Football Cards – What they are and why we collect!
This post will attempt to explain a few things about football cards: Why people collect football cards, why some cards are valued higher than others, what the difference is between different card types!
Why collect these pieces of cardboard?
Football cards have been made and collected for a LONG time… since 1888 actually (Article here)! There are many reasons to collect, and these reasons have varied over time. For most, football cards represent a form of a memory or hold a high sentimental value. Did you collect something during your childhood? Does it bring back great memories with friends and / or family? Buying, trading, selling sports cards with people you enjoyed being around? This is actually my reason for collecting, as I collected when I was younger, and found the hobby again when I was more financially stable. I traded with my childhood friends, opened packs with my dad, and loved watching my favorite athletes tear up the football field. I now collect based on my college experiences -more memories, I guess!
Along with the sentimental reason for collecting, there is also the investment side of the hobby. There are better, faster, and stronger football players that emerge in their rookie year, or show up as a starter after a bad injury to a key player… These are the “investments” people will put into cards. New players come into the league every year, and people want to hold the next “Tom Brady,” rookie card. Could Patrick Mahomes be the next Tom Brady? Could Lamar Jackson be as great of a rushing QB as Michael Vick, but for an even longer period of time? People want to hold onto these rookie cards, hoping their investments will gain value over the time. That’s what investments are supposed to do, right? This side of the hobby is more monetarily motivated, as it is mostly based on the money they put in, and the money they get out. There is nothing wrong with this method of collecting, except when the players I try and collect get too expensive (joking)!
The last reason may be an additional benefit to the previous mentioned above – the sense of belonging and community! The card collecting community is, to say the least, incredible! Everyone’s love for their favorite team really shows through when people show off their collections, and it’s very fun to see. I’ve dealt with hundreds, if not THOUSANDS of other collectors, and a strong majority were welcoming, friendly, and very pleasant to talk with. Obviously there are going to be the select few who aren’t as happy with their own life, and it shows through their interactions with others, but for the most part, the collecting community is amazing! I can’t say enough about the card community! Whether it be through Instagram posts / chatting through DMs, joining a facebook page for collecting, trading, and buying / selling, or even through talking with my viewers on Youtube – I enjoy every conversation I have with the others who love the hobby.
There may be a few other reasons to collect, but I hit the majority of the reasons the normal collector loves the hobby. What’s your favorite reason to collect? Does it line up with some of the aforementioned? I hope you enjoy the hobby as much as I do, for it truly is a great way to relax, spend some time organizing and talking with fellow hobbyists!
What Determines Football Card Value?
Value is in the eye of the beholder, right? Well in reality, value is whatever someone is willing to pay for something! The short answer… the market decided the value! Football card values can fluctuate during the course of the NFL season, or even during the course of an NFL game! If an unknown player lights up the field, people may immediately go buy out his cards, hoping the cheap “investment” will pay off someday. This is typical of injured players, and then the backup QBs get the chance to start (in the case of: Kyle Allen, Mason Rudolph, Teddy Bridgewater, and more in the 2019 NFL season). Those cause a rise of price, when a player shows he can play after being unknown, or gets a chance to prove himself, but the opposite is true as well. When a big injury occurs, or a player gets benched for playing poorly…his card price will sink. The best known case of this in recent years – Baker Mayfield. After the end of his 2018 campaign, his prices soared, and then came 2019…down his prices went, along with the Brown’s season in general. This is the current players, that will fluctuate frequently.
Not all football cards of certain players will fluctuate as much as Baker Mayfield did in the 2018 to 2019 seasons! The best example I can think of, Tom Brady, has steadily grown in price, as all the guy does is WIN. He has cemented his place as the best quarterback to ever play the game of football, so far, and his card price shows it. Tom Brady’s rookie cards have gained price over their lifetime, and don’t show any signs of decrease. The same can be said for many of the retired Hall of Famers, or legends of the football field. Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Barry Sanders, Walter Payton. The list can go on and on… the prices are no longer changing, because their legacy has already been left on the game of football.
Not only is the year of the football card / the player on the card important, there are a few other characteristics that can determine if a card is highly valued or not by other collectors. Football cards have certain print runs, contain key traits that can increase their value. These traits are: their print number (sometimes shown on the card, “Short Print”), different card varieties, the perfection of the card (literally, how someone would “grade” it), jersey cards, patch cards, relics, autographs, inserts, and rookie cards. I will better explain this down below, using my Allen Lazard collection to show you the different types of cards and how they increase in value by adding these key characteristics. As you can guess – the more characteristics you add, the more likely the card is going to be highly valued. An autographed, patch, short print rookie card? Yes, that should be a valuable card, depending on the player!
Key Differences Between Similar Football Cards!
To begin, I am going to show you three Allen lazard rookie cards, from the same set of 2018 Prizm football. Please see below for the three cards we are going to compare, and I’ll show you the noticeable differences, and what makes some cards rarer than the others!
On the left side of the picture, we have the base card. This is a rookie card, as you can see the RC in the upper left corner of the card, but this is just the 2018 base rookie card from Panini Prizm – nothing super special about this one. The middle card is Pink – this is a Pink Parallel of the 2018 Prizm set. You will also notice the “Prizm” writing on the back of the card, which is missing if I were to show you the reverse side of the normal base card. You can also tell that it is a “prizm” variation by the shine in the picture. The third card, on the right, is the Camo variation, which is a short print, numbered card. This one happens to be numbered 25/25, meaning it was the last Camo card printed, and that there are 24 other camo cards exactly like it in existence! This card is much rarer compared to the base and the pink, as there are only 24 OTHER camo parallels that exist! The camo one, in this case, is the most rare, and the most expensive of the three. Now, let’s take a look as some of the autographed cards, and how the autographed set is almost exactly the same as the base set, except with an autograph!
As you can see this time, the base autograph is also a “Prizm” variation, where as the base card wasn’t. I have shown the base, pink parallel, and camouflage parallel again, this time with the autographs on them. These cards have “sticker” autographs – something Panini does where the athlete doesn’t sign the card in person, but instead signs a bunch of stickers that they put on the cards. I will show an On-Card autograph below, on a Rookie-Patch-Autograph (RPA) that I have of Allen Lazard. As you can see, again, the Pink Parallel of 2018 Prizm isn’t numbered, but it is more uncommon than the base. The camouflage parallel, numbered 13/25, is the rarer of the cards, with the shortest print set, so it is the highest valued card of the three, by quite a bit. These are just a few of my Lazard 2018 Prizm football cards, as the Prizm set makes a very nice rainbow with all of the different parallels (around 25-30!).
Lastly, we have the RPA (rookie-Patch-Auto). This is my National Treasure 2018 RPA of Allen Lazard, which has a beautifl On-Card autograph. This autograph shows the card was signed in person, and wasn’t just on a sticker that Panini put onto the card at a later date. This is a patch, as it isn’t just a piece of the jersey, but something that had to be patched onto the jersey, as you can see with the multiple colors on it.
Article Summary
There you have it! The basics behind why people collect football cards, how football card values are determined, and what the differences between some card types are. I know it was quite a bit of reading, but I hope I gave you a better understanding behind what football cards are. I know I didn’t explain EVERY type of football card variation, but there are many… that could take days! With this brief overview, you have to knowledge to separate some different types of football cards, learn about how football card collecting started and stayed as a hobby, and can watch out for which players to “invest” in, in the future. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me, as I’d be glad to help you. Regardless, thank you very much for reading. Have a great day and Happy Collecting!
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