Echo Collectibles, an Arizona-based startup, will begin selling a series of commemorative medallions, tickets, art prints and VIP lanyards made with precious metals in a new partnership with Arsenal later this year. The collaboration will include limited-edition gold and silver medallions authenticated by coin grader NGC as Echo seeks to popularize collectible precious metals in sports. Early price points range from $50 for lower-end commemorative golden tickets to $10,000 for one-ounce, 24-karat gold graded medallions.
Echo’s first launch with a Premier League club will commemorate historic Arsenal matches from their first Premier League title-winning season since 2004 through silver ($500-$750 each) and gold medallions. An exact release date for the first medallions has yet to be determined, but they are expected to launch after the season ends.
Mark Salzberg founded Certified Collectibles Group (CCG), one of the leading graders of comics, coins, trading cards and more, in 1987. He co-founded Echo Collectibles because he believes there’s a path to crossing over the popularity of collectible coins and precious metals with sports, an area where trading cards and autographed memorabilia dominate, if approached correctly.
“The sports world already has that kind of inclination to collect and this is precious metal, limited edition,” Salzburg told The Athletic. “If you do it with the teams, you have access to their IP, their archive, and it can go all the way back as long as the team has been around, and you can leverage those assets in a way that nobody’s ever done.”
Echo’s partnership with Arsenal will deepen for the start of the 2026-27 Premier League season through a series of match-specific coins. Each release will be a limited run of mostly silver coins and a smaller number made from gold. Echo also plans to create art prints and a series of commemorative tickets. The artwork will be printed using 24-karat gold and sold during an exhibition later this year at The Diamond Club in Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium. Commemorative tickets will be offered either graded and encapsulated in a protective case or on their own, with ultra-rare variations containing more gold than common copies.
Echo hopes a higher-quality collectible will resonate with the high-end, VIP crowd associated with Arsenal and top brands in other sports. Echo plans to release exclusive products for Emirates Stadium tours, as well as gold VIP lanyards that could arrive in the coming months. Those lanyards would be an add-on for suite buyers and high-end corporate partners who want to commemorate the experience.
“If you look at how sports fans have been collecting, they’ve been collecting garbage memorabilia for a long time,” Kawamori said. “Because the memorabilia sector is basically, ‘Let’s produce a bunch of really cheap stuff.’ Cheap jerseys, plastic helmets — then let’s pay these (athletes) to sign 1,000 or 10,000 of them in a sitting. They make a bunch of money doing it, and then the market floods with this really low-quality stuff.
“It’s still successful and important because it gives the fan a chance to participate in that history of the club or in that moment. … We really saw this as an opportunity to up-level that.”
Echo’s Ryder Cup coins, in partnership with U.S. captain Keegan Bradley, served as proof of concept. (Photo courtesy of Echo Collectibles)
Echo’s partnership with Arsenal will be the first major test for the company since debuting the concept at the 2025 Ryder Cup in a partnership with U.S. captain Keegan Bradley. According to Kawamori, collectors purchased $6,000 coins at the Ryder Cup, and he believes the market could be even stronger for brands as powerful as Arsenal. For now, Echo plans to continue collaborating with only the top brands across various sports, including additional Premier League clubs, possibly F1 teams and, in the U.S., key SEC programs for college football.
Success at the Ryder Cup provided proof of concept for Salzberg, and the next step is executing with Arsenal.
“If you really dig down on this as we go along, you can think of them as a museum, and we’re their mint,” Salzberg said. “We’re going to mint their IP in a way that they never thought of and we’re going to plug it into the certified world. If that works, I’ll be really, really happy, and I’ll be able to hand this off to the next generation.
“It’s very exciting for me. I’ve looked at a lot of things, and I think this could be bigger than anything I’ve ever done before.”
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