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I admittedly don’t talk much about soccer on here because my collecting focus has always been baseball, (American) football and basketball, but soccer has definitely been on my mind the last few weeks.

Watching the U.S. team advance as far as they did in the men’s World Cup was fun, but even with them now out, I’m still watching most of the games, especially as we get closer to the final.

And that got me thinking about vintage soccer cards. I’ve never owned a Pelé card, even though I became a fan of his after watching the movie “Victory” as a kid (the only things I still remember from that movie was that Sylvester Stallone was also in it and that Pelé had an awesome bicycle kick toward the end).

I mention him because a 1958 Alifabolaget Pelé rookie card is the most expensive vintage soccer card ever sold, with a PSA 9 selling in 2022 for $1.33 million. According to Gem Rate, there are 241 graded cards, which is a pretty small population of that card, and there are so far none graded gem mint.

Not surprisingly with the World Cup on people’s minds, there are a few of that rookie card up on eBay for sale. While tempting in theory, it’s not so much in reality, as it looks like the lowest entry price for a graded card is about $9,000. So, uh, time to search for another option.

In this issue you'll find:

Auction highlights
News in the hobby
Walter Payton’s rookie card and player profile
How does PSA pop count relate to pricing for 1970s football HOF rookies?
ICYMI
Recent Vintage Card Voyage videos

Let’s get into it.

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Auction Highlights

In order of closing date:

Hunt Auctions 2026 All-Star Live Auction (ending on July 14 - see details)

Clean Sweep Players Auction (ending on July 15)

Sirius Sports Cards Auctions (ending on July 16)

Brockelman Auctions (ending on July 18)

Other active auctions:

Fanatics Collect July Premier Auction (ends on July 23 - lowest price items are $1,000)

Goldin 2026 Global Football Auction, Part 2 (ends on July 25)

SCP Summer Premier Auction (ends on July 26)

News Briefs

⚾ Collector Thrilled by Amazing Discovery of Historic 1952 Card With Mickey Mantle’s First On-Card Autograph

💰 ’Restored’ T206 Honus Wagner Part Of LOTG Summer Auction

😲 CGC to Display Three of the Hobby’s Most Iconic Cards at Fanatics Fest NYC

⚾ More Than Just a Surgery: 7 Career Chronicling Baseball Cards of Tommy John

💰Mickey Mantle, Tom Brady Headline This Week’s Biggest Card Sales

Vintage HOF Rookie Card: Walter Payton

I’m a lifelong Detroit Lions fan and therefore have no love for the Chicago Bears (don’t even get me started on the Green Bay Packers …), but it’s hard not to love and respect “Sweetness,” one of the greatest running backs in NFL history.

Walter Payton- RB

HOF Induction in 1993

Standout Stats:

9-time Pro Bowl selection
8-time All-Pro (five first-team and three second-team selections)
10-time 1,000-yard rusher
Second all-time with 16,726 rushing yards
Career AV (Approximate Value) - 167

Grade	PSA Pop Count	SGC Pop Count	BVG Pop Count
10	56	11	5
9	749	87	113
8	3,238	340	686
7	3,054	663	665

The average price for this much-sought-after rookie card came out to $888.19.

Hobby Thoughts: Pop Count vs. Pricing for 1970s Football HOF Rookie Cards

After digging into three decades of baseball HOF rookie cards, I’ve moved on to football cards.

I again looked at collector grade (for this decade, that being a PSA 7) and PSA 8, to see if there were cards where it might make more sense to buy a PSA 8 (if you’re looking for more bang for your buck), because, say, while the population count is a lot smaller, the price difference between the two grades might not be that big, relatively speaking.

I used the current Card Ladder values for both the PSA 7 and PSA 8 rookie cards for 20 HOF rookie cards in the 1970s, which I picked based on earlier research identifying the highest-priced collector grade rookie cards among the 60 HOF RCs in the 1970s. Then, I determined both the price differential (the PSA 7 price divided by the PSA 8 price) and the pop count differential (the PSA 7 pop count divided by the PSA 8 pop count, on the assumption pop counts get smaller as grades increase). After that, I determined the disparity (the price difference divided by the pop count difference), to see where potential value might exist (since, presumably, the lower the disparity number, the higher the potential value).

Much like the 1970s for baseball, there were wider disparities between cards than the 1950s and 1960s, at least for baseball (and TBD for football). Unlike the 1970s for baseball, there weren’t any cards that finished with a disparity less than 1. If you’ll notice, the top three in the disparity grouping are all Pittsburgh Steelers - with both Terry Bradshaw and Lynn Swann also finishing in the top half, leaving Jack Ham as the lone Steeler in the lower half of the disparity grouping.

Interestingly, only eight of the 20 cards had lower pop counts for PSA 8 than for PSA 7, with Randy Gradishar’s RC having nearly 3X as many PSA 8s as 7s (190 8s, 70 7s) - which helps explain his rather large disparity score. And not surprisingly, Joe Greene’s RC’s pop count dropped the most from PSA 7s to 8s, from 557 to 273.

Meanwhile, the biggest price differential between grades came from Roger Staubach’s rookie card ($750 to $3,960), but with one of the wider differences in pop count, that placed his card in the middle of the disparity pack. Jack Lambert’s rookie card had the smallest price differential ($120 to $151), but even though his pop count increased by about 1.5X, the small price difference left his card with one of the best disparities.

Seeing any buying opportunities?

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