball in this era so there are fewer cards you have to purchase to complete them.

Note that before you tackle 1952 Bowman Large, some of the SP's in this set are VERY expensive and difficult to obtain. The other Bowman sets are much, much easier to finish than this one.

Hope that helps.

jeff

[tonyo]

Originally Posted by jefferyepayne

Hope that helps.

jeff

That does help,

thank you Jeff.