Oh, happy Saturday morning to everybody. Welcome to Hobby Hotline, episode two
eighty. I'm Danny. That's Adam. For some reason, he wears a
red Sox hat and it takes the two of us to equal out the Great
Uncle Rich Klein. How you guys doing there, Good morning, Happy happy
holidays. I'm happy to say this is a full hobby day for me by
begin with Hobby Hotline and tonight my local card store has their Secret Santa Gift
Exchange trade night, and even though they raised the price of entry for it,
they had ninety people sign up to do Secret Santa gifts this year and
that was they were stunned by. Despite the price ranges last year with three
tiers, this year was just an adult and a child range, and yes,
as an adult you could go into the child range if you wanted to.
It was more like that, and I'm excited. They always do.
And they also their owner and it's a consortium of six doors locally in the
area, four that are like franchises and two that are associated. So it's
six doors getting together for the party tonight and they'll have gifts and they'll have
other things. And I heartily recommend and the store is located. The store
is called The Beast the Sports Cards and it's in Plano at basically Highway one
twenty one in Preston Road. So I encourage anybody just to drop in tonight
too, just to talk. There's going to be a lot of hobbies there.
It should be a lot of fun. That's awesome. Adam, how
are you doing? Yeah? Pretty good, you know. So obviously got
the Hobby News Daily podcast. Saturday episode went up early today. Been doing
a little bit more on TikTok so. I mean, if anybody's on TikTok,
I had been, I'd post a lot on there. I used to
post a lot on there, hadn't really I hadn't really been getting back into
it. But this past week I posted a couple of videos getting back in
the flow with things. So you know, that's my hobby experience is content
creation. So you know, anytime that there's more content creation that we had,
I'm always down for that. And can I just say that what Adam
does on Saturday mornings when he puts all the shows together for Hobby News Daily,
is in my opinion, a wonderful and important to listen to breakdown of
what's happened over the past week. I consider it a musklessen, especially when
I'm on the show, but I consider it a musklessen every Saturday morning.
And I really do recommend more people listen. I mean, and I understand
it's his opinions, but it's a real good breakdown of what's happening at a
specific time frame, a snapshot. You know, I personally shake those kind
words Rich very nice. Yeah, we both appreciate pokudos to add him because
it's not just the weekend. He's doing Monday through Friday to get up to
the weekend. So he's the voice, the voice in the morning. A
lot of people in the in the in the chat room already, Reuben says,
holy crap, full face riche kliinb is fixed. I preferred the box
Rich climb with this disembodied voice, but you can get a full face of
me if he's so desired. Absolutely fell out ball. I'm gonna miss a
bunch of people here, But also want to give a shout at as always
to the sports card shop. They've got two locations now. I always say
I have been to the Valparaiso and uh, fantastic definitely check them out and
we're usually up on the big board there. So uh to Rex and the
whole family there morning and happy happy holidays. I think getting started this morning,
we got to tackle the seven hundred million dollar gorilla. I think we're
looking at one of the craziest contracts and one of the biggest stories in sports
and quite some time. Show Hey the money and the cards seven hundred million
over ten years. Obviously there's this unique deferred contract. But tops now does
a printing Adam, what did they what do you know about that? So
broke the record? I mean so tops now they pretty much do like the
print on demand cards. I think the last previous record was Bernie Sanders,
like that funny card where he was like sitting at the inauguration back in twenty
twenty. That I think they have like ninety seven thousand or something like that.
And then this this card, the show Hey card had hundred and seven
thousand, which is like, I mean, for me, it's you know,
the tops now. I love the concept and I think that TOPS does
a phenomenal job with capturing these types of moments with these cards, and then
even you know, with with rookie cards. Specifically, and I mean just
for the reason that I like the TOPS Now is because like, you know
how many cards there are. Like sure, maybe I don't know, maybe
you're not pulling out a pack and you know what card you're pulling, but
like for rookies or for like a moment like this with Shoheo Tani or or
the Juan Soto which I don't remember what the print run for that one was
off the top of my head. But for that example, like you know
that there's one hundred and seven thousands. So if you're even comparing that to
any amount of cards within like the flagship product or TOPS Chrome, it's like,
you know, it's it's a significant difference in knowing how many cards there
are versus like just having to guess and like really having no idea one way
or the other if they're that many. So I mean, yeah, the
top the tops Now card, I think it's really cool and I'm glad that
you know it's I'm glad that TOPS has continued the process. But I mean,
I guess if you're selling one hundred and seven thousand cards, like you're
probably not looking to move on from the concept as both well, remember you
have also a very limited time frame to order these cards. You know,
It's not like you have a month or two months to order a tops now
card. You have a few days at the most. And so to have
that many cards printed, I mean, ATOPS does a wonderful job. I
get their emails, you know, but to have that many cards ordered in
one day just shows just how popular show is. It definitely shows his popularity.
And it's not that it matters because I think you buy this card for
for the moment, But does it devalue the card that there's you know,
one hundred thousand of them out there? Maybe, I mean, I mean
potentially, But also you're not really looking at with these types of cards.
I feel like it's more like a collect I feel like it's almost truly like
a collectible, Like I feel like it's it's it's truly like it the cards.
You know, the hobby does this funny thing where they they just they
just will accept that something won't be a certain way, Like they accept that
like wide receivers and running backs in the NFL are like not as valued as
as as you know, quarterbacks, or it's like uh, college jersey cards
or not even if they're signed, they're not as valuable as like the regular
cards. It seems like, you know, obviously with Tops and Bowman.
That's I think things are changing a little bit. But at the same time,
basically the hobby has decided in some circumstances that like, these cards are
not going to have long term staying value. I mean unless you're seeing like
you know, I'm gonna use an example of a soccer card that I bought,
like the there was a Gurana card from the Bundesliga that has like a
print run of like two hundred, so it's like and it was his first
TOPS card, so it's like you can't maybe look at that and say,
well, that one is obviously gonna be different than this. And I actually
did just crunch a couple of numbers hypothetically if all of the orders that were
if all the orders were or of twenty, which I don't know if they
weren't, but I'm just using the I'm low balling the number a little bit
here. That means Tops would have made four hundred and eighty one thousand,
five hundred dollars from the show Hao Tony card, just from just from the
one drop and well not made that would have been sales, well in sales,
right right right, yes, correct, right, but in sales,
And that's also low balling the number like if and I mean because it's I
think it's it's it goes from one card is nine dollars to if you order
twenty, it's five dollars. So like basically, you know, again,
if you want to high ball that number, they made a million, they
or they they had a million in sales, because you know, you double
that for every card was bought single singularity, sing singularly. I don't know,
you know what I'm saying. Did anybody in the chat room buy or
did either of you guys? I'm just curious if we already had somebody said
they got their card in the mail, So yeah, somebody in the chat
room has already bought the card and has received it. Steel City also in
an on tops fashion, My Dodgertani arrived already in the mail. Well maybe
this is some of the things that fanatics will improve. If there's anything they're
good at, its logistics and shipping hopefully well, and I mean the fact
that there are like the fact that there were one hundred and seven thousand ordered
and you know, somebody's already got in the mail. I think, I
mean hopefully that maybe proved that like a concept that I think I was talking
about on this show, like back in March was like a March Madness set,
and like getting these cards printed and shipped as quickly as possible because you
know, to sort of stir up the excitement for it. So I think,
like, you know, if they're able to do it this quickly with
this many cards, I think this helps the concept of getting cards like this
shipped out quickly. Interesting common here. I did not buy it as there
was photoshopped ol Wayne and overspend for his first flagship Father's Day card out of
fifty Does that? Does that? That's an interesting comment? Does he bother?
Either one of you? Guys? It's a photoshop? For how long
has Tops been changing uniform caps and things like that on players? I mean,
this is a tradition going back seventy years yep. So there's nothing new
under the sun. They used to do of you know, now you can
do a much better job with photoshop, but I mean they've been doing that
for seventy some odd years. Come on, guys, Rich, you know
better than I do. They've had, they've had hats, they've left blank
and all sorts of stuff over the years to try to correct stuff. Oh
oh, there have been and there's been some classic stuff that's not corrected.
Like my favorite type of all time on a types card is the sixty four
tops Dennis Bennett card. I believe it's his name. He's on paired with
Rick Wise on a rookie card. This nineteen year old right hand or is
only eighteen years old. Mm hmm, but that's what they call him nineteen
on there, so he's this think Yeah, I mean that the card actually
says that there's no correction that should have been corrected. That's hysterical, But
that's from nineteen sixty four, That's what I mean. We things happened,
and the phono if it was a photoshop card, I'm much rather have not
seen the card, I will be honest. But the card that I heard
about is when they did some interview with him and he was with his dog.
You need to get a photo of him and his dog just for the
element decoy. Yeah, right right. It was a seventy two hundred on
the Wan Soto card like the traded one, and then yeah, I mean,
i'd like I'll answer the question quickly. I'm I'm fine with the photoshop.
I mean it's a I think they did a phenomenal job with it.
Like it's funny. Like I have a sports design background, and one of
the things that was I used to do a lot of like sports designing on
Instagram before he got into sports cards, and like one of the big things
was jersey swaps, Like that was one of the big like niches almost it
was like a niche within that niche of it was it was like a niche
within the niche of sports graphic design was like people doing jersey swaps. So
like it's funny now, like I can you look at ESPN, Like ESPN
does jersey swaps, and they're horrific. They're terrible. They're like like tops
at least is doing a really good job, like they you know, they
don't have someone doing it on their phone obviously, Like I sometimes I think
that's what they're what ESPN and some of these companies are doing. When someone
gets traded, I look at them, like that's just not that player,
Like that's just they just literally either did they put his head on someone else's
body or they like try to morph a jersey that's not Yeah, like I
said, I think the photoshop job is good, and I think that Tops
does a good job with their photoshops. Uh, with these types of cards
obviously, because you know you're not gonna Joejo. Tony's not hitting in a
he in a Dodgers jersey. Yet he does also have that card live right
now of him at the press conference. So you know, hypothetically, if
you did want his first Dodger's official with him wearing a actually wearing a Dodger
jersey, that cards available now, not that top how Uh what's eight eight
eight for the or nine for the single card? And then yes it goes
basically down per card if you order me. But yeah, I mean,
like I said, hopefully, you know, maybe Tops will pay us one
day, but they're not paying us now. But they got free they got
a free plug for that for that card that's up right now. Rich is
getting a call right now from Jefferson Verdick. I believe he actually actually it's
Michael. He's gonna call from Michael Rubin to tell us that they're gonna be
cutting as a check for this episode. We were guessing who if that it's
staring ravel, I asked, I asked if the photoshop bothered anybody, every
card is photoshop nowadays, does not bother me at all. I completely agree
with that. Actually, good morning, Warren. I'm a little bit behind
in some of the helloes, but I did want to get back real quick,
Dan. I thank you on a couple of shows. I don't know
if you saw, but I got everything a while back and just wanted to
thank you very much. Loved the Ripkin card card, so thank you very
nice to send that. I don't want to switch topics too quick when when
Rich gets back, but I want to talk about and I think Adam,
you brought up a good point in the the Tom Brady card and the Disney
drop tops took kind of two very different approaches to selling these, and I
know you've covered both. Do you mind explaining kind of the if I guess
the Brady one, if unless you've been under a rock you saw the ads
for that, yeah, I mean, I mean with the Brady they this
was I think one of the first real like marketing campaigns that we've seen within
cards. Like I know we've seen, we've seen social media, we've seen
you know companies use social media stuff like that, that's not you know obviously
you know, working in marketing, like they, I don't know, they
must have spent a lot of money on this campaign, so like, I'm
the thing that you know. I talked about this on the show actually two
times this week, because one was just about the cards and then one was
about the campaign. Was like, I guess I'm the thing I'm confused about,
and maybe I'll ask you this. Danny is like, the Bowman Draft
is one of their most popular products, and sure, getting Tom Brady in
Bowman Draft is a big deal, but it's like it just seems odd that
they would spend so much, which I get, Like I said, it's
it's I'm very mixed feelings between like it's good that they're spending money on their
most popular product versus like, it's their most popular product, why are they
spending money on this huge monster campaign? Now obviously it's because they have Tom
Brady in it, but at this but I don't know, so I mean,
you know, sorry, excuse me, like that for the Brady like
it came out on twelve twelve, which I mean obviously that was probably planned,
and then they had all of the like they had like Pedro and they
had Vlad Guerrero in the commercial that they had a commercial like that was an
extremely well done commercial. And then they had known the Patriots working with them,
they had the MLB working with them, they had like the Hall of
Fame stuff. So I mean, it was like they must have spent a
lot. It almost makes me, it almost makes me think that this is
where all the resources went from the QC people that like, we're qcing things
the past year and they had all these mix ups because it's just like,
this is not just a single person job. This is like a company wide
job that they put together with this campaign, like just because you know,
working in marketing, I know how many people have to work on campaigns like
this. So it's like it's weird. It's to me, it's a little
bit weird that they spent it on on their biggest product. But at the
same time, I guess, I guess it does make sense that they would
do that. But yeah, so I mean those are those are kind of
my overall thoughts at least on the the Brady Card. And then I'll let
you guys go and then I can kind of talk about the Disney drop a
little bit after we kind of do a couple of things on the Brady Brady
Justli Brady stuff. Yeah, we're talking about the saturation of the Brady marketing.
You know, it's fine. I mean, I've seen Basic over the
years. I've seen people advertise Basic top sets when they when it comes out.
You know, there was some way back in the day after there was
the correction in the market because of the baseball strike in the mid nineties.
They started having baseball cards are cool again in the mid and late nineties,
but every once in a while there would still be tops ads on TV on
Nickelodeon trying to get back to the kids. It's fine. I mean,
you want to get general interest, if you know, it's a punchline now
about we want to tenx the hobby. But how is going at tenex the
hobby unless you start reaching people that aren't collected. And Brady is still amazingly
popular. It's a great concept. What if there's a lot of people who
have been drafted by baseball teams that did not play baseball, did not make
the major leagues. Some are more famous than others. It's a great way
to begin the concept and you can have fun with it, and you can
have fun. Fanatics is going to have other sports too. David Mark Winfield
was drafted in baseball, football, and basketball and four leagues because of the
NBA, because of the ABA and NBA. Right, so you can put
a David Mark Winfield basketball card into Bowman. Someday he's a Hall of Famer
in baseball. It's not going to be the same interest, but it's a
cool concept to do, and once you have all the you know, it
is something you can cross brand up among sports. You know, you can
get players from Michael Jordan did play baseball. I mean, you know you
can. You know, I know it's up for deck. So maybe someday
he won't have that, but you know, if if Michael Michael Jordan was
available to Tom's or Fanatics with their cross marketing and all the leagues are going
to have in two or three years, you can cross promote him into all
the sports. You know, Bo Jackson, we know Dion Sanders, know,
they all played other sports, and I mean they were even less I'm
using lesser names too, But the point is this is something Fanatics can do
that other card companies really haven't thought about or really don't want to, or
have not thought enough outside the box to do so. I don't have a
problem with them publicizing. You've got one of the most popular football players of
all time, winning all those Super Bowls. It's going to be the going
to be the number one commentator on Fox next year for football. So he'll
stay in the news. Why not? I mean, and then if you
get him to sign even better. They've done a they've done a hobby publicity,
and they've done a public publicity. We want a tenext to hobby.
Well, you're gonna have to do things like that to tenext to hobby,
right, and making Tom Brady seem like he's interested in baseball cards is the
first, I mean, the largest endorser I can ever remember endorsing the hobby.
I don't get rich. I mean, you said, one of the
most popular football players, one of the most popular athletes of all time.
And when you have that player of that caliber saying I'm on board with this,
well, then my kids get interested. You know, more people get
interested, and and you know people are throwing out other names, Russell Wilson,
Kyler Murray, but you know, yeah, a lot of these guys,
Tim Tebow, there's a bunch of people. And then you can do
it in reverse sports. You know, the Tony Gwenn basketball card would be
a would be a cool one. You know, Fanatics is going to have
all the licenses and to rich his point, you know, you need that
to be able to do this and and and if you don't have all the
licenses to work together, and you don't have the influence with the athletes and
the deals, then it can't get done. And that's the other thing.
Michael Rubin has a lot of these athletes on speed dial on his phone,
right Panini? Did you know? Panini has done a lot of great things
over the but I don't think they're CEOs American and worldwide. Have all these
athletes on speed dial on their phone where you know, when Michael Rubin went
to Rob Verius his store and he saw some young girl with and this was
great pr with the you know, looking at cheap Devin book of cards.
Would you like to meet him? And he whips out his phone and they
eventually met and you know, and he gave her some merchant, you know,
some some stuff too. I would say merchandise, that's the wrong word.
But some memorabilia, right, And it worked out very well. But
it's great publicity, but it's also he's got those numbers on his phone.
You and I don't have those numbers on right, right, Yeah, yeah,
I mean too. I think the ad, I mean, these were
my two thoughts of two. I guess I don't know. Two more of
the thoughts I had on the ad was like, it feels like a like
they were trying they're trying to win like a marketing some sort of marketing award
for this campaign, because it really feels like a full Like I said,
it feels like one of the first full scale sports card camps that we've really
that I can remember seeing in quite some time. I mean yeah, like
you said, sure, there's there's commercials on yeah, you know, nickelode
and ESPN for sports cards, but like this is like this was this felt
like it was bigger than sports cards in general. And that's kind of one
of the things that will, you know, the tenxing of the hobby.
I don't know necessarily, if there's gonna be a ten x or whatever it
ends up being. Like I mean, honestly, if you ask most collectors,
they don't want the hobby to ten X. They want the hobby to
stay the same. But like that's you know, for you know, for
content creators, for people like me, that's I would like to see a
ten X. But you know, obviously it doesn't affect me as much because
I'm not buying every single product, and you know, the prices of them
were buying every single car and price are going up because they're ten xing or
whatever. But the other piece of it, I think could be that maybe
Fanatics is trying to get more investing into the company and they're saying, look
at this, we can do this marketing campaign. Look at what we did
with especially using Tom Brady as like not even really a guinea pig, but
like as the star of the marketing campaign. It's like we did this with
Tom Brady, we can do this with other athletes that we want to bring
over. You know which I would I will. I guess My prediction is
I think they're gonna do something similar with lebron if I'm gonna be honest,
because like they have Bronni James. They they sign that agent from Rich Paul's
or the basketball I forget what his name, his title was. I think
he was he's the director of basketball player relations, I think now, and
he worked with rich Paul's agency. Who was Lebron's agent, who was that's
Lebron's you know, that's Rich Paul's Lebron's friend. Who there that's their agency?
And then and then you know, and now we have that other Bowman
basketball card with the Lebron autograph in it. I wouldn't be surprised if in
a year, two or three years we see a very similar campaign somehow with
Lebron. Obviously not to this extent, or they're they're gonna have to come
up with another concept, but you know, I think that they're probably gonna
do something with Lebron once everything fully gets announced and he's and they maybe when
they get the basketball product and they officially start really rolling these things out.
The fact that they started with Brady I think is great because it's like he's
the like you said, he's the biggest athlete probably in the United States at
least other than maybe Lebron. So we'll see. But those are kind of
just two of the things that I was thinking about on top of sort of
all my other thoughts with these Brady cards. Real quick, Adam somebody's said
steel City DW to your point, Adam fanatics maybe using this as a test
case for how they evolved the product line. So right, totally to your
point. There also ten times the hobby means different things to everybody. It
could be ten times the revenue, ten times the consumers. Hopefully it's not
ten times the cards. I saw that comment, and I don't think.
I don't think we want every set multiplied by ten. And Mike Petty,
I agree with a lot of what you're saying that ten times. You know,
you bring more people in and they're not going to be the traditional collectors,
and you hope that people don't take advantage of them. They certainly agree
with that, no argument and at all. We went through a ten X
in the you know, I'm old enough to remember we went through the ten
X in the late eighties and early nineties, and yes, that was detrimental,
it was long term, was detrimental, but it was great at the
time. And you know, one of the things you have to remember is
there was also a before the baseball strike, it was still a very strong
business. You know, people think the peak of the overproduced era was ninety
ninety one, but because these are public now numbers that we had to publish
in the Beckett magazine with what they called the OMC, the Official magazine circulation
that you had to publish each year. We were actually printing more Beckett magazines
in ninety three than we were in ninety one. So it was a long
term effect too that could have stayed even longer without the combination of the baseball
strike and the hobby lockout and the hockey lockout. So you know, there
are factors sometimes that come beyond our pale. But the longer there's hobby keys
in the sports, they're they're better off, is you know. And I
think it's important that we understand that it's going to be there's going to be
bumps. There have to be bumps. Nothing's a smooth ride upward and nothing's
a safe glide downwards. But they're going to be bumps. It's going to
be okay. And the beauty about collecting is collecting is an individual pursuit.
You can collect any way you want. If you say, I want nothing
to do with Tom Brady's twenty twenty three Bowman cards in the in the football
prior, I don't even want to know anything about twenty twenty three cards.
I only want nineteen seventy three and before because that was the last year topstick
cards in series. That's fine, that's the beauty you can you can choose
what you want to do and how you want to do it. We're covering
the topics of today, but just remember collecting your what you want to do,
you know, being and being a collector two very different things. Real
quick. I love this comment. Didn't they make nineteen eighty nine upper deck
set for three years? Rich? I think we've been hearing the stories about
the production of that Griffy card, and to my knowledge, it's still being
produced. That may be the one card you could keep producing and keep selling
the number one all time submitted card to PSA. So it's a very interesting.
We give a shout out here and we may have talked about it last
week to our buddy from gem from gem Rate, Ryan. Yeah, absolutely
has now created a top one hundred and it may and I think you talked
about this, by the way in your Hobby News daily recap that I listened
to today this morning, that he's got now a top one hundred recap of
a population report covering all the card companies of one hundred cards and that's probably
going to grow over the years. And it's a great concept. It's well,
it's much needed. Yeah, it's it's phenomenal. And honestly, like
I don't know if if Danny have the link forward that we could put in
the chat or put his Twitter or something in the chat, because like it
really is. I mean, the thing that I talked about on the show.
And I know I keep referencing what I talked about on the show,
and I'm trying to not do that, but but it's quite all right,
don't hold that. No, the more you reference the show, the better
off you are. But what I said was, like what has happened in
the hobby is tools like this have been built, tools like card Ladder,
tools like the sports card Investor platform, like way people it feels like and
rich. You may be able to correct me if I'm wrong here. It
feels like maybe in like the eighties and nineties and maybe even the two thousands
early two thousands sort of when eBay was not around, and then when it
was just kind of starting, it feels like a lot of you know,
you're obviously you're using Beckett magazine for pricing, but like there was not this
real time data on the price of a card going up, Like it was
like you would have to either wait a month for the magazine to come out
to see if the card went up, or like you just wouldn't know if
a card was going up or down in pricing because it's like you don't know
all of the sales and for the most part, a lot of sales now
are happening online. So like these tools are just helping collectors become much smarter,
which I think is is good for the hobby because it's helping you know,
you're not new people can come in and the learning curve. That's sort
of what maybe what it maybe the good way to put it. The learning
curve has dropped significantly, so it's like new collectors coming in, they don't
have to worry if they're buying the right card or if they're paying the right
price. It's like the learning curve of somebody new coming in and trying to
buy the card or buy card they want at the correct price. It's like
super easy now, where like a couple of years ago, maybe maybe not
a couple years let's say let's say the two thousands you know, somebody might
buy a card and they may they may have no idea if they paid the
right price. They may have paid a couple hundred dollars too much for the
card because like there was no you know, good tool for card pricing tracking.
So it's like the the the learning curve is down significantly and tools like
what you know what gem rate or yeah, gem rate, what they put
out, it's it's a phenomenal tool. And I mean, I love looking
at the data and it has uh let's see, it has like PSA,
SGC, BGS, and CGC all four of them, all four of their
pop reports all put into one pop report basically, and you know, I'd
imagine it's probably similar to what card Ladder did. Like card Ladder didn't start
out with all of these cards on there. They started adding cards day by
day by day, and now they have one of the biggest databases in all
of sports cards, which is why they're kind of that's why while they're own
by PSA now honestly because they built such a good platform. So it's like
this is probably going to be something similar where they add cards and they add
more stuff. But I mean, the tool is I when I saw it
at first, I was I was blown away. It was it was it's
a phenomenal tool for people who are interested in, you know, data on
these types of cards. Yeah, I do want to say it was interesting
and I almost put this into our group chat when I was listening this morning.
But you brought up an interesting point that we that doctor Beckett, who
is also a regular on Hobby Hotline and I discussed on a recent podcast about
when we were back at Beckett and doing pricing. Back in the day,
we depended on private sales, our knowledge of dealers that would tell us truthful
prices. We would go to the shows, the famous line about how much
we spent to send the analysts and to the shows to see what was going
on and today, and this came up in the we actually we had a
Hobby News Daily group chat and this came up with Bobby Burrell. How the
difference between yesterday where we depended on private sales and our knowledge of people and
public and today's public sales are two very different things, and it's a very
different dichotomy between knowing and you know, we don't always know if even if
the sale goes through, you can have somebody leave positive feedback and then right
and no, you don't know unless you know, I mean, you presume,
but it's never, it's never one hundred percent. My favorite way to
buy if I had my brothers is in person at a show every single time.
Uh, the problem is is where the cards? And sometimes that you
know rich you know, I'm sure you believe in buying on comm see and
there's an eBay and you know there's plenty of sites where I can find the
cards that I won't find it a show. And so that that's where it
forces me more online and more into the data when I when I'm at a
show, if I see a card, there's so much back and forth.
There's what else is in the room. There, there's the I appeal,
you know, when you're holding a card seems to be different than when you
look at it on a screen. So I I still prefer to buy face
to face at a show given my chance, Well honestly, so do I.
But I'm also blessed that literally across the street from this office is the
Dallas Card Show. I know you always I rub that. I'm sorry,
I mean it's a blessing. I g hey, I want to give Kyle
Robertson and his team credit. I mean, they used to do forty to
fifty table shows every month. Now they do six hundred table shows six times
a year or five times a year. They have not yet announced the date
for June or July, so we will we will just call it five times
a year. And I'm blessed. And I know a few of the dealers
and they say, and they saved me stuff. So I mean, I'm
not trying to get everything. I'm very happy with my little core of the
world. But I understand how blessed I am to have people who actually just
let me go. And we get that. And we see Jim there,
and we talked about this on the last podcast, how there's almost a camaraderie
of those of us that go through the discount boxes. But you know,
and what's the etutte Rich what's that etiquette? And etiquette is simply put,
just be nice to everybody, but you know, stand up for your rights,
don't and don't do stupid things. If I'm in a row, don't
go in the same row I'm in trying to you know, if the guy's
got fifty boxes, you don't have to be in the same box then go
to a different box. That's That's really it in a nutshell. I mean,
I mean, we've all found good stuff in these boxes coming off the
Tom Brady conversation, and I'd be interested in a lot of people in the
chats view. Is this Disney Chrome one hundred drop that was done? And
it was done I believe UK only, and it was it was a surprise
drop. It was not on to release schedules my understanding, Adam, do
you know more about this? Yeah, I mean I've been kind of following
those Disney cards and there was excuse me, there was a Chinese Disney.
There was a Chinese company that did a Disney drop earlier this year I think
called Phantom. I know what, there's a different name. I forget how
it's like Conco. I forget the name of the the other one that they
call it. But it was that I think that was like early March ish
they dropped out those cards, and I mean they were super popular. I
mean we saw boxes kind of when the when the stuff got announced, like
go pretty crazy because people in the United States were trying to buy them.
And then last year in twenty twenty two, there was a Pixar drop that
a Japanese company did, and if I had to guess, I mean,
because I was trying to I was trying to brainstorm why they would do it
in the UK versus in the United States. I have to assume that there's
like some sort of tariff that or some sort of tax that's like not in
Europe, not in the UK that like potentially the US has, Like if
people from outside the country are trying to order something from the United States,
there has to be some sort of tax that doesn't exist in Europe, and
that's why they're probably sensor shipping charges. I think. Yeah. Well,
also, I mean I'm thinking maybe the other thing that I'm thinking is maybe
they looked at they maybe they have some sort of data that says like,
here are the excuse me? They maybe they have maybe they have some sort
of data that says, we know that, like this country would be most
interested in this country in this country, and UK just happens to be right
in the middle. Where if they did in the United States, there are
you know, I don't know, you have to fly or you have to
ship them in a shit in a boat. I don't know if that people
would do that with sports cards necessarily, But like so I guess, but
they probably would fly whatever. But you got to see the point here.
I'm just imagining that they have the data tops and fanatics, they have the
data that says, we know that countries in Europe are going to be interested
in this, and even if the United States and North America are interested in
it, it's cheaper for it's cheaper to get the cards shipped there to hear,
and then it would be from here to there. I think that's probably
if I had to guess, you know, And I think also so random
Esports, he had a good comment down or she they sorry, they had
a good comment down there. Yeah, they're coming out that same Chinese company
is coming out with a Marvel set in like the next in a month,
so that those cards are probably going to be I mean, I guess they'll
be big. I mean Upper Deck it does do Marvel cards as well.
But you know, I'm guessing again, maybe it's something where it's like this
company is trying to get the licenses, which actually Marvel is Disney as well,
so I don't know, I mean Disney's licensing department. I put out
a video I said Disney's licensing department has been busy these past couple of years,
and I mean, or the other. The only other thing I can
think of is that the license that they have with Disney says that they can't
sell it in the United States, or they can't they have to sell it
in they have to sell it in the UK. I guess maybe that's part
of the licensing deal that they did potentially because also, I'm sorry one other
thing, just because it was it was a random drop. So it's like,
Disney, this seems like it's a pretty interesting, big product, and
they just dropped it. They just dropped it out of nowhere. So maybe
it's like a limited licensing. I don't really know. I mean, these
are kind of just all the things I'm I'm speculating on about why they would
drive up in the UK and not drop in the United States. Well,
I looked online. It looks like the boxes are going roughly three hundred dollars
in up and then the shipping runs was like thirty to fifty dollars from the
UK. So I'm betting that it's a licensing issue also, But it also
builds up a little bit of hype when you do a drop like that.
They probably added, you know, to the free media and the marketing a
lot. And I just, you know, I think the more people go
into non sports cards, the more you know, it might not be a
hobby shop and a local car shop may not be the best distribution for Disney
one hundred crumb set, so there might be other ways to distribute that better.
Rich, excuse my ignorance, how much does COMC do with nonsports anything?
A ton? Right? Right? We have one of the most robust,
if not the most robust nonsports I want to use the word catalog that
I've ever seen. And we get a lot of nonsports cards in both old
and new, and there's a lot coming in every day, and I mean,
I'm amazed. And it's not just American. Tons of Japanese stuff comes
in, tons of other foreign stuff comes in. It is the most I
learn every day something about non sports cards that I've never seen before. I
do not know anything. I want to stay for the record, I don't
know a darn thing about Disney one hundred crumb So I let as I said,
all I to paraphrase Will Rogers in the nineteen thirties, all I ever
learned about Disney one hundred card is what I learned from Adam and his podcast.
Wow I do, I do, Actually, I do remember him saying
that right. Ziggy says that the licensed restriction on Disney Crome in USA,
he's personal from the UK before. Since Ziggy's mentioning he had a great question
for us earlier, but I would like us to punt on that one till
next week because I think it's more appropriate for it. End of the year
show asked about you know, what type of year do you think fanatics ad
and I think we can expand that to what type of year did Fanatics,
Pannini, upper Deck and other card companies have. But I think that's a
really appropriate question for next week as an end of the as an end of
the year recap show also talking about how the National, you know, the
National this year was in Chicago and exploded, you know, with how many
many boots and how many corpors there were, and you know what they're going
on. I think that's a really I mean, that's just unless something breaks
in the next week, which I doubt whereas we're approaching the Christmas break.
But I think you just had any differ questions until next week. I think
you just jinxed it. There will be major hobby news and that'll make the
show even better than right. I wanted to touch on one thing as we
had on the home scrutch here, Adam, you had a great thing you
brought to my attention. It was the list of the ten MOS graded players
of the past year. So this is not the ten most popular cards.
This is not the ten most popular players. This is the ten most grated
card created specific specifically PSA. I'm pretty sure yes A, which you know,
I'd be curious, but I would assume the numbers are similar. But
for p s A the most graded players show, Hey, makes perfect sense.
Jordan is always on the list. Julio Rodriguez, that's now he was.
Didn't they have a grading special at some point? I don't know.
I forgot he was like he was the athlete that was like, actually,
hmm, maybe, I'm not sure everybody remembers. Trevor Lawrence is a surprise.
I think there was a lot of build up to him going into the
season. Yeah, brock Party is likely number eleven. Well, I guarantee
whatever brock Party is, it's a lot more than they thought it was going
to be when they made the cards, right, yeah, rich any anything
on there to catch you off guard or anything, well off guard. But
it's interesting that we were talking about eighty nine upper deck Griffy. He's still
in the top ten of most popular players grated. Yeah, you know that
that. You know, his appeal just shows that he has the multi generational
appeal. Plus a lot of people who will I'm going to call them the
forty somethings that came back to the hobby in recent years, especially after you
know they rediscovered the cards in their closet during the pandemic. Oh, Griffy
was my favorite player growing up. Okay, let me send these in and
have these slab and whatever. So I think it shows that there's an enduring
popularity and really him that's I don't want to say surprise, but it just
shows I mean, the other names you kind of expect and you know somebody's
Yeah, Trevor Lawrence sounds higher than it should be. But remember he was
a college star. You know, he was known in college good look kid,
very popular, one of the best NFL quarterbacks, you know, if
I remember correctly, His cards were delayed coming out, So I wonder if
everybody finally got his cards and rushed, you know, rushed to grade maybe
yeah, I mean also to like, you know, the Jaguars made the
playoffs last year, so like that of all the hobby kind of stars,
I suppose you could call them like he probably had the best season to season
jump from like from the season before where they I forget that if the season
before was his rookie year or if it was the season before that, but
you know, because obviously we had during his rookie season, he had urban
Meyer as the coach, and that he got he literally got fired midway through
the season of his first season as the coach. Like that's tell was about
the story that urban Meyer didn't know who Aaron Donald was something something like that.
Yeah, I don't know if that's true. Story, Yeah, right,
like there was something some story about him like going out to the bars,
be like on a Saturday before the game or something like that. So
yeah, he got fired and then they brought in Doug Peterson, which I
think, you know, maybe some people within sports cards maybe people forget like
Doug Peterson was the coach that really brought up Carson Wentz and was like Carson
made Carson Wentz the MVP candidate back in twenty seventeen, so they bring him
in this year, and after making the playoffs last year, he was probably
the guy that a lot of people looked at and said, well, he's
going to take that next big jump, hopefully in the playoffs and you know,
maybe make a super Bowl or like maybe you know, maybe have an
MVP caliber season and you know, the Jaguars are pretty good. He did
get hurt recently, but like so I would say he's maybe the most surprising
and least surprising player on that list. I'm gonna be honest, because like
all the other names we know, I mean, they're if you look at
the overall I saw a graphics I think it was Sports Card Investor put out
like last week the most cards graded in total by any player was like Michael
Jordan had like one point two million, and then Kenngrive Junior had like nine
hundred thousand. So it's like the people are still submitted those cards for those
players. So I'm actually even a little bit surprised that like Griffy isn't a
little bit higher up the list. I mean maybe at this point, I
don't know how much. I don't know which cards people are grading for Griffy.
I mean, I mean same with even Michael Jordan. It's like everybody
is just getting every Griffy or Jordan card graded, probably because you know,
that's just if you want to get this in a slab, it's probably not
super expensive anymore. Yeah, the Griffy inserts that's a good point. I
don't know what I mean. Jordan's right exactly. Yeah, Yeah, definitely
like this comment. And Adam, would you mind not touching on this?
Yeah? Sure, Mantle, Griffy, Trout is a story of generational names
that will persist in popularity. Does that? Did I persist? Is that
the correct? I think the point is that those three will will end up,
you know, outliving maybe Trevor Lawrence and Hobby collected. Right. Yeah.
Well, and also Trut's not on this list, so I mean,
if I had to guess, he's probably in the top he has to be
in the top fifteen. But like you know, I think it's interesting there's
one two, three four four of the top ten are football. I think
it's an interesting list because it's and then one two three three are basketball,
and then one two three three are baseball, So it's really I mean,
it's a mixture of all the kind of top sports. So I mean,
I think that's a good thing if you're kind of looking at like overall interest
in all of these sports. Like the fact that this year the list consists
of every kind of important sport within sports cards. Not that hockey isn't important,
it's just not a sport that I feel like a lot of people get.
It's it's not as large a sport as some of these other ones,
like the gap as much is much more significant than I think, like basketball
to baseball. Yes, that's another Urban Meyer story. That's when you were
referring to his after yeah right right, yeah, yeah, yeah, I
rich you know, throughout kind of grading, I think people forget grading didn't
start until the nineties. Am I am, I right on that you are
correct. Grading began in the nineties. I know, we began beck at
grading like nineties eight ninety nine. PSA's first cards are ninety one. It
really took about and to me when eBay and other internet sites started becoming a
dominant way of selling cards. I've always been a proponent of grading, and
I always used to say grading cards and I'm not saying nobody's perfect, including
grading card companies that I want that clear, but they're pretty good. They're
very good. And one of the things is that if I buy a PSA
seven nineteen sixty eight tops Mickey Mantle card or a BVEG seven Mickey Mantle card,
or an SGC seven or a CSG or CGC seven Mickey Mantle card,
I have a pretty darn good idea what it looks like, and I can
buy that card with a lot more confidence than Danny. I trust you as
a greater but if you say near mint, you're near mind might be might
be my VGX, or something may happen in the mail. A great acquired
is more secure. I mean, you can't break those Becket holders in the
mail. If you can break a record holder in the mail, it's gone
through being brand under a truck. And so it really helps sales worldwide and
on the internet because it gives you a more comfortable feeling of what you're buying.
And again I want to stress nobody's perfect, but it's good. And
that's why I use the p s A seven because the odds are A seven
is a seven, yes, and you know ZIGGI makes a point that grating
is a third party opinion. He's not wrong about that, but it gives
you some some range of consistency. Maybe one company is off a number,
maybe it's half a grade, whatever it is, but you're usually gonna know
the difference between the two and and eight is gonna tell you a lot more
So I agree with Yeah, opinions are not perfect. Yeah, and you
were all in agreement on that, but I have a general view, not
not that it's dead on. I mean, before PSA went too point five,
a card technically if it's a seven, could be between six point five
to one and seven point four nine. Yep. If you and I think
I think to range, I think too, like yeah, there you know
there are I think I'm gonna use this word correctly anecdotes like if you look
on Twitter, you or you know, Instagram or any of these things.
Sure, there's like a couple of times where you'll see somebody graded a card
with all the different companies and gave them wildly different grades. I would say
that's probably I would say that's that's not what happens all the time. Like
if you were to do that experiment a hundred times. I'm sure you're obviously
going to get a wide range potentially of a card. You kind of also
have to look at like if you're breaking a card out of a slab,
you know, it's just it's more work that has to be done to more
fingers are going to be on that card. So you know, you know,
whether you whether you think handling a card affects the grade or not,
like it's just every single time you're taking it out of the slab and getting
it regraded, there's more people that are handling the card, all these types
of things, and so I just think that like that, you know,
you will see those types of posts online because it you know, those are
the type of posts that do well because a lot of people like to not
they like to hate on grading companies, and that's just it is what it
is, like, so you're gonna see those posts do well. You're not
going to see obviously the posts of somebody I don't know cracking a card and
it getting basically the same grade, because it's like, well, who cares,
but got the same grade? Like that just means that the grading is
more on point than people want to admit, which I'm also in the in
the sense that like grading is it's it's it's some it's one person's opinion,
like we keep you word is one person's opinion on what the card looks like.
Sure, you know, there's probably a couple of people looking at certain
cards, but the PSA just has a great so many cards that like they're
just they're looking at it quick, moving on, looking at it quick,
moving on. Maybe less now than they were back in like a couple of
years ago, but that's that's kind of the process, at least from my
knowledge of how that stuff is going on. Good comment here from Still City
again. Also, it's easier to know the difference between a five and seven
in vintage versus knowing the difference between an eight and a ten and chrome.
Yeah, now, I mean, there's no doubt that the different types of
cards give you make it easier or harder different ways to look at them.
Some people like my vintage cards. I don't care about the grade at all.
It's all about the visual appeal to me. If I was buying a
new card, I really I don't know why. I don't really want a
chrome in a six. Something about that just seems like it seems like a
modern Dave Beater. I don't think I don't want any twenty three card,
twenty twenty three card in a six, that's right, that's what you know.
So it's I don't know. I I think the card. You expect
the average grade of a card DIF from this year to be eight point five
to nine. Yeah, you know, you know it won't be perfect,
but it'll be nice. Yes, absolutely, Mookie says I'd be interested in
a top fifty most grade in twenty twenty three. Probably fair amount of players
into that list who are just twenty twenty four hobby irrelevant every year, every
year, every year, every year. And that's why the comment that Adam
I asked you to read before Mantle, you know, trout, Uh,
generational guys, I think rich going back, I'm gonna bring this full circle
our original conversational show Hey, he's really making now he's the next generational talent.
You know what's interesting is show Hey is etro to the next level?
Right Well, Show Hey is probably you know, the best natural player since
Mantle. You know, he's the fastest player in baseball. He's probably got
he can throw faster than anybody, and he's got a ton of power.
I mean, he is in the sense the Babe Ruth of this generation,
and I don't I mean, he's getting hurt a little more than Babe Ruth,
but that was what Babe Ruth could do nobody else in one hundred years.
You know, when we stay once in a hundred years show hey,
truly is once in a hundred years. I mean, we haven't had pictures
who could basically lead the league in e er and home runs in the same
year since Papeth. Right, well, I think it's only because they didn't
draft and draft me. But you know, well, and I actually just
have I have one other thing is I mean, I think with Trout.
I know a lot of people in the comments are saying Trout's overrated now he's
fallen off or whatever. But it's like things can change very quickly. If
Trout has one MVP type season and brings the Angels to the playoffs, like
everyone opinion on Trout is going to change very quickly. I think just a
good example is like Russell Wilson this year, for the through the first couple
of games of the season, Russell Wilson was like pretty bad and everyone was
kind of like crapping all over him, and I looked at him him like
he's like he's good, Like he's not He's not a bad quarterback. And
you know, you look at the last like eight or nine games and he's
like been playing at like a really high level, and like the Broncos are
like almost in front of the Chiefs in terms of their division. So it's
like, I I just think that you know, obviously players in the players
that are hobby relevant, I think it's it could happen very quickly. You
know. I also would say definitely could happen very quickly in the other direction.
Look at Mac Jones for example, like he like, you know,
he was going into this year, was this was the last year for him
really to kind of figure everything out, and he didn't. But like the
past couple of years, it was like, Okay, well maybe he'll turn
it around. And then he kind of just kept going down, which you
know, obviously not super pumped about that. But we will, uh we
will. We will move on from me crying about my Patriots. Well,
Patriots had a nice twenty year run, so you know, yeah, dang,
I was gonna say, nobody feels bad for you ad them on this
one. Yeah, I mean, well, yeah, well you should because
my team's in the last place for the first time ever. So back in
the sixties, the Patriots weren't always that good either. They were good in
the early days of the AFL, but then slumped for a long time.
I mean they they really had problems in the sixties and seventies, and every
once in a while they crawled the playoffs and then crawl back. So I
mean, you've had a great twenty year run. Please enjoy the fact.
Well, I mean, that's honestly, that's why I enjoy sports. I
think that's one reason why. No, I don't want to throw my rings
in everyone's faces here, but I think that's one of the reasons why I
enjoy sports cards so much, is because, like I can root for players
who aren't on my team, Like I can root for any player in the
MLB because the Red Sox have won a couple of championships or uh or the
you know, obviously the Patriots have won won six or whatever. But I
can root for the younger players because I don't have to. I mean,
I do root for my teams, but I don't have to worry about you
know, I'm not living and dying by the except for maybe the Celtics.
Those are the that's really the only team I am living and dying by.
But but that's that's kind of beside the point. But like I said,
it's it's it's it's it's enjoying the uh, it's enjoying players nowadays versus you
know, I could see how other people may like not not enjoy the sports
the same way. Well, thank you, Ziggy for that nice comment about
Adam and I think we're approaching the top of the hours. I was just
I was just about to bring us back around. I always love asking my
my my going out question. Rich, You're doing anything for the hobby this
week? I've already talked about that at the beginning of the show. I
know you are. Yes, I'm going to the Est Sports Cards tonight for
their secret Santa Trade the Trade Night, and it'll be a party there too.
They'll have food, they'll have drinks. Last year they at cookies.
They also have giveaways to those that participate. I think the owner posted on
Facebook and IG it's like twenty five thousand dollars worth of stuff he's been able
to go out to give to all of us too, So I mean we'll
get extra stuff too. Plus since it just came out, I will make
sure I buy a heritage high number box because I am a heritage guy and
I'm looking and I don't care. You know, the good thing with heritage,
you don't care what really what you get out of the box. It's
the fun. It's like the Hey, I'm back in nineteen seventy four and
I remember opening seventy four tops cards. So and I've served them in my
life, So to me, that's a pretty good hobby day in itself too,
not bad for an NFL weekend. Also, Adam, what are you
doing? I mean, like I said before, I've been posting more videos
on TikTok, so I'm probably actually going to record some videos this weekend.
I lot to have, you know, it's the weekend, have a little
more time. So I mean heroes for sale on TikTok. I've been,
you know, trying to get back into making videos a little bit more often
than I had been, because you know, I just I love hobby.
Content. Make content is my hobby. So it's like that's it's you know,
and I like doing the stuff around sports cards. So that's kind of
my thing. And then also just one other point is I always try and
say this before my shows, is like, there's gonna be new people coming
in, Uh, just you know, be nice to these people. Like
I know that sometimes within sports cards it can it can get a little dicey,
it can get a little hectic, and you know if you're on Twitter
or Instagram or all of these types of things. But you know, for
for everybody that's you know, creating content or even just people answering questions on
Twitter, just be nice to these new people coming in. At one point
you were in their shoes and didn't know anything about the hobby the same in
the same way. That's what I always want to say that at the end
of most shows that I'm on. Absolutely and since Adam's getting a lot of
love in the chat room, you can find him every place he mentioned,
and I'll be proud to say you can hear him every morning on a Hobby
News daily podcast. He does the Morning Minute, so that's his his short
more podcast every day of the week and the weekly summary put out on the
weekends. With all that being said, my hobby weekend is going to be
some sorting, some cards, actually hanging out maybe with Chris Soule on a
collection and we'll see from there. To everybody in the chat room, thanks
for joining us, Happy holidays, and I don't know when I'll be on
next, but i'll see you then. Well it would be you were John,
so we'll see one of you next week. To take care, guys, see it