What on earth happened to the football programme market?

[Tony_Q]

Hello chaps, I'm new here and to be quite frank, I originally joined just so I could ask a question. Mind you, having read through some of the forum posts here over the last month I think I will be staying.... as long as I'm welcome.

As a kid in the 50's and 60's, I collected programmes. By the time I was 17 and discovering women and beer I had lost interest and one day, my mother (bless her) cleared my bedroom and threw out all 5,000 of them.
Where a lot of people in my street in East London knew I was a collector I was always being given the programmes of the games they attended which helped my collection no end. It was composed mostly of London clubs and covered the era 1945-1965. I used to swap them by post through the old Charles Buchan Football Monthly magazine. Included, and this hurts to even type, were 6 full seasons of home and away West Ham programmes with none missing, that my dad's mate had put together between 1949-1955. He was a fanatic that went to every game, home and away, all over the country by train...I shudder to think what they would be worth now, perhaps one of you can tell me.

My main question is this though....will the market and prices ever pick up again?......8 years ago I decided to start buying some in as an 'investment'....I chose FA Cup Finals and proceeded to start buying them from the year I was born (1949) right up to the present. In fact, I bought that particular collection (by buying singly), twice!
I also bought around 500 league match progs from the 50's and 60's and in all, spent around £3,500 putting them together. Recently, I have been trying to unload some on Ebay and the bids are getting nowhere near what I paid for them. It looks to me as if they are now worth only around 60% of what I paid for them in 2003/4/5.
Did I just buy when the market was particularly healthy?...And as I say, will it ever go the other way or should I just sell and cut my losses?
To think I was going to buy 35 Edwardian gold sovs for the same money before the thought of looking through old progs as I had done as a kid changed my mind!

[Wullie]

Look what is happening with the Euro and all the debt about. Of course people are cutting back. On the plus side it is an excellent time to buy. These things always go in cycles and i am in no doubt the programme market will pick up in a few years. As for collecting Gold Sovs i always use this company. First class service and cheaper than ebay.
http://www.thegoldbullion.co.uk/

[Kickoff3pm]

It's a market it swings back of forth but can also be impacted by events like the current worldwide depression.

But if you want my honest opinion on your items then I think you bought for the wrong reasons to start with. But perhaps your not looking at it in a fair way. You've bought something and had the use of it, it's not gold that just sits in the draw it's memorabilia and every page is filled with information and events to bring on memories and emotions of those past times.

Thats the value you've had, you can't put a price on that but someone else might be able to. It's just at the moment those people don't put such an high price on it. That maybe be because the generations moving on to other things in general.

As for the future of the market, some parts are still very heathy, at least from my point of view speaking as a dealer. I too have notice fa cup final have died a death. Be that because of those bloody dvd memorabilia packs with reprints or just every man and it's dog has discovered ebay ? I don't know.

I don't think the future of modern programmes is that bright, I don't see people passing them on free to kids after paying £3 a pop for them. But I also don't see people paying £2 to get them posted to them (a price which RM seem keen to reach sooner then later).

I can see a time when printed programmes will stop and it's not far off. But don't worry because absense makes the heart grow fonder and sure as Tevez is ugly anb Belitelli is stupid price for your normal every day programmes will start to rise.

If I were to be investing in programmes now, it would be football olymipic programmes. We'll see.

[Tony_Q]

Thanks for the response guys.

[banleystowles]

Yes it is a buyers market right now. But there is always someone out there who needs/ wants a particular programme. I reckon if selling on ebay it is all about the luck of the timing, whether the listing has been noticed for that period of time. I'm keeping faith that programmes will always be shifted one way or another and my personal collection will always be added to. Regards

[gatfb]

Been in and out of chelsea 54/55s homes for a few years now but, have stopped buying at the mo as I can't get anyway near a resale price to make it worth while.

[treble99]

i presume that when you say "in and out" you mean buying to sell for profit.
if i have presumed correctly then you are a business and you are suffering what most business's are doing at the moment ie not much
you should be able to buy at a much lesser price than you could 5 years ago
the problem you have now is that there are fewer buyers to buy what is not a totally difficult season for Chelsea.
most of the people on this forum use the same places to buy(ebay,car boots and the like) and also most of the buyers can now buy cheap on ebay which is why you see "pm sent" lots of times everytime a newbie appears and says he is looking to build a collection.

the market is flooded with part time sellers and very few buyers

[Kickoff3pm]

treble99 wrote:

i presume that when you say "in and out" you mean buying to sell for profit. if i have presumed correctly then you are a business and you are suffering what most business's are doing at the moment ie not much you should be able to buy at a much lesser price than you could 5 years ago the problem you have now is that there are fewer buyers to buy what is not a totally difficult season for Chelsea. most of the people on this forum use the same places to buy(ebay,car boots and the like) and also most of the buyers can now buy cheap on ebay which is why you see "pm sent" lots of times everytime a newbie appears and says he is looking to build a collection. the market is flooded with part time sellers and very few buyers

Totally true for most things, but were dealers also suffer is they have reduce the price they offer for goods. This always hits me the most, not in the pocket but often someone comes to me having be reffered by someone I bought off before, they might even have the same sort of collection. Some go away disapointed with the price I can now offer and that is never a good thing for business because it's turning good feedback into bad sometimes.

Over the years I've adjusted how I handle it but the is also the dispointent for me because often I really want to get the items. Unlike collectors we can have all that we want.

[gatfb]

'presume that when you say "in and out" you mean buying to sell for profit.
if i have presumed correctly then you are a business and you are suffering what most business's are doing at the moment ie not much'

No, I'm not a business but I do know the relative value of some items .

I try to pick up progs or tickets which I think represent good value and then sell them on at a profit when I can. This enables me to off set the cost of what I want.

Not often I can do this but, I did get a little lucky recently which has enabled me to buy, at a top doller price some Chelsea tickets I wanted at Mr Budds recent auction.

[treble99]

not that it matters to me but you have defined a business.

you bought some items and were "lucky enough" to sell them on at a profit that was large enough to fund a "top dollar purchase"
that's a business
you "don't do it often" so it's a part time business
the fact that you are buying and selling football ephemera to fund football ephemera doesn't make it any different to you buying and selling matchbox toys to fund football programmes.

if you are lucky enough to make a profit you have made a business profit
if you are unlucky and don't sell at a profit then you have made a business loss

[corkkoppite]

It sure is a buyers market. I've had to sell a number of programmes recently and the money they are making is quite depressing.
The only one that reached my expectations was the 1973 uefa cup final 2nd leg. Every thing else seems to be half or less what they were fetching a year or 2 ago.
Just hope when things pick up for me the low prices are still there so I can buy them back again!