Will the Pokémon Card Bubble Pop? Your Biggest Questions Answered | Pack Fresh Podcast Ep. 35

Today, we are letting you guys steer the show. Welcome back to the Pack Fresh podcast where we talk about all things to Pokemon TCG and give you a little peek behind the curtain of what it's like to be a seller in this crazy, crazy hobby. And we set out to our Instagram. We asked you guys for questions, and you guys absolutely delivered. We got a whole bunch of questions today from you guys. So thank you first of all, for sending them all in. And this should be a lot of fun. This is our first ever Q and A episode, so if you guys like this, be sure to follow us on Instagram. Keep an Yu-Gi-Oh out for when we're asking for questions, and I'm sure we'll do another one. Let's get into it. The first question we got, will the modern bubble pop? That is a very juicy question to start. It's probably one of the biggest questions in Pokemon right now. I mean, yes. I think there is no way possible that modern Pokemon can stay as crazy as it is right now. You have brand new sets coming out still being printed with cards that are thousands of dollars. I just don't know if it's sustainable. Pokemon going to continue coming out with these sets. They're going to continue coming out with them, and that interest is going to shift. You go xy, sun and Moon, you see those eras fluctuate up and down quite a lot. Now, they do tend to rise over time, but they definitely are up and down and up and down. You see it with Sword and Shield as well. Like alt art they'll boom to the moon. They'll come kind of correcting back down to Earth again, and then they'll kind of start to make a slow rise again. I just love, like, Scarlet and Violet, Mega Evolution. I think it's going to be difficult in the long run to see a Treeachu sell for $150,000 like some vintage cards are. I agree. It's the prices. I just don't think they're sustainable. There's brand new Sirs sometimes outperforming older alt art Right. Which doesn't make any sense. Lot of energy, a lot of people in the space right now, a lot of hype around this. When that comes down, when the demand comes down, it's going to change the landscape of Pokemon, in my opinion. Yu-Gi-Oh for sure. And there's a difference between price and scarcity. And the prices are up. Scarcity is not because these new cards have the highest pop counts out of, like, any of the cards. Starting with, like, obviously not An alt art or a sir. But the Burger Chew is outrageous. The amount of PSA 10 it has right in, like, in a crazy short amount of time, obviously. This is kind of an extreme example. This has to be one of the highest populated cards in Pokemon with over 285,000 tens. At the time we're recording this, over 358, 000 total graded. I mean, that has to be one of the most, if not the most graded card in not just Pokemon, but trading cards in general. It's. It's gotta be up there for sure. Like, that is insane. That's nuts. With a very high 10 rate on that as well. So is that card ever gonna reach $1,000? Probably not. I Goldin see it. Like, there's so many. And. And over the next two years, how many more get graded? Will that be the first card to hit a million? Yu-Gi-Oh I don't know. That's insane. Like, how many are at PSA of the 11 million backlog? So the population reports matter how much modern product is still being open every day you're seeing people hit more charizards, more bubble Muse. All these sets, I mean, you're still seeing it with vintage as well. Obviously the amount of vintage packs being open in a day is much less than the amount of modern being ripped every day. Some of the older alt art they did the same thing. Sword and Shield was out, very popular, market was booming. Everything went up, market went down. Just how you were talking a little bit ago. Over time, they've slowly corrected back up to where they're at now. Take the Moonbreon from Evolving Skies. It's up and down all the time. Like just Uptown, Uptown. Will the bubble pop? Yes. Anything that goes up has to come back down. That's what I'm gonna say for that one. If you had to spend a thousand dollars on a modern sir or a thousand dollars on an older card with significantly lower supply. Depends on the card, I guess. If you wanted to give me a bunch of base card PSA10s, you know, I'm probably gonna take a modern sir, but anything that's of any collectibility from older set, I would choose that for sure. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, like, if it's just value that matters here, it's probably an older card for me. I will say lower pop doesn't necessarily mean more money. A lot of very low pop cards that are just undesirable that nobody wants, or that less of a crowd that wants to collect that. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, there's a Lot of modern cards that are just amazing. I love modern cards, but I don't want to get into some of them even for PC, when it's so high that I just don't really like believe long term in that being like an investment. My PC I don't really view as an investment. I don't want my card that I bought for a thousand dollars to then be worth $200 in three years. Right. Makes sense. Brings us back kind of to one of our older episodes where we were talking more about vending. But if it's something you truly like and the market drops 30% tomorrow, you should still be happy to have that. Right? Right. A hundred percent. If you're doing this purely for money, it's from a different place. It's maybe not the game to play. You know, if, if that's the case, if you're a collector and you really like the card, the value is only a portion of the collectibility of it for you. So they go from there. Yu-Gi-Oh Question number two. Are people saving for 30th anniversary? I do believe that is true. I do believe that is true. I also think that is true. The leaks for this set make it unreal. Phenomenal. Phenomenal. It's incredible. This is a tinfoil hat. I think Pokemon knew what they were doing releasing the sets that they did leading up to this. They knew they were not going to be the most desirable sets. Do I think that they're bad sets? To varying degrees. I really love Pitch Black. I think it's a great set. But, you know, I think the people who are ripping a lot of Modern have noticed a lot on my stream. The people who have gone in historically on all of the new modern sets, you know, buyers who have come back time and time again just weren't really ripping those sets as much. I've asked them too, and a lot of them have said exactly that. That, you know, I'm. I'm waiting for the 30th. There's a lot of people who rip for value. There's a lot of people who rip for master sets, whatever it is, and especially those guys who are ripping for value, there's just not anything right now to rip. And they're just like, I might as well just wait for the 30th, because it's going to be crazy. When all those leaks started happening, it was like a very sharp drop off on modern rips because it's. People are just like, oh my God, this set is incredible. Must save some of my cash. And. And we'll go hard on that one. Be ready to rip there. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, there's only so much to go around. And also say they did it on purpose. Not on purpose. Making the set smaller. You have to rip less of the product to have all the cards in the set. Right. You know, was that part of the plan? We still want to put out the same amount of sets. We make them smaller, less chases, more to rip for people. They can rip it. It's going to be less desirable. You'll be able to find it a little bit easier. People have limited hobby budgets. You can't just. Very true. Go out and spend 10 grand a month for everybody. You know, 100. Feel like even this trickles all the way up to like even stores and vendors bringing in less inventory. Just getting ready for the 30th. Because the 30th is going to be so crazy. Yu-Gi-Oh Obviously all the rumors and reports about how much they've printed of this. This could be one of the most printed sets ever. We'll see. We'll see how that happens. I mean, I don't think anybody actually knows, but do you think the 30th will be so good that the expectations from consumers become so high that people are disappointed no matter what Pokemon releases going forward after that? That's an interesting question. I don't know. We might have felt a little bit of that after Ascended, to be honest. I mean, the next set after Ascended was perfect order. Obviously that was a very stark drop off. After the 30th, we're going to have new Rayquaza set, which is quite good. It's another small set, but the Ray is great and there's a lot of really, really nice cards in that set. So I don't know. We'll see. That's a very, very interesting thought though. If I think all the way back, I feel like obviously Celebrations was not the case for this. Right. But the end of Sword and Shield was very, very good. Right. And I feel like that. And then how Scarlet Violet Base started the era did have that effect as well and kind of pushed a lot of people. Like I spent a lot of money on this. I have a lot of these really cool cards. These don't really interest me. I can take a break now. And then, of course, like second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth set of Scarlet Violet were very, very good. Yu-Gi-Oh a lot of those sets in there came out and are just how they have tons of Zebra highly sought after cards today. I'm a little worried. 30th is great. The race set is great. After the race set, the. The stuff that has leaked is not the most interesting. We have another Lucario set. There's. I forget what the other is. And then we have a potential another special set. So I think if. If that's the case where it's Lucario one other set and then a special set, I'm not too worried because they crush the special sets every single time. So if that's the case, I'm not Zebra worried about that. But I could see that it's an interesting thought. Question number three. Are Mega sets becoming repetitive? Interesting? I think to a certain degree. Very cookie cutter. Very much one chase, a couple IRS sprinkled in the rest of it kind of meh. And then rinse and repeat. It's like, okay, we'll do this, we'll do this, we'll do this. No matter what the motives or decisions in that where. Whether they are waiting for 30th or whatever the case may be, I do think that they've kind of gotten a little stale. Just keep pushing this out. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, you're not wrong. It is a gold card. It's four or five Sirs, and it's a handful of Illustration Rare And that is it. Every single set right now. And there's no real surprises. Right? Like, Rayquaza is a set. We knew there was going to be a Rayquaza Sir. Right. Darkrai set. We knew there was going to be a Darkrai Sir. And then the other Sirs they choose for the most part are kind of just there. Right? Like, you know, the Morpeko Sick. I really like the Raikou and the Rayquaza set. But like, we're not getting any surprises. Like Black bolt, white Fleer Right? Like that Tribute And it's like, oh my God. We got IRS for every Pokemon in the generation. And we're getting a new holo pattern and we're getting the Sirs and we're getting a new rarity, the bwr. All of those things. Obviously I was a special set, but like, that was such a surprise. And those were something interesting that you're like, Yu-Gi-Oh that's cool and new. Or like Mega Evolution Base Tribute We see the gold cards for the first time. I remember all of us texting each other, being like, these are banging. And then they did again. And then they did it again. And then they did it again. And then they did it again. You know, it's like very many times in a row, it just lost its luster. So I think 30th will help. I'll kind of shake things up. Ascended was nice because we had the Mars. Those were in there. Then the sars. Obviously there's a God back in there too. They threw a gold in there, but nobody really cares about the golds in there. There's so many other things to chase in Ascended heroes. You have the different reverse patterns and stuff like that. Not that people really care about those, but it's something different to look at. It makes sense. I will say there is, which might also be repetitive, but it is unique and kind of adds to this era, I guess. So you have a lot of cards where Pokemon are interacting with other Pokemon. You have, like, trainers in the background. You have recognizable locations, emotional artwork. You have funny little cameos of, like, Pokemon. Right. You have connecting artwork cards. Like two, three cards connect to make a bigger scene. There's a lot of little nuances to this era. I will say that. Yu-Gi-Oh makes it different, but it is seen throughout the entire era. And who knows if that's something that Pokemon will do even going forward. So question four. Very similar. What is the most overrated Mega Evolutions card? I don't really know. I kind of feel like there's more underrated cards than overrated than Overrated. Like, I think the top cards of this era so far are pretty properly rated. Like, I'm not a big Charizard guy. The Charizard sir is incredible. It's a great card. Like, there's no. I don't think that there's like any argument against it being just a gorgeous artwork. I love the tree. Could you. I like. I think a lot of people would probably say the tree could use the overrated, but when you really think about it, it is our first true Pikachu chase card. The Surging Pikachu is the Terastal. It has the stupid crown thing. I don't mind that card. But, like, it's not Pikachu. Our previous Pikachu chase before that was the Rainbow Pikachu. And it's again, it's cool, but it's just. It's a Rainbow Pikachu. This is like our most purest form of a Pikachu card. And it's a great looking card. Like, it's. It's just clean. So I love it. My answer would be you kind of talked about just a little bit ago. I feel like the Gold cards. Yu-Gi-Oh So I had to pick one. Probably. The Charizard, I feel like, is the most injustice of all compared to the sir counterparts. I feel like that was like the least or the most lackluster gold that has the highest price point. I feel like it's overrated to me. Like, any of the golds, just overrated. They're. They're cool for what they are. It's become too repetitive. It's not unique anymore. I mean, that'd be kind of where I would go. Like, I don't know otherwise. I do agree this. This era has been great. I mean, the. The chases are phenomenal. Every. Like, the answers that we'll probably get in the comments would more than likely be the Mega Zygarde from Perfect Order. But I don't think it's overrated. I just don't think anybody really likes it in the first. I don't think anybody cares about it. Exactly. So it's not overrated. It's just not the best, Sir. Yu-Gi-Oh From not the best set in Mega Evolutions. So ask it again in the next one after the 30th has come out, and we'll see what's overrated from the 30th. Yu-Gi-Oh We'll figure it out then. Question number five. How can collectors collect on a budget? I like this question a lot, actually. Good one. Yu-Gi-Oh I think we've talked about this before. Probably the biggest mistake that people make collecting is trying to collect everything. I've been extremely guilty of this in the past with many other collectibles. I just like a lot of things. So it's tough. It's just like piece of candy. Piece of candy going on here. But when I got back in the Pokemon, I tried to make a point to be very, very strict about what I collect. And my favorite Pokemon coughing. So I set out to do a master set of all the koffings. So I think that's a good way of collecting on a budget is just starting with your favorite Pokemon and just collecting everything. So that can be commons. Reverse hollows, random promos, and like, stuff like that. Stuff that doesn't necessarily break the bank, but you're still collecting cards that you like. Or another version of this would be an artist. A lot of people like. Like the Yukimori, which is like the clay ones. A lot of people like those. And they're not Zebra expensive because a lot of them are just commons. Right. So you can go to a card show and flip through the dollar bins and find cards for your collection. Right. It's always really cool. I agree. I mean, my advice with majority of things money related is to work backwards. Yu-Gi-Oh Figure out what you need without overspending. To pay your normal bills, to pay whatever you need to do the money you have remaining. How much of that do you want to spend on Pokemon? And then once you have a total number now you can figure, okay, I want to. Then you can have more of a plan. How do you collect? Pick a lane. Like you're talking about, is it an artist? Is it a Pokemon? Is it a subset of cards? What. What do you want to collect? Promos? Psa? Nines of Sirs? What do you want to collect? Don't just go crazy, get in over your head and then be like, what have I done? Right. Something cool that I've seen a lot of people doing recently is. And I kind of want to do this myself at some point is doing a full Pokedex. So you collect one card of every single Pokemon ever, and you have it all in one big Pandora I think it's awesome. That is awesome. And then you, you know, it's like, you don't have to get an expensive card for each one of those Pokemon and you can always upgrade it. Right. So it's like if. If you want your Umbreon to be a Moonbreon you don't have to buy that right away. You can get any Umbreon. Right. And throw it in the Pandora And then at some point you can upgrade it to that. Right. If. If the opportunity comes across and it makes sense. Like, that's really cool. And I actually really like that. I mean, that'd be like, all you gotta buy is a Pandora And then you could literally just go through dollar bins at card shops. Yu-Gi-Oh And at shows. And fill in basically all of the Pokemon and then upgrade as you can. Yu-Gi-Oh I like that a lot, actually. That's really cool. Especially. I don't know. That's a lot for one Pandora Probably be like, it might be a couple. Yu-Gi-Oh It's over a thousand now, so it's. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, like four 80s, like the biggest. If you do like the Beckett, I mean, you can actually. They do make those giant binders, right. That are like 3 foot by 2 foot or what? You know, whatever. Put it all in there, I guess. And then like, it's kind of. That's kind of a cool collection. I think I actually have some of those. I might actually start that. I know I'm like, my gears are turning. I feel like I. I feel like I want to do it. Yu-Gi-Oh I like that a lot, actually. I'm going to. I'm going to see. We have a lot of Stuff that'll be kind of cool. And then we could make it like a contest to like just keep upgrading certain cards in there. I like that a lot. All right, question six. Some boxes are already too expensive to break. Will other sets follow? We're noticing this a lot in vintage right now. Yes. The box price is ridiculous. Yes. Absolutely astronomical. Makes zero sense to break it. Seems like every time a box is broken, it's basically a new all time high. Yu-Gi-Oh And it's been that way for a while. Yu-Gi-Oh Just from strictly a risk standpoint for breakers, it's tough. A lot of sets, one card will kill the box. And you're tort. Like just tor. You buy a $200,000 box, you pull it, first pack done. No one's going to want to go in on the box, especially at these ridiculous prices you have to charge because of how expensive the boxes are. I mean, obviously there's a few sets that are kind of not included in that, but for the most part, it's. It's getting a little crazy. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, it's scary breaking boxes, especially the really expensive ones, you know, but we are seeing a time right now where PSA 10 values of a lot of these vintage cards are also. Every time an auction ends for one of them is an all time high. So you're getting. The card values are starting to match up now again, finally with the boxes. But it's tough. I mean, it's just kind of how the things go, go. I would love for things to be cheaper. It would be fun to rip all these boxes more, you know. Yu-Gi-Oh of course. Will other sets follow? I mean, you're starting to see a little bit with, you know, it's era by era. If the previous eras creep up, it trickles down. Yu-Gi-Oh Will other sets follow to where they're unbreakable? I mean, for sure, over time, like, Yu-Gi-Oh Especially with the culture right now. There's so many packs being ripped every day. It doesn't matter if there was semi loads full of this stuff, it is going to run out at some point. Like it's not being reprinted anymore. Once we get through all that, you know, say it takes 20 years from now, everything's gone through and there's almost none left. Like, the prices of some of these boxes are going to be astronomical. You know, when. When will the first box reach a million dollars? We'll see. You know, it's also just kind of the way things go. I mean, I run into it all the time where I'll break a box or you Know, I'll buy X, Y, Z item. Two weeks later, I have to go to a show and try to find another one. And the prices, I'm being told, are just double. What? I just broke it. For what? Yu-Gi-Oh you know, and I feel like now it's a lot of these older boxes with these price points. It's. It's went from being something you can open to something you just collect. Right. And now it's just a collector's piece. I will. We still see him be broke? Probably, Yu-Gi-Oh You know, but they're just going to get broken less and less and less. It becomes way more of like an event if, you know, some of these boxes get broken. Right. Interesting. Question number seven. Are card shows or streaming the future of the market? Interesting. I love streaming. It's so fun and it's so accessible to so many people. It's free to come into the stream, watch the stream, be part of the community. And if you want to buy something, you can buy something you don't have to. Some of these card shows are getting really expensive to Whatnot and they're also in places where most people have to travel to. Say you live in LA or, you know, whatever. There's a Collecticon in la, but it's expensive to go and it's expensive to park. It's expensive to then drive your car there and get there. You know, if you're outside of 50 miles from where the show is, maybe you have to book a hotel if you're going both days. It gets expensive for, for people to. To go to these things and then, you know, do you buy anything when you're there? Are you getting that experience that you feel like you're part of the community? You know, there's other shows too. Collecticon's great, but a show like card party really, really hammers home that community aspect. I think they do an incredible job of like, really making it feel like an event for collectors rather than just a card show. But with that, it is extremely expensive to Whatnot I don't know. I don't know if we'll ever like, escape card shows, because there's just something about going to a card show, seeing cards in person and picking things out and finding those grails for yourself. It's impossible to beat that. But streaming's fun. I mean, go in the streams and. And you're in a chat room with 100, 200, 300 other people who alt art just as passionate about the hobby as you are, you know, and like, if you decide to rip something, you Know, I. I do get people coming in the stream a lot, and they say, why would I buy and watch you rip my packs? Happened the other day. And, you know, a lot of people's answer was, because it's more fun having 200 people here cheer me on than me sitting in my room and ripping by myself. Which I can see it. I can see both sides, for sure. But we're also just. It's the era that we're in right now as well. Like instant gratification. Yu-Gi-Oh You know, why would I pay you to rip my pack when I can do it myself? Well, rip a pack right now. Oh, you don't have one at your house? Well, you can rip one right now, and it's. All the cards are yours. Yu-Gi-Oh We live in a very instant gratification. Have YouTube being such a big supply of entertainment for people on the daily basis, I would say card shows will get more expensive. Yu-Gi-Oh Because right now, there's a lot of vendors that are just. It's fun for them. It's not a business. I'm gonna get a table. I have some stuff. You know, I do a little bit on the side, and then I go work my other job. Okay. All these shows are bringing in a lot of money. The government's seen that, and they're starting to put regulations on having tax IDs in these states to collect sales tax on these transactions when you're in town. If you do all B2B or you're only buying, you know, you're. You don't have to do that. But if you're selling as well, you know, this stuff can. I can't remember which one it was. They were walking around and just, like, asking you for it or like, finding you. Like, the IRS was at the show. One of the shows we went to this year. So it's, you know, it's stuff like that. Whereas, like, streamers are already paying everything. Everything's digital. It's all tracked. You're paying based off your expenses, which is incorporated into that. But now if you're just a smaller dealer and you have to set all this up, and it's a lot of dealers. I think it's just a fun thing. Right. So if they're. Now instead of $100 a table, tables go to three to $500 at a show. You know, how much do you need to sell with a $500 table cost to make enough money to make it worth it? I mean, if you sell $5,000, you still paid a 10% fee. How much Inventory. Do you have, you know, do you have $20,000 in inventory that you can move every single thing you have? So I think there's pros and cons to both. In person events are a lot of fun. There's a lot more like live negotiation. You're back and forth. Streaming, you know, you can stream to the world so people in all different time zones can watch you, versus, like, you have to be at that show very limited geographically to who's going to be there. Right. Versus online. Anybody can pop by. So I don't know. I think. I think it takes both. I think you'll see both continue to grow. But I think card shows have been around for a very long time, and online shopping really has a long way to go. It's. It's still basically in its infancy stages. It is with live online selling. Obviously, we've been buying stuff online for a long time, but live online selling and streaming is still very, very new. It is. So we'll see. We'll, you know, give it another five years and then we can kind of tell. Question number eight. How do you grow in an increasingly competitive market? In the wise words of my friend TC Garrett, just crush it, dude. Crush it, dude. Crush Whatnot. It's tough. I mean, it's a lot of hard work. I think it goes twofold. I think it is simultaneously the easiest time to grow and the most difficult time to sustain that growth. Everybody can buy and sell cards right now. It's incredibly easy because everybody wants them. Everybody can stream, everybody can open an online store. You can easily get a table to vend. You can. You can do all those things and you can build that inventory. But what really comes into Blue Ice once you kind of get there and you kind of get that opportunity, how do you differentiate yourself from other people doing the same thing? I think the biggest things is, you know, building that trust that you're going to be a trusted individual in the space. If you can have consistency, you can have some really cool inventory. That inventory sells. Do you have more of it? Can you get more of it? How quickly can you get more of it? All of these things kind of come into play, you know, and then you kind of get into the other intangibles. Like, are you making content? Do you enjoy making content? Do you enjoy what you're doing in general? Are you in it just for the cash, or do you truly. Truly like this? Yu-Gi-Oh I. I mean, I agree with what you're saying. I would say my biggest thing for someone who wants to grow would be work ethic. Yu-Gi-Oh honest, fair. And excuses are the worst thing. Everybody has so many excuses. There's no excuses in business. You either did what you said you were going to do or you messed up, take ownership, fix it in the best way possible, move on to the next thing. There's no, oh, if I can just do this, then I'll just do that and then I'll just do this and then I can, you know, go from there now go do, get it done. If you really want to be better than the competition, you have to be better. You might not have as much inventory, you might not have as nice of a stream set up, event, show set up, you might not have any of that. But who you are as a person and how you conduct business, you'll meet people in the industry, you'll make sales. You know, everybody has a different opinion on this. This is probably one of the most commented things in our like of all the episodes that we've made of when we come up with kind of topics like this, well, I would never sell my stuff for this percent or I would never do this or if you do that, you're blah, blah, blah. Okay. Because if you do make deals, if you get stuff moving, the name of the game is to move stuff. You're going to get more customers, you're going to need to buy more stuff, so you're going to have more people selling to you and the more you can just move. Like my biggest thing when we, when I was growing is take everything you want to sell something. I'll take it all. I'm not going to make you. Here, let me just grab these couple cards I want. And now you go sell the rest to somebody else. Right? Right. As I was growing, I said I'll make it more convenient. I mean now the, the scale that we buy at, it's a little different, but back then it's like I'll move it whether it's all the way down to your bulk, I'll sort it out, get the bulk, take these, sell these cards, grade these cards and I'll do it all with one little Sepia for you. Pick out what you're going to do, work hard, be consistent, don't see some success, and then try to change it right away and get greedy. All of those things. You'll start seeing yourself grow naturally instead of trying to for it. Yu-Gi-Oh well, and I think like what you just said right there is like, don't get greedy is something that's really important. Right. Because like I kind of said at the beginning it is, I want to say I probably misspoke. It's not easy to grow right now. It takes a lot of hard work. But I will say like, it is easier right now to grow that inventory and grow that cash flow because there's so many ways to move product right now. But it's important to understand the distinction between what it is right now and how it's not always going to be like this. So it's like if you are doing a lot of business with somebody and you're moving a lot of product to them, if you are working well with that person at a certain percentage or whatever it is, don't get greedy. And then all of a sudden be like, well, I can get a little bit more money if I move it here. Why would you end that relationship with somebody that you've already, you know, done really, really well with that long term they're probably going to be somebody you can continue to work with. Right. So it's like when the hobby is not as crazy, it's not always going to be crazy. Right. But when the hobby's not crazy, if you have those relationships, you can continue to run your business the way you do. If you have those channels and those people that you can work with consistently, even if it's a slightly lower percentage or whatever. Right. That is massively important in the long run to have that. I mean, I. It's happened many times to me. I'm. I'm sure it's happened to you. Right. People who I've bought from for months and months and months, sometimes years, all of a sudden are just like, well, I can get a little bit more here. Yu-Gi-Oh And it's like perfect. Okay, so a one time deal for a few more percent to risk consistency. Yu-Gi-Oh No, I mean, unfortunately you see that all the time and it just becomes a thing. And it's those guys, they kind of, you know, it's like the that Price is Right game where the mountain climber goes up the mountain and he's going. And then they just fall off the edge. And you see like the people that don't do that and they just keep thriving as like a secondary, like people that are filling inventory and they just keep growing and keep growing and keep growing. So kind of a lot to look at there. Little side note question on this one. What do we believe our competitive advantage actually is? Hard work. I think that's one of them. I definitely know the amount of hours in a day we put in. Crazy compared to most people. Yu-Gi-Oh You know, recording this at 1:00 clock in the morning after we've been working all day long. Right, Right. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, we were. I worked all day long, shipped streamed at dinner with the wife, then I recorded a whole bunch of content, wrote some more content scripts. Now we're recording this. After this, I'm going to start shipping again, you know, you know, sourcing at the same time. It's a lot of work. Do it all again tomorrow and do it all again tomorrow. I think consistency, integrity, you know, it doesn't hurt that we also have very high expectations of ourselves and have like high quality setups and equipment. And, you know, there's certain things that we expect of ourselves that we set up. Right. You know, so we have that as well. But I agree. Hard work, I mean, that, that's, that drives everything. There's no secret. You can not have any of that and just work hard and you're going to get somewhere. Question number nine. Are mystery pack slabs driving the market? Absolutely. I Goldin agree more. It is a driving force that has created a cyclical need and avenue for cards. They buy them, they sell them, the customers sell them, other people buy them, sell them back. And it just creates this circle. And the amount of demand that they create is much higher than a standard collector's amount. Right. They're taking way more out of the market than anyone else. There are a few larger companies, obviously, Courtyard, Gamestop, and then you have Arena Club, who I feel is kind of like the giant in the industry. They're everywhere, they're always buying, they're all over the place. Zebra You know, a bunch of people that work with them that are just great people as well. Like, so you just, you get to know one of these companies and you kind of have outlet for some slabs. Right? I mean, everybody. It's not a perfect system, but yes, I, I agree they are. And I mean, Rare Candy just launched their packs not that long ago. Drip has packs as well. And the, the unique part for them is it could be like sealed product or graded or even raw cards. So it's. I don't know. We'll see where this goes. I mean, the one thing I will say about the repack industry is you see a lot of new companies popping up for sure, recently. Like every week there's probably like three to five new digital repackers. I mean, that's, you know, any type of business that sees this type of success that these businesses are, there's always going to be other, you know, companies popping up, trying to do the same thing. And some will, some will work, some one-of-one but it definitely, there's a much easier way out of slabs than there ever has been before. Right? Yu-Gi-Oh So it allows people to buy more freely and then, you know, sell carefree essentially. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean they create demand, they create liquidity. They're playing both parts of that. You know, this is, we're talking us based. I mean, imagine this is also a newer concept. Right. This is a lot newer than online. Like live shopping happens when this builds out a little bit and there's hundreds of companies needing hundred dollar, thousand dollar slabs. I mean the demand will just keep getting higher and higher and higher at that point. What happens if the repack demand slows down? I mean it's not, it's not bullish all year. I think we've seen it a couple times. You know, you see a lot of prices fall in the market. Right. You know, it could be thought of as a couple other things, but I mean, I think the amount of dollars that they're trading is so much. I would say. Yes, yes. The big question, are repacks becoming their own legitimate product category or are we experiencing a repack bubble? Not even, not even just digital repacks. Right. Just even like regular repacks. I would say it's its own legitimate category. I think the only thing that changes that is if the government steps in and says that they are more than that and there has to be some sort of regulation involved that is crippling to the product itself. Right. If they step in and they're like, you need to clearly show your odds and these things, I don't think that really changes things all that much. A lot of them already have that. Yu-Gi-Oh But if they step in and it's something more drastic then you know, absolutely, there will be a bubble because most of them will cease to exist. I also think that three packs are a safer way for certain customers to rip cards. Yu-Gi-Oh You have a Fleer in built into that where you're going to get some return on your money that you've spent. Whereas a pack, you could literally end up with nothing. So it's, it's, it goes both ways. Right. It also limits your ceiling, quote unquote. Right. And I do think a lot of these companies are already working on tons and tons of like the way that they, they put these programs together. Right. So that it, it doesn't have this effect for customers. Like if the government steps in, they'll be like, oh no, everything's good to go. You Know, we've already set it up according to the way the law is written. So, you know, I don't know, I like it. I like repacks. It adds some guaranteed value. You know, if you end up doing repack, like say you do an energy break and you throw a couple of repacks in, somebody is going to get guaranteed value. Right. Even if all the packs miss in the break. So it just adds a little bit of guarantee. It makes it a little more fun. There's a little more of a chase to that as well. We'll see. I mean, we saw what not change repack policies probably most recently out of any of the larger companies and for the better. You know, it's all on their website. You can check it out, what they're doing, and they have a only certain approved brands and it's, it's good. I, I overall, it's good for the hobby. It's definitely for sure good for the hobby. Question 10, what do you think of PSA stopping bulk grading and how will it affect the hobby? I mean, we've been in this for a while now where bulk grading has been gone. I haven't really seen too much of an effect. I think the only place it really gets affected is maybe those repackers. Right. There's less supply of the garbage slabs that people are grading. Right. Like the lower tier stuff, there's just so many slabs out there. Like it, you know, I mean, like it. Obviously it's frustrating, right. People want to get their cards graded and they can't unless they spend, you know, $100 for the lowest tier. You know, I think it probably when they open it back up, I think it will reset people's expectation a little bit of what should I grade? Because I think for a while, and this is how we kind of got in this situation, is people are just sending anything, you know, like, people were just like, oh, I got, Yu-Gi-Oh that's cool, let me send it in. We'll send it in. I think the biggest thing is they're still outputting the same amount, if not even more now, catching up of graded cards per month. Yu-Gi-Oh You're still seeing the inventory be released by psa. The bottleneck is the intake since they turned it off. So now will people wait the six months, eight months, whatever it is, until they're opening back up? And then will they look at the cards they were gonna send in and be like, Yu-Gi-Oh this, like they had longer to think about it doesn't make any sense. Does PSA even open back up? A lower level again. Right. You know, is the new level $40, 45. Because with the success they're still seeing in people grading cards at 75, they're not going to want to grade 25 cards. It one-of-one make any sense. Yu-Gi-Oh I don't know. We'll see. I mean, that's, that's one to watch. You know, we'll see what kind of happens. It's, you know, there will be. If, if they do or if they're planning on it or whatever it ends up being. I mean, like, I'll probably have like 3 to 5,000 cards ready to send in when they open back up. So it's. Right. It's just creating a backlog again once they open and we just submit everything. So I don't know. We'll see. Question number 11. Kind of similar. Connected. Yu-Gi-Oh What do you think about NBA grading in the future of having that on slabs? So for those of you guys who do not know what NBA grading is, this is essentially grading a graded card. So this is the person who started NBA grading was an old. I believe he was the old head of grading at psa, if I'm not mistaken. It's something in that realm. And he started this new company that then takes slabs that are already graded and then he gives that graded card a grade. Right. I think it's no secret that a PSA 10, there is definitely a really clean PSA 10. And then some like, well, that snuck through. Right. Like especially for older cards or older certs, it's an opportunity for people to be like, well, yes, it's an older cert, but NBA took a look at it and this is still, you know, a top tier 10. Now do I like it? I don't really care. I don't really look at that and be like, oh, Yu-Gi-Oh this is a spectacular 10. If the number's there, the number's there for me. Right. I, I just, sometimes I just don't really think it's that deep right now. I get it on some older cards that are Zebra low pop, you want to have like an extra level of differentiation on there. I don't know. What do you think? Like Mike Baker, the company, what they do. I think in an imperfect world and we place so much value into these graded cards, basically a second opinion that is adding to what the grading company said or supporting what they said or saying maybe they did. It was a little bit off. Right. I think it's the only true second opinion you're going to get. Because if you were to show BGs, which now they're owned by the same company. So this has changed the hierarchy. Right. But when they were separate companies, if you would Show BGS a PSA 10 and say is this a BGS 10? Majority of the time they're like, no, this is actually a BGS9. Because they didn't want to validate the grade of the other company. Like, nah, they messed up. This is validity. That's impartial to the grading company. So you have a bgs, you have a psa, whatever the case is, you turn it in, they'll say, this is why I gave it this grade. This is, you know, Flawless in these categories. Which their measurements are different than what PSA is as well. Yu-Gi-Oh So you know, does to me, does it matter like 10 to 10? I'm. Unless it was a grail piece that I'm looking to have like the most pristine copy, it doesn't matter as much to me. If you have a more valuable card and you have this on there and the person looking for the card is going to collect it. I mean, does it add more value? I think yes. So I just, I like it. Do I personally, if somebody was like, this is NBA top tier. Right. Okay, that's fine, I'll pass, you know, with what I do. Right. If it's, you know, one of the most unique cards and it's the best graded copy, it's a different story. Speaking of high end cards, question number 12, how do you ship a 10,000 to $100,000 plus card? It's very stressful. It's interesting. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean I ship a lot of very, very high end orders. I mean, so do I. A lot of times I will overnight them. Right. If the buyer is okay with it, I'll throw an Apple airtag or some other type of tracking device in the package as well. Just in the off event that it does get lost or you know, something happens. I always tamper seal the items on the inside, stuff like that. You know, if you're really worried about it, the cheapest insurance sometimes is just buying a plane ticket, hand deliver something. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean you're selling a $100,000 card that. My biggest thing is you can have insurance. Insurance can deny your. You can have all the right things set up and it not work out. So ultimately, if you were to lose out on this money, is it life altering for you? Right. And if the answer is yes, Yu-Gi-Oh you should probably just hand deliver it yourself or make arrangements so that it is covered the way that you would Essentially need it to be. I do like overnighting. Pretty much anything over like 30,000, I'll overnight every time because it's not a ton more, but it takes a lot less stops. Yu-Gi-Oh And it's, you know, so it's handled by less people. It's handled by a different team of people than the ground team. So. And it's so much faster in and out of warehouses that you don't have as much opportunity for employees to get an idea or see a package and cut it open and all the other things you have to worry about on top of it, just getting lost or damaged in transit. Right. You know, you have to worry about theft from the employees of UPS or FedEx. So along with that, along with all the other lists of things that could go wrong that's not even including, like international travel. Then it gets even more sketchy because it's not like they're handing it off. It's usually like a partner company. It gets, you know, it gets kind of messy. Yu-Gi-Oh Insurance definitely good to add it on there. If you're. If you would be out that package price and, you know, something. Something would happen. Also, you're sending $100,000 card. I wouldn't just put it in a bubble mailer. No. Right. I mean, a bigger box. I like anything. The rule for my shipping team is if I have anything that's over like a thousand dollars, we put it in a bigger box than it needs to be. Just because I feel like bigger packages get less thrown around. Yu-Gi-Oh And there's. They're harder to lose, you know, so for just a bunch of different reasons like that, we. We kind of have like a bunch of requirements based on how big the order is, what's inside, stuff like that. A lot of bubble wrap quality boxes. Nothing that's just going to fall apart. Just. I don't know. I mean, at the same time, I've done breaks on like $20,000 boxes and gotten thousands of dollars in cards in a bubble mailer with a piece of cardboard on top of them. So, I mean, some shipping teams really do not care. Even from, like, large breaking organizations. It's kind of crazy. So. And I mean, there's things like that you can add. Like if you're going to do this a lot, you can get collectible insurance where every package is covered as long as it has a signature. Signature in itself is another way to make sure that you prevent like porch theft or anything like that from happening. So it's. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, interesting for sure. Yu-Gi-Oh Kind of gotta Trust the process, honestly. Yu-Gi-Oh Right. Question 13, can one piece become the next Pokemon? I mean, I think it has some of the ingredients. I don't necessarily think anything can really be the next Pokemon, per se. Right. One Piece is huge. I. I don't personally know all that much about One Piece. I'm not a One Piece, like, fan. I know it's wildly popular. People love it. You know, I mean, it's been going on for a very, very long time. There is generational fandom and the game itself, I've heard, is very fun, which helps. Right. It's a very popular show, very popular manga. So, I mean, a lot of the, you know, a lot of the ingredients are there. I just. Pokemon is just. So there's one thing that I think has a chance. I'll. We'll talk about it in a little bit, but. Very ominous. Yu-Gi-Oh I like it. I'm going to say no. I mean, yes, it has its own fan base, you know, so does Magic. Could Magic become the next Pokemon also? No. Right. I mean, number one IP for almost two decades in a row. It's going to be Zebra tough. I don't even think One Piece becomes a top five IP overall. Yu-Gi-Oh So, I mean, it's. Pokemon is a cultural staple and I would say so. The thing is, is the demand for the actual TCG cards of One Piece was driven by the fact that there was such a short supply. Everybody wanted it, Goldin get enough of it. Well, now they're in all the distros putting out way more product and you've already seen relief on their product booster box and pack pricing. Even the cards. A lot of the card values have fallen because, you know, at first no one was grading it. There's a ton at grading. Now as it comes back, the pop report go up. There's not as much demand for the cards and it comes back down. So, I mean, you see it like the very popular. There was quite a bit of money into it when it was harder to get more rare. And I mean, they still have that in like their chase cards. Right. But I just. My answer would be no. I do think it has a lot of room to grow. I think it'll be a great TCG for quite a while. I don't think it's going to, you know, die out like some of them have. Right. But no, it one-of-one be as. As big for sure. A prediction question. That's kind of crazy. Little. Little add on here. 20 years from now, which TCG is being produced today? Will collectors still care about Pokemon Magic for sure. Magic for sure. I mean, one Piece has been around for almost 30 years. That'll be, you know, I could see hard. You know, the cards would probably still be around, the Disney cards, Lorcana cards, you know. Yep. Maybe they stick with it. I think it. I think it will for sure. They have a high following, you know, what does 30 years from now, you know, 20 to 30 years from now even look like? I don't know. I mean, there will probably be something else that we don't even know yet. Yu-Gi-Oh that'll be out, and that'll be the new thing, and everybody will want that, and. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. A long time. That is a long time. Question 14. Brand new. After rekindling the love for the franchise, best start strategy for TCG in 2026. That's a huge roadmap, right? Yu-Gi-Oh You got to basically, like, play the game of life. You know, you spin. Do you go to college or do you go the way of just getting a job? You know, Right. Then if you go to college, you get to pick three career cards and pick how much money you get, and then you, you know, you gotta, you know, play the game a little bit. What do you want to do? How do you want. I mean, that's. That's a tough. Like, the best start strategy for tcg, you know, is playing or collecting or vending all different strategies. That's kind of a loaded question, I feel. Yu-Gi-Oh Open a few products, visit a few card shows, visit some card shops, you know, watch. Watch streams, get a Pandora you know, learn about the different eras, learn about grading, learn. Learn about the ins and outs before you make a decision and then decide what you like and go from there. I think everybody's path is different. Everybody likes different stuff and things. So when you find out what you want, just, I would say the one thing not to do is just dive in. No matter how much fun it is. Just spend a ton of money and just go bonanza on one, whatever it is. Right. Whether it's buying cards or ripping packs or whatever the case. Like, then all of a sudden you're just like, what have I done? You know, you don't want that. Question 15. What are you guys personally collecting right now? I mean, I'm collecting Pokemon. I've slowed down a little bit just because there hasn't been any sets recently that really spoken to me that they only feature any of the characters that I really collect heavily. I. I mean, I'm a big Disney guy. So I've been collecting Lorcana for more than a year now, and I love it, you know, tops Disney. I love the rip as well. But Lorcana has just been so much fun for me to rip. And it's something different than I rip every day. You know, I think that has a lot to do with it, too. So I would. That's what I was being ominous about. I think Lorcana and Disney cards is the best opportunity for the. The next big thing. I mean, Disney is a enormous, enormous, enormous juggernaut in terms of ip. And Lorcana is just getting started. It has started out really just Disney proper. Now they've started adding Pixar into the sets, and that is taking it to another level. They just announced serialized cards, which there's already. I've seen bounties, people putting out there before the product is even. We've even seen half of them of $500,000 for these serialized cards. Crazy. And, you know, stuff like that. Just who even knows, right? They could start adding Star wars into these, into Lorcana. They could add Marvel into Lorcana. Right? All of these things that. It could get nuts. Right. And I don't know. I love it. I have so much fun ripping it. You know, I don't care about the values. Obviously, there's a lot of value now in Lorcana, but when I started collecting it, it didn't matter at all. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh It's just for the. You know, I think, like, what do most people collect? You know, it's kind of either what they like or nostalgia. Right. And I collect a lot of different things for a lot of different reasons. But one of the things I like, I enjoy most is, like, vintage toys, new in the box. You know, I just bought the Ghostbust proton pack from 1989, new in the box. And I'm waiting for it to come in still. But that's fire. Like. Yu-Gi-Oh Zebra excited about stuff like that. It's, you know, collect what you like. Yep. It's always been my motto. I mean, I. I also really like Santa Claus cards. I don't know why I collect. Big fan. You know, I collect a lot of Pokemon. I have tons of Master sets. I Master set every set through sword and shield that I have multiple sets of some of the sets because I thought they were so good when they came out. I just, you know, what do I enjoy the most? The most would be the collectible toys. It's like the most nostalgic thing for me. Right I never read comics. I never really did that. It's just like, what did you have? You know, that's. It's interesting. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, I've. I've gone down many different roads. I mean, I collect records. I collect. I collected comics for a long time that kind of got a little out of hand. Collected pops that got really out of hand. Yu-Gi-Oh You know, I mean, I have a whole wall behind this camera that is just covered in collectibles, different figures and different things and stuff. And I don't know, I just love stuff. I know, Me too. Me too. There's nothing wrong with that. All right. We've spent an entire episode talking about market bubbles, grading hundred thousand dollar Pokemon futures, economics of collectibles. Question 16, how many shrimp could you eat in one sitting? An unlimited amount. Unlimited. We're not talking normal shrimp here, okay. We're talking Cameronis zarandados. Okay? Grilled shrimp. They put the sauce, they grill it. It's so good. They bring the salsa, you dip it. It's so good. We can, we can put the shrimp down. Catch us, catch us in Vegas when we're there. Oh, my God, it is. We put the shrimp. That's so good. Absolutely spectacular. It just comes out on this plate. I mean, I'll house several plates of them. These are not small plates. They're like, they're good size. They're good size. It's a lot of shrimp. You eat enough shrimp that you don't want to eat shrimp till you come back to Vegas again the next time, you know, so it's a great time, actually. I love them. And just know that if you can tell by looking at us, we know food pretty, pretty decent, right? We got it. We're doing okay. And our last question of the first Q a episode, number 17, what's the craziest thing that a vendor has done at a show? I have multiple answers. You think I go first? Okay, first of all, our plane took off, we missed it. But I can't remember what show that was where the vendor literally like choked the guy out that was stealing from his table at the collecting. Yu-Gi-Oh that's crazy. Okay, number two, I've had this happen probably three times where vendors will say no to their asking price on a product. Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh Oh, my God. That's. That's crazy. So. So you asked for a thousand dollars, I will pay you a thousand dollars. And you said no. Okay, perfect. Okay. Also crazy then. I mean, just kind of like, you see kind of some weird, slimy stuff with some of these Guys, you know, like, I don't know that any of them mean it. It just comes across that way. They don't really have business ethic, like, you know, it just gets kind of like a little grimy sometimes out there. I've seen a few things, you know, and it's like most of the people, like, you tell them there's a fake card at their table, they take care of it. You know, some of them are like, oh, I'm out all this money. Then they try to move it to somebody else and do something slimy like that. You see people get called out on things like that. It's just. I don't know. There's a lot I've seen that. But the first two parts for sure. That's my biggest pet peeve. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, I've. I've. Craziest thing. I can't really think of, like a singular thing. I mean, I've seen some crazy stuff for sure. Right? Like. Like I was at a show once, somebody got caught stealing and there was police that literally Beckett them up by their legs and arms and just carried them out of the show. Yu-Gi-Oh it's wild. That was pretty wild. I mean, there's definitely been. I've had run ins with vendors that have just gotten insanely angry with me. Actually. No, I do know. I do know. I went up to this guy and he had. This was right when the first partner. The first, first partners came out and I didn't. I didn't have any on my stream. And I was like, you know what? I'm at this show. Let me see if I can find some at a price that's reasonable that I can then sell it to my audience at, you know, a pretty reasonable rate. And this dude, I walk up to his table and I see he has some loose packs of it, you know, like three of them, not a whole lot like three packs of it. Then right below it, he had three mega. Mega Evolution packs. And then next to that, he had three Phantasmal Flames packs. And I'm like, okay, so you just broke down the boxes and this is what we're doing. Genius. Yu-Gi-Oh So I go up to him and I say, hey, what do you got on the first partner packs? At the time, market price was like $50 or something on the boxes. Yu-Gi-Oh And he's like, I want $50 on the packs or no, $45. That's what it was, $45 on the packs. I'm like, okay. I mean, we're probably pretty close, right? And he's like, I one-of-one budge from that number. And I'm just like. When people just get like, instantly, like, snippy with me, I'm just like, relax. Like, I'm what? I'm just asking questions about the product that you have available for sale, right? And so then immediately I was just like, all right, well, so these other two packs below it, you'll do two 50 each on those. And then he was like, blew his, his, his mind that I had said that. Right? He's like, well, what do you mean? I'm like, well, market on the boxes are $50. You're asking 45 on this. Let's do 50. Market for the three. And then he was just like, instantly got Zebra defensive and, like, went crazy. And he had a friend there with him. And the friend stands up and goes, we don't deal with you people. And I'm just like, what? Huh? He's like, resellers. And I'm just like, when did I ever say I was a reseller? Obviously I am, but like, I never said that I was. And also, you are the one who bought the product at Target and now are set up with it at your table. You are literally reselling the product right now. I'm trying to buy it from you at a market price. That's all that had happened. He got crazy defensive, and the friend stands up and goes, you are. What's wrong with people in this world? Yu-Gi-Oh I'm just like. My friend was with me, walks by. I made wash really excited that day. Oh, my God. My friend, like, walked by, heard it, goes, my God. Yu-Gi-Oh But you know, I mean, sometimes it just is the way, you know, was I. Was I somewhat a dick when I did the 250 comment? Absolutely. Probably. Yu-Gi-Oh You know, however it happens, you know, there's been so many vendors and it's. I shouldn't say, so many vendors. In all the shows we've went to in the last, like, say two years, there's a handful of them under 10 instances with different vendors. Yu-Gi-Oh that I would just say are just awful. And some of the people aren't even awful. They just like, don't know what they're doing. Right. It's fine. Whatever. Chalk it up to whatever you want. Some of them are awful, though. Some of them are awful. I mean, some people just are just mean people. Yu-Gi-Oh that's true too. Well, I like this. That was good. Yu-Gi-Oh that was fun. Appreciate everybody who sent in questions. We put up a couple posts we had asked in one of the episodes and so everybody kind of asked questions throughout different platforms, whether it was Spotify, YouTube, Instagram. We just kind of compiled them all together and I. We'll see how this goes and if you liked it, let us know. If you have any questions, you can definitely leave them in the comments of this episode. We'll check there as well. And if we get enough comments again, that kind of COVID the next set of topics, then we can do it again. So I like that. Appreciate everybody for watching the Pack Fresh Pulse episode, everybody. We've been getting very good feedback on that. So that one, we already planned to become like a monthly episode, I think. Yu-Gi-Oh maybe we do this every other month. Yu-Gi-Oh maybe we can do it enough, you know, enough questions and stuff. You know, we'll see. We'll see how much everyone likes this style of episode. But Pack Fresh Pulse, everyone's digging if you have a show idea or episode idea. Also, let us know if there's something that you think we could do an entire Obsidian. You know, we're always looking for topics for. With questions that people are looking to have answers. So appreciate it and we'll catch everyone in the next one. Thank you, guys.