Speaker 1: Hello, everybody in hobbyland. This is Hobby Hotline. This is
episode number three three six, which wow three and thirty
six episode. I wonder if there's anybody out there that's
actually watched anyway. I'm Chris Harris. I am pinch hitting
today and I'm joined by Sam Evans, sportscard collector, and
a guy that I've been following for a while now,
Alex Tresler, former one of the old og YouTube guys
a dozen or so years ago. Wait and also fun fact,
fellow military veteran and fellow air traffic control guy Alex
Tresler Army ATC twenty two. How's everybody doing this?
Speaker 2: Stelling good?
Speaker 3: Doing good?
Speaker 2: Still on a what I call a nostalgic roller coaster.
Me and Alex actually had the same experience, So just
like just still like living in a moment and like reminiscing,
reminiscing on all the things that I seen saw and
just her and it's been fun. It's been fun.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if you're not tracking, Samuel was talking about the
Philly Show. We're at the Philly Show this past weekend.
You know, it's a month after they won the Super Bowl.
They had a card show in their backyard with over
half the players there. The community was came out, it
was buzzing. It was again it was be very very
grateful that I was in that space and got to
see all the collectors there, and you know it literally
we kept saying it because it was like almost a
mini National.
Speaker 3: You know, it was Eagles Con.
Speaker 4: Because you know the amount of people and stuff. It's like,
you know, it's it's realistically kicking off our road to
the National that's going to be happening, and you know
in a few months seeing a lot of the you know,
the same individuals that we see at other shows and stuff,
and so we don't see that actually took the drive
to get there and everything. And I loved it.
Speaker 2: No, it was amazing and like super diverse crowd using
people from all walks of life. A lot of people
that up here actually came out. I was talking to
a lot of people who like made the drive. And
I also think the show was very intentional about just
like certain days they had certain athletes and having that
like real connection to Philly, the city of Philadelphia, because
the card show isn't in the city of Philadelphia, so
like having Gilly there was awesome, and that was a
good pitch and it was super exciting to just be
in that space and it was fun.
Speaker 3: Man, it was fun.
Speaker 2: There was a lot a lot of people there.
Speaker 4: Not gonna lie, this comment was saying the second Philly
Show had thirty one fifty for attendance in nineteen seventy six.
That's actually a lot for today's type of shows, Like
you know, even back then. You know, it was a
smaller show back in the seventies, but over three thousand
people coming through that door in any show these days
is actually, I think a decent size number. What do
you guys think?
Speaker 2: I mean, I as I caught like it took video
of like the opening. Normally when you come into the
Philly Show, it's like they don't have like owls set up.
They had literally four ours set up and they had
multiple people out there checking like wristbands for everybody to
come in. And the line took up the whole walkway
and it was like out the door and around the corner.
And normally for like shows they had people all wrapped
around in that little room, but there was like a
gymnastic event going on there. But it was crazy. It
was a lot of a lot of people there and
a lot of good like energy and like the patients
that a lot of people showed to like just wait
for their moment, and like some of the athletes, they
did a great job, especially like Brandon Graham. He had
over like five four hundred and fifty people by an
autograph and he created the moment with each person and
it was just like magical. It was magical to see
that mix of like I'm a sports fan, but I'm
also a collector, and all these worlds just come together
to create that.
Speaker 4: That's all waved to everyone in Indiana, Indiana and Michigan.
What up? What up our shops? That's awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm old enough to remember when the Philly Show
was in the George Washington Motor Lodge. Watch it was
a dump. It's no longer there, the Fort Washington Expo
Center and at the Valley for Casino. I've never seen
a Philly Show crowd like this, and I would suspect
that a lot of the folks there and you could
probably tell, weren't there for the cards per se. They
were there for the autographs. You know, I got the
credits to the promoters because originally I think Andre Dawson
and Wade Boggs and a few other big guys were
scheduled to sign, and when the Eagles won the Super Bowl,
they canceled those and just loaded up with Eagles Eagles,
Eagles Eagles now.
Speaker 2: Be a heavy, heavy baseball show. Yeah, and like to
your point you made, like, yes, a lot of people
came there for autographs, and I think Alex cheeked to
this too. But just get in a sense of walking
around the showroom hearing conversations from dealers and talking to
a few vendors who were there. A lot of them said, Yo,
I'm having a great show, especially on like a Friday night.
This one day, I was talking to Matt his whole
whole showcase was bought out Friday night and he had
to like reload with just like some low end stuff
because people were buying all his Kobe's and Michael Jordan's
from So definitely it was a good show for the autographs.
It was definitely a good show for the vendor. Just
the tone contendor what I was hearing from a lot
of them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree. You know, I talk to everyone there.
You know, there are there are the vendors there that
come and they don't care if they sell on card.
They just want to be, you know, at a card
show with their buddies, right, you know. And and the
nostalgia doing it for so long, and the friendships and
the networking and everything. A lot of people, you know,
mistake the transactional side of this industry, you know, thinking
you got to make a dollar when a lot of us,
you know, I'll eat the costs to have a good
weekend with my my friends at a card show out
of ten times, right, you know, and everything, and it
doesn't get costs, so you can't do it all the time. Whatever,
So you got to do some type of sales and
maybe that's you know, some stuff you know before the show,
after the show, you're making those connections there can be
more beneficial for you than actually making a sale of
the show. But a lot of the a lot of
people there. There's yes that the autograph guests brought a
lot of people to that show.
Speaker 2: To finish the point, the autographs, the autographs did bring
a lot of people show, and like there was this
influx of people who started to collect because of that.
Hearing conversations of people who never brought cards before or
was it into cards and to have that opportunity to
walk through that showroom floor and see their favorite players
on cards and bringing those cards up to get autographs
or to like come back to that space or after
waiting for their number to be called to walk the
showroom floor. You know a lot of people joined the
hobby that week. And I think it I think it
was magical to see that.
Speaker 1: Alex. You you were making a point, but you froze
up there for a second. You want to finish up.
Speaker 4: For I mean I was talking about you know a
lot of the vendors. A lot of the vendors want
to come out and experience the show with their friends,
you know. And and same thing as the hobbyists that
are coming to the show that aren't setting up as vendors.
They might be coming to see their buddies that are
set up. You know a lot of these people do
these you know card show you know circuits, and this
is what they do for their life, and this is
this is you know, they might have been retired and
everything else, and you know, this is what they want
to do. It's it's it's going out there networking and
you might be able to, you know, use that you know,
friendships and stuff to make deals down the road, not
not necessarily at the show, and you know, so you'd
be like, hey, yeah, I didn't really do too well,
but guess what from now I might make the biggest
deal of my life because this person talked to me
and he has stuff, you know, at his house. He
didn't he couldn't bring.
Speaker 2: The wealth of the wealth of conversations. Like I think
that's the true wealth of the hobby. No one, No
one really remembers how much money they made, but they
remember that connections that they made.
Speaker 1: Point anybody out there also went to the Philly show,
feel free to call in. I dropped the link on
the ticker below. What'd you guys pick up anything? I
want to do a little show and tell.
Speaker 2: So the show is so Friday night, the sow was crazy.
Typically on like me and Alex. Alex was just like
a fourth fifth show together, probably working shows together.
Speaker 3: So typically I.
Speaker 2: Don't buy cards on like Friday night. And because of
the just the moment of like everything that I was seeing,
I was like, I need to walk the showroom floor
and just breathe the air of like cards. And I
went on this like treasure hunt and I found this
nineteen fifty two George, Mike and Weedy Cereal box hand
cut card and this was like the last year Weedy's
made these like cards set of like just the different
athletes back then. And I found it from a dealer
that I always buy cards from, shout out to Great
Great Moments, Ink, and this is definitely one for the people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's really hard to find my PC. A
lot of people know my PC is Pat Tillman. But
on the show floor there was multiple Pet Tillman cards
which I didn't have yet too, but you know, a
little pricey and everything. So I decided to focus on
one and I got a nice twenty nineteen Rookies and Stars.
It's the Hero It's the actually great American Hero subset.
It's the gold out of ten. So a lot of
people don't know, like from when he was in two
thousand and one, this is the first time he was
back in products. In twenty nineteen Rookies and Stars. It
was the first time he was back in the products
and this so this is this very first gold parallel
card ever and so I had to scoop it up.
It's an incredible card. I have other parallels of this,
but I didn't have the gold, so I was pretty
pretty nice to see that on them.
Speaker 2: And then my last pickup I always share.
Speaker 3: Anybody would knows me in the hobby world. They know
how I feel about Will Chamblain, so.
Speaker 2: You know, whenever I see like a Wilt Channing car,
because there's not many cards of him. Actually, there aren't
any cards of him when he came back to the
Sixers and won the NBA Championship. So I saw this
modern penny card and I was like, I mean as well,
he's got a Sixers uniform one, so I gotta grab
it all right.
Speaker 1: Uh. And I picked up, uh, a nice dent in
my car on the way home, So I ran over
something on Route one. I didn't think anything of it.
I didn't even notice it until Monday, and so my
car's been in the shop ever since, needing a new bumper.
That's what I picked up at the and I, you know,
picked up about a couple hundred bucks worth of like
dollar box yeah, five dollar box stuff.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 2: Somebody in the chat said movie chill son. He said,
Principal Evans, see any kids at the film show. There
was definitely a lot of kids there this year, a
lot of kids.
Speaker 4: Tell them about the experience moment Samuel tell me the
experience about you being on the news and then then
then seeing you and calling you.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so I got into body yes news and
a lot of my for some reason, we're watching the
news that morning and a bunch of them was sending
the email saying, mister Evans, I saw you on the
news this morning. So it was kind of cool, uh,
to know that they're involved in current events and uh,
they're staying in tune what's going on.
Speaker 3: In the world. So it was it was a cool moment.
Cool moment.
Speaker 2: Also, Trade Night was fun too. Trade Night was happening time.
Alex and I did a lot of trivia stuff with
the kids and.
Speaker 3: It was it was awesome.
Speaker 4: It was we changed it. We changed it up because
me and sam May we switched and stuff. Whatever. We
switched it up. We went on. We had him going
a scavenger hunt, you know, you know, you know, uh,
shout out to wax Stars, you know, Dave Marino and
everything with them, you know, putting together a great Trade
Yago Santiago Sports. You know, they put on trade Great
Trade Night. A whole bunch they meant twenty thirty pizzas
they brought in for people to have food and everything.
But there's a lot of wax, a lot of boxes
that they gave out too. So Samuel has always been
the person to head that up and everything was you know,
his his vice principal to help him out and everything.
So I was just like, why don't we send them
on a scavenger hunting and someone find a numbered card,
like we find a numbered you know, thirteen of one
hundred and ninety nine, and first one to bring it up,
you know, gets it. And the people, the kids were
running around everywhere. It was. It was so cool to see.
Speaker 2: It was awesome.
Speaker 3: It was a magical time.
Speaker 2: And like that just goes to show like the next
generation who comes at the US when we're all old
and gray and passing out collections on a hobby's going
to be in a good space.
Speaker 1: You all know. When the next Philly Show is September.
Speaker 4: September, they have a big they have yeah, they have
a big gap. Well the National and then CSA is
also because it kind of in ties whatever. You know.
Joe who runs the Philly Show also as partners with
runs the CSA Show. And so they give that, you know,
CSA to a couple of shows and then the National
Course and then Philly Show, then CSA the Philly Show again,
so you know, trying.
Speaker 1: To I encourage a lot of people that have never
been to the Philly Show. It's worth the trip. Don't agree.
Speaker 4: Even I've tried to think, like, I don't know on
the East Coast, what is a bigger show? Maybe that
I mean, no, there's there's no, it's not bigger. So
there's over a thousand tables at the Philly Show, so
I'm almost possib it's not. It's not as it's bigger
than East Coast National. I was up there in January.
It might be one of the biggest, if not the
biggest show on the East Coast. Like people in the
check can probably you know, tell me I'm wrong and everything,
but you know, just making out loud and stuff, it
might possibly be the biggest show.
Speaker 2: In the and like to your point, as it being
the biggest show on the East Coast, jeeing on them,
they're really like doing some forward thinking to make it
an experience, especially for like just a different demographic and
thinking about like how can we make this fun for
kids and everything.
Speaker 3: So they're doing a lot.
Speaker 2: Of work and having a lot of good conversations too,
like have it not be just any typical like regional
card show?
Speaker 1: All right? I had a comment in the chat here
from Rex of the Baseball card Shop. Do you have
any thoughts about the Fanatics anti trust case? You share?
So for people that follow me on social media, they
may know that for the last twelve and a half year,
I've worked for the Federal Trade Commission as an economic
analyst and anti and I recently decided to take the
Trump buyout. I mean, getting paid to sit on your
duff for seven months can't beat it. But the one
thing is because I'm no longer employed by the FTC,
I can out comment on things like this. So yeah, yeah,
in case you missed it this week, let me share
something with you. You'll see that Panini's anti trust case
against Fanatics is allowed to proceed. So two years ago
Panini sued Fanatics for anti truck and it's been kind
of snaking its way through the judicial system ever since.
District court judges judge in the Southern District of New
York allowed the bulk of Panini's anti trust case against
Fanatics to proceed on Monday, in the latest development in
a contentious legal battle. The dispute began in twenty twenty
three when Panini alleged Fanatics engaged in monopolistic practices to
corner the market in the trading card industry, which I
think is kind of ironic because before Fanatics came on
the scene, it was Panini that was trying to monopolize
the trading card industry. That anyway, Yeah, shortly theref for
Fanatics countersuit for unfair competition and tortuous interference Panini's complaint
where it was out of Fanatics entry into the sports
card and a countersuit. Fanatics argued Panini had no ground
to stand on by pushing back on the claims of
success was not wasn't really a result of monopolistic practices,
but rather due to Panini's incompetency, which Panini holds the
rights to produce NFL and NBA trading cards, both sports
beginning six. David Boys. I don't know if you know
who David Boys is, but this guy is a real
high power lawyer that Penenie Is hired. He was the
guy that litigated the Bush v. Gore case for al
Gore and even though he lost, but that should show
you how much of a respected lawyer this guy is.
The court's decision, finding that Panini had properly alleged Fanatics
violation of the anti trust laws allows us to move
forward with this case, which seats to preserve competition in
the sports card trading business. Trading card business, Fanatics did
have some wins. Panini claimed it was an anti trust
violation for Fanatics to buy Tops. The judge dismissed that
by saying that Fenetics acquisition of Tops couldnt plausibly cause
anti trust carm to Panini, and so Panini stacked mark
standing to bring this claim. You know, other than the
fact that Tops, you know, has an exclusive license to
make baseball cards, I don't get that claim. Judge also
dismissed many of Panini's claims around allegations of torture's interference
as it relates to the contracts of employees that are
hired for Fanatics. Much of the claim did in a
statement Panini, we are We're pleased that the court has
already rejected a number of Panini's claims. That is allowing
Fanatics case against Panini to move forward. Unlike Panini's baseless allegations,
we look forward to presenting actual evidence about how in
just a few short ears we have materially grown the
hobby through investments, innovations, blah blah blah, better better products,
yeah okay, and marketing and a relentless focus around yeah
well whatever. So all right, two years it's been snaking
around the around the judicial system. I still think, Pennie,
I'm still hoping Panini win in the hopes that there
can at least be a second licensee in every sport.
You guys have any thoughts on this case.
Speaker 4: So my my thought process is this, just you know, sorry,
sam My thought is this, even if they do right,
Panini does win, they still have to have an agreement
with those those the NFL, the m MLB, they still
got to have agreements with them, and and honestly, they
can be like, no, we don't want to pay both,
we don't want to pay tops, we don't want to
pay you know, Panini too. At the same time, so
I think I think that it doesn't matter anyway. Honestly,
the NFL and all the players associations also, you know,
they're going a certain route. Two you know, on top
of you know, them saying Okay, we can't have this,
they still need to have the actual agencies want to
work with them.
Speaker 2: Also, I say two things like, I'm not an expert
the whole law side, but when this first came out,
the lever that I saw right away was the players
and that equity, that equity slice is vital because it
allows them to generate revenue when they're playing careersm and
what we see how the car industry is going with relics,
players who were tired and everything.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So and then the other side of me thinks back
to the nineties, and this is the collector and me,
I think back to a time where everybody had the license,
and I think it fewed innovation, It few forward thinking creativity,
and it allowed us to like reimagine cards from just
like this traditional like piece of cardboard and it became
these these these images of where like we can hold
it up and we can see different things, and it
was three D and it was all these different things.
So that's one thought when I say, like, you know what,
why not allow people to have all the license, to
share the license so we can get that creativity because I.
Speaker 3: Think in the nineties, you know, we had.
Speaker 2: The best decade of insert card from all companies and
it was like this this huge competition to see who
can be the most innovative and most creative.
Speaker 3: And but that.
Speaker 2: Equity slices that that equity piece and that revenue piece
for the players Association, that's hard for them to like
walk away from. And and that's why I think a
lot of them are aligning them themselves with Top fanatics.
Speaker 4: Well, so on top of that, I'm gonna throw in
that third person. It's like all this has happened between
Tops and well fanatics and pennis and everything all the
same time, Leaf is still doing you know, tons of
stuff with these players that are in just Tops products
or just Panini products and everything they're having. They're having
all these cardialties, autos and stuff like whatever you know,
Leaf does with being able to you know, deal with
these players and everything else, because you know, they're not
dealing with the companies with the actual you know, NFL,
you know, MLB and stuff like that work directly with
the players. It's just like, why isn't you know, one
of the other following the same suit, like the model
that they have like, It's just that's just mind boggling.
Speaker 2: No. Leaf has found their market, they found their model.
You know, they stick to him and people buy it.
Speaker 4: Well they do. It's just like like so for example,
like Sugar Sanders isn't going to be in Anyini Panini
products at all because he's an exclusive to fanatics. Right, well,
he has Leaf autos, right, so how is it as
Leave but not you know Panini. You know what type
of contracts and stuff is that happening? Why isn't he
in there also? You know those type of individuals. It's
just wild that you know, Leaf has been able to
do it, which is great. I love Leaf stuff. You know,
I have no problem in auto and auto is an
auto to me no matter what it is. You know,
it's it's I mean I've always said.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have a logo on it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean depending on what the product is, depending
what it looks like and stuff, depending on the angles. Right,
That's why the difference between you to Chrome right. No,
So that's what I was getting ready to say. Tops
Chrome basketball looked horrible this year because all the logos
are on the jerseys and it's hard to get away
from that. Chrome football stills, but it looked better because
the logos are usually on the helmets, and if you're
like this way, you can't really see the helmets, you're
not seeing the logos that much. So it made it
more presentable with finest and all the football products that
they're starting to come out with with tops compared to
the basketball is just like, yeah, they're playing pickup games,
you know, in the backyard. You know they're doing the
photo shoot. But yeah, but Leaf somehow's coming in there.
I've always said, if you want a Steph, curry out
to go into Leaf products and get one for cheap
compared to you know, thousands of dollars is the ones
in this Worry uniform.
Speaker 2: And like to your point, I can infer that there's
probably some claws and those like exclusive Fanatics contracts where
it's not necessarily like some three sixty bill, but they
probably have some like Avenue where like if I have
the lead way to like put myself in another product,
but you would be my main you know, distributor or
main person. I mean that's what I can infer if
you if you if folks are like exclusive to Fanatics,
but we see them in these other products, that are
coming out because I don't hear fromatic complaining about it.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: If I want leafs, I'll go clean the pool.
Speaker 3: But I mean, I'm not a leaf buyer.
Speaker 4: But that's why this industry is great. You can buy
what you love, collect what you want, what you like.
Speaker 2: I mean, even that trade night we had that leaf
product up there, that was the first thing that the
kids grabbed right when we did our first giveaway. That
was the first thing that want this exclusive like.
Speaker 4: But also it's also the one It's also the one
that had to guaranteed autos that so yeah, So.
Speaker 1: I think I speak for a lot of collectors when
I say that in a perfect world, there would be
more than one licensee per sport. So Fanatics, Pennini, and
upper Deck would have licenses in more than one sport.
Are gamers any chance?
Speaker 3: Once in a blue moone?
Speaker 1: Do you remember, like twenty years ago when there was
Madden and two K football?
Speaker 2: Yeah, just like I remember NBA two K, NBA Live.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so one year two K, I think it was
NFL two K five and it just blew away Madden.
It's still considered by a lot of gamers to be
the greatest football game of all time, even though it's
twenty years old. But EA didn't particularly care for that,
and they backed up the breaks truck and paid for
an exclusive license, and it's been Madden ever since. And
that was really the beginning when leagues figured out that
licensees were willing to pay a premium for exclusivity. And
not that long after that you had Tops making the
deal with MLB, you had Panini come in and get
the basketball license. I believe by this time upper Deck
had the hockey license. So yeah, regardless of we in
the hobby and we what we collectors want, it's going
to be exclusive licensing, whether we like it or not.
Speaker 4: I don't think upper Deck had the hockey yet. I
don't think because Panini had a nice little stint that
they had they did hockey too well.
Speaker 1: There was a brief period whether the NHL did give
two licenses, Yeah, but I believe before that and after that,
upper Deck had an exclusive nhlman.
Speaker 2: So the collector and me would love to see Upper
Deck make hockey cards simply because they have flair and
skybox like Catalog and if to see like them do
basketball and go inside that like treasure box and pull
out some of those, like, you know, nostalgic themes that
they had, that Flair had, that Skybox had, and that
I mean, I would love to see that in a
modern card.
Speaker 1: No, it's funny you should you should say that because
this is a good transition into our next topic, and
that is this week Upper Deck released a hockey, a
Skybox themed hockey card set. They released twenty twenty three
twenty four Skybox Ex two thousand Hockey. Now, I don't
know if I'm wrong or anything, but I seem to
believe that it's March fifteenth of twenty twenty five and
twenty that that means that twenty twenty five is almost
a quarter over, and that the twenty twenty four twenty
twenty five NHL season is about two thirds over, and
yet we're getting a twenty twenty three hockey product. That's
not all because there are by my count, at least
two other quote unquote twenty twenty three hockey card sets
that Upper Deck is releasing in the next couple of weeks.
There's Premier Hockey on the nineteenth and Ultimate Collection on
the twenty fourth.
Speaker 4: We also had to get away with this, well, the
same thing. The same thing is did in series one
or two just come out too? Of twenty four to
twenty five hockey. Literally it was within like within two
weeks of each other. Like it's just wild as has.
Speaker 2: A New Flyers rookie.
Speaker 1: And I understand that during the pandemic, it kind of
kind of for a while had issues with the sket
with production and schedule, so that we did see for
a couple of years sets be delayed for a while.
But the pandemic's over now. I mean, why why are
you calling this a twenty twenty three product. You are
not fooling anybody.
Speaker 4: Yep, same thing, same thing. Like we discussed ahead of
time basketball basketball is the same way, and I brought
it up thinking shout out to Black Cards for having
their updated list of releases and everything in one spot.
It's great. Flawless Basketball this year comes out April thirtieth.
April thirtieth, twenty three twenty four Before that is Immaculate
Basketball twenty three, twenty four, April ninth. Optic Basketball this
year for twenty four to twenty five comes out April sixteenth,
and another Like I think I when I kind of
the beginning of the year, we had nine I think
first nine products twenty four to twenty five basketball came
out before the last basketball product of twenty three twenty four.
It's wild, wild at.
Speaker 3: That's I think to both of your point, can we
can we agree that?
Speaker 2: I guess we love the variety of you know, all
these like sets, but sometimes less can less can be more?
Speaker 4: Well, you got to think of the aspect aspect for
the companies like it's a it's a business model, like yes, less,
we want less to be more for us, but for
them if people are buying and people are opening like
they're gonna make it until the way the way that
stops is people will stop actually opening the product when
it's sitting there. But people like to buy singles. That's
why the whole ecosystem of the industry, you know, everyone
you know has the you know, people are fighting same
breakers are ruining the hobby. As someone that picks up
singles all the time and doing stuff, Let them be
out there, let them open the products for thousands of
dollars and then I can find those cards and dollar
value bends down the road, right, you know, it's fine
with me and everything. So again, I believe the whole
industry is a big ecosystem where you gotta the breakers
are helping the singles industry. And if you want to
take a stand, a lot of people just like we
need to revolt, we need to you know, hey, if
we stop breaking Panini products, if we go on a
strike with them, guess what, then they'll eventually stop making it. Well,
you need to do more than that. You need to
not break. You need to not buy their singles anywhere
and just let it sit because then more people will
stop breaking, stop opening product, and then it'll finally get
to them. But that will never happen with millions of
people there.
Speaker 1: There's just too many breakers that have to open product.
Speaker 2: I guess we're gonna have license model, right. I guess
we're gonna have like three years of Caitlyn Clark rookie
cards too, right?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: Not pretty much? Should these be considered rookie cards because
and I'm saying I'm this transition to another topic. Twenty
twenty four or quote unquote heritage high number comes out
in a couple of uh. It's been well over a year,
almost a year and a month since twenty twenty four.
Heritage low number baseball UH, and this is usually around
the time when twenty twenty five Heredage comes out, would
do you would you even consider a pall Scheme's Rookie
or any of the other from this product to even
be real legitimate twenty twenty four Rookie car I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 2: That's why modern cards.
Speaker 4: So the thing is so yeah. So the problem is
is like, right now, you know, it comes out in
twenty five, right and everything, but the back of the
card is going to say twenty twenty four, it was
printed in twenty twenty four, ten years from now. Do
you think someone's gonna remember it came out in twenty
twenty five?
Speaker 2: Now maybe probably some people.
Speaker 4: Some people want well, but majority won't.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: That's where that's where the whole thought process of down
the road, Like everyone talks about insting and everything else,
those type of cards literally will be thought of. Okay,
no one's gonna remember that it came out halfway through
the year in twenty twenty five, when it was a
twenty four product. So currently, yes, I feel like, you know,
it's hard to a hard pill to swallow that you know,
these products are coming out after series one of twenty
five has already came out, right and everything. So yeah,
I think in the long run, I think it ruefly
doesn't matter. Now, it's a product, you know, the high
number stuff depending on it's short printed and everything else.
You know, Randycados or whatever like that, those hold more value.
But the base cards, you know, eventually in the road
come well protect the base car, Alex, Hey, I have
my I have a there's a difference between the base
card and a rookie card.
Speaker 1: The other problem that I have with this product is
that it's based on the seventy five Tops design. You
all remember the seventy five Tops high numbers, right, No,
I'm trying.
Speaker 3: To thine if I got one around.
Speaker 1: Me, there were none single series that year. Oh so
why do we have high number now? Other than more money, crab,
more money.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I actually wrote something for Hobby News Daily last year
about how Tops just doesn't really care much about heritage anymore.
And I think the existence of a high number product
for based on a set that didn't have a high
number series just a kind of adds more fuel to
the fire for me. Let's see, let's go into the
chat for a moment. Breakers are breaking the hobby. Yeah, okay,
we need six thousand plus rookie cards for everyone. Okay,
it says rookie on it, I want it, Well, then
just put rookie on everything. Then let's put rookies on
like second and third year card. Let's have Tops make
nineteen fifty Bowman Chrome in twenty twenty five. That way
it'll be the real Mickey Mantle. I wouldn't put it
past them to actually do that.
Speaker 4: You know, Tops made the first Bowman's of Babe Ruth
and everything, so.
Speaker 1: Good years from now. No one, not all collectors are stupid,
but you know there are some.
Speaker 4: Come on, We've we all have our tendencies. Like I'm
not gonna lie. I've had my my stupid times myself.
Speaker 1: One last one, last topic that I had. I don't
know if you saw this, but there's something that TOPS
is coming out with a couple of called Series one Celebration,
And the more I look into it, they haven't released
the checklt and they really haven't released much about it.
But to me, this looks like the return of Opening Day,
just under another name, because it's going to be basically
like Opening Day was back in a rehash of the flagships,
same cards, same design. I don't know if they're gonna
put a little Opening Day or celebration logo, they're gonna
have mascot inserts and whatnot. My questioning to you is,
and to the chat, products like this that are obviously
geared toward kid, right, and it appears that this is
going to be geared toward kids.
Speaker 2: They don't really.
Speaker 1: Have a strong track record in the hobby. I mean,
I remember, I'm old enough to remember Triple Play. You
remember Triple Play?
Speaker 4: Yep?
Speaker 1: This was Don Russ's kitty set. Nobody cared Opening Day
in its original form was designed it was I believe
that Tops was mandated to make this set because Baseball
wanted a product that was for the children, and kids
didn't buy it. So I don't understand why they're bringing
it back, even under a different name.
Speaker 4: So, by the looks of it, what do you.
Speaker 1: Guys think of the concept of a kid focused kitty
brand like that?
Speaker 4: So by the looks of it, it's it's like retail exclusive, right,
So it's gonna be two formats, like little egg type
of things. Whatever. Then it's just gonna be like a megabox.
So I think it's trying to gear you know, I
don't know if maybe they're bringing in the concept maybe
let's do this product you know that doesn't have a
lot of pizazz, you know, possibly not even resale value whatever,
but it's it's fun for the the you know, the
the younger generation to find at Walmart, Target and everything
else and let them let it stay on the shelves
and let them find it rather than you know, the
scout person in there and cleaning off the shelves. You know,
I believe is that where the the like dynasty patches
and stuff for the mascots out Yeah, so so mascot
cards actually are very people people can like them. There's
a lot of people to collect that type of stuff.
So they're going under that niche of you know, dynasty
type of patch autos of these of these characters and
everything of these of these mascots for these teams, and uh,
I mean, is there a niche out there? I think
they're gonna see, right, They're going to see you know,
you know that if I see what Traction has and everything,
and it's at that the lower price point, you know,
I think Samuel said it, you know, in the beginning,
was possibly like another big league type of product, right,
But though a big league either, not even the influencers
that are in it themselves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think of two things right Oftentimes when I
go to cards shows, I put on my educator head
and I tend to like read the room and think
about the things that I see. I think kids gravitate
towards the cards that they see if they have like
a dad or uncle or a big brother, someone connected
to they connected to and what they collect, and they
look for those high end things. Going back to white
planes and even at the Philly show, I was just
measurized about the amount of like the wealth of knowledge
that kids are operating from when it comes to cards,
comps the market value on all those different things. And
then I also think about like process to people who
want to get in cards, but you know they don't
have that higher end access because to a certain point,
the hobby is a space in place of the have
and have not. So I do think like organizations need
to think about like just different levels of targeted marketing
and the demographic and how they can like give them
access to certain things because also to traditionals, the hobby
is a space and place where you start off with
a certain set of cards and one day, you hope
that you build them into the cards or the types
of cards that you want and your collection. So I
think they do have a space in place. I think
it all boils down to how how they you know,
mark them and get it into the hands of the
people who actually want them.
Speaker 1: I mean all of that sounds nice, though, but why
hasn't it worked before? Why didn't it work with Opening Day?
I mean, that's accessible, but nobody bought it. Okay, So anyway,
I've I've called up on the screen. This is the
first look of the first ever MLB mascot patch autograph,
which feature mascot Warren memorabilia and on card autos and
will be found in Series one celebration. And because I
am a wise ass, I had to respond you had
autographed mascot relics in twenty two opening days and twenty
one opening day and nineteen twenty twenty opening day and
twenty nineteen opening day and twenty eighteen opening Day. It's
almost as if the guy who posted this had no
idea of his own company's heritage.
Speaker 4: Probably been working there for here.
Speaker 1: Probably my thoughts on this is I am not a kid,
I'm a middle aged man. But I used to be
a kid, okay, And when I was a kid, I
didn't particularly like being condescended to and marketed to. So
that's one of the reasons why I didn't really collect
products like nineteen ninety two Tops Kid, which came out
when I was seventeen or eighteen. Maybe I was alone.
I didn't like Opening Day, I didn't like Triple Play,
And I don't think the kids of today really want
a product like this. They'd rather have the real Top
Series one than Series one celebrations.
Speaker 2: Why I will push a little bit because again within
that kid's social demographic, there are kids who, again depending
on their proximity to who they have driving their collecting experience,
they tend to collect certain things. And I also think
there is a target market of kids who don't have
access to those higher end things. And I'm also drawn
from my experience collecting, you know, twenty eight plus, twenty
eight plus years ago in North Philadelphia, where we didn't
have a lot of access to certain things. As it
came came to cards, we had the cards from Towards
r US, we didn't have local hobby stores, we didn't
have the Beckett books and the cards shows so we
created our own ecosystem, and the cards that floated throughout
ecosystem where the packs.
Speaker 3: That we found at Kmart and Walmart and you.
Speaker 2: Know those those big box score stores that sold cards.
Speaker 3: So I think they do have a place.
Speaker 2: But it's it's it's a situation where like, when you're
creating this product, who do you have at the table
that understands the different demographic of kids? Do you have
educators at the table? Do you have people at the
table who could like who knows those worlds and know
how to market things and those how they're like, make
sure that we have this pipeline to get things into
the hands that were belongs to so that way they
can have these meaningful collecting experiences. So I think they
get more intentional intentional with that process and making sure
that you have the right people at the table. Then
you could see that generated success that we all hope
for a kid to open up a pack who may
not never see a high end card, but they had
this experience with this one.
Speaker 3: On one autumn, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So I just think they just need to do more
intentional work. Yeah, So I think that's that's just me
as an educator, And I think with different kids.
Speaker 4: I think the marketing aspect, I don't know too many
children and as ages that would actually, you know, like
this product are probably not even one don't have a Facebook,
don't have you know, Instagram themselves, or they're probably their
parents showing them the the articles or the posts saying, hey,
do you think this would be? You know, I'll ask Samuel,
like being up in the filiar area, like getting an
RPA or patch auto of the Philly Fanatic, Right, you know,
there is a lot of adults that actually would like
that card, right, the San Diego Chicken you know those Yeah,
I mean seriously, those those individuals, those mascots that have
been big in you know, Major League and stuff like that,
do have a do have a following and stuff. So
I think there is that. But the problem that that
I see with it is is again it's clicked what
you like and what you love and stuff like that.
And just because there's so many we see these shows
we see online, we see so many of these kids
that are walking up with their cases that have they
can buy a house, like literally they can sell their
case and buy multiple houses, right, And we think that
that's the typical kid these days in this industry, and
it's not There's still a lot out there there coming
to the show. There's still a lot out there that
that I think would wouldn't mind opening this because one,
it's at a price point that it's that it's actually
decent for them, and and to it could be fun, right,
And I think I think I think they're going after
that that approach. Now what Samuel's saying, like maybe maybe
it was a day at tops, maybe you know, hey,
bring your kids to work day and they're like, bring
them all the conference room. Let's do a pitch to
these kids from you know that that are the you know,
of the family members of the people at orchantops. What
do you guys think would you like a product like?
And in that room you'd probably have at least half
of them say well, what do you think the resell
of that is? Right? Depending on their because that that's
just the answer to everything need days is like how
much can I make off of and not actually truly
collecting even though it might not, you know, look good
to you. Again, someone out there, they might love it.
Speaker 2: And to your point, like again I draw off like
the organic experience that I have created with cards. For example,
like working in Chester as a high school principal, I
was also a middle school principal.
Speaker 3: At one of the middle schools, and I.
Speaker 2: Brought in a box of a five road box all
my like nineties cars, all types of cars in there
are in nineties everything, and just set it on the
table and all my middle boys and girls is gathered
around and started pulling cards and to see the joy
and excitement on their face of cards that probably don't
worth you know, more than a dollar or like twenty
five cents, like that was their moment to be a collector.
That was their moment to experience something. So I think again,
if we had the right people in the room, and
we think intentionally about like who are we designing product for?
There are all different levels to kids who collect. There
are the kids with the cases who have enough that's
worth a house, right, and they're a kids who just
love cards and they may they may not be worth
a lot of money, but it's their level that they're
at now. So you know, we just got to make
sure that that that that way of collecting still happened
and it has a space in place, because you know,
we don't want to see another bubble bursting that happened
in the nineties.
Speaker 1: I think that's happening. Comment in the chat. I remember
Collector's Choice, and Collector's Choice was kind of a kid
focused brand, but in a way it really wasn't if
you know what I mean, I miss Collector's Choice. Let's
see what else is in the chat here.
Speaker 2: I mean, I remember the Toys US exclusive Rookie Baseball card.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: The box set? What does does fanatic fur grow back?
I guess card collect what others like? I was poor,
Collector's Choice was my favorite. I just like Collector's Choice
because it was a It was a big, comprehensive flagship set.
You know, it was like seven hundred, eight hundred cards deep.
I wish Flagship Tops was like that. And I prefer
Tasters Choice. Good to the last drug. That's actually Maxwell House.
That was good to the last. Yeah. Okay, we are
almost up on an hour fifty seven minutes according to
this clock in the corner of my stream. I guess
we should probably wrap this up. I got nothing. I
think I've gone through all the topics that have made
news this week. Oh there was one other thing that
I saw that tops just announced today and that is
the six major award winners from last season are all
going to have a gold logo man on the back
of their hat and on the back of their jersey.
So the MVP winners, Otani, Judge, Chris Sale, who is
the Yeah, so six players will have a gold logo man.
Does this do anything for you?
Speaker 4: I mean, well, I saw it from from my aspect
one today. Did they say it's only gonna be once,
It's gonna be throughout the year, right, They're gonna.
Speaker 1: Have a goal throughout the year or so the whole year.
Speaker 4: So and it specifically say it is a partnership with
Fanatics and the MLB for them to take those and
put them in the cards. Like I I wish a
lot of these type of stuff wasn't just in the
high end type of products, right, you know that maybe
maybe one of them goes gets into Series two, right
and everything else like that, those type of products that
everyone out there can truthfully afford, a lot of these
bigger gimmick type of things end up going into these
transcendent and multi thousand dollars boxes that people have to
honestly bind breakers and other people, other ways to even
have an opportunity to get them. So I think it's
a cool, cool concept, right because realistically, if you see
one of those coming out that it's going to be
game used, it's not going to be manufactured.
Speaker 1: So when you can consider that these players go through
dozens of jerseys and dozens of hats every year, there
are going to be dozens of these gold logo man
patches for each one of these players that are going
to be out there. And uh, one of the mad
Mike Petty said I'm gonna buy a hat with six
logo men. I wouldn't be surprised. In one of those
high end products like a Transcendent, you might see a
card with six gold logo men on.
Speaker 4: Well remember, uh, remember the old Exquisite when when Upper
Deck first lost their license and they made the College Exquisite.
Remember the what was it, sixteen Autos of Jordan on
one booklet, sixteen out of Lebron on one booklet, Like
why like a.
Speaker 1: Waste of fifteen stickers?
Speaker 2: I would say I would say those be nice, especially
if on the back of the car it designate the
game that they wore it, and especially if it was
like a historical game when somebody got the cycle or
hit a Grand Slam or something like that, So that
would be cool.
Speaker 1: Six patches on one side of the booklet, six little
hologram stickers.
Speaker 4: The Collector's Dreams comments got the other Collector's dream said
in the comment, guys are changing out patches now, They're
not just doing it now. I remember decades ago. Decade ago,
remember there were so many people were showing the jumbo
patch cards were really notorious for you know, people taking
it out slightly or whatever, and then when they get
to someone else, you know, people finding on eBay the
actual same serial number card and everything else like that.
You see a really nasty looking patch card and it's
not numbered. It was probably fake and everything. And then
people were seeing the foil on around like where the
patches were were dented in and stuff. So there was
a huge, huge problem about I mean, it was like
twenty twelve type of timeframe and everything that people were
changing more patches.
Speaker 2: It one of lebron Uh exquisite patches changed like then
the ones to ninety nine. It was a one that
was changed. You don't remember anything about.
Speaker 4: That, I think, so I can't remember.
Speaker 2: And then somebody got it graded through Beckett and found
out like.
Speaker 4: It's been happened for a long time and people Then
people are like, well, doesn't matter. Then people people people
wanted to people want to make the argument, doesn't matter
if it's not even a real game used jersey anyways,
So it was just picked up a warmar.
Speaker 1: And anyways, or it was one of those.
Speaker 4: Chris remembers, Yeah, mark ingram.
Speaker 1: With a million like jerseys. Yeah once.
Speaker 4: I mean remember stuff I used to I used to
collect patches like that was my thing back in the day.
I was like the two thousand and eight Premiere Baseball
to seven Premiere Baseball the patches and those were incredible,
the dual patches like that. I collected so much of
that direction and everything. But it is that as an
argument for another day that people talk about game used event,
you know, not by a specific player or whatever.
Speaker 1: Well, uh, I think you want to put a I
think we should put a nice big bow on this one. Huh,
we've gone over an hour. Let's see next week we
have Logan Ward Sam Oh not.
Speaker 2: You, Sam, I was fo Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh, someone else and Chris Carlin are going to be here,
so that should be a pretty good show. Any final thoughts.
Speaker 2: Sam, The hobby is what you make it.
Speaker 3: Enjoy it.
Speaker 2: Just make sure you find your moments to laugh and listen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, cards are cards. We put the value in it,
so have fun.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Alex, I'll say it any anytime, I you know,
sign off anywhere, you know, with these type of things,
I'll say it. There is someone out there to talk
to no matter what, whenever what you're going through, what
may be hard times, maybe good times, you know, reach
out to someone. My line is all always open, you know.
My my inbox on Instagram is normally where you can
find me and everything. If you need just a you know,
vent you need to, you know, ask a few questions
about something or you know, some advice or whatever. I'll
give you whatever I can give you. But someone is
out there that would wants to see you wake up
the next day, all right, So always remember like there
are avenues out there, and don't go down the wrong
path if you don't need to. And we all love
you and want.
Speaker 1: Yeah, good words to wrap up on. So that's it
for this week. I want to thank Sam and Alex
and keep on rocking in the free world, folks, and
stay hydrated.