Vintage World Cup Cards Are Hot !

 

A recent ebay sale netted $118.76 for a 1962 Lampo - Pele card. With only 2 bidders, someone got a steal. To be fair, the item was coming from Italy, which is notorious for their diabolical postal system. Its a warning for every collector buying from the boot-shaped European nation.

 

1962 Lampo- Pele'

 

However, if you have a good Italian connection that you trust, you can find some of the rarer soccer cards produced there. There were at least 5 soccer sets made in Italy to mark the 1962  FIFA World Cup in Chile. The Lampo are one of the harder to find. Their colorful design and color make them more sought after.

 

I was able to add 3 specimens from the 1962 Lampo Cile (1962 Sticker Chile) World Cup set. The Lampo are actually cardboard samples, but meant to be stuck into an album. I am certain that a bidding war would have put the previously mentioned PELE card over the $150-200 mark.

Meanwhile, I landed two players from the winning Brazilian Team:

Mario Zagalo

 

Mario Zagalo was a useful midfielder who was instrumental in the 2nd World Championship for Brazil in Chile. He went on to the distinction of becoming the first person to win the FIFA World Cup both as a player and a manager. He performed the later as the coach of the 1970 side in Mexico.

Djalma Santos

 

Arguably the best defender ever to come from Brazil, Djalma Santos was capped 98 times for Brazil, winning 2 of the 4 Final Tournaments in which he played (1954-1958-1962-1966).

He played almost 500 games for Palmeiras and another 400 plus for Portuguesa for an incredible 964 league matches.

Alfredo Di Stefano

 

Most of the cards of Alfredo Di Stefano are limited to his Spanish League career with Real Madrid. However, as the Argentine became a naturalized citizen, he became eligible for Spain for the 1962 World Championship. The 3rd card I obtained depicts him in the red shirt of Spain.

 

With only 5 months before the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, I hope to feature some of the essential sets from 1950 to the present.

How Many PELE' Cards ? ... PSA Doesn't Have a Clue !

The hobby of card collecting is cumilative. That is - as more people are involved, more knowledge is passed from the center to the outer circle. A subjective look at recent sales of soccer cards and world wide soccer issues, reveal the massive increase in interest.

While grading of soccer cards is still in its infancy, it has just exposed the tip of the iceberg. The biggest hurdle is the lack of knowledge from the grading companies.

For example, the PSA Registry (Professional Grading Service) has a Master listing of popular player cards - from Mickey Mantle Master Lists to Peyton Manning Master Lists to Wayne Gretzky Master Lists.

In my curiosity I peaked to see what they had listed under soccer. Well, well - someone actually had a PELE' Master List ! But wait ... there were only 20 to 25 cards listed ?

We ARE talking about PELE' - the undisputed KING of Soccer ... Football, Futebol, Veotbal, Calcio, Futbol ... everywhere in the world. So how can there only be a couple of dozen cards from a player that appeared on every continent, played in 4 World Cups and had a career over 2 decades ???

My own personal Master List of PELE' cards is over 200 cards - not including sets specifically dedicated to the world's most famous athlete. PSA's list also included a rash of mislabled cards.

The other well know card grading company - SGC (Sportcard Guarantee) - has dabbled into soccer card identification, but still have allowed a few errors to hit the market with their labels.

I have begun to compile a Master List for 3 of the most popular soccer players. I hope to have these available on CD ROM before summer.

Meanwhile, I hope PSA gets to know their goalpost from their helmet.