Will vintage football ever catch up?

zef204

The prices are so far below their same year baseball set. Will it ever catch up? I have a 58 set and the overall condition is EX+ but the minor stars and many commons being NM to nm/mt. If this were the 58 baseball set it would be worth thousands, this may only be worth 300-500?? You can't get a good grade 75 baseball set for that.

I just wanted to know your thoughts on this...

ndleo

This topic was discussed in several other posts. Do a search under "vintage football" and it should come up. A lot of good points were raised.

Axtell

I am of the mind that vintage football has by far the best chances to appreciate.

There are many here who disagree with me (that's been debated endlessly).

Will it ever appreciate to baseball levels? Probably not...but with the increased prominence in football's popularity, more and more people are going to be interested in the past.

zef204

While I can appreciate that it has been brought up before, I was wondering what people's thoughts are NOW. I know that I can research past posts, but I have been active here for the last few months and the topic has not been discussed. Furthermore, times and opinions change over the course of months so I was just looking to get a current idea of interested people's opinions. If you don't want to respond because this has been brought up before, I can appreciate that. But simply pointing me to an old post may not suffice. So...

IF YOU ARE SICK OF THIS TYPE OF THREAD DO NOT RESPOND BY TELLING ME THIS HAS BEEN DISCUSSED BEFORE!

I want to see people's opinions now, that contribute now, so if you don't want to bother with this post don't click on it again.

Sorry for my rant but untill this topic becomes a bother as in it pops up 2-3-10 times daily, please don't try and shut it down.

orion9578

It was actually discussed about a week or so ago .

ndleo

zef,
Tried to help you out and save you some time. There were several threads about this topic last week. I doubt you would get the same level of responses since WE JUST DISCUSSED IT.

Maybe you should try to look it up before overreacting. And yes football is a good buy.

goudeygold

I really don't think our opinions are going to change in one week, nor are you going to get thoughtful input if the thread is only a week old. Try not to be offended, read the old post and add to it, then it will go to the front of the line and additional comments will come.

but to answer the question... NO. Football will never catch up to baseball. Only 16 games a year VS 162+ counting playoffs. Football players are more dependant on the TEAM, and are obscured by padding and full face helmets. thus it is more impersonal.

Footbal may indeed be undervalued, but I'm not buying any of it because more opportunities abound in pre-war where your not going to have to wait years to see if football does anything or not.

GG

ndleo

Here is the thread. It starts about halfway down.

Football Discussion

bowdowntome

It was discussed last week, but it wasn't in it's own thread. It kind of mutated out of another thread about cards from the 60's in general.
HERE

But in general, I would say it all depends on 2 things. 1)Are older baseball collectors going to be willing to start collecting football, and 2)How to get newer, younger, football collectors interested in vintage cards. If the baseball/football collector bases come anywhere near evening out, football will skyrocket because of the relatively small supply.

zef204

I am sorry for over reacting, but in a search not much came up for "vintage football". There was that Pete Rose post last week that it was said early this comes up so often...and then there were 80+ posts. So again, sorry for being sensitive and/or over reacting but I have felt that some of the vets here are very condescending. I hope that the vets who are not don't get offended by that because most of you welcome newcomers with open arms. OK, again its pretty simple...If you don't like a thread don't chime in, its not like I tried to start a new heritage, hardcore collector(which is phenominal), or nedsk thread.

zef204

I hear ya bowdown and I participated in that thread...but I was typing while you posted so thanks for your 2cents. Just these kind of opinions are all I'm looking for.

bowdowntome

Goudey, I agree in general about the helmet point. The same thing could go for hockey I suppose. But, as for "vintage" football, most players were pictured without helmets on.

bowdowntome

No problem zef, I'm always up for talking vintage football.

goudeygold

I agree there is upside for vintage football, but the problems lie in the above posts. I simply do not think that people are going to start significantly pushing prices upward due to short seasons and short careers.

who knows, I very well could miss this boat.

GG

GATOR5

GG-

The upside for fb is alot less was produced till 69 than bb so it'll dry eventually and the big finds come once in a blue moon. One yr I think that will just go crazy way down the road is 65topps but you need some change even to play now.

Gator

bowdowntome

Well, I got to thinking about this a bit more an d cam e to the conclusion that FB WILL eventually catch up. In fact, in some cases, FB has not only caught up but surpassed BB in similar years' sets. I did alittle impromptu, although not very scientific, number crunching based on the current SMR values given on the PSA website.
The OP's original post was the reason I did this. In it he states that:

"I have a 58 set and the overall condition is EX+ but the minor stars and many commons being NM to nm/mt. If this were the 58 baseball set it would be worth thousands, this may only be worth 300-500??"

You need to ask yourself, exactly what does "catching up with baseball" really mean. Is it the value of sets from the same year, or something else. In this case, and please realize that all values given here are directly from the SMR online and represent complete sets in NM (PSA 7) condition, a 1958 Topps baseball set in NM is valued at $14084, while a '58 FB set is merely $2813, quite a difference, yes? BUT, the thing to take into account is that the BB set has 494 cards, while thae FB set only has 132. Basically this means that the AVERAGE VALUE PER CARD (AVPC) for the baseball set comes to $29.31, and the AVPC for the FB set comes to $21.31. Not that great of a difference now, based on a per card analysis. How about some of the other early sets for which there are both BB and FB equivalent sets:

1948 Bowman BB (48 cards) - $5555 (set) - $115.72 (AVPC)
1948 Bowman FB (108 cards) - $8628 (set) - $79.50 (AVPC)
As you can see, the set price for the FB set is well beyond the BB set, but the AVPC for the BB set is significantly higher

1950 Bowman BB (252 cards) - $7244 (set) - $28.74 (AVPC)
1950 Bowman FB (144 cards) - $7130 (set) - $49.51 (AVPC)
BB has a slightly higher set value, but the FB has a significantly higher AVPC

1951 Bowman BB (324 cards) - $30700 (set) - $94.75 (AVPC)
1951 Bowman FB (144 cards) - $6436 (set) - $44.69 (AVPC)
No real contest here, BB wins hands down, mostly due to some key rookie cards in the BB set. The FB set really has nothing major to rest on.

1952 Bowman BB (252 cards) - $17511 (set) - $69.48 (AVPC)
1952 Bowman FB (Large) (144 cards) - $19635 (set) - $136.35 (AVPC)
1952 Bowman FB (Small) (144 cards) - $8875 (set) - $61.31 (AVPC)
In this case the Large Bowman FB set skyrockets past the BB set wth the AVPC. And even the "little brother" Small set is not too far off from the AVPC of the BB set.

I guess it all matters how you look at things. In most cases, the value of FB sets will never come close to the BB sets of the same years, but I iwll bet that an awful lot of the average card values in sets will be close to, and higher than, BB sets.

One of the big drawbacks to alot of the early FB sets is lack of key rookie cards to drive the set. But, a couple of advantages over BB is that the sets are usually smaller and easier to complete, and they have a higher percentage of BIG name players and HOFers in the sets.

This concludes this totally unscientific study, take it as you will.