Welcome to PeleCards.com

Welcome to PeleCards.com! This website is built to be an encyclopedia of every Pele card ever created!  It was created by a long-time Pele card collector who wanted to share his love and passion for vintage Pele cards with the world. 

Our Website’s Goal

Collecting vintage soccer (aka football) cards & stickers – and especially Pele – is an exciting hobby, due to the vast array of cards that were issued around the world. Since Pele was the world’s best player during the duration of his entire 20 year career (1958 – 1977) and because collecting stickers and cards was a popular hobby for children around the world during those years, this means that Pele has hundreds of cards and stickers released around the globe. For those who seek to collect these, this is a daunting task in large part because there is no central location where these stickers are cataloged.

That is what we are solving. Our goal is to create an encyclopedia cataloging all of Pele’s cards and stickers released around the world, starting from his rookie days in 1957 and ending in 1989 – the end of the vintage era when modern card collecting came about (i.e., insert cards, serial numbered cards, memorabilia cards, etc.).

The Encyclopedia

We have made the encyclopedia easy to use. Every single card has its own entry. You can search the encyclopedia in year / alphabetical order starting with Pele’s few 1957 rookie cards and go page by page through all of the cards. Or you can search by keyword (i.e., brand, year, etc.) to see all cards with that keyword in the encyclopedia.

Each card has its own article with information about the card. There are also notes on any known card variations, a spot to add checklists, photos and info about the album or set the card is from, and a spot to add links to other sites with more information about that card and set.

Potentially Contentious & Controversial Definitions

The sports card hobby has no shortage of debate and contention over terms used in the hobby. For example, the term Rookie Card carries a HUGE increase in monetary value for cards that receive this label, yet everyone seems to define the term differently. There are a couple of terms we will use on this site in order to avoid scope creep, that will also be similarly controversial. However, at this point these are the definitions we are using and sticking with (but may be subject to change):

i. Card – What exactly is a card? We are using the term card rather loosely. We recognize all cards, stickers, and album inserts that were released that roughly follow these guidelines:

• It is on paper or card stock
• It is 2D (no 3D objects like pins, buttons, or bottle caps)
• Issued with the intent to be collected (usually by children)
• It is recognized in the hobby as a a card that will be graded by a major grading company

This means that a lot of collectibles won’t make our cut, such as pins, magazine cut-outs, pennants, etc.

However, there are certainly some items we have listed that blur the lines on this. For example, there are gum wrappers, matchboxes, postcards, magazine cut-outs that were intended to be cut out and collected (i.e., 1958 Rekord), postage stamps, pocket schedules, etc.

Generally, we try to let the hobby decide and if a large percentage of the hobby accepts it as a ‘card’ then we will list it for reference.

  ii. Pele – When is it a Pele Card? A card is considered to be a Pele card when:

• Pele’s image and / or name is the primary subject of the card
  OR
• There is an action or team shot and it is clear that it is Pele is a central focus of the action on the card

Cards that are not included in our encyclopedia include team cards where Pele is standing with the entire team, and cards that have a generic drawing of a player in a Brazil jersey that looks like it might be Pele but is not recognized as him on the card. Again, there are some blurred lines here, but in general if the hobby grading companies will grade it, then we will list it.

  iii. Variation – What makes a card a variation? Variations are as follows:

• Cards that were issued in the same set and Year and are intended to be the same card or fill the same spot in an album
• There is a difference or variation that was created by the publisher that issued the card

Variations include things such as back colors, backs being issued as a prize winner (like Valida or Bisvalida), printing errors (such as incorrect numbering or name spelling), stamps on the card that were stamped by the publisher, etc.

Things that are not considered variations include cards with the same image that were issued by separate companies or the same company in two different sets. Although these are similar cards, they are not actually variations of the same card.

PeleCards.com Current Status 

This site is not finished, but instead is a work in progress. There are still hundreds of Pele cards that are not yet added to the encyclopedia. Many of the cards that are in the encyclopedia are missing key information such as pictures of the backs or information about when or where it was issued. There are likely factual errors on cards as well. And at this point most cards are missing the album information. So we can use your support & assistance to finish building the site.

How You Can Support Us

You can support us in the following ways:

1. If you see any errors or mistakes, let us know. You can leave a comment on the Encyclopedia page where you see it or contact us via our contact page. 
2. Send us images of cards and albums for the site. We greatly appreciate all submissions we receive 
3. Write-up encyclopedia articles for your favorite Pele cards. If you write an article, we will gladly use it and are happy to give you credit for the write-up on the page. 
4. Purchase cards from us. Because of its complexity, it has cost us time and money to build this site and it also takes money to  maintain and improve it. If you appreciate what we are doing, we would love to have you purchase cards from our shop page.

We are excited to build out this Pele Card Encyclopedia to share with others and to increase the number of collectors of Pele cards and vintage soccer cards around the world!