What brand of sports cards is the most valuable - (2023)

The three big players

Three main companies dominate the sports card industry.

Panini, Topps and Upper Deck.

Everyone has monopolies in different sports.

This is due to exclusive contracts with leagues and/or player associations.

Let's take a look at the history of each of them.

Panini

Year of foundation: 1961

Owns the rights to: Donruss

Main sports: basketball, football, soccer, baseball (unlicensed), hockey (unlicensed)

Panini is the largest brand in the sports card industry. While it was Topps in the past, Panini has taken the mantle in recent years.

It owns the exclusive contracts in basketball & football.

Topps once dominated these markets.

Now they don't even produce cards in it anymore.

Top

Year of foundation: 1938

Owns the rights to: Allen & Ginter & Bowman

Main sport: baseball

Topps was the king of sports cards until Panini showed up.

In fact, they had a monopoly on the industry.

From the 50's to the 80's topps produced manyclassic cards.

Things we imagine when someone talks about sports cards.

Like the classic '52 coat

Topps is only in the baseball market today.

And while it's doing well, it still competes with Panini as they make unlicensed cards.

Oberdeck

Year of foundation: 1988

Owns the rights to: O-Pee-Chee & Fleer

Main sport: ice hockey

Upper Deck got off to a flying start in the industry when they released the classic 89 baseball set.

With luck and clever branding, they'll have a lot of impact after adding Ken Griffey Jr. to the set as card 1.

It's the most iconic Upper Deck baseball card.

Over time, it has shifted more and more towards ice hockey.

And now it's the only sport in which it produces cards.

Basketball

Panini dominates the basketball market.

They have a lot of brands out there that people are crazy about.

Paper, chrome, and autograph cards or beginners can all bring in thousands of dollars.

Especially when it comes to classification according to psa or bgs.

National Treasure

Pick the right newcomer from a national treasure chest and you can expect a 6-digit payday.

Indeed there was$500,000 bounty on a Zion Rookie map.

Sick patches and awesome designs on card cars make this product so desirable.

Prizm

Prizm is the best product you can find in retail (if you can beat the fins)

The cards in the set have a great design and offer a lot of parallels and cars to draw.

Prizm rookies typically outperform all retail basketball brands.

It is Panini's flagship product.

optics

Donruss Optic tends to be one of the best brands for panini and basketball in general.

Like Prizm, it features a lot of parallels and autograph cards.

The big difference, however, is that it's more of a Donruss brand than a flagship panini brand

Choose

I tend to enjoy selected maps.

Like optic and prizm, they are a set of chrome cards.

While the resale value isn't there like with Prizm, the cards feature autographs and parallels.

And these coveted cards still cost a lot of money.

Other Top Brands

• Mosaic
• Flawless
• candidate
• Donruss
• immaculate

Baseball

While Panini makes some amazing cards, many baseball collectors avoid them.

I collect both, but some collectors avoid unlicensed products.

With that in mind, for baseball, I will only mention Topps products.

Topps Chrome

Sapphire

One of the most expensive brands is Sapphire.

Part of that is the Phil Pulls hype

And the fact that the cards are beautiful

They are expensive boxes and singles resale is high.

To update

Chrome-Updateis a set of cards exclusive to Target.

They snatched fins and resold them on eBay and Facebook at high prices.

Finding these packs at retail price is nearly impossible.

Consider the fact that there are usually valuable beginners

How in Set 2018 with Acuna & Soto

There is no doubt that the price of Chrome updates will continue to increase.

Standard

The Chrome cards are getting a little more demand than the Topps flagship cards.

The recent proliferation of chrome throughout the hobby has increased the desire to collect chrome.

Whether rookies, parallel or autograph cards.

Chrome-based rookie cards now offer more than the flagship brand.

Topps Standard Series 1, 2 and Update

The default Topps rookie is the safest bet when buying rookies or parallels of a player.

Many collectors only want to buy cards from the main brand.

And as Topps continues to make more cards, I see this trend increasing.

Bowman Chrom

Bowman chrome cards may generate some demand, but it's not the same as Topps chrome.

The only exception is if you can find a 1st archer card.

Topps Chrome has no prospects on its checklist, while Bowman is full of them.

Diamond-Symbol

This is the Topps version of National Treasures.

Insane booklets, patches, two cars that are on the map.

The cards in the product are always expensive.

Other Top Brands

• Triple threads
• Five stars
• Museum
• tribute
• Transcendent

football

Panini dominates the football market. While Topps have produced a lot of cards in the past, they are no longer licensed to do so.

So, in this section, we will only talk about Panini soccer cards.

The top football brands follow the trends in basketball.

So knowing the basics of one market carries over to the other.

National Treasure

Like basketball, expect a huge payday if you hit the right card during a National Treasure break.

Collectors and investors are crazy about the rookie patch autographs (RPA).

They often give out 5 to 6 numbers to their favorite players.

Prizm

Prizm is Panini's flagship chrome brand. So it makes sense that the same rules of basketball would apply to soccer.

With autographs, colored refractors and the top rookies, Prizm is a coveted brand.

The resale market confirms this.

The highest soccer rookies in recent years are Prizm.

Donruss-Optik

Optic is pretty close to Prizm in desirability.

But it faces the same problem as Bowman Chrome.

It's not the #1 brand of chrome for the company.

People prefer to spend big money on Prizm.

Choose

Another chrome brand like Optic and Prizm.

Select offers many parallels and cars.

Other Top Brands

• candidate
• Flawless
• Majestic
• Crown Royale
• immaculate

Eishockey

For hockey cards, Upper Deck is the brand of choice.

They dominate the market and have no competition from Panini or Topps.

The cup

This is Upper Deck's national treasure.

Expect sick patches, autographs on cards, and more.

Standard

As with topps in baseball, the standard upper deck cards are usually good money.

Collectors go crazy for Young Gun Rookies.

And in recent years the prices have continued to rise.

O-Pee-Chee

O-Pee-Chee has had an interesting run as a brand.

It evolved from independent to topps and now Upper Deck.

It's not as coveted as The Cup or the standard upper deck cards.

But it's an old brand that collectors still buy.

Other Top Brands

• Ultimate collection
• Black Diamond
• SP Authentic

football

Panini owns the most coveted leagues in the football market.

This makes his cards much more valuable than Topps.

Here are what both currently have the rights to.

Topps: Bundesliga, Champions League, Europa League

Panini: Premier League, Serie A, La Liga, European Championship, World Cup

Over time I can see Topps or Panini fighting for full control of the sport.

Panini-Prisma

So far the market has decided that Prizm is the top choice for football.

This is 100% due to Prizm Football and Basketball prices.

But the cards sell for a lot more than Topps Chrome or Panini Select.

Panini selection

Another Panini chrome-like product.

Select is below Prizm but still a coveted brand.

Topps Chrome

Topp's flagship chrome product

The chrome cards are like Prizm.

They offer a lot of parallels and cars from top players.

The leagues are not as coveted as with the Panini products.

Other Top Brands

• finest
• Museum
• gold standard
• chronicles
• Obsidian

What makes a brand of card valuable

Every year Topps, Panini and Upper Deck release new brands.

When looking for a good brand to invest in, look out for the following characteristics.

On card cars

Sticker cars don't do that anymore. A player must actually sign a card.

Many collectors avoid or hate sticker cars, so look for a brand with on the map.

Beginner

For a set to be valuable, it must go to rookies throughout the year.

Rookie cards are always in demand and help a brand hold its value for that year.

Jumbo-Patches

You can tell if a brand is valuable by looking at the quality of the patches.

*Chrome cards are generally unpatched and still valuable.

Look for jumbo patches with colors, stitches, tags, and other cool displays.

The more unique the patch, the higher the selling price of a card.

Booklet

Booklet cards are much more expensive to produce than a regular card.

They tend to have an insane auto patch or dual auto in them.

They are rarely found in lower-end products and sometimes 1 per box in higher-end products.

Limited production

The overproduction of cards plagues the 90s. When buying a box or singles from a brand, pay attention to the production run.

With high-end cards, the more limited something is, the better it tends to be.

Boxes and cards are much more expensive.

Final Thoughts

There are a lot of brands that have not been mentioned in this article.

That doesn't mean they are worthless.

In fact, some of these brands' hits are super expensive.

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