Are Trading Cards Still a Good Investment?

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The Leading Companies

Topps

Topps entered the market around the 1950s, starting out with collegiate cards, and circled to make colorful cards centered around the NFL’s best players. At first, people just wanted to collect their favorite players and wanted to eat the gum and candy that existed in the earlier trading card packs, but when they started to include autographs from the league's best players, nearly 40 years later, the trading card market really started to take off.

Panini

Panini America started off with making and selling sports stickers, which they still attempt to do now. In around 2009, Panini saw how successful the card business was, and sought to leave their sticker business and enter the competition with acquiring NBA licenses in 2009, followed by NFL rights in 2009–2010, and finally secured exclusive NFL rights in 2016 with their brands like Score, Leaf, Classics, and Prizm being highly sought after with collectors.

Fanatics

Fanatics is a well known business that started in 1995 as a brick and mortar sports merchandise store. It quickly gained popularity when a digital giant called Michael Rubin bought it in 2011 and turned it into a dominating company. Michael further kick started the business by buying Topps, sports licenses, and making various sports betting platforms. Despite lawsuit attempts, Fanatics has held strong. Sports leagues clearly desire Fanatics as a partner, as Fanatics has obtained NBA, NBPA, MLB, MLBPA, the NFL and the NFLPA licenses.

Fanatics

With these companies and their developments, trading cards have become bigger risks as time goes on, with some of the most expensive boxes selling for upwards of 25 thousand dollars, with a high possibility of gaining less than 50% of that back. Clearly, there is a higher ceiling, or a higher chance of pulling a good card, but the risk remains.

At that point, are trading cards turning into gambling?

This question is further asked from sites like Ebay. Ebay is a selling platform that allows people to sell, bid and buy all sorts of items. Recently, some Ebay sellers have been selling “chaser packs”. These chaser packs show a really valuable item, usually a high end autograph that is listed at a fraction of the cost. The twist is that when people buy the packs, they only have a chance of getting the card and if they don’t, generally they just get sent a couple of non valuable cards or base cards. These packs can range from 10-100 dollars, with a set amount of packs. There isn't even a guarantee that these packs contain the card, since if the seller decides to keep the valuable card, there is no way of telling.

What is happening to Panini?

Panini has been left in a difficult place, with their previously solid position in the sports card industry crumbling away. If Fanatics manages to secure the NFL licenses from them, (which very well might happen due to them losing the NBA license in fall of 2025) Panini will be in a similar position to where Topps (Fanatics) was before acquiring the licenses.

Before acquiring the licenses, Topps was forced to make unlicensed cards and only stayed relevant with producing autograph cards of the top rookies and the famous Tom Brady 1/1 autographed card. This may be where Panini is left, making unlicensed cards with some desperate attempts to stay in the game.

What Would Happen to Current Panini Cards?

The rarer hobby boxes and numbered cards that are currently licensed might skyrocket in value, depending on the player. One of the most probable things that would happen would be that the cases of older licensed Panini products become more valuable over time, especially if they contain rookie cards of major players.

Collectors may start chasing older Panini boxes that still contain official league logos and team branding. If Panini loses their licenses, these products would represent the last officially licensed cards from the company, which could make them more desirable to collectors and investors.

Why does losing these licenses even matter?

Licensed cards have official NFL team logos, specific pictures of the players, and official league logos. While seeming insignificant, these cards can sell for much less, and even autographs can sell for less, showing in Leaf where autographs can be half the price of licensed autographs. In the long term, unlicensed cards are more likely to sell for less, and therefore it is worth a lot less to get a good autograph in the unlicensed products.

To make money, should you buy cards, packs, boxes or cases of football cards?

“Loose” packs (loose means random)

These packs are usually random packs that you buy online from different sets. These packs can be from either hobby, mega or blaster boxes, and cost more depending on the pack. The chances of the cards in the pack being profitable improve depending on the pack. There is also an added risk though, because sellers can weigh

Cases

This high end product contains a “case” of about 5-20 boxes of cards. These will cost all the way from 800 dollars to exceeding 25,000 dollars a case. These cases come on average with a very expensive “case hit” which has a chance to pay for the entire case. Some cases might not even have this case hit, making high end cases a huge risk. Some cases might also have more than one case hit.

Blaster boxes

These boxes cost around 30+ dollars and are the low end of sports cards. You still get the chance of pulling some high end cards like case hits, but the odds are highly reduced. These boxes are also highly recommended if you want to make money on boxes, as if you get a semi-valuable card, there is a higher chance that it is worth more than the box.

Mega boxes

These boxes usually cost around 50-70 dollars and contain more chances at valuable cards, with some boxes even containing one memorabilia or autographed card. Odds are slightly higher to pull some valuable cards based on blaster boxes, but still low. You can pull case hits, and have a better chance to pull good autographs and cards.

Hobby boxes

These boxes are very high end, with boxes ranging from 250-25,000 dollars. These have the highest hit or miss ratio, with some 25,000 dollar boxes containing less than 1,000 dollars in cards. These boxes are guaranteed to have autographs, numbered cards, and memorabilia cards. You can pull case hits from these boxes, and probably the highest chance of pulling good cards lies with these boxes.

Card storage and protection

Protecting cards is a must. If a player becomes really good, or there is a boom in cards, people want to sell their cards for a profit. There are so many stories about people having millions of dollars in cards that are worthless because of the condition they are in.

Sleeves

Usually called “penny sleeves” due to their low cost, sleeves are needed for protecting cards. Although not a very protective cover, these sleeves allow people to put cards in and out of binders, toploaders, and their general collection without damaging their cards.

Toploaders

These Toploaders are highly recommended for keeping an eye on potential professional players and rookies. When a card is sleeved and toploaded, it can protect the card until it is sold, or needed again. This and the sleeves are pretty cheap, costing around 5-10 dollars for a lot of them.

Magnetic holders

While expensive, these magnetic holders (also called mags for short) are the best protection for cards besides grading. Just being a plastic case for cards, mags protect the cards from dust, and some protect cards from UV rays, which helps keep the cards from fading.

Different selling platforms, and their problems

Many of these boxes and cards can be bought from online shopping places such as Ebay and Whatnot, but buying from these companies can risk the cards and boxes being damaged or tampered with. Another problem with these sites is the bidding aspect. For Ebay, you can bid on any item, and there are multiple pop up checks to make sure you don't accidentally buy something you don’t want to. The bidding gets very addicting quickly, with people constantly checking items to see if they can get a “deal” or an item at a lower price than the item is worth. With Whatnot, if you hop on these “livestreams” where you can bid in real time, there are no fail safes when you bid on something, so it is very easy to accidentally buy something. When people always want a deal, people try to bid on these things, and the bidding can go up quickly, leading to more loss of money.

Another thing to be aware of with Ebay is the budget grading companies. These companies like PTA offer graded cards at a fraction of the cost. In reality, PTA should really be BGA, for Backyard Grading Authentication. These “PTA graded cards” are just someone putting a plastic case over a card and giving them whatever grade they want.

Breakers

Another massive problem with getting these high value cards are breakers. Breakers are people who sell boxes online in teams or just sell the boxes themselves, and open them in front of a livestream camera. When breakers sell teams, they guarantee that they make money because if a box is 250$, and is split into 32 teams for football, and if those team spots are sold at 20$ each, they make 640$ on the box. When they sell the boxes themselves, they get to experience the pack opening while still not losing any money themselves. Unfortunately, these breakers are notorious for scamming and stealing cards. Two of the most notable examples of this were the breakers Backyard Breaks giving away a pack of football cards that contained a 1/10 gold Trevor Lawrence card (which at the time was worth 20,000$+) and stated that they "couldn't give away that one” and kept it, and Kryotics, a breaker that pulled the 1/1 Lamine Yamal rookie card valued at 50,000$, and kept it, claiming it was “mis-shipped.”

Overproduction in the 1980s and 1990s

People usually wonder why the best rookie cards in the 1980s to the 1990s are very cheap, even for the best players. This is due to the overproduction of these cards. Eventually companies figured out if they numbered their cards (numbering meaning only producing the amount of cards that that card is numbered to, for example the /99 being only 99 in the world of that card). For the purpose of investing, usually the limited edition boxes of cards are the best bet for buying and selling boxes for a profit. One example is the famous Mickey Mantle rookie card. Due to overproduction at the time, the boxes in which people could find this card were scrapped and thrown away as a result of people just not caring for cards anymore. Eventually, once Mickey Mantle became a star, everybody wanted the card, but the rookie card was few and far between. This led to a graded 10 of this card going for 12.6 million dollars in 2022.

The Pandemic Boom

A big part of what trading cards are today came from the 2020 pandemic. With the risk of Covid, most people were stuck at home, trying to find a hobby, and people started moving to buying trading cards. Since so many people were buying trading cards, the card companies started trying to monopolize on the sudden boom in cards, creating the most amount of hype seen since they started. Most people were trying to create quick profit, seeing the market soar skyhigh, and cards like high end autographs of people like Patrick Mahomes suddenly became valued at millions of dollars. Since then, these cards have rapidly decreased in popularity and now are worth only 5-50 thousand dollars, a more than 50% reduction in value. This raised questions about the long term investment in proven pros and rookies.

Professional Players

Professional players are usually safer investments than rookies because they already have established careers. Players who have won championships, MVP awards, or broken records are more likely to maintain value in their cards. However, even professional players can lose value if they retire, get injured, or simply lose popularity with fans.

Rookies

Rookies are the most risky but potentially the most profitable cards in the hobby. When a rookie player performs well early in their career, the value of their rookie cards can skyrocket very quickly. However, if that player performs poorly, gets injured, or never becomes a star, those same cards can lose most of their value just as quickly. Because of this, investing in rookie cards is often compared to gambling, where collectors are betting on a player’s future success.

Grading companies

The undisputed leader of card grading is PSA. Grading basically rates a card on how clean it is from 1-10, putting it into a plastic case, and shipping it back to you. You would think the leading grading company, PSA would be a reputable company. But PSA is known for being one of the worst possible options for grading cards for a couple of reasons. For one, grading at this company is like gambling. If someone has a bad day when grading your valuable card, you are out a lot of money. That's not even mentioning the high grading cost, and what is even worse, the “insurance” on your cards included in the grading cost. When shipping a valuable card, PSA will ask the value of the card, and if you have pulled a million dollar card, and put the card’s worth as a million dollars, they will charge you “$250,001 or higher” just to grade the card. Even if that card ends up being like one thousand dollars, they will still charge the high grading cost. At least at this level, they give notes on how they graded the card and what imperfections caused it to be worth less. You might ask, why even grade a card? PSA 9-10s usually double if not triple the value of cards. The regular card could be worth 40 dollars, and in a PSA 10, it could be worth 100$+. If receiving a bad grade on a very good conditioned card, many people “crack” or break open graded cards and resubmit them to get a higher grade.

PSA scandal

PSA also destroyed a 45,000 dollar card. Recently, they have received a lot of hate, when a collector submitted a 45,000 Japanese Deoxys card that was already graded a 10, for re-holdering. (Re-holdering means PSA creates a new plastic case for the PSA card submitted and puts it into that case while retaining the grade.) While re-holdering, PSA apparently damaged the card, making the new grade a 6. This significantly decreases the value, making the 45,000 dollar Deoxys worth half of the 45k, if not half, then even more than half. Since PSA relies so heavily on their insurance policy, the submitter was supposed to receive the full value of their card back, but PSA being PSA, offered them only 20,000 dollars in compensation, saying they would also have to sign an agreement that they couldn't say anything about the whole situation. What makes this even worse is the fact that the last Deoxys sold was 45,000 dollars, BY THE PSA ACCOUNT. PSA sold this card themselves for 45,000 dollars, and only offered 20,000 dollars in compensation.

Fake cards and counterfeits

Another big problem with the hobby is the appearance of fake cards. One notable example of this is the fake Travis Kelce autographs. These cards are shipped from a real looking PSA address, and contain a QR code on the back to “check the cards authenticity.” This scam preys on people's trust of QR codes, as the codes are usually very trustworthy, and used in everyday life. If scanned, this QR code steals your information. One of the people targeted in this scam, Mark Moberly, a real estate agent in the Kansas City area received a Travis Kelce counterfeit autograph. Thankfully, Mark stopped himself before he could scan it, but said “I bet 9/10 people that get this scan it” This was also during the holidays season, to make the scam even more believable. Also, PSA “slabs” or the plastic thing on graded cards, are really easy to break open without a trace. This can lead people to make fake PSA cards, with their own grades.

Conclusion

Trading cards have changed drastically from what they once were. What originally started as a simple hobby where collectors bought packs to find their favorite players has turned into a massive industry worth billions of dollars. With companies like Fanatics, Topps, and Panini America competing for licenses and control over the market, the future of trading cards is constantly changing.

While it is still possible to make money in the trading card market, it has become much more risky than many people expect. Expensive hobby boxes can cost thousands of dollars and still produce cards worth far less than the original purchase price. Breakers, online bidding platforms, and the hype created by social media have also made it easier for collectors to lose money while chasing valuable cards. At the same time, trading cards still hold strong value for collectors who enjoy the hobby itself. Rare cards, rookie cards, and licensed products from major leagues will likely continue to be desirable for years to come.

The key difference is that collectors should not always expect trading cards to behave like traditional investments. In the end, trading cards can still be profitable, but they are no longer a guaranteed investment. The best approach for collectors may be to enjoy the hobby, collect players they like, and treat any profit as a bonus rather than the main goal.

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Sources

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Noah Lewis is a 10th grader at the white and blue school of Poudre high school. This is his first year in Poudre Press. He is also an avid wrestler, who wrestles year round. Other hobbies he enjoys include mountain biking, collecting sports memorabilia/cards, camping, and playing video games.