Clever Cuban Cards Joins For A Debate - Season 5 Ep 40

Hello, welcome to the ball card show, the sports podcast for the sports collector. I'm Jason Otero. I'm Gary Willmaster, and this is season five, episode four, and it's a little different today. Yeah, we are a bit different. We are not coming to you from our normal studio setup. We are a little bit remote today and that's because we had a special guest. Um, and we're really excited to share with you. I'll let Jason introduce that though. Okay. We're going to jump in with a special guest, Alex from clever Cuban card may or may not have heard that we talked trash about him on the episode last week. And I'll be honest. We did. I got him a feelings a little bit. Uh, and I, what I felt and I stand by what I said, but you know what? So does Alex, he has asked to come on. He wants to duke it out, debate, give some perspective. Hopefully helpful content or at least entertaining for all of you. So go ahead and microwave that popcorn. That's coming up in a minute over an hour long. We got plenty of content for you. Before we jump into that interview, I want to talk about my favorite uncle and your favorite uncle. So here's what, here's what happened. You're going to get to see this for yourself. We looked uncle T up with one of his favorite cards with a catch. He has to give it away. So he didn't know that. We just told him we were sending him a gift. Here's what happened. Gary and Jason from the ball card show. Wanted me to give you something. My old Buckeye nephews, Gary and Jason, you know, they're good boys and they buy their uncle damn presents. Cause they know an uncle is important to them, but unlike yourself, what is it? Look at this here. Oh, wow. That's an autograph. Ric Flair. Now don't stand back there, bud. I don't want you damn getting shot. There's a note that goes with it. Nice. This is probably instructions on how to take care of that. Probably a damn note saying uncle Terry, but we love you and want you to have a damn good time with your damn card. Those boys know I love my cards. Love my Ric Flair. Look at this. It says uncle T. Roses are red. Violets are blue. When you give this away on whatnot, let out a big woo. You got to give it away. Love your nephews, Gary and Jason at the ball card show. Damn those damn Buckeyes. All right, everybody. We're giving this away on our next whatnot show. Autographed Ric Flair. Uncle Terry is not happy. Great. Have a good time with that. Those damn Buckeyes. He did not like that at all. Listen, listen, did we have fun with that? Sure. Yeah, we did. But it wasn't, it was for your people, for your audience, for uncle Terry's vault, for the person, baby. You get to hold it and own it for a week or so. Well, what's wrong with that? Yeah. Yeah. Payment failed on a giveaway. I keep coming out. Legit Beck inserted Ric Flair auto. So be sure to head over to uncle Terry's vault. Check out his socials. There is his nephew. My cousin, Duncan, is that profile? You'll see a bunch of stuff up there for that, but jump in next Thursday. You might have a chance to win that. How funny it'd be if one of you want it, send it back to us as a giveaway. And we named a Nana boo boo that right in his face. Love you. Uncle T. Sorry to bring you pain and joy in the same minute, but it happened. Uh, okay. Let's this discussion. Uh, Gary and I went a little hard in the paint talking about the PSA offers, buybacks, repack, positioning, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Alex had opinions and we pushed back. He's with us today. Let's jump in this interview. Enjoy the content. Thank you. Ball card show family. It's time to welcome a very famous guest in the community. One that we have, uh, spent a lot of time talking about in the last week. And I so appreciate that. We Alex from clever Cuban cards with us today. Alex, thanks so much for joining us. I appreciate it. Hey, thanks for having me. Excited to have a conversation here today. So, you know, Gary and I are a little bit for, uh, getting in the fields. Uh, if we have a take or an opinion, we're also known for being conspiracy theorists, uh, so much so that we even began a little bit a few weeks back where we wear tinfoil hats and then just go hard in the paint because we feel like it clearly is satire if you're wearing a goofy hat, right? So, um, but this week, um, there was a take you had in a conversation on, uh, sports cards, nonsense, where you were talking about the PSA offers and how they're big become involved in repacks. Um, the impact that it has, what you're hearing from dealers. And we were kind of like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait a minute. You got to that dealer piece where there was a sentiment of like, if you can't cook, get out the kitchen. So you got us great hook, good content. Got us thinking, got us feeling some things. Um, and we shared a pretty strong opinion for a few minutes. What I'd like to do, Alex, feel free to push back here. I want to give you a few minutes, let it rip and then a thoughtful conversation and dialogue one rule. I believe this you and I can have completely different opinions. Gary can think we're both idiots at the end of this. Hopefully he does be okay. We, we just hope that, uh, it's a productive conversation. That's the goal for it. So let's hear your take on PSA offers. Feel free to push on something. We said, call us out on something we said wrong. Let's debate. No, absolutely. And I will also admit it's in spaces where I'm wrong, which I'll get to, because I'm happy to do that. I'm not somebody who was going to just dig my feet in and say, nope, I'm going to plug my ears and I'm right. And you're wrong. First thing that I want to say, I had not heard you guys as takes or anything. I know you said that it sounded like I was kind of talking to you directly. It's, it sounds like we are kind of on the same wavelengths, but I was not directly mentioning anything that you had talked about want to start off. I've actually really liked that. You talked about the, one of the things that I said is in regards to that, you know, the Michael Jordan, you can make 7,800 bucks off this card and PSA is not going to risk their reputation for 7,800 bucks and you, you guys said, you know, I agree, they're not going to risk it over $7,800, but you multiply that times, you know, a hundred and you just made a lot of money, which is very, very true. Um, first thing I agree. PSA is reputation is not always huge. It's not always amazing, but what they do have reputation wise is everybody sends them their cards because they know, as you said, the only thing that they have going for them really well is the market value. If they were to get caught on a large scale, which would be required to kind of take that $7,800 profit and scale that up a hundred thousand plus times. Fraud at scale is a lot harder than fraud and a small level. It's one thing to say, okay, you know, my single individual card, maybe they played that game. But the amount of people that would have to be involved to do this at scale significantly and substantially makes that really hard. And while I agree with you, there's not a ton reputationally that they have. I don't think that people say, oh, PSA by far has the most accurate grades. PSA is, you know, the most trustworthy company, et cetera. If they were to get caught changing grades on cards, especially in the modern world where so many things are numbered, or it's really easy to see, you know, the there's a printing defect in a certain little spot that you can catch. Like, wait a minute. That was my card. If they were to get caught intentionally grading cards lower than they should be, and then regrading those cards higher, do you think anybody would ever trust them again? I don't think so. Well, I think, hold on, Gary. Hold on, Gary. All right. Thank you. Ball card show entirely. Alex gets his. So Alex, do you tackle these point by point or would you like to just go for it? I'm ready for it. Okay. Go get him, Gary. Well, so, so my thing is this. I don't think, and I hope that I didn't intimate that. I think that PSA is intentionally undergrading cards so that they can then properly grade cards. Yeah. I don't think that's the case at all. I do think that PSA on a relatively regular basis, I hope we can all agree with this misgrades cards, and I don't think it's necessarily intentional. I think it's the end result of a subjective process. Yep. When you see cards get a six and then they get sent back in and they get a 10. So I don't, I don't think that that is an intentional thing that's happening. I do think that there may be intentionality either on PSA's part or more likely their, their repack partners that they're kind of in bed with. Um, intentionally buying up cards that have a very high probability of having been misgraded so that they can then. Maybe benefit from that. And I think that's reflected in the fact, like you said, most of the offers that you see in the PSA app are not PSA buying the card, it's their repack partners, putting an offer in on the card. Why else would a repack partner be putting in 200% offers? Why else would they be putting in 165, 170% offers? That only makes sense. Literally only makes sense if they have an opportunity to do that. And it's interesting that one of, if not the biggest repack buyer making offers on PSA's website is their most prominent repack partner, GameStop, who happens to be a group submitter. And I think that's fair. Go ahead, Alex, go ahead. I think that's fair about the grading. You know, one of the things actually that I'm going to talk about in my podcast this week is that one of my hot takes is that the hobby doesn't want accurate grading, the hobby wants tens. And like I, if we wanted accurate grading, we would support companies that used AI and it was not a subjective process. I absolutely agree with you. I get PSA'd more than I would like to admit, but I think that, and this is something that what I would love to see is more transparency on their process. Because what I think, and I might be wrong here, what I think happens is these repack partners are buying the cards and PSA then is putting those directly into those PSA certified repacks. I don't believe, and again, I might be wrong here because we don't have enough transparency, which PSA is not good at anyways. The fact that they put greater notes behind such a massive paywall that you have to pay so much money to get the reason why your card got the grade that it did shows that they are not for that transparency and the lack of that transparency, I think we should see more of it. But my understanding of the process is these repack partners are basically buying these cards and then PSA is directly putting them into repacks on site from the PSA vault. So could they regrade stuff? Maybe. But I think that the conspiracy was that PSA was intentionally grading this stuff low so that then the, you know, repack partner, they could regrade it higher and now all of a sudden my card that was a nine is now a 10. Yeah, I know this sounds a little, let me jump in here, Gary. I know you and I are going to have to fight to get words in edgewise with each other. But I want to talk about this thought of fraud at scale because the issue that we have and the reason I think you're getting a stronger reaction than maybe just the point we're talking about, Alex, is because it wasn't that long ago. My whole point to the C thing or SGC is it wasn't that long ago. All of us believe that it was still a tremendously undervalued of this grading equation. And to this day, I'm hoping and praying that SGC, you know, evolves into some type of boutique selling, but what we called it, a parts car, it's a parts car. PSA has taken it for all the parts they need because it was less expensive than expanding it. Their operation were no regulation. There's nothing in place. People were allowed to buy. This is free market. However, however, if this level of fraud as possible or we're in an incubator where it's easier for it to happen and there are no more regulations on this, that's really concerning to me because possible and unbelievable has certainly happened more than once or twice in the last three years. And I think it's that perspective that gives me a hard time when I look at what they were off a hundred percent on. Here's the piece that I, that we didn't spend too much time in the pod, but what they were offering are a well over a hundred percent was exactly what was off. That's not strange, right? We had this goat, especially the goat basketball stuff through the summer. I don't know if you capitalize on any of that stuff, but it was streaming hot as the ultra modern rookie class for football was kicking off and it just wasn't producing as much in the way of sales for that load of mid end, right? But these seven and eights on Jordan inserts, we're getting 200, 250% offers. That seems strong to quite strong when Gary and I sell 30 to 40% of our business are people that are repackers that hit local show scenes and boy, they sure aren't throwing 200% at that. So it makes you scratch your head. Is this okay? Should there be regulations? Should we be a little bit more concerned about what's happening here or is this just nothing to see? And that's where it's, it's just tough to look at three and say, man, it tends to repeat itself and we have this entity that only has even more influence. I know Gary has a point about that. Uh, and a little bit, I don't want to talk over, uh, talk over you, Alex. I want to give you floor and space there. Yeah, well, it's that though is something that for me, I will admit that maybe I have blind spots on that, you know, to my point that I said, you know, they're not making offers on high value cards. Clearly you guys gave many examples of cards that you have seen. Maybe I'm just not seeing the right cards because for me, most of my business is, as you guys know, lower end cards. So maybe the high end cards that I have and the, the few, I literally, I went through and I counted in my entire inventory and house collection, et cetera. I have a total of 10 cards right now that are worth over a thousand dollars. That's it. Yeah. I am not a high end collector. I am not. high end dealer. So I will be the first to admit there's blind spots there. I don't do anything with basketball. So no, you know, I, I know that Jordan and Kobe and LeBron are hot, but I'm, you know, no awareness of any of that. So I'll be the first to admit that I was wrong there. And I think that where I'd like to jump on that kind of is the like broader concerns around PSA and the holistic market, because I think that where two things got conflated is my defense of the PSA offers and being therefore holistically in support of the PSA monopoly that is forming. And I think that those two things are not the same. You know, I think that you guys said that, you know, you, you, you're just don't dismiss legitimate concerns that massive corporations are trying to profit off of every single stage of a card's life to the detriment of everyone else. Like, I'm not saying that you can't disagree with PSA or have questions or concerns about it. My thing was strictly on PSA offers because I have lots of concerns about PSA. I have lots of things, you know, to the SGC side, I have been very vocal that one from a business perspective, I think it's a really bad decision to, I think from a hobby perspective, it's really bad. Last week on my podcast, we talked about how it's the unfortunate reality that SGC is not really market relevant at all anymore. And if you're somebody who's trying to use the hobby to fund the hobby, it's PSA or bust right now. And that we need more than one grading option for the hobby to be healthy. It is bad when there was only one option. I was very critical of PSA jacking up their prices and turnaround times saying, Oh, we've got unprecedented demand. And in order to do like, we have to raise these because you know, that's, it's how they're going to slow that funnel. They're not going to lower those prices. Once the funnel slows, that price is jacked up forever and there's nothing we can do about it. So I have lots of concerns, but I think that the concept or idea that these PSA offers or what PSA is doing on the PSA offers is a detriment to everyone. That's where I feel like we disagree on. I think it could be a problem in the longterm. And that's something that we can talk about of like defending. And maybe I'm just a optimist in where we are right now. I don't think is a massive problem. Again, I think we need more competition in the space and the market needs to put their money where their mouth is because I think most people would say we need more competition, but people don't go buy anything else outside of PSA slaps. But I think that the average collector, the average person going to a show, I think PSA offers are good for. Somebody who wants liquidity in the big card that they pulled that they don't necessarily want to keep or they want to sell it, making it more accessible for gaining liquidity on your cards at 0% fees, et cetera, in the here and now state is good. If they change it, if they just use it as a bait and switch and say, Hey, we're going to corner the market. We're going to box out all of the dealers and make them fail. And then we're going to start lowering our offers. Then yeah, that's a problem. And that, that future, we need to be very critical if that were to happen. I think that go ahead. Sorry, Gary, I'm going to interrupt you. And then it'll be short. I promise. Okay. Big difference between your, my opinion here, Alex is the definition of long-term. Okay. And the, and the reason I'm saying that is this is becoming as an alternative asset class. More money is moving in volatility is at a level. I mean, we saw some COVID volatility that was cuckoo, right? But this stuff doesn't have 10 years. It happens in 10 months, three months ago, we were doing a podcast where we said, Hey, PS, uh, PSA has offered this thing where you can jump the line, pay up if, and only if you agree to do this X, Y, and Z, this really sounds like they're starting to position for a repack. And I swear, Alex, everybody was like, guys, chill out. It's PSA. Could they do it? Are they going to do a repack? No. And so we fast forward just a couple months, clearly we're doing this. Now, does it make more sense on the business end for them probably to be just sourcing that? Hey, have, what does PSA have that is probably more valuable than anything? The mailing list of a bajillion people that are actively spending money in the hobby. That's that's a big piece of the value. So they're leveraging that. I understand it, but the future gets here real quick. I turned 40 this year. This last 10 years was real fast. And the things that we see in positioning concern me, concern me. I don't want us to be in the hobby saying, and this is not a reflection on you, but I came up with an analogy of like, you know, those little drive-through spots where you can grab, uh, you, you, you don't even get out of your car. You can grab a bag of chips, a six pack of beer or whatever. Uh, it's like, Hey, uh, here, here's, here's an ice cold cup of ice for the road to go along with the booze on the way out. We're telling you not to drink. We're not doing it, but the position, the situation is there. It's an opportunity responsible for their own decisions. I'm concerned that the future is happening right in front of us. I mean, huge leaps in one year, huge leaps. Sorry, went about a minute longer. And I thought you said that was going to be quick for me to your point, Alex, on the liquidity. So I have a couple of concerns that I think are very, very valid based upon what we know about how PSA already does business first and foremost. Uh, and it's a lot like, and we've had this take, uh, across the industry. So much of what the average person who participates in this hobby, not guys like us, not guys like you, not guys that are doing this for a living, not guys who are creating content, but the average person who just goes to a show or two a month, maybe goes to their LCS and buys a box here or there, or a single here or there, what they are shown on the surface becomes the lens that they view everything through. So when they see the big influencers going to a show with their camera and setting up these deals at 95% that you and I both know, maybe half of them are actual deals. Um, when PSA has that offer showing how many people who see that offer actually click and look at the, uh, fine print on that, it's a really low number. They, people think, and I know this to be true because people have told me that this is their perception of it, that if PSA says, I'm going to give you $200 for this card, that all they have to do is click that button and PSA sends them $200 and they send them the card. Um, what it really is is they have to send that card and then it is going to take two to three weeks to get through the vaulting process. It used to be two or three days. And then if that offer is still in place at that same level, they will get paid that if it's not, well, now you don't have a card that's sitting in PSA's vault. And if you want it back, you got to pay to get it back. Um, I just did that for the record. No, don't mean to interrupt you, but I literally just sent in, I think it was five cards. I'm working on a video kind of about that. I had the national show did some of the, you know, let's scan a card and see whether or not we can get it for less than the PSA offer. And one of the cards, which I don't mind that I'm holding that they no longer have an offer on was an Otani, you know, gold wave refractor. Not a bad one. I think 650 bucks at the time when I bought it and I got it for 450. So I was like, cool. Yeah. They pulled the offer. I don't care because I think it's worth more than that. But the other one, you know, I sent it in and the offer stayed the same. There was though, a card that I sent in and the offer changed. It was an Aaron judge, PSA, 10 rookie. Ironically, I graded it with PSA. They didn't give me an offer. I got it back. There was an offer at, I think like $210. It's a $240 card. I sent it in and now the offer is 160 bucks. And I'm like, I'm not taking that. Like that one that now I'm in that situation. The other ones, the offers were still good. So like four of the five, it did take two weeks to process your spot on there. So agreeing concerns, totally see it. I've experienced it. I'm doing it right now. Yeah. And, and so if PSA, so what we always ask in any of these situations is what are the reasons a company could be doing this and who benefits from it? And if you answer those two questions, you can usually come up with a pretty logical end game for what's happening. It feels like what PSA is trying to do is drive a preponderance of physical inventory into their vault and what happens happens. Now, what are the potential reasons that they want to do that? The less physical inventory that's out there, the more likely that people are going to take their offers regardless of what they are. Because if I, if I send a card in like your example, my offer was $200. By the time they get it checked in, it's $150. I don't want the $150, but it's going to cost me $25 to get the card back. And it's going to take two to four weeks to get the card back. Well, now do I just leave it there? Or do I just go ahead and take their offer? And if I just leave it there- Or sell it through PSA via their consignment services. Right. So the point being that goes back to what I've said is it feels like PSA's entire goal right now is how do we get some piece of the pie at every single stage of this card's life cycle? And in doing that, while yes, you're increasing liquidity, a small amount within the overall hobby, what you're actually doing is pulling money out of the hobby as a whole. Because if, even if it's one or 1% at every stage of the life cycle of a card, you've just pulled 5% of the overall liquidity of that card out of the market and put it in your pocket. You see what I'm saying? I do. Yeah. I see it and I understand of like, let's be honest. We know PSA, Fanatics, et cetera, the two big dogs that control basically everything right now or will in the very, very near future. They are here to make money in the same way that when you guys go to a show or when I set up my whatnot show, I'm here to make money. Now I think that we probably are able to balance that maybe a little bit bigger than a large corporation is having worked in corporate America before, but I recognize that they're trying to make that profit. And I think that where it's the question and problem is if that future comes quickly and if that future that the feared future becomes a reality. And maybe that's where we're not seeing eye to eye, because I think that I hope and maintain that hopefully they keep the offers reasonable, strong, good, et cetera, in the same way. Because basically all of these repacks, whether it's PSA, whether it's Arena Club, Courtyard, Collectibles, whatever, they're all doing the 90% buyback. It is gambling. It is basically people, I'm going to accept the 90% buyback offer. And that person just spent $1,000 and got back 700 bucks. Boom, we just made 300 bucks right there. And that's why they're able to pay so strongly. And it's the same way with repackers being able to buy at 95, 100% comp, because they know that they're going to be able to play that game, buy that inventory back from people, et cetera. And I just hope, and again, maybe me being an optimist is incorrect here. And I hope that I'm right, but I recognize there's a world in which I'm wrong. And that's where the fear comes from, is if they start to lower these things, and if they start to monopolize this even more, that that 5% now becomes 10% or 15%. And it can snowball. And I will concede that that is possible. Yeah. When you look at what that snowball looks like, I think that's where people like Jason and really get nervous, because I think we all can recognize that the entire ecosystem of this hobby is reliant on every part of it. If you don't have grading companies, then there's not really a way to really move card values. That's just reality. And if you don't have... A lot of people, you've made the comment that dealers freaked out when repackers came onto the scene. Didn't bother us too much, because we don't tend to source by walking shows. We source from our side of the table when people walk up to the table. But at the end of the day, we all rely on each other. If PSA maintains 90% buyback offers, and they start monopolizing more and more of that flow, local shows where you source, where a lot of whatnot people source, where people like us make our living, they will cease to exist. Because you can't make a living, you can't run a small business. You can run Amazon, you can run IBM, you can run PSA, although they're nowhere near this. You can't exist on 5% margins. Well, let me jump in here, Gary. I understand what you're saying can't exist. You will be forced to do the same thing, Alex, if our conspiracy came to light in the next couple of years. The only way you're going to be able to do that if your focus is more when you're sourcing is to buy bigger cards. And you know this on whatnot, you can. There's a fine line, there's a dance. You can outprice your community on your inventory and create a very different experience where you get a drive-by purchase, but you don't have somebody else hanging out in your show for two hours, building relationships, building a stack. That's a piece of this. Do I think shows cease to exist? I would push back on Gary on that. I don't think they cease to exist. But I do think one thing that's become very evident to Gary and I, now for perspective, we're set up 40 to 45 weekends a year. We're old school road warrior, like we're out there and we're just working it out. There are companies that are out there there are communities now or areas we know where we're going to go and there are card collectors that are going to be buying. And there is a huge for occasion where we see the other half of these shows where it's like after the first four hour wave of repackers that all came in early, we'll see what's happening there. So I think have a negative impact on the show scene. Gary and I would have to make some adjustments, but I do think it would also affect that low end market tremendously. Now, are these offers on $50 and $100 cards going to continue? What are they going to want to buy? Those are all concerns. Yeah. I'm going to say, I actually think that the concerns regarding local shows to some And at least in my experience as somebody who walks shows and doesn't really set up as much. I think it's already happening I what are you seeing get specific with us because I'd really like your perspective here. I cannot source Solid slab inventory at all. It shows anymore You know, I went to the National Car Show a few weeks ago Honestly, it was probably a month a month plus ago at this point. I Went I spent you know for me $12,000 in the weekend, which is a lot of money for me in my business and I didn't even fill up a single to shoot to our shoe box a slabs like My business like I have actively I think I actively am hurt by the added liquidity That slabs have in the market between repackers and PSA right now It is harder than ever to keep up with slab inventory and I think that that's one of the things that like You talked about those like the importance of the relationships with the dealers and the importance of the local car shows, etc I can't emphasize that enough however, how important those are Yeah, but those local shows are much more important to me from a buying raw inventory Versus buying slabbing before nowadays my slabs. I would say that Probably 10% of the slab inventory that I have comes from shows That's it and I sell 40 to 50 slabs a week Right now you've run a cost average for inventory. Do you break out by sale or purchase? I just run average So basically, I know it's one it's impossible for some of a business perspective with whatnot the volume that I operate at to To track especially because so much of the stuff that I'm selling is, you know, a three four dollar card I'm like, yeah, I'm not gonna track that so My average stream generally it's insane how consistent it is as long as to your point know your customer know the price point that you want to work with it's insane how consistent 12 to 15 dollars and that's inclusive of the $200 Bobby Witt slab that I sell and the $2 Bobby Witt, you know, just refractor card So I know when I'm sourcing inventory if I get to the end of a show and I'm like, wow I spent more than $12 a card got a problem probably But if it's you know, how to show this last past weekend I was like I got a lot of good stuff at seven bucks a card. Cool. I'm excited there I think I'm gonna make good money on that, but I already have seen that concern I think and I think that I see it both on the me trying to buy it from you know, the To me, there's two classes of people that generally set up at a show You've got the professional dealers like you guys that go every single weekend and that road warriors are just doing show after show after show and then you've got the Local hobbyist collector side, you know hustle guy, etc. Both of those dealers It is a dream if I can get stuff at 85% from a showcase slab inventory perspective nowadays, I I used to get that stuff at 75 to 80 percent and so on I am I and and this is what I think and I think this is where my Take of the obviously the if you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen It's it's it was meant to be a like you either in business You need to adapt or you're gonna die and that goes I think we've seen that throughout the history of the hobby That there's things are constantly changing and it forces you to adapt right now I'm being actively hurt by it I recognize it but I'm having to adapt the way that I run my business in order to do that and granted what that's forcing me to do and this is right in the PSA playbook is I'm having a great more cards with PSA. Yeah have to send your own stuff off. Yeah Yeah, I got a great of myself because then I'm getting it at a better cost basis I can say basically in my mind I say, okay, cool. I'm getting these cards at 22 bucks a slab. I'm not gonna do that at a card show for good inventory. No way For perspective, it sounds like you're saying the negative impacts of PSA being involved like this or a Reality already for you. I think they are. Yeah but I also think and this is where am I I think my My point is I think that to the average person who has PSA cards that isn't set up at shows every weekend It isn't doing this in that it is giving them more negotiation power at shows Or when they're looking to sell to me on discord or Facebook groups or Instagram and I think they I think the person who has the slab right now has more power Unless it's a whatnot stream where I'm starting it at a dollar Yeah, I think we've been wrestling this to the ground it sounds like a big perspective is a A Belief that this could happen and I've got an eye on it versus a belief that it is currently happening and it's more immediate threat Yeah, is that is that a well-summized there? I guess I think that that goes for PSA and fanatics you talk about people saying you know because fanatics is obviously the other major player in earning it I know you guys mentioned them of like the The consolidation of power within the industry. Yeah This might be a hot take and people will you know say that I've Sold out and this and that I think generally right now Fanatics has been very good for the hobby I think generally and there are things that I can and will complain about that have been Horrible at putting out checklists and pack odds Tops used to be amazing at putting those out before the releases before pre-orders, etc. That is gone. I Will critique them for that. I will critique where I think it is doing fair, but I think largely Tops chrome basketball pre-order happens in 24 minutes here That space that that is tops is prison That that that hobby box is gonna be I'm gonna guess 250 bucks Prism that'd be $1,000 box. It's gonna be 250 bucks for pre-order if you're sitting if you're sitting in front of your computer at noon on a weekday and You have a bot running otherwise, you're not touching that at 250 bucks I have gotten I bought 10 boxes of cosmic last week all with these little fingers. I didn't use Just speed and knowing how to and like I know how to do it I buy a lot from them but like I agree the bots and I think the tops is trying to do some stuff in terms of you see the whole like Checkout line and it's a constant push and push and pull between the company selling stuff in the box I can tell you from facts been better than panini. I Think that in in some ways I would agree with you. Yeah others. I would not and here's why I say that Panini, especially over the last four years four and a half years Was at least honest about their greed and they were really blatant about it Like we know the secondary markets gonna be a thousand bucks. So we want nine have yourself a day Here's royalty. Yeah, I don't like the I don't like I don't like anything Where a company is trying to present itself as being one thing when we all know that's not reality because let's be frank They're gonna release tops chrome on pre-order. Do we really think that they're gonna sell all the inventory? They have available on this pre-order No, I know that how they do it. Is that breakers and shops? If they get the solicitation email after the pre-order because fanatic says hey Let's see how quickly this sells out and that helps inform them where they need to put the price at for wholesale You know what some of them some of the big breakers also get ahead of time Alex No, they get about five minutes early access to that pre-order. Yeah Well, I know that to be true It's good. It's it is the Breakers love them or hate them. There's two very polarizing perspectives. I am NOT a breaker I never you know have will etc for fanatics breaking is Massively popular. They want to get the product into their hands. So I Understand it from a business perspective from a marketing perspective. Everybody talks about juice boxes I'm a firm believer. There are no juice boxes. It is a pure numbers game Well, I think there are juice boxes, but I don't necessarily think fanatics or whoever knows exactly where they're going to backyard break So that they pull, you know, the the skeins one of one. No, no, I agree with that But I do think it's interesting that I didn't see any Publication not for this wasn't a fanatics and this was a panini thing. Yeah, but to that point about juice boxes and manufacturers Last year when all the first off the line boxes had 20 plus downtown's and multiple Pandora's I didn't see any of those first off the line boxes That went to just the average person that bought something on the first off the line It was all the breakers that got those boxes There wasn't any just random dude in Iowa who went check out my first off the line box with 12 downtown's in it I Feel like I saw one post maybe in sports cards nonsense Facebook group But but I think that that's also that that goes to the whole, you know, all breakers Paul the big hits I think to some extent it's a volume game it well and and not just a volume game but also if You know little Johnny in Iowa his dad buys him a first off the line box if little Johnny makes an Instagram post What traction is that gonna get? I don't know if it was a fanatics tops would steal that content repost it with no credit and have themselves. Hey, I I Know we can we can like spin in circles on the loaded boxes I mean some of the stuff is you know, you think it's happening or it's not One thing that's very clear. I think Gary would agree with me too on this Maybe not but fanatics has changed the experience for collectors. Yes collectors are closer to the athlete Experience to hits than they've ever been before They're clearly evangelizing the hobby I have confidence that the brand and Product will have a wider and larger reach than it has right now five years from now you fast-forward It's gonna be unbelievable how many more consumers exist as a dealer? I couldn't be happier about this, but you want to know what nobody's talking about because they'll literally get in trouble for it We're not talking about the LCS owners that for 30 years have had direct accounts They've been buying contributors and little by little Fanatics is squeezing and squeezing and squeezing and squeezing on the ones who put 20 years into building these businesses They've got account managers saying Oh tops Chrome basketball We're gonna make it affordable, but you only get two cases even though you've ordered a pallet for the last 20 years You're gonna get two cases of it and you're gonna like it, but don't worry in 30 days We'll let that back where you have a $30 markup because now we can advertise this direct to consumers They're advertising I know in the Ohio area They're planning on cool down 60 accounts, and they're they said mid-summer that they weren't gonna allow any more So there's a squeeze going this way meanwhile the LCS is making any money in our area Account managers breathing down their necks saying you better be ordering more more more cuz your competitors We love giving them. Yeah, hey you've 200 square feet Let's use this whole wall for some $50 homage sweatshirts Which was by the way are on clearance right now on fanatics if you'd like to hop on and grab them still left over from Fanatic so when we look at that big picture yes fan access in that it's the same thing with PSA There are net positives everywhere if you look at them, but if we don't talk about this There's one I can't mention by name but we have a dealer that's been doing this for longer than anybody else and if I Even could paint a picture of how much product they move with different brands on really big staple in the state of Ohio And they've been doing this longer than they got socks older than me, okay? And I'm and I'm I'm telling you they're getting calls because their hours weren't long enough They need to expand them by three hours a week a week. You're only open 42 hours a week We noticed that you need to be 45 otherwise. We're gonna cut your allocations So I think all the emotion in it is that dealers are spending time with the shop owners and the guys on and the guys that aren't doing most of this digitally and Everything we're hearing and feeling is these walls sure feel like they're closed in does anybody else see this anybody else and so if it's met We feels a little dismissive. It's like Should we not should we could be concerned should we say something should we not like Gary? And I want to monetize content at some point, but we know having opinions There's only a couple companies right not crazy about what PSA does a lot of times. We love card ladder. Well guess what? Say so right so go ahead out I I Hear and I think the concerns are valid there on the you know you need to be open 45 hours a week And you know the here is if you want this product, and you're how they're gonna have to buy these things etc. I also think That to me loops back to the Adapting as things are shifting and changing I don't think it's unreasonable to say hey You need to have enough hours that you're open for the public to come and buy cards to exist to experience a hobby shop I know one of the big things that people have had complaints about is that the the hobby shop that you and I grew up on which was the Dusty grungy Like four row boxes piled to the ceiling jobs, but I think a lot of people have fond memories of let's be honest If you're a mom who's you know seven year old kid is saying hey I want to go buy a pack of cards, and you walk into that shop. What are you gonna? Think? sure I understand the concerns and I understand the we need to modernize that my is this and we need to do this in a way that is Going to actually grow and make things like Welcoming to people so I I understand and I hear both sides, and I think both are valid I think fanatics is valid for setting standards I think that that's a fair thing to say if you're you know if you're gonna sell our product You're going to be an ambassador for our brand in the same way that when people come to me and say hey You know you want to? Like you're gonna be a brand brand ambassador, you're going to make brand and content for us, I need to be brand friendly. It's a reality, but it's also fair for them to come for me if I, you know, have a complaint about a company or this or that, that if I should be able to also express my opinions and that's also fair and valid and what we need and that's where the conversation that we're having right now needs to be more open and more welcome is I think a lot of people, no matter what you're talking about in today's world, just love to dig their heels in and say, nope, this is my opinion, I'm going to plug my ears and I'm not willing to hear anybody else. Sure. And I think that it's fanatics feels like to this conversation that they want their cake, but they want to eat it too. They want all these LCSs to operate as if they are franchises of fanatics, but they don't extend any of the benefits of being a franchise. They basically are charging you franchise fees without charging you franchise fees because they're forcing you to buy things you can't sell. And so they're getting their little percentage there. They're six to 8% there. The LCSs around our area that are forced to buy that stuff, do use it as giveaways, like just here, take it. So they're doing that, but they're not extending any of the benefits that go along with being a franchise as far as the overall marketing and things like that. And again, to me, those are very short sighted things. We talk about long-term versus short-term. And some of the things that a company like fanatics has done are in my mind, very much long-term thinking, but so many of the other things, it feels like a lot like what we've talked about with BGS over the last two and a half to three years, where it's just a constant stream of shooting yourself in the foot for short-term gain without any thought to what the long-term thing is. Let's cut direct accounts. We talk about adaptability. One of the more successful local shops in our area just decided, you know what, screw it. I'm not going to even try to do direct. I'm going to buy my stuff off a dealer net. I'm not going to carry a ton of wax. I'm going to be a single shop. And that's worked really well for him. What happens to somebody like fanatics if more and more people are forced to go down that path? Because most small shops don't have a quarter million dollars on a rolling 45 to 60-day window to spend on wax and accoutrement. You like that, Jason? I slid that word in. I know you hate it. I hate that. He tries to squeeze accoutrement in every chance he gets. Every chance he gets. But Gary, I'm going to push back on you a little bit on this one because they're not worried about that. They have no concern with moving their wax. Like sporting goods, down the street, one of the new houses of sport, they just put one in up here in North Columbus, one of the big new whatevers. I could not believe which hobby product was there on the shelf. So they're going to excel in getting this direct to consumer. GameStop, I mean, that could be a whole other conversation as well. It's going to be their franchise eventually. It is going to be their franchise. It's super smart for them. They've got a spot within 30 to 45 minutes of just about everybody. I mean, it's brilliant. They're going to make a killing off of that. But they're not going to have a problem selling direct to consumer. They're even heading that direction. They're going to close down these accounts, but there's not a single card in this United States that is not going to get a yes, right? They will decide, oh, there's too many shops here. So which one of these accounts is going to get cut? And those card vaults, I think it's a brilliant idea, but let's call it what it is. It's a boutique. There's some unique wax. There's not going to be a ton of inventory, but it's going to be a sharp building and it's going to be an intro to zero entry into the card space in a retail. It's a corporate card shop. Yeah, but but it's going to it's going to have it's going to look nice there. We've got one of them. We've got one of those here. It won't be nice. It's going to be super nice. Yeah, but it's the corporation. Yeah. To the detriment of the people that have been there like one that I'm talking about, we're not talking about that example I gave. This is somebody who's got one of the biggest upper deck accounts in the country. And you know how hard they are on their allocations. They have strict expectations with that. They I mean, they still don't do direct accounts for breakers unless that changed in the last few months. You have to have an order, I believe. So yeah, so I think we can make a pivot here, but I want to give you an uninterrupted minute here. If there's something that we misunderstood or something else that you want to bring this home with, I want to give you the floor. No, I think we've covered it all. Honestly, like I think that I think that we see eye to eye on a lot of things. And I think the things that we don't see eye to eye on are the like my optimism of maybe incorrectly placed optimism that things aren't going to evolve poorly. I think that the my opinion is that at the end of the day, fanatics and PSA are heavily incentivized in the long term health and future of the hobby. And it's a difficult balance for them of maximizing the profit while also not milking it for all it's worth that we're going to talk to jumping to business here in a minute. Then I think there are a lot of people in the card business that operate that way that say, I'm just going to take, you know, I'm going to lie about comps and say that this card is a five hundred dollar card when it's not because I can get that sale and that customer that is going to move on and whatever. That's their problem. I made my money and that's no big deal. And they're not thinking about the long term health of that, you know, customer for them, the long term involvement of that customer in the hobby, et cetera. And I just I hope and again, I might be wrong. And if I am, as if things devolve, I will say, man, my my hope was incorrectly placed. But I still think that current state, I think the hobby is very, very healthy. It's not to say that there aren't things to be concerned about because there definitely are. I just think that, as I said, I think in general, the concerns about PSA offers were overstated in a lot of places, I think, because I think as they currently stand, I think it's good for the hobbyist. It's bad for me, but I've got to adapt and adjust my business in the same way that any other business does is things changes. Inflation happens as supply chains dry up like it's it's the reality and the challenge of running a small business. I respect that. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think then maybe just the one thing that we'd ask if the ball cart show could ask anything of you, Alex, and it really is like just genuinely, I really hope in your mind you could think through, like, what would be the things where I'm like, OK, that's too far. And I hope that people with a voice in the community. Think further ahead of that, like here's my non-negotiables, here's the things that I won't ever be OK with or here's the things that will be like, all right, yellow flag, red flag on this one. Right. So. I just hope that there and Gary and I need to to have that in mind as well. Yeah. But I think that was some good perspective. So let's shift gears then. Let's talk about so what we're both dealers. This is a react, whether we think it's going to get worse or better or what. What does this mean for dealers? Repacks are front and center. You gave the example of going and walking shows, which, you know, your business, are you exclusively selling on whatnot? Do you set up at shows as well? I set up occasionally, but that's more honestly to buy than it is to sell. And that's just because I have the social media following that I say, hey, I'm at the show. Come sell me your cards. OK, that makes sense. So that perspective helps a lot because your source is almost solely sourcing at shows. And you're saying the slab market. So what what kind of adapting should all three of us be doing? If this is changing, I can say was that Gary and I are no doubt running into issues where people were comfortable selling to us at 70, 75 percent for years. And in the last six months, it has become the point of tension, like percentage, percentage, percentage. Some people don't even know what their card's worth, but they start with the percentage. And I think that's something Repack market has introduced. Right. So what types of things? So let's say that it's not just a season, two, three months from now, you're like, all right, it's hard to buy slabs. What are you going to do differently? I am right now, I'm sourcing a lot of inventory on eBay, on Fanatics Collect, on, you know, I haven't done a ton with Golden, but like I look at the big auction houses, one of the pieces of advice that I give people is, you know, there are there are there are too many marketplaces out there right now, like and I think that that can be if you're a seller detrimental, but as a buyer, you can take advantage of some of that. So, you know, being able to buy, I constantly I spend all day eBay ending soonest PSA, like and just seeing what kind of deals are able to find. And, you know, sometimes you find really good deals and there are days where I'm like, wow, I bought like 50 slabs today. And then there are days where I'm like, I bought nothing. And that, too, I anticipate will at some point get smaller and smaller because as people recognize that there is different ways or better liquidity or better ways to sell their cards, like you shouldn't be auctioning your cards yourself, send them to a consignor. If you are going to do a 99 cent auction, send it to a consignor. They are going to get more eyes and you will get more money if you send it to a DC sports. If you it's no question about it. And I still get good deals on DC stuff, but I definitely have to pay more when it's DC versus some random eBay account that has 43 feedback. I'm definitely jealous of your ability to source on eBay, because as as somebody who sets up shows and doesn't just sell on an online platform, if I buy something on eBay, you said I get a great deal on it. I now have to fight against that great deal that I got. It's a tug of war. Yeah, it is a huge challenge. I think that two things. One, I think that you need to be willing to say, and this is one of my things that I'm going to talk about again on this week's episode of The Hobby Handbook, is I think the comps are focused on too much in the hobby. All the comp was with somebody was able to pay for that card when it sold. Like if you wanted it at that price, you should have bought it at that price. Or if I wanted to sell that card at that price, I should have sold it at that price. I think that what I do all the time, because I have probably 95% of my inventory is moved on dollar auctions and whatnots and whatnot streams. Yeah. The other little bit is, you know, Otani Gold Wave. I'm not I'm not a maniac. I'm not starting that at a dollar. I get guys all the time. When is back wall run? I'm like, it doesn't. That's not happening. That's in the shop. And you can make me an offer and we can work out a deal and that's fine. And I'm happy to give you a good deal. But when I have guys that come in, like great example, I just bought a Ronald Acuna future, so bright at a finest, really cool. Insert red refractor out of five. I got it for 47 bucks on DC and a PSA. Not like that seems like a crazy good deal to me. That's going in my shop at 150 bucks or best offer. Yeah. Somebody's going to, I know somebody's going to come and they're going to say, well, the last one in 47, can you do 40? And I say, no, I'm last comp. I bought that card at 47 because I thought that I could make money on it. And either it goes into the dollar auctions where I am going to leave it up to the room and, you know, let myself fall to the law of averages where I know that I'm probably going to do fine for how I source inventory, or I need to be willing to sit on it and say, I thought it was a good deal. And if I have to sit on it, I have to sit on it. And that's hard, especially if what you're doing is only shows where you only have showcase inventory. And like, if stuff gets stale, that's preventing you from putting other things into the case. It's going to move for me, my back wall stuff. I don't keep a ton of that inventory because it's not what I sell a ton of. And it's stuff that if I, if I'm holding this Otani in 10 years, okay. Yeah. You, you would get a kick out of sitting just behind and watching us at a show on a Saturday, because I'm sure we both have very similar thought processes to that, but we also are the guys who are kind of known for having the really unique, interesting stuff that nobody else really wants to carry because they're bricks. Yep. They're affordable too. We're not doing that with, for the most part, two to 500 bucks, like not, not big cards, but end user cards. Yeah. Stuff that doesn't sell very often that a collector is going to buy. It's not for the guy trying to buy it from me at 80% so he can sell it for 90%. And yeah. But Alex, I think you bring up a really, really important point here as we think how this percentage squeeze that we're all feeling, whether it's PSA or whatever is happening, because advantage you have with that build out audience with live selling on an auction is you have 20 people looking over your table at the same card at the same time. So it's a very different conversation to source and vice versa. I don't think it would affect us that much on whatnot, Gary. I really don't. No, I mean, we cost average with our approach anyway, but it would be tough to do it there. So sourcing online, Gary, what would you, do you think there's things that you will need to do differently if the PSA repack and offers continues to grow and become popular and we see more resistance at, like we're fighting for 80% right now, Alex, that's kind of, yeah. A lot of the times we're fighting to get to 80%. Um, maybe we try to tap out if we can. Yeah, no, that's I always tap out there. My motto is very simple. There's always another deal. Um, for me, for me, I think one of the things, and this is getting into the weeds of the philosophy of this business for years, I mean, for in the great grand scheme of the existence of this hobby, we are in the 10% window of the current way of doing things up until very shortly before COVID, um, the norm for dealers was to pay 50%, maybe, maybe 60%. Um, and to be perfectly frank, and I'm, I don't have a problem saying this cause I say it to customers and they walk up to my table. If your card's worth less than 20 bucks, I'm paying you 50%. Um, if you don't want to sell it at that, I totally get it. It's okay. No, no worries. But your retail green Jackson dart, that's going to be worth 30% less in 10 days than it is today, I'm not interested in paying up for, um. I do it by bands, but yeah, we we're normally somewhere depending on the value of the card somewhere between 60 and 80 percent and the 80 percent is reserved for when I can know I can sell it before the end of the show for the most part or It's something awesome. Like I paid up on a Ken Griffey jr. All kings. It's a beautiful card crazy Um, I think that they're gonna hold value long term and continue to go up and so I paid strong on that card but in general the The thing that I try to tell people when dealers other dealers ask us how we buy or how we do this or how we do that The easiest part of this business and this is gonna sound very counterintuitive, but it isn't The easiest part of this business is the selling It's easier to say it is harder to buy cards and it is to sell cards and you have to be a better Salesperson to buy cards than you do to sell cards. Yep You need to be able to communicate with people you need to be able to honestly say hey I'm running a business here when we buy for whatnot inventory when it walks up to our table We went through this on the pod three or four weeks ago like broke it down Kind of like you do sometimes like when people bring stuff up to the table I don't I look at it and say listen, I'm gonna make sure we're on the same page. This is whatnot inventory for us. I Don't care what the comps are that means nothing to me. I'm buying this stuff Roughly knowing what it's gonna do in our stream. We have Yeah, and a hundred percent and and I'm gonna pay you based on the type of stuff you're bringing me if you're bringing me a Hundred cards. I'm gonna pay you somewhere between a dollar and five dollars a card depending on the type of stuff It is I don't care if there's ten cards in there that comp at 50 because I'm also taking ten cards at five bucks that Are 50 cents. Yep Like if that works for you, let's have a conversation and if it doesn't that's okay, too There's probably other guys in the room of 400 dealers that you can sell to what's shocking is how many people sell to us Working, but I'm concerned like looking forward. I'm concerned that at some point it won't I'm concerned at some point it won't And I think it will I Think for me just why do you think it will Alex? I think that the amount of work that is required to move low-end inventory Most people are not willing to put in the amount of time and maybe they have no idea do they Streamlining of you know listing on eBay that you know eBay basically buys a Card dealer pro or chronos EO and you can literally just take your phone scan it and it uploads everything Maybe that day but even then The volume game of you get 40 orders that you have to pack up and ship out Do not have the time Energy or motivation to do that. I don't know All of the date all of the cards that I buy for the most part I I buy the exact same way that you do of basically what I say is if it's worth more than 15 20 bucks I'm gonna comp it out. I'm gonna pay you between 70 to 80 percent depending on how good it is Anything under 15 $20. I'm gonna pay you between Two and five dollars a card depending on how good that inventory is. Yeah, there's gonna be some stuff I mean, I bought a lot at the show this past weekend that I got, you know Some very nice stuff at three bucks a card, but I paid him, you know I said I knew that the the stack of cheap stuff was good. I mean good good. I Got this stuff at three dollars a card and I said I'm confident there So I'll just pay you a hundred percent on all the other nice high-end stuff that you got. Those are my loss leaders I'm fine to lose on those cards because it will average out I think that the cheap market the low-end market one leaves way more room for profit for the average person and Two it's because it's not gonna go away because PSA is not gonna start buying raw cards Repackers don't put low-end cheap raw cards into their boxes They don't the profit margins not there at a time It's two-time intensive and maybe that will change and my business will go away if that's the case But as is I think that the low-end stuff is gonna stay the same because I think that it's too hard to move it at Volume there doesn't exist a world where I do all the work and somebody else makes all the money I tell people that all the time if you want Jason's really good at it when somebody gets really pushy about it He'll be hey, man If you want I can go introduce you to the promoter of the show He can get you hooked up with a table next month Yep, you can you can get up at 5 in the morning You can drive in you can set your stuff out sit here for 10 hours and argue with people all day and then try to make some money pay For a table by the showcase buy yourself lunch. It's yeah, absolutely Yeah. Yeah. All right I want to pause here because it sounds like when we start getting into the how-to's we have very similar philosophies on the whatnot Sourcing purchasing and even this point we we have been trying to grow I'll just get in the weeds a little bit on our business end of it We have been you know, we had really rapid growth first half of the year We just launched what cheer brought our community over from the podcast. We've Quickly got to about what like Gary would 6,500 6,000. Yeah, I'm like that Plateau like we have never seen it was like months and months and months And we've been trying to figure out things that work schedule things changing things up We finally were able to hit an average Sunday that we have been working towards for quite a while Right right in that ballpark around that 12 to 15 range for us it meant trusting to pay up on a few bigger cards So on your episode of the hobby handbook a couple weeks back you were doing a Consultation somebody and you were talking through what not traffic and the algorithm and that seems like something that's very often gatekept Information like when people figure out something that's working talk about it if I want to learn how to improve YouTube efficiency eBay there's tons out there But what not's a little more suppressed you mentioned something you're doing with bookmarks Get had a direct impact on our sales in the last week Do you mind giving that nugget to our crowd because I think it's really really helpful Yeah, of course So at the end of the day on what not I think what matters the most is that little push? Notification that goes out at the start of your stream. I with my 23 24 thousand followers when I go live I have you know 15 20 people in my room The moment the push notification goes out it goes up to a hundred plus The people that get that push notification are either followers who have continuously engaged in your show it's not really reliable or Those who have bookmarked your show So want so getting people to pre save, you know Click that little bookmark button to say hey, I want to know when this show happens. It's super super important and the kind of like hack for that basically is Doing giveaways which is great because giveaways grow your follower account Which is important because that helps get you more of those push notifications But it also if you tie said giveaways to the number of bookmarks that you have You say, you know, I've got a cool $50 card that we're gonna give away if we can get to this number to stretch goal But if we make it we'll give this away You start to slowly build it up and I'm not like like looking at my whatnot streams What I generally will do is I at the start of the month We'll have a couple of shows where I just focus in big on it and I say, okay, look, let's get us to 75 pre saves let's get us to 100 pre saves So my show tomorrow has 230 pre saves The football stream on Thursday has 183 193 hundred by the end of the month. They're closing in on 150 200 pre saves for me and Now that's reliable to get a big push notification going out Which helps bump your numbers of people in and then if you're running a good show with good inventory People are bidding chats moving then the algorithm says hey, wait a minute something cool is happening here It's probably worth sending people to this room Because they got a lot of good stuff and there's clearly something positive happening here that we should send more people there. It's it's snowballs Yeah, I think that's the big thing we didn't realize is if you build out those shows far enough ahead You're picking up where you left off every show. And so that was a tremendous help for us. So thank you for that The other thing I want to say thank you for is that spreadsheet you back it out? if you still advertise this or not, you had a business tracker spreadsheet and it was like I Am the last person to be responsible on the accounting end, which is so important, but I know it matters So you like just said here's your sheet run it. I don't know. So it was the best $5 I spent on my business Alex are we taking up time? We run this a little bit mindful. Okay Gary where you want to run you want to run straight into the popper drop here or yeah I think we've covered everything else. Let's have some fun and You want me to introduce this segment Jason? Yeah, why don't you kick it off? I'll pull up our list So we make sure go ahead. I ran over this with you Alex, right? Just get a lot of pop or a drop and then if you want to give a little bit of like a Cool. Yeah, so so we launched this segment back when the podcast was audio only And we were audio only for for a little over four years before we came to video this year and we've carried it forward it's been a very popular segment was called popper drop and it's Not a you should go buy this person or we think this is an investment What it is is do we think that they are priced Appropriately right now for growth or do we think that they're a price appropriately right now where it's time to get out so a pop means I would be holding this guy if I have it or Stacking it if I if I feel strong about it Or I think the market right now is about as good as it's gonna get it has nothing to do with player performance It does nothing to do with whether we think that guy is gonna be great Again next year. Yeah, it's it's all about where the market is in relation to What's gonna happen? So that's pop or drop great. Let's do it All right, I'll fire off the names and then you guys let her rip. Okay. All right up for Ellie de la Cruz I Will say pop I'm in the same. I'm in the same bucket as you I think that the last half of last year tanked his market and he's just Got that it factor and I don't think well Show up in the same level, but he Hit for a higher average the Reds You know are a team that can look at contending I know the Dodgers but baseball is a weird sport gonna break my heart as a Reds fan You're gonna say that stuff and get my hopes up and but then we're gonna go Reds Terry Francona They got a good team the rotations building like I they have the pieces there And I think his market dropped In a way that it shouldn't have agreed Okay, ride the rollercoaster here Ronald Acuna jr. I Know right I'm I'm a pop on Acuna just cuz the market is so low. I'm scared of the health But God, he was so good when he came back this year. He was I I will say pop as well Centered around I think the Braves are going to be significantly better. I think that Acuna, you you know what he is, you know what he can be The injury risk exists, but he's kind of priced at a low ish enough point that there's not Massive downside and the Braves will be a better team next year. Yep Nick Kurtz Drop drop all day. It's just not what how's it gonna get higher? He's a first baseman hobby doesn't like first baseman he Plays in Sacramento for the A's plays for the A's which the A's have a lot of solid pieces But it's the A's they're not gonna yeah drop Okay, Cal Raleigh. I I Tried to give us some thinkers here I'm I think it has to be a drop. See I there's what I disagree. Okay, I disagree Tell me why you think he's a drop and I'll tell you why I think he's a pop I don't see a world in which he repeats his offensive season this season this year or next year I think he's still gonna be very good. I think that he can be a 3540 home run bat. I think that he will play elite defense, but defense doesn't matter to the hobby and If he's not in the You know MVP race Who is he? He's he's a guy He's a he's a pop for me for two reasons one The moment that the postseason ended and people understood that there didn't exist a world where Aaron judge wasn't gonna win the MVP His market already softened So I think it's a little lower than it should be Secondly, and this is the big one for me Mariners fan you're a baseball guy and a baseball card guy Mariners fans and Giants fans are two of the most rabid buyers of baseball cards on the planet They have been dying for a guy Like this since Griffey left town They wanted it to be Julio, but Julio is terrible for the first four months of every season because he doesn't like cold weather That Rawley's the guy and they love him and they're gonna buy him Giants fans still pay for Patrick Bailey like I Just think that his market is a little softer than it should be and I don't think he'll repeat what he did this year Because it was so special But I don't think there's a world where he's not a consistent 35 to 40 home run guy who plays platinum glove level defense is an all-star every year like Yeah, it's gonna get MVP votes look at Buster Posey values and I know he's retired but like Giants guy I don't know that the Mariners have a large enough fan base To wholly drive market growth I think I think his market will maintain. I don't think that he is going to like be a Half the price as it is today But I think I I don't have faith in him being MVP caliber, which I think he needs to be doing our irrelevant fair enough We'll see. All right, we'll see what happens So let's go, let's, let's go back a few years now. Barry Bonds, what's going to happen at pop or drop? I think he's going to make the hall. I think that he is, he's in the, what is it called? There's some sort of like modern, the modern committee. It's it's the veterans committee for modern players. Yeah. Yes. Where it's, um, I think he has a much higher likelihood of making it. Cause it's gotta be what? 15 guys who are voting on that. Uh, yeah, it's, it's a much smaller group that has, that he has to kind of win over essentially, and if he makes the hall of fame, even with the asterisk, I mean, it's Barry Bonds statistics are ridiculous, the greatest hitter of all time, it's not remotely close. Um, he's a pop for me for all the same reasons. And even if he doesn't get into the hall of fame, just the fact that he is starting to make a concerted effort to soften his perception within the sports world, appearing on podcasts, trying to be a likable human, which he didn't have any interest in being when he was a player, Alex Rodriguez. Yeah. Yeah. Like trying to, to soften his image somewhat. Um, I think that there is so much, and we saw it this year when tops actually brought out like the first licensed autos of his in what, 25 years, huge demand, massive demand. So yeah, I think he's a pop. All right. Let's just do a couple more here. Yamamoto drop all day. The drop. We saw something from that dude that we're never going to see again in a world series and it got the spike. It tripled his market in two weeks. It ain't staying there. It's what a year to be a pitcher investor. You know, his tops Chrome refractor, rookie PSA, 10 it's $160 card. That's crazy. He doesn't do that. Yeah. It's crazy. And I realized he has, I realized he has overseas market. Yeah. That, that matters. I'm not going to say that it doesn't, but there there's next to no way that his stuff holds the value in the way that it's a $60 card by spring training. I think it'll be more than that. I'm going to guess 80 to a hundred. Okay. Does school ball get the same response from both of you? I, he's such a pop on school, long-term pop lot, like buy his stuff. It's so cheap. I bought, and I realized it's unlicensed, but I bought a mosaic pink fluorescent true rookie to 10 for like 60 bucks a couple of weeks ago, like it stuff is so cheap and he's the best pitcher. I know say what you will about skeins and I love skiing. Skeins probably the most talented, but school ball until he gets dethroned is the best pitcher in baseball. It's not really, he's going to get traded. Yeah, I think he is too. They're saying all the right things, but I think he's probably going to a big market team. And that will Bob his value. Yeah. All right. Last one. Drought pop long-term pop too, for the same reasons. I think short and long-term. Yeah. Hey, go ahead. Alex is a, I, I, I call his rookie card, which I have, I've got the diamond anniversary, which is going nowhere. Yep. Nice. That is in my mind, the modern Mickey Mantle card, because trout is the modern mantle in many ways. And I think that while he had struggled health wise, his market is at a point where it's so low, it's not going to go any lower realistically, or if it does, it's going to be incremental. He puts together a healthy season and hits 45 home runs. He hits the 500 home run mark. He's a bona fide hall of Famer. He has arguably the greatest peak of any player. His jaws is insane. Like it is mine. It just talks about the, the cyclical nature of the hobby and the, what have you done for me in nature lately? Uh, nature of the business that we're all in. Yep. Go look at Mike Trout's jaws and then go look at Otani's jaws. That's all I would tell anybody to do. I'm with you. Mike Trout is the modern day Mickey Mantle. He had health issues, but if Mike Trout never steps foot on a baseball diamond again, he is a first ballot lock 99% vote hall of Famer as the single greatest player of the mid two thousands. Like it's not even close. And if you're, if you're not buying like five years ago and obviously, you know, the COVID peak was the COVID peak, but a PSA 10 base tops traded, uh, trout rookie was what five grand 5,500 bucks. And you can buy one for 900 bucks. Now you should, you should. All right. Before we wrap up, Alex, just genuinely from Gary and I, I appreciate you welcoming the log, I appreciate you making time to talk, um, and just even engaging as people take our little clips and do whatever they want with them on socials. Um, but how can people connect with you? Because I do want to say this, the ballcard show community, our community is primarily focused on people that have some type of a business out of this. They're in that type of a ground or people just getting introduced to the hobby and we're kind of the glossary of podcasts, right? We'll just kind of walk them through it. But I think there's tremendous value in your content because of your perspective, your experience and your willingness to be honest. And I think that those are unfortunately a lot of times more rare things to find in this space. Uh, so how could connect with you? Where do you do your shows? What's the best way to get involved with the podcast? Give them the rundown, Alex. Yeah. So I have the weekly podcast. It's a part of the sports cards, nonsense network. So that's, you know, Bobby handbook is you can find anywhere you get podcasts. It's also on the sports cards, nonsense, YouTube page. I've got my own YouTube, Tik TOK, Instagram, Facebook, clever Cuban cards everywhere. I'm always down to have conversations. Always. You know, I'm, I will always keep it real. We won't always say that we agree, but that's fine if we, we don't have to agree on everything, but I'm going to, I will always be honest and transparent. The business updates will continue no matter what people say. Um, cause I think it's important. I know so many people, whether it's using the hobby to fund the hobby or have the aspiration of one day doing what all three of us have done, which has turned it into the full-time gig. If you want to teach people how to do that, because I, as a former teacher, that's what I kind of love about the content side is being able to teach about what I'm doing. You can't keep the stuff behind a paywall. You can't keep anything secret. Like if I win and you win, we're all winning. We want the hobby to grow holistically. And it's a good thing if you're able to grow your business, because it ultimately is going to be good for everybody. So come check me out there. I appreciate you guys having me on. I, I love the debate, the conversation. I think that there's in the world of social media, and I'm sure you guys see it all the time. There's a healthy way to have debate and conversation. And there's the people that just want to hate to hate. And that's fine. You know, I saw somebody talking about recently that it is to some people, you are just the TV character. You are not a person and that's fine, whatever. But if you want to have a conversation, always happy to. Awesome. Alex, we really appreciate your time. Thanks so much for being a part of the show today. Of course. Thanks for having me on guys. We really appreciate Alex coming on and spending over an hour with us. We originally told him that it would be about 30 minutes and he gave us a lot more time than that. Hopefully you guys got something out of that conversation too. I know that I did. A real quick, before we wrap up this week's episode, a few things to remind you about first and foremost, remember to join us on whatnot. We are no longer on Thursday nights. At least for now, we are Tuesdays at 6 PM and Sunday afternoons at 4 30 PM Eastern time. Come and hang out with us. Cool cards, good times, lots of giveaways. Uh, we will be at a few shows here leading up to Christmas, uh, tomorrow from the day this episode drops. I will be in Chile coffee, Ohio at the Christopher conference center. And then the following weekend, Jason and I will both be in Auburn, Indiana, just North of Fort Wayne at the, in the Fort card show that be sports does. That's the same promotion group that does a grocery card fest and the ship Shawana card fest will be a really good time. If you are within a couple hours of that, it's probably a really good trip to make. Uh, leading up to Christmas, we will be at Xenia the following week. And then finishing up the last show before the end of the year, we'll be at East gate mall in Cincinnati, Ohio. So we hope to see you guys out there. Um, come say, Hey, shake our hand. Tell us you love us. Tell us you hate us. Tell us you don't care about us at all. Sell us your cards, Jason. Is there anything else you have for us? I do fire away. This has been the ball card show. The sports podcast for the sports collector. Bye now. Peace.