Dowmania: Max Dowman's Rookie Card Market

If you follow soccer and haven’t been living under a rock or gone into hiding like many Spurs fans you’ve likely heard of Max Dowman. For those among us that are unaware, Dowman is a 16 year old soccer prospect who plays for Arsenal and recently became the youngest goalscorer in Premier League history. Many knowledgeable fans and scouts had been anticipating his debut for years - a strange thing to say about someone who only turned 16 in December. The youngster has thus far played 89 minutes in the league this season (all from the bench), partly due to an ankle injury he sustained prior to the new year. 

Topps recently returned as the official trading card licensee for the Premier League (ending an eight year tenure with Panini) and released their signature Chrome set - which actually featured Max Dowman’s first ever trading cards. As a late entry into the set, he did not receive many cards in the set compared to many other rookies that were featured, assumedly due to not being able to sign a deal until he turned 16 (Premier League Chrome was released one month later), and proved to be an incredibly difficult player to hit in rips. The Chrome Refractors were also inserted as paper/foil copies, which can be redeemed with Topps for the true Chromium stock Refractors. Below you can see a table of the total print run of his cards from Premier League Chrome & Chrome Sapphire. 

 

*NB - Sapphire Autograph print run is assumed based on boxes opened - multiple /10 copies have been pulled but no gold or orange variants.

 

With the background established, we can get down to the business of evaluating the surging secondary market for these cards. I do want to establish beforehand that this article does not in any way constitute financial advice, nor is this a Max Dowman hate piece - it is one person’s opinion and analysis! I am also not telling you what to collect; if you don’t care what price you pay and just want his cards - buy whatever you like the most at the price you feel most comfortable at. 

Looking at the graphs below, I’ve isolated the confirmed paid sales using a combination of eBay Product Research and Card Ladder for the Chrome Autographs and numbered Chrome Refractors. I have omitted Sapphire sales given that there are only 16 total cards and almost zero public sales.

 

Chrome Refractors

There are also individual sales on a Black /10 parallel that sold for $5000 on February 13th and a Red /5 parallel that sold for $13,250 on February 25th.

Chrome Autographs

Firstly, congratulations are in order to those who managed to purchase his cards prior to the goal he scored mid-March. For some those cards doubled, and in some cases tripled overnight. I talked about how I felt the initial gold refractor sales were low given how difficult they were to hit and the market corrected on those prior to the major spike we saw with the goal. The autographs have stabilized somewhat (at least the Gold ones) at around the $6.5k mark. We’ll have a better idea when more Black and Orange autographs transact if these are following the same pattern. Once Topps send out the true refractor redemptions, we’ll be able to compare how they stack up against the original paper copies. 

Overall, it looks like we’re past the first inflection point. Does that mean that this is the opportunity to buy? I’ve got two major reasons why I would say no.

 

Many More to Come

Whilst these may be Max Dowman’s first Rookie cards, they will be far from his last. Now to be fair these Premier League Chrome cards, in particular the Autographs have a lot in favour for them - they are on card signatures, chrome stock and are extremely limited in print run. All great things for their future trajectory. As his first rookie card they also have some significance as we’ve seen in years passed with other prospects, but this does not necessarily command as big of a premium as many may think.

And will they even be the best ones? We’ve seen a huge evolution in soccer card products of late, with the re-introduction of match worn material and far more on card autographs. I would expect Dowman to feature in products such as Dynasty, where he’d likely receive match worn RPA’s - these would likely become his most desirable cards to most people. On top of that, he will feature in the remaining products to release this year, assuming this includes;

- Premier League - Finest (heavily featured), Merlin, Royalty (high end patches and autos)

- UEFA - Chrome (heavily featured), Finest, Merlin, Stadium Club, Definitive, Dynasty

- Panini - no confirmations yet but I would not be shocked to see his inclusion in World Cup products - there is precedent for this with the use of Cavan Sullivan in USMNT kit. 

With this many products coming out, it is borderline impossible for these card prices to sustain - especially given where we are at in the season. He will most likely not be in the England squad for the World Cup and unless he has some standout performances in the final month of the Premier League, we won’t see any spike opportunities until next season. Essentially, I would hold out for future opportunities to buy his cards that are yet to be released and these first rookie cards, which should drop once the market becomes saturated. 

Dowman vs Everyone Else

This next part is entirely subjective. If you think Dowman is Lionel Messi but better, I am not here to convince you otherwise. I have no idea whether he will go on to be the superstar that prospectors, fans and collectors hope he could be, he seems to be extremely talented and is getting competitive match opportunities for the current Premier League leaders. 

The problem I find is when you stack him up against his peers. The obvious player I’m going to draw comparisons to is Lamine Yamal, widely considered by many to be the best soccer prospect in the modern era of card collecting. At 16, Yamal was a starter and one of the best players at the 2024 Euros for winners Spain. He won the Kopa Trophy and in the following season had 24 goal contributions in La Liga and 9 in the Champions League, finishing 2nd in Ballon D’Or voting. This is not to say that Yamal will turn out to be better than Dowman, nobody can predict that, it is just important to understand when comparing side by side at the same age, their accomplishments will be so vastly different in favour of Lamine - yet there are direct comparisons that can be made in the card market. A Stadium Club Black /10 Rookie Auto of Lamine Yamal just sold for $9k, and a true Chrome Black /10 PSA8 sold for $22k. Dowman’s last Black /10 Autograph sale was $17,400. Dowman is on-card but Yamal has achieved infinitely more and will be heading into his 1st World Cup in the summer.

Ignoring my bias, my next comparison will likely draw some raised eyebrows. Rio Ngumoha is another rookie who features in Premier League Chrome. Aged 17, he plays on the left wing for Liverpool and has featured more prominently than Dowman has this year. He scored a 96th minute winner against Newcastle, Liverpool fans have been begging for him to get more minutes and he recently started against Fulham, scoring a fantastic individual goal. Yet when comparing the two, the price difference is seemingly absurd. The last 2 sales on Rio’s Black /10 Autos (on-card) are $1,350 and $1,395. Dowman is younger and scarcer card-wise, but Nguomha has more minutes, highlights and a clearer path to more minutes. Even if you believe in Dowman over Ngumoha, the price difference makes no sense. Maybe Rio is undervalued! 

There are other comparisons you can make too. Look at young rookie superstars with a bit more complexity to their card market, Lennart Karl who’s been thriving at Bayern Munich and could well go to the World Cup with Germany, Estêvão who had a strong start to the season and will likely start for Brazil at the World Cup (but has so many rookies including Panini 23-24 ones…). 

Conclusions

- Collect what makes you happy. Don’t let market analysis dictate what makes you a collector of cards - enjoy it above all. 

- The Dowman market has seemingly leveled out, but is far more likely to drop further than it is to rise due to upcoming releases reducing the scarcity and the lack of near term inflection points (no World Cup).  

- Other players in a similar age group might be a better short-term play.