Football Sports Memorabilia

Collecting sports memorabilia remains as one of the most popular pastimes for many avid sports fans across the country. These collectors can be found within every sport, including baseball, soccer, golf and many others. However, football is one of the most common sports where you'll find the most football memorabilia collectors among the fans. Like baseball, football enjoys a very large number of extremely rare collectibles floating around the collectible marketplace.

Throughout the year, you can find sports auctions in your local community, as well as at the larger auction houses near, or within, the cities. Surprisingly, regardless of its popularity, there are a great many items that go unnoticed among the low-priced items at many local estate sales and auctions. While, at the high-end auctions that focus on sports memorabilia, the value of these items are reaching new heights every year. Below, you can find a few examples from the auction house "Mastro Auctions" during their 2005 sales.

Mastro Auctions in April 2005

* Walter Payton Chicago Bears 1984-86 road jersey ($12,022)

* Ramon McDonald's New York Giants 2000 NFC Champions ring ($10,330)

* Dick Butkus Chicago Bears 1970/71 used game helmet ($11,625)

* Set of Topps 1969 to 1972 football sets ($11,244)

* Bowman 1952 high grade set ($11,112)

* Joe Namath 1970's New York Jets jersey ($10,928)

* Topps Feltbacks, 1950 set of 125 ($12,225)

* Green Bay Packers 1964 signed jersey ($9,311)

Making Money With Football Memorabilia

Obviously, based on the auction sales listed above, there is a tremendous potential for making profit from buying and selling football memorabilia. However, not all dealers or collectors have the level of experience and knowledge necessary to build a profitable business buying and selling football memorabilia.

For a dealer to see success in this business, they need to recognize high value football memorabilia within auctions that are filled with low-value items. These dealers can spot a hidden gem within a pile of junk, and then resell that valuable item at a higher-end auction. This is essentially "buying low and selling high", and in the field of football memorabilia, it requires a great deal of experience and knowledge.

The real money to be made in this business is when items are purchased. Dealers must find opportunities to acquire these vintage items at a rock bottom price so that the profit margin is significant when they bring the item to other auctions, usually nearer a city, where the item can be sold at a significantly higher price.

Sotheby's Football Auctions

One of the most prestigious auction-houses in the business, Sotheby's, holds its own sports memorabilia auction every year. In particular, their "football sale" often brings amazing returns. The following prices were seen during recent Sotheby's football auctions.

* 1971 ball from the final Brazilian-Yugoslavia game in Rio ($5000 to $8000)

* Two 1966 World Cup jerseys ($50,000 to $85,000)

* The Jules Rimet Trophy ($425,015)

The World of Sports Memorabilia

To become a collector or dealer of football memorabilia, do your research. Learn as much as you can about as many types of items within the marketplace. Focus on categories of items, more than specific items, and learn about brands, markings, and which items are considered the most rare. The key to success as a dealer in football memorabilia is having an almost photographic memory where you can recognize those rare items when you see them, after only viewing them in the pictures of a reference book. It is the hunt for those rare items, and finding them, that keeps most dealers and collectors attracted to the football memorabilia marketplace.