Fanatics Fest Recap & Topps Chrome Release Day

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Gemini and Chrome is here for it, ready to make anything online make sense. There's no place like Chrome. Check responses. Setup required. Compatibility and availability varies. 18. All right, welcome back to the hobby handbook. We've got Trent. How you doing today, Trent? You make it home back from New York fine? I did, I. I think I made it back home safely a lot better than your travel adventures. But one of us chose to spend six hours in the Newark airport, and one of us chose to was forced to spend six hours in the Newark airport. We just love Newark. Look at us, just, just two guys who just love the Newark airport. We just wanted to have fun. So dedicated to the Newark airport. My travel home was absurd. So one, I'm not fancy. I don't have the lounge access like Trent has. So he's like, oh yeah, I'm spending six hours in the airport. I'm just gonna hang out in the lounge. No lounge access for your boy. I was supposed to have a flight at 3 o'. Clock. When I left Fanatics Fest, it had been delayed until 4. And then when I got to the airport, it had been delayed until 6:30. 6:00 clock comes, it's like, okay, cool, we're getting ready to board. Like everybody's standing up, ready to go. And the gate agent comes on and says, hey, so we've got a small problem. One, the plane has not been cleaned yet. And two, we're missing a flight attendant. So I'm sitting there thinking, this plane has been sitting here for four hours. Why is this plane not clean? United. And then flight attendant, I get. I'll give You a little bit of a pass there because I understand people, time in, time out, all this. And that's. We wait for an hour. I see a flight attendant leave, and then they say, well, now we're missing a pilot. And I'm like, so we lost a flight attendant, so now we should be down two flight attendants. I didn't see a pilot come or go, but we're missing a pilot now. Yeah, one of these things we can fly without. One of these things we cannot fly without. Yes. So we finally boarded at like 9 o', clock, and I'm like, cool, we're ready to go. Let's do this. We sat on the top. We sat at the gate for over an hour, and then we sat on the tar. We got out to the tarmac thinking, okay, cool, you know, we're going to be ready to go. No, we get out there and the pilot says, yeah. So we're hanging out, waiting for clearance to take off, looking for windows in terms of weather where we can take off. We got some planes out here that have been sitting on the tarmac for two or three hours, turning around because their crew is timed out. And I'm thinking to myself, if I. If they got me on this plane and we're not leaving, we got a problem. And then we take off. Cool. We land in Nashville. We land, and guess what? They don't have a gate for us. We sat on the tarmac in Nashville for 50 minutes. It was crazy getting home from Fanatics US. The worst part of fanatics us was traveling home from fanatics us. Yeah, I mean, I. I did not have. Like I said, I chose to spend the time in the airport. I don't know why I booked a late flight, but I did. I think it was just. I was like, oh, if there's something I need to get done that last day. But no, I was like, wait a minute, I have to check out from my hotel at 11. My flight isn't until 6. I was like, I'm going to go to Citi Field and go see where the Mets play. Because I've been there before, but I haven't been there in a few years. And I was like, wait a minute. An $80 Uber east when the airport is already west of me is probably not the best move. So, yeah, I just hung out in the airport and just did whatever for six hours. Well, it's tough too, in that, you know, you have all your cards, you have all your cash, and obviously I'm looking forward to hearing how much cash or how Little cash you had when all was said and done. But it's tough, you know, to make the decision to walk around New York City, which, you know, cities have safe areas, in dangerous areas. But like, regardless, walking around with tens of thousands of dollars in cards and cash. Do I want to do that? Probably not. Not. Not a chance. No. Yeah. So on when we first got there, I mean, that's the thing is really the, the load in and the load out are really the points where get. They get me a little. Like, I mean, even, even, like for you, like, I, I felt bad because I was like, shoot, like I wanted to walk with you to the show that way, you know, because, like, you never know. Like, this is one of those things where, you know, you can plan for it. But you know, people get robbed all the time. And especially in a giant city with a ton of people, there are bound to be some bad actors. So I mean, this is, this is just a good nugget for the national coming up here. But if you're carrying, you know, a large amount of cash or a large amount of cards, it's going to sound crazy. I know we're all adults here, but the buddy system, it works. You know, walk with a friend, you know, it's. You don't want to be that guy who gets taken for what he has and not cool. Thankfully, I didn't hear any stories of any theft from Fanatics Fest, which is awesome. Yeah. I mean, the security of Fanatics Fest was, you know, I. I never felt like there was basically anywhere that I was. I felt like there was a cop within fairly close distance. And I. I think a part of that is definitely also that just that there's so many celebrities, you know, athletes, etc, that like, they need that security for them just as much as they needed for all the people who are there. But I never felt unsafe, you know, to the point of walking. I. My big thing was that I walked at times when there were a lot of people. You know, I stayed within close walking distance to the Javits center and you know, walking at times when there were a lot of people walking. Well, I was not walking with them. There's seven other people who are walking in the same direction as I am that have their, you know, Fanatics fest credentials on, etc. So it. But you are spot on that for the national. Be careful. There's always good security, but still, you don't want to walk down a dark alleyway by yourself to try and, you know, take the shortcut to get home a little Bit quicker, like, be safe. Because it will. It happens every year, at least the bright side with the National. So I know, like the first time I went to the 1. The show in Chicago, I was under the impression that, hey, the Nationals in Chicago. No, it's in Rosemont. It's in Rosemont. It's a more suburb area and there's plenty of like, it's not like you're in, you know, downtown Chicago where just like with downtown New York City, like, there are more bad actors, more than likely. So at least with that it's. It's definitely a safe area for the national. But still. Yeah, use the buddy system. Be smart. Don't be silly. Don't lose your stuff. Yes, absolutely. And you want to give the audience. I'm curious on your take on Fanatics Fest. I think there's been a lot of discussion just online, but as I think we had different experiences because you were a vendor and while I did hang out with you a little bit, like I was a, you know, just person who was walking the floor at the show, etc. I'm curious on your perspective on the show as a vendor. It was incredible. I mean, knocked my socks off. You know, people are going to comment on here. Oh, he's a shill. He's a shill. No, dude, I didn't think it was going to be that great. I really didn't because this was my first Fanatics Fest for the listeners. And I was under the impression that it is a fan festival. It is a festival where fans who are. No, no, it absolutely is. It is a fan festival where people who are fans of sports come to this. Not card people, but people who are fans of sports. I had somebody at my table from the time the doors opened until the doors shut. I mean, there were card people there ready to go. Dude, I. This is my honest takeaway from it. I think that more people should go to Fanatics Fest than the national because there are plenty of people who are kind of like, you know, they collect cards for fun, like, whatever. Blaster here, Blaster there, or buy a single here, buy a single there. If you are not like uber dedicated to cards, kind of like where you run a business with it, where I, you know, operate a business with it. The national is great for cards and that's all there is. But if you're like, I kind of like cards, this is the perfect place. You know, you're not going to rub shoulders with, you know, so many different athletes at the national, but you will at Fanatics Fest. Because they're just walking around. Yeah, I think, I think the way to like simplify it is if you are more. And if you're more of a casual collector that you do it for just, you know, the fun of it. You know, you buy the cards that you like and you're, you're, you are not somebody who like for me and you, a lot of the cards that you're buying, you know, being set up as a dealer works because you can buy at a percentage because people know that you're trying to make money off of it. For me, walking around trying to get deals under sticker at a certain percent generally is not happening at a big show like this because there's so many people. If you're a more casual collector who has no problem paying full sticker price or maybe even a little bit of above comp. Because you like card and you get the fun experience of picking it up at the show, etc. I think it's absolutely amazing. My one only flag there is that I do feel like given the size of the show and the cost the dealers have to set up, there's not as much value stuff. At Fnatic Fest you are not going to go find for the most part, five to $20 cards. No, it's. You're looking for, you know, PC centerpieces, things like that, which is. There's no that that I like that I like that you're able to find. You know, one of the things about the national that I love is it's like a car to museum. You see things that you will not see. People bring out these collections that only come out once or twice a year. But if you are not somebody who has deeper pockets for your collection, I would love for fanatics to find a way to incentivize or get some dealers to have some more value stuff. Yeah, they mentioned that in the calls of like, hey, you need more value things. I would say this, A breakdown of my showcases was probably 15% of things under $50 and the rest was above. I mean, because of your point, like I still wanted to have some value things for, for the guy who's just like, hey, this is my first, you know, festival, show, whatever. I want to pick up a card from there, but I don't want to spend an arm and a leg. And so I made a few of those deals. But in reality, like you said, like the tables are not cheap. I'm not exactly sure how much they were because I didn't purchase it for Jetbreakers, but I had to be a lot of money. Plus just travel in hotels, the whole thing. Yeah. If you're traveling in with. I mean, you guys had what, four guys there. Yeah. And I know. I don't know whether or not jetbreakers covers the cost of everybody coming up, but like, if you're. And you guys are a, you know, grand scheme, a small operation. Yeah, no 100%. We small fish compared to some of these bigger groups that are bringing in probably 20, 30 people. And, you know, that's going to be a ton of money you got. That's hotels for 30 people, that's meals for the week, you know, Uber rides, all this and that. Like it. You kind of have to bring some of the bigger, nicer stuff because that's where you can make, you know, bigger numbers off of it. Yeah. 10% on a thousand dollar card is a lot different than 10% on a $20 card. Yeah. And you'd have to sell a lot of 20 cards. And that's where, you know, are you able to sell a lot of $20 cards? Maybe. But that's. So you brought up this before of, you know, being at a table, you're able to buy. My whole goal at the show was to buy. I told you this. I was like, my goal is to buy, buy, buy. I want to buy a bunch of cool stuff for the national. Did you bought a ton? I sold way more than I expected to. Yeah. I mean, genuinely. By the last day. And I want to get your take on this by the last day. I. We had an empty showcase. So what did I do? I put out some of my PC stuff into a showcase off to the side. Like the Aaron Judge, you wouldn't sell me. Correct? Like the Aaron Judge, I wouldn't sell you. And I said, hey, these cards are not for sale. It's a conversation piece. Show me a cool card in your collection. I want your thoughts on somebody doing that, having a showcase. You know, it's the very last day, so, I mean, it's not like it was out there all week. But I want your thoughts on a showcase that's not for sale as a like, last resort type situation. Last day of the show, etc, you run through your inventory and so on. I'm okay with it. You know, one of the things that Mike has done at the Nashville show is he puts out a bunch of PC stuff, but he says it's for trading only. Basically. I. It's not for sale. You can't come buy this from me. But if you have something that I want to trade, it For AKA then cool, I'm in for that. I think that where I last year, fanatics fest, there were some dealers and this was on like Friday, which was the first day because last year they didn't have Thursday. There were some dealers that had out like multiple cases of incredible Jeter, a Rod, you know, amazing patches, autos, things like that. And it said all not for sale. And I'm like, why do you have three cases of cars that aren't for sale right on your table? Like, I get like showing it off and the conversation piece and this and that. And I, I, I think there can be a place for it, but I think it has to be done in a way that is, there's at least some purpose to it. So I, I just don't love when I walk by a full case and I see a super cool card and it's like, nope, sorry, it's not for sale. I know. I, it was, it was definitely an internal debate with me because I, I want something where, you know, having an empty showcase, it's just a waste of space. No, but also like something that is so missed at major card shows is, at least from the dealer perspective, is having a conversation about cool cards in your showcase. You saw me ask it to probably a dozen people. Hey, show me something in your case that's not for sale. Show me something that means something to you. Because part of this whole thing is we collect. Yes. Some people use it as a business, but a lot of people just collect for fun and they have cards, whether it be a $2 based card or a Mickey Mantle Babe Ruth dual cut auto. Yep. There are some things that are just like, you know, it's a conversation piece and you can tell a cool story with it and, you know, you can make a friend that way. So that's why I did it. Yeah. No, I don't. As I said, especially on the last day of the show, I have a lot more grace for that because I recognize that at these big shows it might be me. At the national, I don't know. Actually, I was saying to Brendan, not producer Brendan, but Brendan, who does my football singles, that he's driving up for the national, I was like, I need you to bring a printer so that as I buy singles, I can that night back in the hotel room, make more of these Zion Mag pros that wants to focus. There we go. So that, like, I can more easily refill the case. Because if I have, I, I know you, you can put it in the case and just top loader. But Like I like to draw attention to my case. Same. Yeah, I, I mean that's how I got to the last day. I mean I, I was like, well now I just have top loaders cause I didn't bring enough mags or I bring enough graded card bags or whatever. You know, there was a lot of churn and burn that, that people might not have seen. Like especially my stuff. So my showcase was not filled with 5,000 plus dollar cards. No, the. I would say 80 plus percent was under $1,000. 90%. And so like that, that will move 100% of the time. Like that, that stuff will move because most people aren't walking around with $40,000 in cash. So you know, you're not going to be able to sell that Logoman auto or whatever. So I, I thought it was great. I wish I bought more. But I will say this. You, you mentioned that being a dealer at a table you get to buy at a percentage. I'm a terrible dealer. You are. Because although I bought at a percentage, I bought at 90% the whole sale. I think, I think the lowest in a lot. I paid like 86%. Because you know, hey, at the end of the day there are a ton of people buying and more than likely a lot of people are offering between 80 and 85% which I totally get, totally understand from the dealer perspective. But if my goal is to buy, I need to pay strong if I'm going to buy stuff. Because who knows, a kid could be walking around, he gets a $5 offer better. I mean, who wouldn't take five extra bucks for the same thing? And to be fair, you're also buying for your repack, which enables you to, you know, go out and basically say, hey, I can make maybe a little bit more than 100% because it's a repack when I'm selling this. Yeah. And I can't. But yes, there are. Yes. And, and with that as well though, you are also definitely more selective on what you're buying because it has to fit for your repack versus like, I'm curious actually, how many repack cards a month do you need to buy? To be completely honest with you, I'm not sure. And here's just like a. Behind the curtains is, is I am not like the buyer for us. Yeah, I just buy really cool stuff that I think would be really good in there. We have dedicated people who are like, like hey, like one of your main goals is to buy. That's not me. Like I just buy cool stuff. Like, I mean here's a really cool one. Vlad glad Guerrero Jr tier one patch auto. But it's, it's the bat tape and you know, for that being a card under $200, like that's a really good repack card where it's like, hey, it's a Vlad Guerrero Jr. Patch auto to 10 with a really unique piece in there. Like that's something I want to buy. Yeah. For a repack and it's, it's cool. So I just buy like cool things here and there for it. But I'm not like a dedicated buyer. Yeah. Because like for me I need to buy roughly. I sell about 1500 or 2000 cards a month. And so the volume that's required and obviously it's not all for you. It's generally all 50 plus. For me there's a lot more low end stuff that you're buying that you know is out of dollar boxes and this and that. And you can go to a dealer's table when there are dollar boxes. But it is that the question at what percent to buy on one hand, I need a lot. So you want to be able to pay well enough. At the same time though it, for me it depends on the type of card. 50 plus. Yeah. You got to pay a good percent to be competitive. And, and for you you're also selective in that it has to be a card that's good for a repack. It has to be something that somebody automatically looks at and says that's a nice card, that's a cool card. Etc. It might not comp for a million dollars, but yeah, I think Vlad comps for under 200 bucks. Like 180. Like yeah, that's awesome. But therefore I understand you having to be at, you know, buying at 90% for certain stuff. I'm never at 90% unless their name is Shohei Ohtani. But the difference is too like this is your full time job. Yep. This is not mine. I, I don't have to. It's. You are supporting yourself and your family with this. I am using this as supplemental income. That's a big. That's a huge difference. It is. Yeah. And to be. To quickly just plug the national. We will be buying at the National. Yeah. So if you guys want to come see us, we're on the second floor. Big sports cards nonsense booth should be a good time. We're gonna talk more about the national a bit. I want to go back to Fanatics Fest. You bought a lot. What was, what was your favorite or some of your favorite cards that you Bought So the Vlad was one just because the. The lizard skin bat relic. I love these patches. I'm not sure your thoughts on them in the name one of one patches are they. Is that game used or event used? It is. It is game used. Steven Strasberg. Yep. Paul Skeen's rookie anime. That was awesome. What's that, $800? It was. Yeah. Around there. Like 7, 7, 800. And then I picked up not one but two Barry Bonds autos. And this one was my favorite transcendent VIP party. Numbered to 25. Like just little bits here and there. I also picked up an Elon Pena. So Mets prospect. But the cool part was it's an inscription auto that says go Mets. And it was just like a fun one number to 25. Like yeah. I was like, yeah, that's. That's staying in the PC and now it's on my shelf back there. Love it. That's cool. Yeah. On my end like this little range Ohtani and the gold. I know that you look. Who told you to buy that? Alex? I was like, dude, that's a good price. Yeah. That's the alter egos. Pete Alonso. Really, really cool. Love the polar bear. One of the things. And I said this to you, it's a Mets card but with the design of the card you can't really tell that he's in a Mets uniform here. So like I think that that also helps it hopefully age a little bit better. Josh Allen Downtown future card shop is my thinking that's just gonna go on a bin and I'm gonna forget about it. Which I do have a quick thing to say after I show off this next card. And then Bo Jackson Battle Arena. I'm working on my deck and I grabbed the steel. Big Poppy. Super cool. It's. It's a 160 power and the type of deck that I'm working on caps at 160. So like it's a really good. It's really. It's a really good one to start off with is what I've. What I've been told. So some cool cards there. One quick little plug or request because that's actually will lead us into something else. A few weeks ago, Trent put out the call for somebody to help him out with Meta and his Facebook ban. I have a call that I'm looking for some help on. I need help with some graphic design work. I need help on a logo. Working on, you know, eventually opening up the clever Cuban card shop. That's not what it's going to be called. We're going to call it something cooler than that, but I've gone into chat GPT and have some concepts that I like, but I need somebody who's actually like a graphic designer that I can work with and pay for me to make a logo. So if you or somebody knows or you know, somebody who actually, like, is really good at that stuff, you know, let's talk. Let's see if we can do something again. You don't want an AI slop design. No, I don't. I do not want AI Sloth. No. Yeah, that. Yeah. So I will give a shout out to Craig. Craig came by the table and we chatted for a little while and we ripped a box together. Josh Allen off him. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, you almost got that show hitting. But no. So, yeah, shout out to Craig. Craig is the man. He also gave us a shout out on the show. I'm not sure if you saw that yesterday. He made a really cool video. But, yeah, shout out to Craig for helping me get my account back. I'm still locked out of Facebook messenger, but we'll figure it out as we go. Yeah. Now, what were some of your favorite moments of fanatics? Yeah, so this one is really, really tough. So I got to interview Gary Vee. That was really cool. Grabbed you by the neck, right? He did grab me by the neck. That was hilarious. I got to meet Steve with Haystack and we made a video together. Oh, I didn't see that. What'd you guys do? Yeah, he just. He just did like a quick, like, fanatics fest interview and stuff with me. But yeah, Stephen, he's an awesome dude with the Haystack team. And we. We talked about just, like, how I use Haystack and stuff. And because he was like. He was like, dude, we're running into an issue here. People think that they need the Haystack one. And I was like, I don't have one. And I've listed hundreds of cards using Haystack and yeah, so we. We talked about that. Dominic Mysterio, WWE Champ. I saw that he came by, we chatted him up for a little bit, and he actually came back to our table and picked up a card which was cool. What do you buy? He bought a Spider man rookie card. Yeah, he. And just like, the coolest part was he. He had his case with him and I was like, hey, I asked him the same question. Show me a cool card in your case. It's not for sale. Yeah. And he showed me a really cool quad auto. It was all, it was all wrestlers but on the back it was stamped personal edition. So that, that was really neat. And then probably the, I mean there's so many things I could talk about but like Seth Meyers, I don't know if you know but Seth Meyers is a big Bowman collector which was pretty cool. Like chatted with him about that and then the Knicks parade was, was so cool to me. I'm not even a big basketball fan but just seeing Karl Anthony Towns walk out holding the, the championship trophy with Jalen Brunson right there, super awesome. What about you? That's super, super cool. Yeah, I had less time and I was also not at a table so like obviously I was not. I didn't get as many of the like walk up situations just because I, you know, wasn't at a table all the time. I really enjoyed the card combine down in the kind of level one that they had. I think it's an amazing activation the fanatics did. I think that the whole point of the show as we've kind of talked about is that like it's a fan festival but we want people to learn how to collect cards and I think that that's a great way to kind of like introduce them to that. So that was really, really cool to just kind of chat with new collectors. People who don't have a ton of familiarity with the hobby. It's always. I got asked last night on Stream there somebody was like do you like when people come up and like say hi to you that, do you like that? Like we appreciate the content. I was like absolutely, yeah, for sure. I create content because I like, I want to create the community and like build those relationships like come up and say hi to me. So getting to meet people who you know, shared this really cool car that they picked up or a story about how they're doing, how how this happened or whatever. Really, really great to meet people. It was also fun getting to do. I, I know that you, you saw this. My trading a slab pack for a card at the show got a Diego Mardona which was really, really cool. It's a case hit out of the prison World cup. But I traded a slap pack in which you know John from pretty pretty Cool Cards in Nolensville did happen to pull a like 750 cards. I was like I. He won on that trade. Pretty clear. Yeah, it happens. But he won without much question. But that was fun to be able to shout out to Arena Club for giving me the pack that I was able to go and trade for something. So I got a fun, cool card that I was able to kind of more intentionally pick. And John ended up with something, a nice little win for himself, too. So, yeah, speaking of stuff like that, I know I didn't put this on our sheet, but I do, I do want to tease a little giveaway for the National. So if folks are going to be coming by our table, I'm going to. I'm forcing you to participate in a giveaway with me. So we're going to. We're going to give something away at the National. I want to. I want to do a little appreciation because like you said, for the first time, like, this is the first show that I've gone to where people were like, multiple people were like, oh, hey, Trent. And I'm like, hi, nice to meet you. Like, people knew me and I didn't know that. And I was like, this is weird, but this is really cool. People are saying like, hey, love the content and stuff. And I'm like, stream the biggest moments in Sports live on Fox 1. The biggest names, the biggest games, the biggest matchups. Watch live or catch up on your schedule at home or on the go. Never miss a moment. All on Fox one Stream now. Bonjour, compadre. It's the Priceline negotiator. How do I negotiate so many great travel deals? My greatest gadget, the Priceline app, It's got hotel deals, flight deals, rental car deals, all of those deals in a bundle deals, game day deals, concert trip deals. No one deals more deals than Priceline. Hold your horses. There's more. The app lets you filter hotels by neighborhood vibe, star level, and amenities like pools and spas and beachfronts. Wait, I'm not done. Stop cutting me up. I just make content for fun and, like, it's awesome to see that, like, people appreciate it and stuff. So it was just a neat experience as somebody. Like, I know you've been in the space on the content side a lot longer than I have, but, you know, going into this and having that experience for the first time, it's really cool. Yeah, it is. I actually, literally, I was, I'm working through some of the inventory that I've bought both at Fanatics, Fest on Fanatics, Collect, you know, card shops, etc. And I was pulling aside some stuff that I was like, I want to do some giveaways, you know, have cards available for free for kids, things like that. So if you're at, if you're at the national, stop by the table. We'll have for sure Some stuff, whether it's quantity and, or quality, we'll have, we'll definitely have some cool giveaways and stuff like that. To give you guys another quick little thing, by the way, that was awesome. Was being able to connect with so much of the like SCN team. You know, getting to meet Brandon in person. He's behind the camera right now, but getting a good, spend some good time with him. You know, spending some time with Jesse. Thank you. I got to meet Jesse. Yeah. Feeling a little bit better and was able to make it up there. Meeting Shane in person, seeing Jeremy who kind of runs a lot of the business side of SCM that, you know, you guys, you guys don't ever really see him, but good to see him. He kind of helped us out. Kind of help me get into the show and all this and that. Meeting some other people who do stuff like Dalen with Junk Wax vintage on ebay live. I know he's doing a ton with them. It's great to meet Dalen. So it was really cool just to meet. Just to meet. I think that's my favorite thing is it's not meeting all the celebrities and all these people that are there. And don't get me wrong, if I could meet the celebrities, I also would take that. You know, next time if Fanatics, if you need somebody to interview people, I'm happy to help. But I think that also just, just meeting all the people that like are important to me in my hobby sphere or just people you've talked to online and you've never met in person. Yeah, like, I mean there are so many people like that where you know, you're like, like Alex army atc. Yep. I never met him before but I was walking to go get a drink at the concession stand and he goes, Trent. And I go, oh snap. Like there's so many people that you don't realize were even there. Yeah, I knew he was there, but I was hoping that he would just, we would just cross paths at the table or something and you know, just running into each other on a whim, like, so cool. Sit down, have a, you know, 15 minute conversation with him. It's so cool just to meet the people who you've spoken to. I had a buddy who, who I've known for five years. I mean he, he gifted me a card down there for my wedding. You know, like I've known him for a long time. We never met in person. We finally met for the first time at Fanatics Fest and that's really why I love the Shows. It's not the buying, it's not the selling. It's not making content. It's meeting the people who you've had these relationships with for years, finally getting to connect with them in person. It's unbeatable. Yep, absolutely. And I know the national will have a lot of that as well, have a lot of people that we're able to connect with. So come by. I want to people. I. I've had people say to me, they're like, oh, I saw you value boxing. Like, I didn't want to bother you. Do you guys know how much I value box? I can value box in my sleep, basically. I can with all the cards that I have to buy to the point of 1500, 2000 cards a month. Absolutely. I can talk to you while I flip through value box cards. So come say hi. Now. We can't just, you know, I, I already hear the comments right now. I already hear people saying, oh, you guys are just fanatic shills, because you guys are just talking all positive about fanatics. And fanatics was amazing. Like, if you want to call me a shill for being truthful and honest and cool, call me a shill. Is there anything that you would have, though, changed or say, hey, you know, for next year? I do think that one thing, I did not make the Fanatics Fest year one, but year two and year three, I made it. Each year it has gotten bigger and better from what I, you know, year one to year two, I heard was a huge leap. Year two to year three was another amazing leap. It was definitely a better show than last year. I think that they really are honing in on things. If you have Ruben Mayhan, whoever at the fanatics team listening into the podcast right now, is there any pieces of constructive feedback that you would say of, like, hey, fixing this would take the show to even the next level? Yes, absolutely. I mean, there's. There's multiple things. Like, don't get me wrong, it was a great show, but there's always areas to improve. Yep. Something that I think would be really beneficial. It would cost a lot of money, don't get me wrong. But do you know those, like, electronic kiosks in malls that show you, like, where shops are at and stuff? Yes, something like that. That also shows you. Because for folks who aren't there, whenever they have athletes come through, like, you and I talked about this multiple times, they will barricade off a walkway to where you can't walk through there because the athletes are supposed to, like, be able to transit in and out. Easier if they could have a map that shows, okay, this intersection is closed right now. Go this way. Yeah, because like for me, if I'm going to get a water from the concession stand and I'm, I'm like, I get a call of like, hey, there's somebody interested in this card. Can you like, can you come back to the table? Nope. Yeah, sure. It could be five minutes, it could be 30, you know. So something like that I think would be really beneficial. Another big one was our booth didn't have electricity so we wanted to film more content. But it's pretty tough if your phone dies because you're comping cards all day, you're editing videos, things like that. We didn't have electricity in our booth and we were expecting to, so we had to go get a power bank last minute. We had to go do other things last minute. We can survive without it 100%. But it's just the little things that would be nice to know beforehand. You know what I mean? What about you? Is there anything that you would change? Yeah, I think the athlete crosswalk. I think that it's a good change because last year the athletes were just walking the floor and that just led to like mobs of people surrounding the athletes as well as like running after them if they kind of had moved on. So like I think that the, the, the walkways were a good introduction. I think that figuring out how to better manage the crowd, crowd management at an event this large is always a problem. Yeah, you have a bunch of people in a small space, it's, it's going to be tight. But I think that to that point of when you're shutting down these walkways, what I would have is, you know they, all those spots where they close off the walkways, they have security, police, etc who are doing that to manage that. I know it would cost more money but if you had a fanatics employee or somebody who like when knew the show floor to kind of direct traffic of like hey yeah, get around this. You guys need to walk this way. If you're wanting to stay and stand here and watch Anthony Edwards and Jaylen Brunson and Tom Brady and all these people walk through, then absolutely hang out. That's what it's here for. But if you are trying to get like back to your booth or over to go get a water etc, you can do that by going this way. Yeah, I think that would just help out a lot because I think that you had a lot of people that got stuck and they didn't know where to go or how to go anywhere. So I think that that would be a positive change. Another piece of feedback that Jesse gave, which I, I would echo, is that at the card combine downstairs, which I would love to see them do again, having something just a tier up from the packs that they gave out, they gave up basically little like cello packs of four paper cards of TOPS like Series 1 or like TOPS Basketball. I saw so many kids and it's unfortunate and I know that you're gonna, we're gonna have some old heads in the comments saying, oh, kids these days don't, you know, appreciate anything. I saw so many kids open up the pack, flip through, see four base cards and then toss them in the trash. Leave them, leave them on the counter. If you just had something like, if you were to make a fanatic like the Fanatics fest Top Series 2 blasters, if you had blaster packs that you were able to give out to kids downstairs, that would be incredible. Pulling an insert, the ability, the, the also the like viral moments of like this kid who knows nothing about the hobby pulls this, you know, Roman Anthony short print or the, you know, I know Dalen pulled the Derek Jeter swinging for the Star super fracture out of a hobby box that they were doing for free in a break. Like they did so much free stuff for those breaks and kind of showing people what a break is. But I think that having those packs just have just a little bit of a chase. Having, having something would show people who are thinking about and showing maybe just the, the beginning interest in collecting be like, hey, it is worth ripping a package. Yeah. Ripping one of those cello packs. That is not what the majority of pack rips is going to be like. And granted the majority of pack rips. Are you going to pull crazy, crazy, crazy cards? No. But you're going to pull a nice looking insert. It might not be like the, the, the stars of the MLB insert. They're, they're 50 cent cards but they look nice to somebody who is. It might get somebody into it. Yeah. To somebody who's not already super obsessed with value. They look at that card and they say, oh, that looks really cool. That's a big name player. It is a star of the mlb. Yeah, it's. I think that just having something, it doesn't take a genius to know that when you flip through and you get four regular base cards that there's probably not anything crazy here. Especially when you have the fanatics collect booth right there with all of the amazing cards that are available. For sale. And people see the refractors, the inserts, the numbered cards, those things. It doesn't take a genius to realize that those cards ultimately do not hold a huge amount of like chase or value. So I think that if you could, and I know that that costs money and there's a, there's a happy medium here. If you could do something, just a slight tear up, I think that it would make a huge difference to something that was already in my opinion a really, really big win in success. And I think that it would just take it to the next level. Yeah, I was expecting now, now I didn't look into this beforehand but I was expecting some sort of, you know, at the national they do the tops packs. I was expecting something for Fanatics Fest but they're, I mean they have the fanatics exclusive blasters and stuff and hobby boxes. But I was expecting you know, some sort of like similar style redemption where like you can, you can basically exchange the cellophane from a box for, for a pack, like a decent pack. But yeah, we didn't really see that. But I mean who knows, we'll see if things change in the future years. But yeah, for me being a fanatic shill, I guess I thought the show was awesome. I really did. And like I said if, if you're a casual sports card collector or even like, you know, even if you are a huge sports card collector, there was still plenty of card stuff. I'll be there next year. Yeah, I'll be there next year too, 100%. I hope to have a, I, I, I hope SCN can have a booth next year. Yeah, like I think that that would be a really positive thing if that's possible. I would love to have a booth. I think that it's especially from a like content side, it's so much easier when you have a like home base where you sit down, edit everything, set up cameras where you can have more of those organic interactions. It's what like our booth at the national is content. We don't have a dealer booth. We have a content booth where we are going to be filming us and interacting, negotiating trades, this and that. So I think that I would love to have something next year. We'll see whether or not we're able to make that happen. But I'm super, super excited for it. I've seen a lot of conversation, you know, Darren Revelle talking about how fanatics can kill the National. They my opinion, I think both continue to operate incredibly successfully and hot take maybe I don't think that they compete with each other. No, I. This was. Like I said, this was my first fanatics fest. In reality, like, I'm trying to ballpark here. I'm trying to, like, count in my head how many card tables there were. I would say 50 to 100. Is that fair? Way more than that. Really? More? Yeah. Well, that just goes to show, even though I was there the whole time, how busy my booth was for how much I walked around even. All right, let's double it and say it was 300 or 400 or quadruple. I'm gonna guess like 600 even. 600. There's over a thousand tables at the national. Oh, it just dedicated to cards. Trent, The Nashville card show has 1400 tables, right? That's right. Nowhere near as big as the national. Yeah. Like oranges. Yeah. I don't think that they can compete. Well, they can compete, but then they're gonna take away from the fan experiences, which really make it a festival. So I think they completely operate on their own, and I think both are fine. Obviously, with the World cup, that made things a little bit weirder because, you know, with the world cup going on, they. They wanted to have it at the same time as the World cup final. Totally get it. But here I am. I'm home for a week. I'm flying out seven days from now. You know, like, it's. It's a lot of travel quickly. So for most people, if you had to basically pick between the two, what would you recommend to somebody? I think that you need to ask yourself what you are. There for. Me, Alex, cards pretty much exclusively. I would pick the national. But ask me in three or four years, when my daughter is in kindergarten and wants to go do some of the big activations and some of the cool things and see the celebrities that she looks up to, etcetera, My answer will probably be different. Yeah, I, as a person who runs a sports card business, and I'm looking to just do. I am there for content in cards. Yeah, it's cool to see the athletes, but I don't care about seeing the athletes like that. That's not what gets me out of bed in the morning to go to these shows. It's engaging with the card side of things. And I think that for me, therefore, I would pick the national. But I think that to the point of, I think the majority of people, you know, casual fans, sports fans, etcetera, you might lean fanatics fest. Yeah, I think you're spot on. I really do. I will say this. We talked about it. Before, if I had to choose a location, I'm choosing Rosemont over New York City, personally. But no, I mean, now I will say this. I don't think Rosemont has the same levels of bagels and pizza. I consumed way too much of that, by the way. But I mean, yeah, the city's fun. But when it's your fifth day and it's 95 degrees and you're walking back and your feet already hurt from the previous four days, I'm like, dude, I'm, I'm beat. Yeah, well, the beauty of Rosemont too is that you're literally every single hotel that you're staying at there is an airport hotel. So you can get a free shuttle to and from the airport, not spending 120 bucks to take an Uber from the Javits center to Newark. It's generally, you're also not dealing with like, New York is a city where everybody, you know, there's so many people that just like live there and are just like living their daily life, you know, walking. While I'm, while I'm walking to the Javits center, you've got a bunch of people that are just walking, trying to get to the subway to go to work. Like, you don't have some of that, like extra traffic and people there, like Rosemont, when the national is there, everybody who you see, 90% of people are there for cards. Yes. 5% are there for security and support. And the other 5% live there. Meanwhile, New York is probably like 80% people who live there. Yeah. And there's a lot of people. And, and hey, I totally get it. You know, I'm, I'm very hopeful that next year at this point, we will be living where I can take the train as opposed to taking a plane. Because that, like, if I can take the train down to New York City where it's like a two and a half hour ride from Albany and that's super easy for me. A plus, like that's going to be amazing for me. But flying into New York is so expensive. Staying in New York is so expensive. I'll be there next year. Like 100%, no question. I'm saying fanatics. Give me those dates and I'll book my hotel today. Same. I will book that same middle seat for a six hour flight. Again, you booked a Trent? I'm a travel genius. What can I say? God, what can I say? I just got that dog in me. You know, I just like to, you know, it makes you appreciate the destination that much more. Trent, Booking middle seats and trying to stay at the Meadowlands during the World Cup Final. Yeah. And I got so much hate for it. I changed my hotel. Are you guys happy now? I wanted to hear how poorly that went for you. Dude, that would have been nuts. So, I mean, for context, on Saturday night, so the World cup final was Sunday. Saturday night, Drake and I went to Times Square just to, you know, just see it, Right? Yeah. There were tens of thousands of Argentina fans. Yeah, a literal, like, Argentina rally. Gigantic Argentina flags. They were lighting off fireworks in Times Square in Times Square. It was. It was awesome. All right. It was. It was super, super cool just to see, like, the city come together, all the fans coming together. It was awesome to see. Obviously, Spain won, but I mean, it was still really, really cool to see all those people there together, all those fans. And a lot of them went to Fanatics Fest. It was really, really cool. I shared this with you and if that. I. I know that I was like, I wish I. I said that. I wish that Michael Rubin could have been listening in on this conversation. On the plane, on my plane ride to Fanatics Fest, there were probably 20 or so people in Argentina jerseys. And I'm sitting there just listening, you know, watching. I think I was watching the Mentalist, just watching tv, and I hear the family in front of me. It's like one guy and three girls talking. They're like, yeah, there's this fan festival in New York this weekend at the Javits. And I was like, that is what they want. Yeah, the fan, the casual fan who's maybe has the money to be able to go to the World cup or whatever, like, is interested in sports, seeing, hey, there's this thing at the Javits center that is how you bring in new fans, new collectors, etc. The people like me who are going to be a degenerate and rip a bunch of Topps Chrome today. Like, you're gonna get me regardless. Yeah, it's getting those people and having somebody who is. Who knows enough to say, hey, this thing is happening this weekend at the Javits, but knows nothing else but the fact that just that I overheard that conversation, I was like, that. That is what Michael Rubin and fanatics want to hear. So. Speaking of dude, speaking of Topps Chrome, it's release day. Dude, I'm so pumped. So I actually, I was scrolling on Instagram last night and I'm pretty sure the shop is in Tennessee. Grand Slam. Yeah. Yeah. So they put out. I'm not sure if you saw, for the dual Ohtani logo Man, they put out a two and a half million dollar bounty on this card. What are your thoughts on that? So I went up to my local card shop yesterday and was buying some singles doing this and that. And I was talking with Shep, who owns the shop and he actually posed the question because earlier over the weekend. So at Fanatics Fest, you saw that there was an Ohtani Dynasty logo man, that sold, right? Yes, there was a second dynasty Ohtani logoman that was at Fanatics Fest that somebody local here actually I think hitting a break. Oh, they brought it. They flew up to Fanatics Fest on Thursday, PSA graded it at their New Jersey headquarters, and then they flew back on Friday. I think it was to Nashville. They were in sheps with the one of one Ohtani Logoman. And it created some conversation of, you know, the. Given that the one that sold at Fanatics Fest was a. What, what? A 1.8 million dollar card? Yeah, something crazy like that. The question was posed. Grand slam collectibles, who is has the bounty out on the dual low gold logo man? He just sold. He put up a bunch of big cards for sale. I believe he sold his PSA 81952 Mickey Mantle. Wow. He had a $2 million price tag on it. I think it's a pop 36 with 9 higher. So like very low. Not many higher than that. Yeah. Would you rather have an Ohtani logo man or dual logo man or a PSA 1952 mantle? Oh, man, that. That is actually a phenomenal. It's a phenomenal question. That's a really good one. So I will say this. If it has the kanji autograph, I'm leaning Ohtani, I will say that. But at this in the same vein you and I talked about it, I have that Aaron Judge Bat Knob Redemption I've been waiting on. And what did I tell you at the show? I said if Fanatics will offer me. If. If I find a 52 mantle on the show floor and Fanatics will offer me fan cash for it. Because you were able to use fan cash at the show. Yep. I will pr. I would probably exchange that Aaron Judge Bat knob auto for a 52 mantle. But in this specific case, I think I got to go do a logo man with the. With the kanji auto. That's my stipulation. If it has a kanji auto on there. You got me. It's. It's a very good question. Generally, what Chip said is. The answer was pretty split. I. My answer was the mantle, which might surprise you because I don't really do much vintage and I collect Ohtani. My thing is the odds that you're gonna get another mantle of that grade like that that's gonna either pop up and or just like that population is not going to grow. Right. Ohtani's got another 10 years hopefully of playing baseball. In five years we're gonna have a quadruple logo man card like but you might. Yeah. This year you're theoretically you get a triple and then the year after that if he wins again, that'd be a quad. You'd be maybe a front and back. But even outside of that to that point how many logo man patch autos can there be? You make a really good argument there. No, that makes sense. Can only go up and I know that this one the dual logo man back to me, there's that. That there. That's the only. It's a one on one but there's a lot there's going to be. There will be a one of one logo man auto in transcendent there will be a one of one logo man auto and diamond icons. There will be a 1:1 diamond in Dynasty this year. Like there will be more of those that come out whereas the mantle that's not the case. So my lean was the mantle. But regardless it doesn't matter because I'm pulling the dual logo man Tonight at 6:00 on ebay live. I wrote a little song to remind you. Choice hotels get you more of the experiences you value. The Cambria hotel's got it all. A rooftop bar. Have a ball, cocktails up here. Feel just right, Ms. Cambria. Amazing. All right, bring a date, your team or even your mom. Book direct@ChoiceHotels.com See you on the roof. Howdy, shoppers. Fire up that propane grill and settle in for a new season of Hulu's hit animated series King of the Hill. Hank and Peggy are staying active in retirement. That's a dog. You will not have to lift a finger. Bobby and Connie hard launch their relationship. Now that we're dating, it's important your parents know I'm a man and the ally guys are. Well, there's steal the alley guys. Watch the new season of the Hulu original series King of the hill. Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney plus for bundle subscribers terms apply. This has been a paid advertisement. Yes, you are. You were doing our rip and flip and then. And then you have to immediately go and trade that for a mantle. I would do it. It's a redemption card. You can't or if it's a redemption card, you can't even redeem it. I'm not even letting you. You have to. I mean, I'll drive down. I'll. I'll. I know I have Mike Geo's cell phone number and I know Geo has Nate Burns cell phone number. I will. All these connections. Oh, yes, I will. I will call up Nate Burns and drive down to him tonight if I pull it. There you go. Speaking of Topps Chrome. Yes. I have a game. You've brought me games the last few weeks. I'm bringing you a game. Okay, so this is going to be a blind ranking. I'm going to give you six rookies in 2026, Topps Chrome. And you have to blind rank them one through six. Okay. One through six. Let me grab a pen. Hang on. I'm going to write this down. You're good. There are a lot of really good names in here and there are some okay names and everything. I gave you a little smattering of names that jumped out to me. We're starting off with your first pick, Chase Dilautter, one through six. Where are you putting them? Dilautter? Mm. Four. Okay. Next up, Kansas City guy, Jack Caglion. Three. Okay. All right. Third spot, Cam Schlitler. You've got three and four taken. Probably two. Oh, okay. Oh, you're. You're all right. Next up, Munetaka Murakami. This is a hot take. I actually it. I probably would have put him at 4 over Dilaudor. I think he's overhyped. Market wise, I'm putting him at five. Wow. Oh, man, you are. It's blind wagging. We got to do what we got to do. All right, you've got one in six remaining, Peyton Tolley. Peyton Tolley's got to be six. All right. You know what? I think I tried to bamboozle you a little bit. Your top spot player would be Mr. J.J. weatherholt. No, I, I think that's a pretty, pretty good list. I will say this. I think I, me personally, I probably swapped a lottery and Murakami. But I think all in all, you got a. You got a really good blind ranking list. Yeah, I think that, you know, long term I would take cags over Murakami personally. I think that the profile is just a little bit better. But I think that overall I give that list of B plus. I agree. Now, now let's talk about some names that I did not include there then. This is what gets me super pumped for Topps Chrome. Roman Anthony, Nolan McClain. Kevin McGonagall, Jacob Misurowski, Colson Montgomery, Bryce Eldridge, Connor Griffin, Trey Yasavic. All of these names on the early. Yeah, we could do this for, for 20 minutes. Of all the big name rookie autos. This, it's an incredible clap. It is a breath of fresh air from last year. Now don't get me wrong, I love James Wood. He's a fantastic player. It was. The class wasn't deep enough. Exactly. It was in a. This is a deep class, right? It scares me seeing a two and a half million dollar bounty on a card. It scares me seeing all these gigantic names. I mean, I'm just hoping that we don't see a 24 Chrome update debacle like we did. I mean, this year Chrome Update is going to be insane. I just want to afford a few boxes. I just want to rip a few boxes. Did you mention, by the way, Connor Griffin? I did, yes. In the, in the list of names that I was wrong. Previous episodes. Trent told me there's no Connor Griffin on the checklist. So I just, I took him at his word. Yeah, that was, that's on me. That's on me, guys. I'll take that, I'll take that. Middle C, Trent, Middle Lance, Trent. But I will take full responsibility for my actions. It's an amazing class. I think it's going to be a really fun set. Some of the inserts look really, really good. I love that they changed the ultraviolet to be more in line with basketball and football. I love the look of that way more than what we've gotten thus far, ultraviolet wise. I'm super excited for anybody that's listening. If you, if you have, if you're new to hobby handbook, clever, Cuban, etcetera, rip and flip tonight, six o' clock on ebay live. What that is, is we're going to have a full case, 12 boxes of Topps Chrome. And I'm taking all of the risk. We are going to open the case, go box by box. We open each box and whatever singles are in the pack we sell live starting at a dollar. Yeah, I'm not going to run the random base cards of dudes and I'm also not going to run the Ohtani one of one dual logo man, when I pull it, my rule that I have is given that I take on all of the risk and some people disagree with this, but guess what, they're my boxes. So guess what? I can do what I want. My rule is that if I pull an absolute monster, something clearly worth $1,000 plus no question about it. I tend to hold that back and say, okay, you know what? I'm either going to grade it at the national, hopefully we pull something big that I can grade on site at the national, or, you know, you're listed as a buy it now. You let people come in. You have that. I don't have huge buyers. I don't have guys that spend tens of thousands of dollars in a night. My guys buy. My average card that I sell is 15 to $20. Good night. Good night's 20. A bad night's 15. I don't have the buyers that come in and spend those huge numbers. So the one caveat is, if we pull a monster, just know that it will be available unless it's for the PC. If we pull a big Soto. Sorry, I'm keeping it. If I pull a Juan Soto minion, we're keeping it. What do you think of the Minions? Trent? I am not a Minion fan. I will say this. I want to pull a Minion. It's. It's fun. Now, now, don't get me wrong. It's fun. Yep, I get it. It's not for me. That's fine. You know, and. And that's the thing that. That's the thing that really gets me going, is there are so many people who are going to make videos being like, these suck. These are stupid. It's like, okay, cool. But when you see that it's selling for 200, 300, whatever, how much they sell for. Yeah. You'll be like, oh, I actually wouldn't mind hitting one and then being able to sell it for something I want. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean that there's somebody out there who loves it. And it's gonna try and complete the whole set. Yep. It's just not for me personally. Yeah, I'm. I'm a big fan of it, but I. I think it's fun. I think it's silly, but in cards should be fun. So, yes, I think it's gonna be. I think it's gonna be an incredible set. I've got 22 hobby boxes, 10 megas and 20 blasters, man. 20 megas and 20 blasters coming in. We got a lot. A lot of that is set aside, though, for Trent has a big fat zero. I have none. I'll hopefully get some today for my lcs. Why don't you pre order stuff? Because I'm an idiot, Alex. All right. Have we not made this abundance middle seat? Trent does not plan well, dude, Every time We've talked about this ad nauseam. Hey, did you order any of X? And I go, when does that drop? And you're like three hours ago. They're sold out. And I go, oh yeah, yeah, you got Ultra. Honestly, I will try and remind you more because like it's tough because that's the same exact time that I usually post my breaks is when they drop. And so I'm like, I'm more focused on that for the day and. But five minutes. So you can check out and get boxes and then you have stuff on release day at MSRP as opposed to. Or I could scramble on release day. Hope I can get some and pay above that price. Come on, dude, that makes way more sense. Buy high, sell low. But what, what are you. Do you know what you're going to be able to do tonight? No, no, Just hoping for, you know, like maybe a couple hobby boxes. No. Maybe a jumbo. Yeah. Oh, I also have a jumbo coming in that's gonna rip that for content, so. Heck yeah. I anecdotally heard last night the jumbos are supposedly loaded this year. Somebody. So people that get their boxes in early. You know, Drake and I were talking about this at your booth this past weekend. Like Drake lives in Austin. Is that right? Yeah. And so being fairly close to where top ship stuff's out, a lot of times he gets stuff in a day early. So some people get their boxes in a day early. And you know, if you buy it direct from Tops and you don't have. And you don't have a direct Tops account where you have, you know, a contract and this and that, you know, you can do whatever you want with it. So I will say this. He does not break early. I know he does not. Because I know do that in the event you guys do get a Topps Fanatics direct account, you want to be. You want to do it right. Which I. Well, it's not just that. It's also the. Just the overall mindset of the people who get things early are typically. Because it's direct from Tops. A lot of those are direct breaker accounts. What does that do to the guy like me who. And I'm completely fine with you saying it. I am a small time dude. I'm a small breaker for sure. What does that do? It kills the small guys. Because for me, I'm not ripping 10 cases tonight. I know there are people live this exact second. I just got a thing for 15 cases. Right. 10am on release day. There are people who are ripping 15 cases. Me I'm trying to get two hobby boxes to rip tonight for my guys. We are not the same. And what does that do whenever you're ripping 15 cases? Not only. I mean we saw this last year. The Jacob Wilson rookie Super Auto got pulled the day before release day. It shouldn't be like that because all it's doing is it's killing the smaller guys. I get it. Topps wants to promote the big big guys. But it really hurts a small dudes a ton. Yeah, I, I, you see a lot of people, they're the big breakers who get the approval from TOPS to break early and then. Oh, I didn't know that. Yes. What it is is that on usually it's on Fanatics Live. It's like a special thing that they do and they don't do it all the time. I was looking last night, I didn't see anybody ripping Topps Chrome early on Fanatics Live. So they may have, they may have moved away from that. But generally the breakers who are breaking early for the most part actually don't have direct accounts. What it is is those people have a relationship with somebody else who has a direct account and they get the boxes because you know, I went to my LCs yesterday. They have the boxes in the back room. He can't sell them. Right, but that's how it should be. Yeah, but if he was a bad actor and he is not, he's a great card shop. He could sell those boxes to a breaker, not log it in his transactions until release day that he sold the case and they can break it pre release and make way more money. Yeah, it's people who generally don't have the direct account who are breaking it early. Because I know that if you do break early without TOPS permission, you are in trouble. Yeah. As you should be. It's the good LCS is like that, that, that I support. I mean like mine here, same thing. I'll be there when he opens. Why? Because he won't sell it to me early. You know, he's, he has, he appreciates what he gets from tops and he's not willing to lose that over $100 or whatever, you know. Now something I'm curious about and I, I'll be curious to hear if you get info on this. I. This past weekend there are a lot of card shops that set up at Fanatics Fest. That's how it works. It's most, most of, I would say most of the booths were card shops. Yeah, there was a lot talking to a lot of dealers asking them you know, Topps Chrome comes out this week. How's it looking for you guys? I heard a lot of really positive things in terms of how much people were able to get from, you know, Wave one. Direct allocation from fanatics. Which I know that's been one of the complaints that people have had of like, hey, you know, a big breaker gets a hundred cases and I get one. Yeah. I mean, that's why today you asked me, how much money are you getting? I'm like, hopefully, you know, like two hobby boxes and a jumbo. Why? Because that's what we're limited to with a lot of shops. Yeah. And especially as a shop, I get it. If I only get one case in. I don't care that you are trying to break it. I know that. That I can try and make. I know that you would be an easy cash out. I could sell my case to you and make my money and bada bing, bada boom, we're done. I made my profit. But that's not how you keep customers. Exactly. But from what I heard, allocation numbers are pretty good for Wave one, which is really, really nice. That's what you. That's what, like, I, I understand that the breakers are ultimately going to get the majority of product. I. You breakers have the ability to move so much more volume than a small local card shop does. Yes. That being said, there's a happy medium. And it sounded like there was a good balance struck with Topps Chrome. So another thumbs up for fanatics there. You shill. I'm a shill. Normal people shouldn't be able to get boxes. And it's like, oh, breaker's getting more boxes. Oh, why can't normal people get boxes? Yeah, you're. You're gonna get the pitchforks regardless. Well, yeah, that's the. It's the same thing. Back to what we talked about last week with them taking the wrapper off of mega boxes for top score in basketball. Damned if you do, damn if you don't. Yeah. Like, no matter what they do, they're going to have people that are upset at them. What I think as long as you're trying to make improvements and you're doing things which clearly they are cool. Keep it up. I'm cool with that. Yep. Absolutely. Now, we've done a lot of fanatics talk. We're getting close to our end here. National. Yes. Next week. What do you. What, how much prep do you have? Both. How are you on inventory right now? Because we're going to have some cases. Prep, dude. Prep, brother. We have Talked about this so much today. I will prep the night before my flight takes off. Are you question. Are you in the middle seat on Wednesday next week when you're flying? I actually checked. I already checked. I'm like, thank God I am in a, I'm in a window seat. But I'm like, are you a window or an aisle guy? I'm. I prefer an aisle to get up. But yeah, I think, I think my, my tier ranking is aisle, window, middle. Yeah, I feel like most people like that. Yeah. Yeah. Continue though. So you, you're gonna do it the night before? No, I'm just kidding. I won't prep the night before. Really. What I'm. I don't really know what I'm gonna do because we, we talked about this. We've got a little bit of showcase space and I sold a couple of bigger cards at Fanatics Fest that I wasn't expecting to. That I thought would be really good cards for a showcase of the national. I'm in a weird position now where I can't exactly buy something now for the national. It's too late. I mean maybe if I bought something today and got it overnighted, maybe. But you know, I'm kind of just gonna go in there a little bit. You know, just go with the flow. We're, we're gonna hang out, have fun, make content and stuff. But I really want to buy a lot more. I wanted to buy a fanatics and I sold a lot. But this one I really want to focus on buying cool stuff. Yep. Yeah, I went to my LCS yesterday because I knew that I was getting in Topps Chrome box and I was like, let's just see whether or not we have anything Gino that I can grab for Fanatics Fest this or Fanatics for the national next week. Albert Pulhos x factor number to 172 still sealed from 2004. Wow. I don't do a ton of football. Josh Allen. Come on. Gold Light Speed. Gold Light Speed does not want to focus for me McCaffrey on the red Light speed. So I grabbed a couple of things, you know, I spent 550, I think it was with him. You know, grab a few things there like check your heart shop today because they might have some singles that might be decent, you know, fanatics or I'm so in Fanatics Fest mode. I know decent national cards. Also know that hopefully we're going to be able to buy some stuff at the national. Hopefully get some of those walk ups, things like that. We will be there if you guys are looking the second floor. So the VIP lounge is up on the second floor as well as there is that new room that they had last year where there was, you know, a couple of hundred dealers basically up on the second floor. This year we will be there. We've got a huge booth. We're between Vera Swap and Card Hobby, it looks like. But you know, TikTok shop is. Or TikTok's up there. Fanatics has a booth up there. EBay's got a couple of booths. BCW's up there. So just when you walk in, go to the top of the escalator and we're kind of in that back left hand corner. When you walk in that room, Trent and I will have a space. We're going to have a couple of showcases. I think we'll have some cards out. Looking to buy, looking to trade. You know, we are there for content. We want to have the fun of the content and kind of. I recognize that for us, that is running the card business, there's some restrictions on how we have to kind of run things because we are not a dealer table. So we'll work that out with you guys. If you come see us, come say hi. We'd love to meet you guys at the show. I'm going to be there. I get in on Tuesday and I'm there until I think I fly out Sunday like at noon. So I might not be at the show on Sunday. Tbd. What are you. What are your travel day, Trent? Again? You're asking me plans? Alex, I. Trent, you're better than this. Wednesday. Wednesday the 29th through Monday the 3rd. Okay, so you'll be there all day Sunday? Yeah. Cool. I will be there maybe part of the day Sunday, I gotta look and I may change my flight to fly back a little bit later. I think my mom might be coming into town to help my wife with the baby because I recognize Tuesday to Sunday is a long time to be solo parenting. So I'm excited for the trade nights. I'm excited for just the atmosphere, you know, it's gonna be a ton of fun. Friday night we are Hosting Trade Night SportsCharge. Nonsense. We've got a good time. Well, I will be probably at every single trade night, at least for a little bit of it. But Friday will be there for a lot of it for sure with us hosting it. Yeah. All right, well, any parting thoughts before we. We call it a day? And you know the last time you're gonna see me before I'm a millionaire when I pull the dual logo. That's true. That is true. Let's hope. I. I just, honestly, I just hope I pull something nice like the past. It's always really, really fun. The, like the moment when you pull a big card in these ripping flips. The chat goes. It's like you with a break. The chat goes crazy. Everybody has a blast. It's a ton of fun. It's. I just hope that we have a good case. I hope that it's a lot of fun. Yeah. I'm just interested to see which rookie super fractor auto I get to pull this year. Jackson Cheerio in 2024. Dylan Cruz in 2025. 2026, question mark. I'm gonna go Troy Melton. Troy Melton. All right. That is the same caliber players. Yes. No, I don't think that you can keep up. The same caliber players. Oh, I can't keep up. But you're gonna pull a dual Otani logo, man. Yeah, exactly. Jackson Chase. Breakers get loaded boxes. Breakers get loaded boxes. Trent, listen to me. Chariot of Cruz is undoubtedly a step down. Yes. If that trend continues, you're going to take another step down. Yeah. We're riding a wave, dude. We're going back up. You're going to pull the Troy Milton superfractor auto today, and you're going to be like, I'm ending the stream so that nobody has. Nobody can see that Alex is right. Yeah. But you know what's going to happen? This podcast is going to come out and they'll be like, it's rigged. And I'm like, dude, every year I've pulled a super. It's come from either a box for my LCS or a box I've bought online. I've never gotten it direct from Tops. I love being told because most of the boxes, like, if I'm not like, the case that I'm ripping tonight, if I rip a case, it's generally direct from Tops. But that means that I just bought it on the website. Like, not. I don't have a direct account. Tops doesn't know who I am. My account is under my personal name. It's not under the business. Yeah. Whenever people are like, oh, you got the loaded boxes. 80% of the time, it's for a video that I'm opening for YouTube, which means that I bought it at my LCS. And Shep's mom, who works the cash register, she picks a good box. I tell her, hey, you pick. She's like, oh, the influencer boxes are open. Here we go. I know. I think we're gonna record an episode. My guess is next week at the national. Yeah, I think so. So we'll have an in person episode which is pretty fun. I don't know whether or not we'll have a guest there. I know. I think I teased it to you. We'll have a really cool guest the week after the national. I haven't mentioned this to Brandon, but I'll give him your. I'll give Brendan the info. So be on the lookout for that. That'll be a really, really fun interview in a mo in a number of different ways. So should be fun with Topps Chrome tonight. Hopefully prep for the national goes well. Oh, but quick. By the way, Aaron Judge, I have something that I can trade you towards your Aaron Judge Rookie auto. All right everybody. I think that's where we wrap up our show. You know it's funny, I sold one of those for way too cheap like six months ago. Yeah, what'd you sell it for? Like 800 bucks. It's an Aaron Judge Topps Chrome Refractor PSA 10 rookie. Yeah, what does that do now? Like 1500? It was at 1500. It's more like 1200 right now. Yeah, I sold one for under a thousand. Yeah, but yeah, so tops. Chrome should be fun tonight. Gotta get ready for the national. I'm working on stuff all day today and all day tomorrow and all day Friday and card show Saturday and then all day Sunday and all day Monday. Card show prior to the national. Yeah, we have a little one here in national. You go? I'll go for like three or four hours and I think we're gonna go hang out with some friends mostly I'm really low and which is a quick call by the way. If you're coming to the national, I'll buy your high end stuff. I want your like 5 to $50 cards and I want your 50 to 500 cards. So basically what you got, Come to our table. Yes, come to our table regardless. But like I need low end inventory. I need to go dollar box, I need a value box and I know that I'm not going to get a ton of time to do that at the national and there's not going to be as much of that at the national. So I'm gonna go to my local card show just for a couple hours, see what we can find. But it's gonna be a really, really fun week. Next week at this time we will be in Chicago or AKA Rosemont and live eating Portillo's. I Dude, I love Portillos. A Cake shake. Dude, have you had a cake shake? No, I went for the first time last year. We're gonna go get a cake shake. Okay, we'll get cake shakes, but it is absurd. Okay. Do you know what a cake shake isn't? It literally like a piece of cake inside of a milkshake, whole slice of chocolate cake and put it into a milkshake. But, no, the problem here, if I go to a restaurant and they ask. If they utter these words out of their mouth, how wet do you want your sandwich? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. What? I'm sorry. What? It was phenomenal, by the way. It was so good. Portillo's is different. A week from now, we'll. We'll be enjoying our cake shakes. I wonder if we could film it. Do what? I wonder if we could film our episode at Portillo's. Yeah, we're just sitting in there, just fattening. Cake shakes. Yeah. Love to see it. All right, well, I think that's a good note to end on. Appreciate you guys checking out this week's episode of the Hobby Handbook. We'll catch you guys next week at the National. Best thing that's ever happened to you financially. Go easy. Sold my car on Carvana. Amazing offer. Really? I hit 200 on the scratcher. Did the scratcher come to your house and hand you a check? No. How many scratchers did you hit to get that? I hit a button on Carvana.com once. Okay, that's fair. 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