Some Pickups Before Year-End and COMC Grading Experience
I hope everyone out there had a great Christmas if you celebrate. I will be heading out on a short vacation tomorrow evening, so before 2023 ends I wanted to share some pickups since the last post and tell you a bit about my first grading experience going through COMC.
Headliner Pickup
2017-18 Topps Chrome UCL #41 - Kylian Mbappe - PSA 10 - 2 @ $175/ea
I think this card is an interesting bellwether for the overall modern soccer market. It has a decent population so there are regular sales of it in the different grades and Mbappe is obviously one of the top names in the sport (although admittedly his star isn’t shining as bright as it once did). He’s also a name who will likely be changing clubs in the near future, so you’ve got a nice balance of collecting interest and speculative interest.
However this card has been on quite a ride. It’s not a true rookie (that would be in 2016 Foot sticker), but it’s essentially his major card debut.
Per Card Ladder, this card in PSA 10 had a peak value of almost $2,000 in April 2021 and there were a few sales at around $500 and over in the past year. I picked up a couple in October for about $300 each, so I was surprised to see how much further these had dropped when I saw a couple on COMC listed for $200.
Whenever I see pricing that far off my expectation, I go back to eBay and I saw there were a few auctions that had ended recently around $185. So I took a shot and offered $175 each for the two. I was pleased that the offers were accepted.
Were these buys at a bottom? There already have been a few higher sales, so market price seems closer to $200 now. As long as Mbappe doesn’t get hurt or have a major dip in performance going into his serious transfer speculation period, I would be surprised if it goes under what I paid again.
Even though this is a recent base card from the new printing boom, the populations aren’t too crazy: 1,220 in PSA 10 and 2,547 overall from PSA. Mbappe has been around but he only just turned 25, so there is a lot of time to add to his resume. His next move should be to a stronger club than PSG and will improve his profile if he can live up to expectations.
Other Pickups
As mentioned last time, I wasn’t looking to add much this time of year so my other COMC additions were pretty small. Here’s a quick list with some reasoning:
2021 Futera FC Barcelona - The Headliners #BH31 /139 - Gavi - raw - $12.99
With his recent injury, Gavi values have taken a hit. I thought this was a good price to get a serial numbered early Gavi card. Futera checklists are a bit messy, so this will never be a huge card but it’s an attractive design.
2022-23 Futera Paris Saint-Germain - GOAL! #PGL12 /112 - Warren Zaire-Emery - $25.25
If you’re not familiar with Zaire-Emery, he’s 17 year-old PSG starter who just got his first cap with the French national team (and scored). He is out right now with an ankle injury, but should be hitting the pitch again in early 2024. He also has very few cards out right now, which makes this Futera a little more attractive than they would normally be for a spec buy.
2022-23 Topps Chrome UEFA Club Competitions #3 Blue & Gold Seismic Refractor /75 - Mohamed Ali Cho - $11.25
2022-23 Topps Chrome UEFA Club Competitions Jade Edition #3 Orange Jade /25 - PSA 7 - Mohamed Ali Cho - $26
2022-23 Topps Chrome UEFA Club Competitions Jade Edition #3 Year of the Rabbit /99 - Mohamed Ali Cho - $10.45
2022-23 Topps Merlin UEFA Club Competitions #123 Green Refractor /99 - Mohamed Ali Cho - $9.25
This group is a great example of the ridiculous parallel structure to ultra-modern soccer, but there just aren’t a lot of Cho cards out there and so I hold my nose to get some low print run cards locked up for this 19 year-old French player. Cho’s ceiling projections have come down a bit this season, but I like his tools and he has a lot of time still to get turned around and on the radar for a major club. As you can see, I’m not betting super high but these seemed like reasonable prices to pick up.
2021-22 Panini Mosaic La Liga #63 Orange Fluorescent Prizm /25 - Takefusa Kubo - $28.25
Kubo, 22, seems to be poised for a move to the EPL next summer and as that story heats up his prices will rise. His highlights are fun to watch, but will his game continue to dazzle with the stronger competition? This seemed like a decent price to add a Kubo to my soccer spec collection.
COMC Grading
Until I recently started using COMC again, I was not aware that they offered grading submissions for cards in your portfolio. I decided to try this service for a few cards and got my first one back this week.
To use this service, you just click on one of the cards from your inventory and from the action menu select “Submit for Grading.” You’ll get the options to use COMC’s grading estimate service ($5 for modern), PSA (price depends on value and service level), or CGC (price also depends on value and service level).
I picked up a 2003-04 eTopps #43 LeBron James and decided to grade with PSA. I believe I the slowest service I could choose for the card value (raw was bought at $327) was 20 days, which ran me $40.
This card is a very long-term hold for me so I wasn’t that concerned about the price, but typically this would be a bad example to grade without having it in hand. This, like many eTopps cards, was still in the sealed hard case that Topps shipped these in so judging card condition through scans on COMC was not really possible. I could tell the corners weren’t sharp, but not much else. This would probably be a good candidate for the grading estimate service if I was concerned about that.
The submission process is really easy—once you select the service level, the card just disappears from your inventory and you don’t have to do anything else. There is a Grading Submissions section on your dashboard that you can use to track what you submitted, but it doesn’t provide any ETA on the grading other than the service level you selected.
That brings me to one issue with this service—I’m not able to tell exactly when COMC submits my card. I submitted this for grading on November 7 for the 20 day service and got the grade back on December 22. That’s a little over the service level, but there was Thanksgiving in there. Still I don’t know if PSA processed this within the 20 days or not since I don’t know when they got the card. Small issue, but wanted to mention that.
In this case, my card came back a PSA 8. Not ideal, but I can see the corner and edge issues (some edge peeling on back) that probably resulted in that grade. Between the market softening and the grade, I probably lost about $150 in value plus the $40 for the grading.
I like having this option at COMC—it adds some incentive to picking up raw there that might grade well. If I’m more concerned about an expensive flip, I’ll give their grading estimate service a try and will report how that goes.
That’s it for me this time. I hope you all have a great New Year and stay safe!