From Condition to Quality Control, the Sports Card Hobby Has Been Impacted Significantly

Sports cards only recently became a hot commodity. It wasn't in the first hundred years, but they became a hot commodity in the late 1980s and a fad for a short bit—first, a little backstory.

Card collecting was semi-prevalent even in the decades leading up to the 50s. In the early 1900s and the 1910s, one little picture card would come with tobacco packages. As time passed, one picture card would come with packs of chewing gum, and kids would keep buying numerous packs until they built the complete set.

The 1909-11 T206 Ty Cobb card is among the most desirable cards from the tobacco card era.

In the 1950s, chewing gum and cards swapped roles. A piece of chewing gum would come in each pack of a few cards; that was true until seven years, from the mid-80s to the early 90s when gum with cards disappeared.

It was dubbed 'the Junk Wax Era. Each card from that era probably had at least a couple million copies each printed—cards were printed in the masses to be valuable in the future, but also so there could be more profit for the card producers—there was one problem: supply and demand, there was, and still is so many sealed boxes of cards from this era in existence—and are not super valuable—maybe $40 for some of the better years of cards. The cards themselves aren't worth that much, either.

Card collectors only started caring for and protecting their cards in plastic holders during the Junk Wax Era. School-age kids in the 1950s and 1960s brought their cards of their favorite players to school in their pockets, with no protection. Those cards would hold extreme value today if kids had not put them in their bike spokes to make cool sounds. 

In today’s market, a card's value is based solely on its condition—and the condition isn’t always perfect right out of the pack, either. To determine a card's condition, third-party authenticators' grading and authentication must occur. Professional Sports Authenticators (PSA) is the most notable of the grading companies and grades on a scale from 1 (poor) to 10 (gem mint).

Condition is everything when it comes to sports cards. Whether it's the iconic 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card, where only three copies exist in a perfect PSA 10 (each estimated to be worth at least $30 million,) or an ultra-modern rookie card of a star quarterback like Joe Burrow with an autograph and a piece of his jersey made by the card company Panini, can be worth typically only up to $1 million.

While Mickey Mantle's most famous card is his 1952 Topps (the first set made by Topps), his proper rookie card is this 1951 Bowman.

The example of the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle in a perfect PSA 10 (gem mint) being worth $30 million, and even near-mint and mint condition copies, could be worth high six-figures and even in the low millions, shows that in the sports card hobby, vintage is king.

CJ Ballard, a senior at McDaniel College, has been collecting cards since he was a little kid. Nowadays, he mainly focuses on selling cards, but the McDaniel College fourth-year student is a collector at heart. Ballard understands the hobby for what it is, the joy of collecting your favorite player, but like with any collectible, he realizes there is a market for it.

Ballard and his dad buy a couple of boxes of each of the three series of cards that Topps comes out with each year in their flagship product, the traditional cards, that Topps has made and evolved with over time, adding chase cards, like rookie autographs, that you couldn't find before the 2000s. 

Ballard enjoys set building with his dad, where they complete the set of the base cards (non-chasers) from series 1, 2, and update, which is the last series. Ballard sells the extra cards that he has duplicates of on eBay, and the card shows that he and his dad go to. Quality control only matters a little for the base cards (also referred to as commons) because standard cards don't hold value. However, for the serial numbered cards, autographed cards, and cards with a piece of a player's jersey (or a combination thereof), the condition is everything for chaser cards. It determines the value of the secondary market.

"I feel like everyone's solely focused on the resale," said Ballard about today's card market, which started to boom when COVID-19 locked down the world.

 "When I first got into it, I'll admit, I had that mindset… "But then as time went on, I started to appreciate it more and more, especially as some of the cards that I've acquired over the past year or two to add to my own personal collection.

Not all card collectors focus on having 'sexy' modern cards worth thousands of dollars; however, many collectors do—there are several accounts on social media where collectors show off these types of cards, but Rich the Happy Collector, a sports card content creator always says, "If you collect what you love, you'll never lose," and "If you rip (open boxes and packs) for fun (not to make money), you'll never lose."

As mentioned earlier, you'll be more likely to see quality control issues in the chromium products made by Panini (football and basketball) and Topps (baseball).

"Over the past like two, three years, I've definitely seen a (sic) increase in quality control issues. Like even like slight ones," Ballard said. "I do think it's due to, like, the increased print runs, the demand of even like the lower end products, just the demand of all those [chromium (which are some of the most desirable on the market) products.

Chromium (or cards with shinier finishes) products have recently increased, especially those Topps made. "I think it is a money grab because [new chromium products] a new variety that people need to have. The [autograph cards] in products like [Topps Chrome] Cosmic and [Topps Chrome] Sonic are considered case hits; the new variations are not as easy to get as others. It's a money grab for a flashier product."

Topps Chrome Cosmic and Sonic have an artistic flare to their design. In contrast, regular Topps Chrome has a chromium (shinier) finish to the standard Topps flagship set, which the company has made for over 70 years.

Fewer autographed cards can be found in newer products (like Topps Chrome Cosmic and Sonic). In some sports card boxes, you are guaranteed a randomly inserted autograph card in every box of several packs (sometimes more than one). In these products mentioned above, there is only one per case, which contains numerous boxes (the number of boxes per case depends on the individual product).

Quality control doesn't apply to chromium products. In a high-end 2022 Topps baseball card product called Topps Definitive, there was an issue with a dual autographed card that was supposed to be signed by Randy Arozarena and Austin Meadows. Neither of the players signed the card. That was the sports card story of the summer.

The Topps Definitive card had terrible forgeries of those two players. Both signatures had forgeries signed by the same person and looked different from the players' typical autographs.

Ballard says it's "disheartening" to see quality control issues, specifically higher-end cards.  

While it may be disheartening to see quality control issues, like fake signatures, not just dents and print lines in the cards, Topps and their parent company, Fanatics, issued a joint statement (see below).

Statement from Topps and Fanatics about a significant quality control issue of the dual signed card.

It isn't just Panini's football and basketball cards and Topps' baseball cards that have quality control issues—hockey cards made by Upper Deck have significant quality control issues on their cards as well, but primarily lower-end cards, where autograph cards are harder to find.

Brendan Pereira, also known as Coach KOE (King of Everything) on social media, is a sports card collector and content creator from Toronto, Canada, with over 30,000 followers. Pereira focuses his collection mostly on hockey and soccer cards—he tends to be outspoken about issues in the hobby, and quality control is one of those aspects he frequently talks about.

"The quality control of the (Upper Deck) flagship series 1 & 2 (which are on the cheaper end of cards) products, however, has been fairly poor," Pereira said. "[This started] in 2020 with rounded corners, 2021 with large amounts of edge wear, and 2022 with similar edge wear but not as prevalent," he continued.

Pereira also noted that the more expensive and higher-end products have had "little-to-no issues." The cheaper products have increased slightly in price, but the quality of those cards has decreased, which leaves Pereira with a "bad taste."

One of the most significant issues in the hobby today among collectors and investors of cards alike is that when you buy a box of unopened cards, you may lose money by not 'pulling' cards out of the packs that have a value that meets or exceeds your return on investment—it's a gamble. Now, you are gambling on the quality of the cards, too, even if you pull a high-value card.

The value of a card is affected by one sole thing—condition. However, the desirability of a card can make prices go up for individual cards as well.

The statement by Topps and Fanatics showed earlier is an excellent example of how a card manufacturer should address quality control—Upper Deck handles it similarly.

"I will say, Upper Deck is fairly good with replacements. However, sometimes it means that those replacements won't be the card(s) you originally desired or pulled," Pereira said. 

Ballard and Pereira have similar feelings about how card companies handle quality control; transparency is everything regarding quality control.

While Topps and Upper Deck are very open and transparent, it is that Panini is not. Panini, as far as can be seen, has yet to make statements about quality control.

Whenever an issue arises in the sports card hobby, Pereira addresses it. But he also acknowledges the wholesome moments in the sports card market, like the excitement young collectors get when they open a pack and find a valuable card of their favorite player.

 Just within the past few weeks, on April 13th, 2023, Pereira shared on his TikTok account that there are at least two one-of-one copies of the same card, arguably the best card from that particular set, a 2022 World Cup Panini Prizm Lionel Messi numbered to one copy, meaning there is only one copy—but a photo surfaced on Twitter of a graded copy of the Lionel Messi one of one on a leading auction house, Goldin, with a collector holding up the copy of their one of one copy of the card—this begs the question of how many one of one copies of the card there are, of now the arguably greatest soccer player ever, Lionel Messi.

Two one-of-one copies of the card show a considerable issue in quality control within the sports card market.

However, looking at the Twitter account that Pereira shared on his TikTok, Twitter user @AHK8_de, who owns one of the two supposed ‘one of one copies,’ appears to have deleted the photo from his account.

The Twitter user has not responded to the inquiry about the supposed second copy of the one he ‘owns.’

The most important takeaway for collectors and investors of sports cards is that the reputation of the card companies is of the utmost importance. The idea that card companies should quality control issues effectively and timely is very vital. But for quality control issues, addressing your consumers late is better than never addressing them; collectors will take that to the bank against Panini.