1541 - Ramblings 7.0

Welcome Dr. James Beckett Sports Card Insights. Thanks. Sponsors Topps, Panini, Upper Deck Heritage Auctions, Huggins and Scott Auctions, Mike's Stadium Sports Cards, Burbank sports cards, compsed.com and Beckett Media Beckett Grading Beckett Authentication Ramblings Episode A few things that have come up in the last week or two of interest to me and hopefully to you as well that have applicability to the way I hobby, the way you potentially hobby and just things I like to share when I'm thinking. So those are my ramblings. So I've got five things. First of all, six things because I had a good time at Rich's Alvarem charity show at his synagogue. Not a lot of tables, but a very high percentage of dollar box tables here. So not a high end show but very relational and casual show. Rich does a nice job and see some of the usual characters there. That was good. Made one purchase and I did not come back empty handed. Okay. But the five things I was going to talk about one was I get these news alerts and they're not necessarily driven by AI. Seem like I'm getting more now. Maybe some of them are driven by AI, but they're just kind of capturing what's going on out in the world. And one was a report about Las Vegas. Business was dropping off at Las Vegas that they had less traffic, less annual trips to Vegas last year that it had dropped seven and a half percent. And I just read what they were talking about and I thought, well, how is this similar to the hobby they were saying? Why is Las Vegas down again? The economy. You've got geopolitical tensions, you had tariffs and other kinds of uncertainty in the air, but you would think people would want to go to Vegas and get away from it all. But one of the points I made is that the Gen Z and Millennials, many of whom are getting involved big time in our hobby, don't drink as much. I'm sure they gamble as much because part of what they're doing within the sports card hobby is a form of gambling, I will admit that. But if they're drinking less than the money that would have gone into drinking can go into car. But then what they ended up with is they felt like some of the reason because revenue is up, but people are down. As I've said, I'm hoping that we can 10x the number of people in the hobby and not 10x the pricing. So if the pricing outpaces the growth in collectors, that's bad. And so it looks like for casinos the number of participants has gone down, but the amount of money has gone up. So that makes perhaps those companies feel good, but I'm not so sure. And they said part of that might have been that many of the casinos have kind of tweaked their odds to make it a little more difficult for the gamblers for roulette and raise the minimum bets at the blackjack tables. Again, not going to be a big deal for the higher income customers, but the rank and file, maybe they think it's not as good a deal. Then finally, they had a survey of the visitors to Las Vegas that found that 44% of the visitors had a household income of $150,000 or more. And I was just curious whether that would be similar to the sports card collectors, that 44%. So that would mean almost like the median is somewhere in there. If that 44% of them have that much or more. The median is what 50% of people have, more or less. That's possible household income that can include two breadwinners and all that. Any rate, so goes Vegas. I don't know that we're contrary to that, but I don't want to see raising prices. So the companies continue to do well. If it means less collectors, there's got to be a way to have more collectors and fair pricing. So I'm hoping all the hobby participants, from the dealers all the way up through the grading companies and card manufacturers will understand that. Second thing is, I got some. I wasn't quizzed on it, but there was a mention A couple of weeks ago, I was named as an advisor. I agreed to be an advisor for Oyas, which is not explicitly in my mind, a card company. To me, it's a technology company. They do have some card elements, but it's very futuristic. And I have been a pro bono consultant to them for almost five years. I don't know, every six months or so. I know the founder, I know some of the key guys there, and I respect them. They're. They're very sharp and I think they've got something that's interesting. So I always like helping people that are doing things I think could be good for the hobby. And I think this is. But all that happened was I just agreed to be listed as an advisor. And I'm not getting a paycheck. I'm just helping them as I have been. And if I can be helpful to them as they continue their growth path, I will. I believe in what they're doing and I think you'll be hearing more about them as time goes by. But again, I don't even know that. I call it a side gig. I'm always doing pro bono consulting, and this is one where I've done so much that they just said, we really need to list that. That's to our benefit. Will you please let us do that? I said, sure. I'm already an advisor to Beckett Collectibles, but again, it's similar. I don't get called a lot, but I'm always trying to be helpful. And then the third thing was the counterfeit report that PSA put out, and I'm proud of them for doing that. Not clickbait, I don't think, because they weren't exaggerating the numbers. They say $200 million worth of counterfeit merchandise was identified and stopped by not passing authentication. I wish we could go further than that. Of the people that are sending in this bad stuff, if you knew they were the ones that also made it and not innocent dupes along the way, but anybody that's producing contraband, I'd like to see them prosecuted. But they just say, well, I didn't. I got it from somebody who got it from somebody. But just suggest you ought to be careful about who you're buying from. But the awareness is good and I'm proud of PSA for the market leadership. The other positive thing is I've said when collectors bought SGC and then bgs. Now I would assume and think, and I've been told that when PSA catches counterfeits, that will be of benefit to their sister companies. And I hope they'll play nice with CGC and tag and anybody else. It might take a unified effort to stop the bad guys and I hope that happens. Number four, I listen to a lot of podcasts and the people just don't like it when they get game used cards with their relics or game worn, event worn game used. There's different mention on the back, whether it's just anything related to the player. Could be a shoelace, but frequently it's a jersey. I think the more meaningful relic is something that's more closely associated with the player. Not a shoelace or a cut out of their shoe, but a bat or a jersey is probably going to sock. I wouldn't get a big get over there. But my point on this is there's so much criticism of game worn versus event worn, perhaps versus store bought, not even touched. But clearly this debate between event worn and game worn, where they throw a bunch of jerseys over their head and say, yeah, the player Touched it, they wore it for a few minutes. I don't like that. But I think many of what we're talking about game worn are inning worn or quarter worn. They're definitely not season worn. If you go back to the 50s and 60s and 70s, the players got a couple of home uniforms and a couple of away uniforms. If they cut that up, that's rare. And usually they're flannel, they look cool. So if you something from the 50s, that's a relic I'd like to have. But nowadays the football players, the basketball players, they're changing at halftime or they're changing between innings. I just think let's not stop at game worn. I'd like to see multiple games. Or he wore that for a month. And then further, I have a problem with the photo matching is that I think photo matching frequently is jersey matching. You get a jersey and then you try to find a photo that matches the jersey. Or you could try to find a photo from that year and then doctor the jersey to make it look like that's the one that was at that moment in the playoffs. Again, it's borderline criminal to me. So I don't like that. So modern jerseys, whether event worn or game worn, if they're just barely gain worn game worn, I just not even for a whole game. So I just wonder about that. And then lastly, it wasn't my patience that was tested, but I had a situation where my wife and I were out of town and had gotten a delivery from Upper Deck of a box of Upper Deck Opici Platinum Hockey and but it rained and we're out of town and we don't have one of those boxes where The UPS or FedEx can put it inside the box and then it doesn't get rained on. But not only did they not put it underneath something where it wouldn't get rained on and it was soaked when I got home, but they also did not put it in any kind of hiding place. It was visible from the street. If somebody was walking by our house, they could just pick it up. And I really, I thought one of these days again, that's why I don't make a big deal about my address. I don't think I have collectors driving by to see what delivers. I don't have very many mail days. I get occasionally something. But okay. So anyway, it turned out the box was completely soaked. But thanks to my friends at upper Deck, the outer box was completely soaked. The inside had some bubble wrap around it. And then of course the boxes are sealed plastic Wrapped, no problem. As I opened it I was realizing Upper deck opici platinum means something. Platinum is a precious metal and I was just wondering when are these card companies going to run out of names of superlatives of things that they can call these things? Because platinum has been used not just by Upper Deck, but it's a good word. So I opened up the product and it's a nice product. It's not the top of the line but visiting with Chris Carlin about his days at Upper Deck, there's tiers of products and this is towards the upper middle. To me, the OPG Platinum, it's 375 a box approximately. Released about a week ago. It's reasonable value. I think I, I have a new perspective having been to the hockey show in the Toronto Sports Expo and seeing so much hockey there and how it's reasonably priced. So I think Upper Deck understands the market. There are some great cards you can get. They're now touting Golden Treasures one of ones and bioluminescence number to five. And of course I didn't get those. I didn't get Seismic gold number to 50 either. So I didn't of those. But they promised one autograph and for some reason I got two. And they say 12 inserts and five numbered parallels. Yes, I got all that stuff. Top rookies. The other thing they said is they are not short printing their rookies. Now I question the wisdom of that, but the positive is that it makes it easier to complete a set. So if you're a set completer, which a lot of my Canadian friends are, if you bought three boxes you'd be very close to a complete set. Many of the other products, when the rookies are short prints, you've got to buy several. You got a bunch of base cards of the veterans and then you have the shorter print rookies you're struggling with, but I think that's expected. So three rookies in every pack, 12 packs of 12 cards in a box, you're going to get 36 rookies out of the hundred. So three boxes you'll have 108 rookies. So one third of the set is rookies. I think this is not way early in the year because Upper Deck's kind of back on schedule with the 25, 26 product early in the year. I think card companies can do more rookies and then later in the year they may narrow it down a little bit. But 100 rookies out of a 300 card set is a lot. Only having five numbered parallels. I'd like to see 12. I'd like to see one in every pack. But I think Upper Deck and others have figured out if you're getting numbering that's for example, perhaps above a thousand, that it's a turn off, that they'd rather have an insert that's interesting, that's unnumbered, that is cleverly designed, than a parallel with a serial number that's too high. I'd like to see them test that with a serial number at least relatively. Relatively what you have. They tout on the box the Path to Victory and the vibe checks. I like the product, but you have a certain amount of real estate on your box. Just constructive criticism. And again, this is probably a philosophy they have. If you're touting something on the box, it ought to be a significant feature of the product. Those particular inserts, Path to Victory and I got three of one and four of the other. That means they're one every three or four packs. So it's an insert that's nicely designed, but you'll be able to get a complete set of that. Now, maybe that's what they're promoting, but I think there's a philosophy on the box. Do you want to promote the impossible, extremely difficult things that people probably aren't going to get, or tout some things that they will get? They can say, yeah, I got a few of those. But any insert that is multiple per box is never going to be extremely valuable unless it's the very, very top rookie or player. Thanks Upper Deck for the box. Thanks other sponsors for all that have a different relationship with each one but are appreciated and I hope they appreciate me. I'm trying to put out content that is of interest to a broad range of the hobby, past, present and future. I've touched on that a little bit in this episode. So thanks everybody. Be back in another couple of days with another episode and keep enjoying the hobby.