What's More Important... The Cards or the Money?

Welcome to the Sports Card Lessons Podcast with your host, Big Ken. A retired teacher bringing you lessons each week. He's learned in the hobby by taking you behind the table and inside the mind of a dealer and a collector. Sit back and relax. There won't be a test. The only thing being graded here is the cards. Welcome to the Sports Car Lessons podcast. I'm your host, Big Ken. Whether you're watching on YouTube or listening on a streaming service, please, like, subscribe and hit that notification bell so you'll be notified whenever I drop any new content. What is going on? Happy Saturday. Yes, Saturday. It's a day early this week. 11 days until the national. Let's go. We are counting them down. We're into getting into the final countdown now. I can remember a month ago saying, man, I just wish it was next week so I could, you know, be there and get into it. Now I'm like, I'm glad I had a month to go to prepare and get everything ready because it's taking so long to get everything ready to go. I will be set up upstairs, table number 20007. I, I, I'm hard on myself and I know I do it to myself because I want everything to be perfect. Something like this. I feel like you get one shot, right? Don't screw it up, you know, get out there. And I've done this before. I set up four, four nationals. I'd set up this then. Now two, two off. Now I'll be setting up again. So, yeah, I know what to expect. And it's one of those things you say, well, the next time I'm gonna do and the next time I'm gonna do that, and I've got all those mental notes, you know, I've been prepping all the cards, getting them in one touches, labeling them, separating them, getting them in boxes. What's going in boxes, what's going to be in the cases, Ton of inventory. Between football, basketball, wnba, tennis, golf, Disney cards, cardsmith currency cards, I'm bringing a ton of inventory. I'm bringing a backup on top of a backup on top of a backup to ensure I'll always have boxes and cards in my cases on the table for the full five days. And although I put a ton of hours into preparation, I'm confident it will pay off. You know, my, when I set up in Chicago in 2023, I can remember by the end of the second day thinking, I am going to run out of inventory and start to scramble a little at the trade nights and things like that. Buying up cards. And this time I don't want to be in that situation. I want to just make sure I just have enough to to carry me for the full five days. And, and I'm going to share some of the highlights, a few highlight highlighted cards with you a little bit later in the episode. I can't say I'm not having fomo. Watching all the content from Fanatics Fest this weekend and even me who's been deep into this hobby for over six years, I'm still amazed at the videos of all all the massive cash deals happening. 10 year old kids selling a card for 14, 500 cash. 12 year old kid doing a $32,000 deal, all cash Roth cards, walking around the national with $2 million worth of Brady cards in his hand. See if he can find Tom Brady. It's just crazy. Absolutely crazy. One que One of the questions we had Thursday night on the Hobby Chop when do you think this bubble will pop? Bubble? I don't think it's a bubble. I just think it's massive growth and a lot of the right people are involved now. Athletes, celebrities, top tier business investors. It just feels like the sky is the limit now. It's a great, great time to be part of this hobby and I really have to break down like watching all this content this weekend. Like when I started creating. And I would talk about the deals on the podcast now, you know, back then you go back and look at my views, it was like a hundred or 150 views on an episode, right? And I would talk about these deals and I would say how much I paid for a card or how much I sold a card for. And I used to get these nasty messages from people saying they were so mad. Why did you talk about the money? Why did you talk about how much I paid or what you paid for the card? Nobody, nobody wanted me to talk about the money that was involved. They didn't mind talking about getting a deal done or talking about the cards, but nobody wanted to talk about the money. And then there was this period of time where either people wouldn't do any deals with me because they didn't want the deals public. They didn't want people to know, you know, what was paid for the amount or they would say look I'll do this deal but I mean you can mention the deal but don't talk about how much the deal was for. Nobody wanted to publicize the money part of the deal. My, how things have changed, right? Watching this content this weekend, everybody can't wait to now talk about the money. The bigger the deal, the better. Back when I first got into the hobby and you were doing deals, it felt like, and what people explained and how they felt was the card was the most important thing in the deal wasn't how much you paid because you know, if, if, if you wanted the card, you'd overpay for it, right? Especially if it was a rare or scarce card. And let's say the last comp was a thousand dollars and they were selling it for 1100. You wanted the card, you just paid for it. Like if you couldn't get them down any lower, you just pay for it because you wanted the card. That was the collector mentality of it. Now it feels like it's the amount of money in the deal. The more money, the better. I mean that just feels like what the content is everything I'm seeing, you know, people pulling out, you know, you know, these ten thousand dollar bands and just, you know, throwing them on the table. Oh, 30,000, 20,000. The bigger the deal, the better. Get the cameras rolling, three different angles of this, you know, putting it out. And, and, and even the celebrities from Fanatics Fest, they're asking them, you watch these videos, how much have you spent this weekend? How? And people are just carrying these bags of cash around their neck. How much have you spent? The more I spent, the better. Spent 20,000, probably spent 35,000. It's, and these are celebrities and athletes right now it's all of a sudden it's about the money. I think it's more about the money than the car. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but I mean, I think maybe the content is better. Maybe more people are going to watch because they're talking about the money, right? Because the cash is dropping on the table. Tell me what you think about that. You know, five, six years ago, nobody wanted to public publicly talk about the amount a card was being bought or sold for. Right now it's like, I don't know, it just feels like the money is the most important thing. The bigger the deal, the more people are videotaping to, to, to, to, to show these deals or make these deals. Oh, craziness out there. I mean, and I'm watching video after and you can't help it if you're like, I'm on Instagram. If you're on Instagram, just scroll. Just video after video after video of. And sometimes the same people, you know, there's a couple people, I think they, they've probably spent a million dollars just watching how many cash Deals, they're, they're, they're getting done at this show. Tell me what you think on that. Do you think that the, do you think that the, the money part and the content creation that the money is more important than the card itself? I don't know. I think, I still think there's a lot of collectors out there that don't want to be public about how much they're paying or selling cards for. Just me though. I did go to a local show today in Plainville. Everybody getting ready for the national either setting up as a dealer or walking the show when they get out there. Everybody looking for last minute purchases to either put in their case or to take the trade nights. Trade, trade bait. Right. And I know the dealers that will be set up in Chicago that were at this show looking in their cases not seeing much of value and, and similar I'm setting up at a show tomorrow similar to what my cases are going to look like tomorrow when I set up in Danbury bringing cards that I hope will sell, not cards that I know will sell. And at this point, 11 days away, no sense to be bringing, you know, liquid cards and selling them at a small local show with a national stage. 11 days away. I did have one pickup from somebody walking the show today. I actually went there too. I went to make a deal. My guy Rob just shout out to him, made a couple deals with him. I met him at the show. So I made a deal to sell him some cards and, and I found somebody else walking the show that I was able to pick up. You know, make one pickup. Nothing compared to a fanatics fest deal. But a decent deal for me by you know, I'm happy to have it. Great card. I'm happy to have to add to my national inventory. If you're watching on YouTube you'll see a picture of the card. If you're listening, I will describe it is the Mosaic Money. It's a case hit the Mosaic Money Bo Nicks rookie card. This card looks absolutely clean and this is when it's frustrating when grading is not available but, but I mean it is available at the 80 mark but this card we're would not make sense. Even though I really have feel like a good gem, it's just not a card that I would send in at 80 value and wait, you know, three or four months for it to come back. I was able to pick it up for a really good deal. So I'm happy, happy to have that in my, in my inventory to take out to Chicago. A lot of People feel. I think a lot of people are down on him. A lot of people talking about this ankle and, and this. All kinds of stuff going on. I think he's gonna be just fine. I think he's gonna really, really. I think that AFC west is going to be just, just a really strong division this year. And I think he's, I think he's going to do just fine. I think he's is going to be a good, a good play to either, you know, sell or hold a little bit into the season and sell. Then I don't think I'll have any worries with him. So as I'm getting ready, you know, I talked earlier, I'm going to share some cards as I'm getting ready for the National. I thought, you know what, let me highlight a few of the cards that I'll be, I'll be bringing that'll be for sale, uh, out in Chicago. So I'm going to start with add this up. So I have two Caitlin Clark cards up here, both rookie cards. One is the pink ice courtside PSA 10 and the other is the purple ice PSA 10. That one's numbered to 149. So the, the pink ice PSA 10, the court side is a pop 138 and interesting. This card obviously I pulled, I pulled both of these cards and the, the pink ice is a select which was out before prison in 2024. So I pulled. When I pulled this card, I immediately shipped it out to PSA. Probably one of the few cards that the PSA 10 pop count even know that it's 138. The. That the, the nine is down in maybe the twenties. Right where they didn't. They weren't at that time. Keeping the pop counts as even as any of the. You're looking at, looking at the cards now similar with the, the purple ice which is number to 149 and that is a pop 42. So that also being a numbered card, it's going to be a lower pop count anyways. And I think the, the nines were in the 20s, 27, 28, something like that if I remember on that card. So again, super low pop both these cards. PSA 10 pulled both these cards and sent them out for grading. Paige Beckers, don russ downtown PSA 10. That card is a pop 11. So really low pop on that card. And if you remember, I bought this card and graded it myself. So that will be one of the centerpieces of my WNBA case out at the National. And the fourth card is A Cynthia Cooper logo woman card. And I, I've shared this card before a while back on the, on the podcast. It's a card that I really don't know what the value is on this card. I've put it in, taken this picture. I put it up in WNBA groups and I always get people being like, yeah, that car is not rare. I, I think I have a couple of those. Or yeah, maybe a couple hundred dollars. No, no big deal on that card. Or. And then I say, could you share some pictures? Show me which one you have. Like, I. And I never hear anything again. No one ever shares pictures. And I don't know if somebody trying to downplay it to hopefully, you know, try to buy it or get a deal on it or it is just a common card but nobody's even, nobody's selling it. So there's no public sales on this card that I could find. And there is one that has a piece of a logo woman on it with an actual in person autograph in black marker on the card for sale on ebay. They're asking $20,000 for it, which I know is ridiculous amount of money. So I really don't know. I'm gonna bring this card, I'm gonna put it in the case and see what happens. See what kind of offers I get on this card. I, I'm believing it's a little bit more rare. I think it's a little bit more rare than people let on. But we'll wait and see. We'll see what happens with that. So there's four WNBA cards. I have two football cards here. The first one is the flawless pukinakua dual patch RPA to 25. I picked this card up back in the spring, trade in cash. And again, like, this card only had one public sale, which was two years ago. Similar cards that sold, but not this exact card. This is. And it's still sealed from Panini. So happy to have this in the case. And uh, I, the person I got it from, it was right when uh, Puka had got into a little trouble. And I think they were trying to get out thinking that there was going to be trouble. So I was happy to get into this for a very good price. So I think I'm going to do just well with this, just fine with this card. Last card that. This card's been in my, in my PC for a while. It's the 2017 contenders. Rookie of the Year Patrick Mahomes auto number to 25. It's a PSA 8. This card is a pop 2. 2. There hasn't been a public sale in over two years and I guess only two cards, right? Pop 2. But I haven't seen any of the other cards sell as well. So be interesting to see what kind of offers I might see out in Chicago on this card. We had the discussion on the Hobby Chop Thursday night. Do you think he's a buy? Do you think it's a hold? Do you think it's a sell on Patrick Mahomes? I know there was a bit of a dip in the market, but I think, you know, with the injury he had and the rehab and the work he's putting into the rehab, I listened to an interview with him saying that he's rehabbing, you know, eight hours a day, six days a week. He wants to be ready for training camp, to go full in training camp and be ready for the beginning of the season. So if anybody can do it, he can. I think his market is just going to be just fine. So if you can get it, if you can get some, some on the cheap, I would buy them quickly because if not, it's going. If it's not already up, it's going up. So yeah, just, just a few cards, you know, that I wanted to share that I'll be taking out there. Tons and tons of inventory. If you're coming out to the national, definitely come see me. It's going to be fun. And they see the amount of people that are in Fanatics Fest this weekend and the deals going on, I have to imagine there's going to be a multiplier to that for the National. So just my thoughts. That's all I have for you today. Thursday night, I'll be back with zip and the Hobby Chop and I'll be back next Sunday with a brand new episode. Until then, take care of yourselves and everyone around you. Sa. Ram. Sam.