Soccer Jerseys Earn Big Bucks for Sellers at Treasure Hunters Roadshow Events
Treasure Hunters Roadshow (THR) is one of the top buyers of precious metals,
comic books, toys and other antiques. Since 1996, teams of treasure hunters have
traveled to over 1,000 metropolitan areas in the United States, Canada and
Europe, seeking some of the most special and rarest treasures.
While THR
is a buyer of all antiques, a specific team of treasure hunters is devoted to
locating sports’ greatest collectibles. Even though signed autographs, gear and
cards are all well-known items, sellers are encouraged to bring their unique or
one-of-a-kind game-worn jerseys to the THR events.
If the sports experts
at Treasure Hunters Roadshow, quite a few of whom are sports enthusiasts with
comprehensive collections themselves, deem that the jerseys are authentic and
valuable, and are of interest to their worldwide network of buyers, they will
make an offer to purchase the item on the spot.
While football,
basketball and baseball jerseys continue to be well-liked in the United States,
there is a significant worldwide marketplace for soccer jerseys from around the
world. As the popularity of soccer has continued to climb internationally, so
has the interest in jerseys worn and signed by its largest stars.
Soccer
(or football, as it is known in the vast majority of the world) got its humble
beginnings in the English countryside in the mid-19th century. Even though the
very first recorded soccer match took place in 1860, it was far from the neat
and rigid game we know today. Most notably, teams had no regular uniforms.
Instead, they usually wore bulky knickerbockers and inconvenient colored sashes
to distinguish teams.
To reduce the confusion, teams in the 1870s
started to ask their players to have on similar colors. However, there were no
guidelines governing that a team must have on the same color for every game, nor
a way of distinguishing players from one another.
As the game started to
expand throughout the world at the turn of the 20th century, so did the list of
rules governing it. Quite a few teams started to adopt a single color or style,
most of them primarily based on the styles of clubs that had taken shape in
England.
Following WWII, a lot of teams began using much less complicated
uniforms due to financial restrictions. These resembled the present day v-neck
shirts manufactured of all-natural fibers. In order to increase profits for
their club, Real Madrid became the first team to design and market a replica
jersey sold to fans beginning in the 1970s.
Seeing the results of these
replica jerseys, other teams started to design more complicated jerseys for both
their players and to sell to supporters. Manchester United made global headlines
in 1996 when their coach, at halftime of a game, declared that his team was
losing because of the gray-colored jerseys they had been wearing (which had been
purposely selected to be worn with jeans) due to the fact the players could not
see each other on the field.
Jerseys continued to climb in popularity as
followers eagerly scooped them up in order to display their team loyalties.
Today, followers continue to shell out big bucks for athletes’ jerseys,
specifically those worn in games. Not too long ago, a World Cup-worn jersey sold
at auction for about $800.
Many of these genuine jerseys continue to
make their way to THR events, where sellers are eager to cash in on their most
valuable sports items. A listing of upcoming Treasure Hunters Roadshow events
can be located on the company’s internet site.