Hi Michael, and all others reading the this thread,
As many have said before, do not trust anyone on eBay when it comes to match worn football shirts, and in general keep to trusted dealers. You will know if they are genuine normaly because they are rather expensive and will have identification to prove that the shirt has been obtained from the player at the time, or come through the respective club.
Because of the nature of match worn shirts and seen as you guys are wanting to get into the collectors side of thing, have you thought of buying match issue shirts? Normaly half the price of match worn shirts, as they dont have the 'aledged player worn tag line' and therefore dont carry that risk that buying a worn shirt has.
Match Issue Shirts are different to player issues you might hear about as they are prepared for individual matches and not just general player spec shirts that can be sold after the end of the season, and most importantly these shirts that can traced. Mainly due to them having the player issue spec name and number from the competetion the shirt was prepared for, ie champs league, barclays pl etc.. and also the player spec (larger and more detailed) patches on the shirt, which can put an exact match to the shirt... Most match issue shirts become available as they have not been used to due players preference, with 2 or 3 shirts available to a player every matchday [for big clubs] with 1 in shorts sleeve, 1 long sleeve, spare player prefered many shirts go unused as player normaly elect a specific short or long sleeve preferance, and will therefore have no need to have the extra 2 needed. But also the extra shirts might not be used during the season due to fallouts from cup copetition where the kitroom would have expected more rounds and therefore more shirts.
As with match worn shirts, match issue shirts also have a certain quality to them, with many collectors being unable to afford the actual shirt in a specific match, match issues are the next best thing, at a far cheaper price.
I have purchased countless match issue shirts over my time as a shirt collector, and have founf them to be a great cheaper equivelant to getting your foot in the door of rare footballshirt collecting with many of my shirts costing £50-60 from dealers or on occasion a £20-30 from clubs who are selling at the end of the season.
I have alot of match issue shirts in my collection if you would be interested in starting your collection, and as a collector to a collector I dont make big profits on my shirts, and most of my match issues can be bought for less than £70. I only buy certain shirts that I have connections with the clubs themselves, including Celtic, Man U, Leeds in domestic teams and England, Scotland and Dutch international shirts all tracable and are 100% official kitroom products although I have others but not in big qualities, Chelsea and Liverpool shirts but not match issue, player issue though. As seen before on FSC I am a trusted collector who is selling shirts, not a seller, and am more than happy to verify the authenticity of my items by High Quality photo or by meeting in person.
If anyone wants to give me an e-mail I can tell them exactly what I might consider selling,
and for Michael seen as your new to the collectors club so to speek if you eamil me I think I have a great starter shirt you might be interested in, I have an Newcastle 2007- 2009 DUFF 11 match issue shirt, for around about the £50 mark if you are interested.
Cheers
Struan, kitman93
rarefootballshirt@btinternet.com
www.rarefootballshirt.weebly.com
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