National Prices | Prospecting = Gambling | Death of the rookie card | POP or CHOP

Welcome back to the Hobby Chop podcast. This is the podcast for the people. I am Big Ken. He is Zip Zip. How you doing, my friend? Rocking and rolling. We got a little pre national pop it or chop. It's gonna be fun. Gonna be a lot of fun tonight. Oh, yeah. You know, you know something that I've held back. Right. And I did this the last time and I held back again. But I just think it's fun to do. Do you know what today is? What's today? I understand it's July 23rd, 2026. Yeah. Today is the final episode of season eight. This is episode 400 for Big Ken. Holy cow. Yeah. And. And congratulations, man. I had to go back and look to see how many of them were. Were Hobby Chops. Got any guesses out of the. How many out of the 400? Like 60. Very close, very close. Tonight's episode is the 57th. Oh, that's pretty. I was really close. Do you know what our first episode was of the hobby shop when it, like the date? Yeah, well, it was. I thought it was like, was it January 20th? Something of 25? January 15th. Yeah. Very good. Yeah. See that you're paying attention. Yeah. So this is. Yeah, I knew it was coming. I thought it was going to end up. I don't know why I thought it was the four hundreds was going to end up on the solo on Sunday, but now that it ended up tonight, I don't feel so much pressure to do an episode on Sunday while I'm getting ready to drive to Chicago, so. Yeah, and you'll make up for it with a bunch of content out there, I'm sure. Yeah, Yeah, I plan on recording. Bringing some stuff and doing some recording. I'm. I'm bringing stuff to try to record at my table, too. I'm going to. You know what makes me nervous about recording at the table with the microphones is sometimes I don't even know what I say. You know, sometimes I will be somewhere and I'll say something. I'll go, My wife will be like, why did you say that? I gotta say, what, Ken's gonna get canceled? I never said that. She's like, of course you did. And I'm like, oh, my God. And then. And then I. I always think, oh, I gotta go live and put the thing on and just let it run while I'm doing deals. And I'm like, God, I don't even know what I say to. You know, I don't. I don't want to get canceled. Yeah. I mean, full transparency If I had that thing on me, it'd be hobby chop, like rated R. It would be an easy, easy demonetized, demonetized video. If I, if I had that thing on it. Done, done. Like my guy slpc, that does all these, Steve that does all these videos. Now it's very funny. You know where the, he, he puts it up. You know where the guy comes to the table and he's looking at the five dollar card and he's like, all right. He hands it back to me, he goes, I'm gonna come back for that. He looks at the camera, he's like, yeah, he's coming back for the five dollar card. Yeah, yeah, definitely a lot of fun. I'm excited. I can't wait to see that because that will, I'll vicariously live through you. I don't know if you saw this, but I, I put a quote in our little white sheet and I said it was a quote that I feel like has been driving my business lately. And the quote is there are two kinds of people. Pessimists who are right and optimists who are successful. Did you have any thoughts to reading that? I'm sure you saw me put it in like what, what is it? Yeah, I, I figured you were going to talk about it, so I really didn't. Well, with the pessimists that are right, meaning and when it, when a lot of, a lot of in the hobbies is chance. Right. Sometimes gamble, sometimes calculated risk, a pessimist will always be right because they'll always find data to support or talk themselves out of something. Yeah. Like I think back the first time this really happened with me was it was an Otani Cosmic chrome out of 75 that I spent over a hundred and fifty dollars of like the last raw sale and I got a PSA 10 on it and I made like 8, 900 bucks on it. And I started not just frivolously overspending on every little thing, but not necessarily squeezing out percentages on the right players and write cards and just trusting that I'll be able to figure it out on the back end. Whether it's break like worst case scenario on certain things was break even or just buying out collections at the numbers that I felt were, I felt like I was going to be able to make it work. And since I've been doing that, I've just felt a shift. Like right here I have, I just bought like 150 card lot of Michael Jordan cards for like 400 bucks of, of someone who just wanted to get out of them and which, and it was in a discord, it was in a sports card discord. This person, and they have a, they have a really good like social media like in their lower end Jordan cards. But as we were of chatting about right before getting on here, stuff's gold. Like it matter what it is, it's gold, all of it. And it's just like I've been finding deals like this where like, like and, and you know, I always talk about like, it's hard to make deals at sports card shows because there's so much competition and education from the people that are there. Like people all know I love gold Military breaker. I love that. That's excellent. But basically I've just been trying to be more up because like I could, I could go, go through and, and comp everything and be like, ah, you know this. But like I comped a few, it made sense, I didn't overthink it. And I'm like, what's the worst that's gonna happen? It's Michael Jordan, like all playing days cards. Yeah. And we were just talking about this and I'll share with the, the listeners before we went on that, you know, when I found out last November that I had a table at the national and I really started, you know, making moves to, you know, build inventory for that for the show, of all the deals I made of everything I bought, the best I've done by far on two players, right? And it's funny you talk about that quote because one was Otani, which I sold all those cards already. I, I still don't, I don't have, I don't have one of them. And the other one was Jordan. So there's, there's two people, right, that I've talked about over two years where people say, ah, you should get into the, the basketball lane, right? And I'm like, I don't know enough about basketball to get in. So I just stay away, just pass, pass, pass, pass. Right now all of a sudden I'm sitting here and I'm comping out cards and I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe how much these cards have gone up. And I, I, and I bought like from $10 to, to you know, 4 or $500, right? And they've all 3, 4, 5 x'd every card that I bought. Which is, which is incredible compared to all the other players that I have that I've been sitting on that. I'm just looking at a percentage, I'm not looking at A double. I'm not looking at a 2x. I'm looking at a 25 or 30 or something like that. So. Because usually your goal, correct me if I'm wrong, is to. Sometimes you'll pay 100. Usually it's between 85 and 90. When acquiring inventory for national, knowing that hopefully you get that little percentage plus and added 10 to 25% as it gets closer to the season. Like that's kind of. And it works. Like not, not right. Like it works. It's just like you've had, you've bought these players and you're like, oh, it worked extremely well. Yeah. And to, to keep going on that point of the optimism, something I did, I've been, I've been buying high end cards on ebay, raw high end cards to grade and it's been working. Like I, I've been, I've been pleased with what's coming in. Like I've been pleased with that the cards are not like absolutely shot. Like every once in a while there's some flaws. Like if I was to buy a normal card from someone. Right. Like that's still. But I haven't been seeing like these cards just being like absolutely all smoked and no. No chance. Have you gotten a card back that you said this is not gonna gem. Maybe I shouldn't grade it A while. Yeah. A while back I got. And again it still would have probably got a 8 or 9. So near mint plus which like if I'm buying a raw card, I, I feel like I can't be mad if it's near mint plus. Like, like if. If it's. And then from there you just put it into like a, a group somewhere and just sell it off or I mean, what's your plan actually with, with. What's funny about that specific is I bought some Jesus Ma first autographs and I bought it before he got named the number one overall prospect. And then I. So like I use this knowledge of built in of like I'm gonna buy this and grade it because then at this time I'm gonna sell it. So it just worked in my favor that I bought it and then after I bought it he got named the number one overall prospect of baseball. So, so I was able to then just set like. So I was able to send it out to auction and, and made like a good 20, 25 on the cart and that was it. Not being able to be graded. Yeah. Which is great. You know what I mean? But something I did more recently was a card I mentioned was the Patrick Mahomes red, lunar eclipse. 10 out of 10, tops. Cosmic chrome came and looked beautiful. It's sent out to psa. And that is a card that if it gems, I will put away. Because I'm seeing the Otani, the Jordan, the Brady, the. All this stuff. And I don't know. I. I believe I. I'm not a closet Chiefs fan anymore, so I'm out. I'm out in the open. Chiefs fan. And I just see it as a card that could grow a lot because everything I look at and not that numbers totally matter as. What was it Ziggy was saying? It's like, it's not all logic. And he's so right about that, by the way. He's so right that the card pricing is not logic. It's not number. It's not all that. You know, there's the hobby, whatever in it. Something about the color match. The 10 out of 10, the. The fact that the lunar boxes are, you know. Did I tell you? They're one out of every 900 boxes. The Lunar boxes, super rare. Super rare to get a lunar box. So I think that. Matt. All. All in all, I think that matters. It's the first year of licensed Cosmic Chrome ever, right? Like, we have tops. We have actual tops. Chrome coming back. There was tops. Chrome football before. There's never been licensed tops. Cosmic Chrome. I'm a. I'm a nerd about Cosmic Chrome. I love it. My son is super into planets. He's two and a half. You can say all the planets. And a fun fact about all the planets. He's great. We're actually on Sunday, I'm bringing him to the. The planetarium up in Boston. And then maybe we're gonna go to the Red Sox game after. I'm not sure. But anyways, none to say. The card itself checks so many boxes for me. And I'm like, it just feels right. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna sit there and over analyze it. And I've been taking some of these shots. I've been. I've been hitting big on some Ken where. And it's just like I. I feel like we've been doing this for so long, why would we not be trying to do that? We know all this stuff. We're sitting here talking about it all the time. We love it. We're obsessed with it. Us and the people who listen here. Most likely, if you're listening here, you love cards, right? Like, or. Or you work at the. Or you work at Mohegan Sun Golf Course. Shout Out. Shout to. Out. Shout out all you. Because I know there's a couple who do. So I appreciate that, but I just feel like, why not use all this. This useless information? It's not like we're going on Jeopardy, Right? So, like, put it into action. See what happens. Yeah, yeah. You know, absolutely. And. And as far as as future buying, right, Unless stuff is coming in in bulk and you're just like, all right, I'm just going to take it all and, and quick flip, you know, whatever. I mean, future buying will look like just, you know, buying. Buying the player and not the sport and not the position and just, you know, whoever's liquid and whoever, like, like a Jordan or an OTANI, you know, LeBron James and Kobe and stuff, you know, any of those cards that, you know are just going to keep climbing in value. Like, why not. Why not just stick to what you. What you know works? And if there's a market correction, there'll be a market correction and then you adapt then. But for right now, like, you know, go with the hot hand, right? Like 100. Yeah, why not? All right, well, let's jump into the episode today. Pop it or chop it. Just want to say, Ken has been carrying the. The load of the podcast as of late because my schedule and. And you know, this, my schedule is absolutely insane. But today I was able to muster up a very good, popular job. You stepped up to the plate knowing that. Knowing that your guy was overwhelmed with getting ready for the nationals. Yes, I did it in between group therapy sessions, so. But Cannon was pricing cards. Either way, it's good. So we're gonna start out with a New England favorite here, Drake May. And what I did now, too, is shout out to our. Our third party in our podcast column, Chat. He's. He's a frat boy. Chat. GPT helped us out with some of the. The ideas. Drake May, young quarterback with major upside and a strong hobby market forming around him in a new toy. That's right. Is he the next elite QB buy or still too speculative? Well, I, I think with. With his new toy, his new wide receiver up there, A.J. brown, I think. I think he's. And. And let's put it this way. Even if he's not a buy and you live in New England, he's a buyer because you know how crazy people are here. Yeah. You know, for Drake May, I mean, we. They were still buying Mac Jones when he was sitting on the bench, so it's Jeff. Jeff Willis just says, not this year. Schedule is tougher. That's that's what separates the men from the boys. Right. And you got a tough schedule and you go out and you still put the work in and you and you're getting W's that that's what's going to. Yeah. You know Li lift up your the. The stock of this, this player. I'm. I'm definitely a pop on Drake man. I'm also a pop on Drake man. And it's because too he got a new toy that overshadowed that. He also got a different new toy in Romeo Dobbs. So like he has like a true alpha one in AJ Brown and Romeo Dobs who is a strong two like Romeo Dobbs got caught in the mix out in in Green Bay with like all Those strong like 1B 2A type of receivers in that room. Now he's gonna be like on the field all the time. Not to mention booty pop Douglas. Hopefully Trayvon Henderson gets more run this year. I. I don't. I mean schedule's tough for sure. I. I still think he's gonna perform. He's also an efficient quarterback last year. So yeah, you know, maybe his efficiency regresses a little bit. Even if so he's still topping the league, right? Yeah. Yeah, definitely not. One of the biggest things we worry about especially to player like him is injury. Like that could be the downfall an injury. But yeah. And actually Drake man, I have a. I have a pretty cool Drake. My card at PSA right now. It's a true red optic out of 125. Pretty nice card. Pretty nice card. It's. It was like I haven't checked in a little bit since I sent it out but a 10 was like between 1200. So it was a nice little card. We're gonna stick with the 2024 class a little bit here. How about Jaden Daniels early success sent prices flying. Does he have true long term hobby, staying power or is this a classic quarterback hype spike? All right. Oh, something broke. Must have been Jay. Must have been Jaden's. Oh my God was arm snap. Jesus. Hey, be careful. He's. He's like cousins with your girl in the background there. Yeah. Oh juju. Yeah. Not cousins. He ain't cousins. Yeah. Yes they are. Ken. We did this. We did this before. They are cousins, I swear. You see this what I'm talking about? I remember the things I say but no, I thought they weren't they. I thought they were trying to get go on on a date. I thought he was trying to date her while you're looking it up sports cars, the Hobby. He says, hey guys, how cool is it working in the Hamptons at a super high end event and listening to the Hobby Chop, the podcast for the people. Oh. Are not related and not cousins. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I don't remember this. That rumor is going around. So they're close friends. Allegedly. Nah, they're not close friends. You know what's happening, what that means. It would have, it would have happened sooner. But she, when, when, when ma. When his mother was sitting between them and she went on. Played the next game and tore ACL and she was rehabbing. You know, they were, they were apart. But now they're, now they're starting to be seen together all the time. So I think there's a little. And before we answer the Popper Chop to Jaden Daniels sports card the hobby. Why don't you put us on? We'll really get the party going. Just live stream the Hobby Chop podcast. Imagine they're like, what is this? What is this? That's Big Ken. He's the man. The newest hipster. Oh my God. So, all right, Popper Chop. Jaden Daniels Chop. He is, he is, he's a talented player. But you, he can't stay healthy for more than three consecutive games. I so agree with you, dude. And I'm just upset because like what a start to his career. And it's just, it's really tough to want to be like that. I hope I'm right. Like, I hope I'm wrong. I so hope I'm wrong. You know, I don't know what, what this season is going to look like, but a quarterback like him, you really need to stack your line of scrimmage and, and protect him so he could go out there and throw the ball and not get hit because, and tell him don't run because he's, he's just such. So injury prone. Yeah, he's so talented too. But you know what? Lamar has stayed really healthy considering his playstyle. Yeah, Lamar is tough. He's, he's, he's. You watch the hits he's taken over the years. He is tough. There's no way Jaden Daniels has taken those hits. I, he hasn't even taken a quarter, a tenth of what, what Lamar has gotten and he's already missed, you know, half. No, I, I hear you. I just think comparison play style, like that's kind of the closest I can, you know. And I agree with you though. RG, RJ3 the same. I wasn't, it was in Washington. He was saying he was Just, well, he blew his knee out. He blew his knee out. So that was, that was, that was different. And it was. Yeah. But with Daniels, man, I hope I'm wrong. I really do. Bad luck with quarterbacks in Washington. He's so exciting to watch too, man. He really is. Like, he's so exciting to watch. But if I had to, you know, if I had to put my life on it, I would chop. So. Yeah. One more. Sticking with the 2024 class. Yeah. Where's Michael? Are you listening, Michael? I, I did put this in here for Michael. Caleb Williams, after a really successful season that validated a lot of the early hype. Is this the beginning of his rise into the hobbies elite QB tier or are prices starting to get ahead of themselves? Can I start this off? Because I have a strong. Okay, pop first off. And in our Dynasty league, I have Josh Allen. So if anyone does Dynasty fantasy football in the parallel to the sports card hobby. Right. Josh Allen is the number one asset in Dynasty. And I really consider trading for Caleb. I think Caleb's gonna be unreal, dude. I really do. I'm, I'm really high on Caleb pop all day. I, I am too. I, I, I don't think, and you know, I know they're saying, is the market getting ahead of themselves? I don't think his market is that high right now. I think we've learned our lesson with the Joe Burrows and the Justin Herberts and Trevor Lawrence. Like, we don't, we're, we're not getting it. I don't think we're getting too ahead of ourselves right now with pricing on that. But I do think he is in a very good position. He is very talented and, and I think he's a pot. He's a pop for me. And I invested, not because the national was in Chicago, but I invested a lot in his cars because I feel like a lot of other people are going to be highly invested in him this, this summer before the season starts. So I, you know, trying to make educated decisions in who, who I'm buying and you know, who I put extra money into buying cards. And I definitely feel like, yeah, he's, he's. Jeff Willis says, I went in on Luther Burden. I feel Caleb's success comes down to Loveland and Burden. Yeah, See, I, I feel Caleb's success comes down to the continue continued education under. My God, what's his name? Why am I drawing a blank? The, the coach? Ben Johnson. Yeah, Ben. Like you just see the leap. You know what's funny about Caleb And Jaden, as we go back to back, they almost have inverse careers at this point. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, Caleb was unbelievable in the playoffs too last year. He was, he was excellent. So. So. And it's just, I don't know. Pop on. Pop on Caleb. We will see though. Military Breaker says Colston, Loveland and Burden will sell next week. Love Lace. I hope Loveland. I have a lot of his cards as well too. And the pricing, I just doing some comp, you know, pricing cards for next week. The prices haven't come up as, as much as I had hoped for on his card. So hopefully another. All he needs is another week to get well. No. No returns to whoever you bought those Loveland cards off. Yeah, that was only one of many. I know. Packers own the Bears Island Island Lion. I don't know. I think the packers are in trouble this year. If Micah was there, it's a different story. Yeah, I don't hate that Micah's a disruptor. All right, next. Pop it or chop it Podcast Favorite hobby Favorite. Everyone's favorite except for ebay. Shohei Otani, already historic and arguably the biggest global star in sports. Arguably. Is he still undervalued long term or has the market finally caught up? It's hard to think that he's undervalued. I mean, I've watched his. I, I, I was late to the party and I crushed it on his cards. Thank you, Howard. But I, I don't know. He's just one of those players that you're like, can the market still keep going up and up and, and long term, though? So, like, and I think we're probably witnessing one of the greatest baseball players of all time. Right? I, I don't know how someone's better. I, I don't like and like, I love baseball. I love baseball history. I just don't know how someone is better than him. Also, to your. To what we open the show with, Jordan's stuff is surging now. How. How many years has it been? I think he stopped in 03 or 02. So 24 years later, like, well, it's just all these new people coming into the market. They just want to buy his cards too. And the, the card market, like, so the card market in Europe is not as, not anywhere close to what it is in Asia. Like, the Asian card market is bonkers. So, like, you have an Asian star. Like, it just makes so much sense to me. Like, yeah, I'm pop on Otani, but, like, I think there'll be ebbs and flows. Right. It's long term. Like, I think I just saw his, his top series two number 700 card. It's like the one where he's pitching in the white. White. I don't know if it's a white or red jersey. I bought that card so many times. I should know that. Anyways, the PSA 10 on the papes on a paper tops update card is like 800 bucks. But like, there's a lot of people who want Otani. Like, I don't know what to tell you. I remember that when that card was like under 200 bucks. Like, like, I, I just, you know, it's crazy. Like when people, it just reminds me of people like in 2021 and 2022, people are like, oh, I want to get him a homes rookie card. And you're like, oh my God, like RPAS or whatever, they were insanely priced and people are like, okay, those are too expensive. Right? And very, very not. Not many people were running to the bank to withdraw all that money to buy to, to invest that money into it. Right. But it almost seems like with Otani, it's like all of a sudden people are like, oh, I want his card. How much? Oh, I don't care. Like, I'm just willing to keep paying whatever that price is. I'm going to keep paying. Well, you know, to, to, to get it. So that, that is like a clear difference between other players and even in another sport and him sure that people are willing to pay that money. Same with Jordan. People are willing to say, oh, oh, that card that was just $4,000 two years ago is now $15,000. Okay, I'm just gonna pay 15 then, because that's what it is. Sure. And, and as two Mahomes lovers in the podcast here, Ohtani's on another level than Mahomes. He really, he really is. Like, he'd be closer to like a Curry LeBron level in the respective, like if you're gonna take it up to basketball of like he's definitive, like top five. I can't imagine there's five people better than him. And like the argument, the argument for him because of what he does is Babe Ruth. Babe Ruth's card catalog is so short because of the time period he played. And also like Babe Ruth didn't pitch as much as Ohtani. And like Ohtani's first year back after the second Tommy John, like, he's like top tier pitcher. And like the one season he could not, he couldn't pitch. He had the first ever 50 home run, 50 stolen base series season in MLB, in MLB history. Like that was his hurt down season. Like that's insane. I also, I have a card, an insert that I think is why it just came out and I think it's widely underpriced already. It's out of Finest. So Finest has these inserts called like timelines and they, they monument, you know, important games accomplishments in baseball. And Ohtani's was the, the six inning pitch, ten strikeout, three home run game in the playoffs last year, which I think is pretty undisputedly the best performance in a single game ever. And there's an insert of that card and I bought an orange out of 25 nice for like 4 or 500 bucks. And I bought a, a, a ton of the refractors I saw. I stopped myself. I'm trying, I'm really trying my best. But dude, I just, I just think if you think about, right. We think about Jordan where he's at and we think about long term Otani and you start looking back and in the weeds and people are trying to find these cards here and there that are overlooked where they're. They, they keep constantly being overlooked. These cards, everyone's. Everyone. I bought a Michael Jordan card, a flight team card from OS from post playing days 0607 upper deck and it wasn't labeled correctly. It was the gold flight team, not the regular flight team. And I bought it for 120 bucks and a 10. That's like three grand, huh? And there's just so many opportunities. But with Otani, man, it document like out of Ohtani and all his greatness. It, it documents his. The best game ever in baseball. And I can't imagine someone having a better game than that because the only person that could have a better game than that, Ken, is Shohei Ohtani. Right? Like, like. But seriously, who, who could do that? Three home runs, 10 strikeouts in the playoffs. Sounds like what Caitlin Clark did the other night in her game. We'll get to her. We'll get to her. She's on the list. Thank you. I don't know. What do you, what do you think about my thought that's maybe that's kind of the optimism. Like I'm trying to, like I'm, I'm trying to view cards. Look, I, I was buying at a show last weekend. I was, I bought a lot of cards on Sunday and when I was going through this thing, there were two Otani cards in there. I didn't even know what they were, but I was buying Them like when I took them out, when I'm going through the cards, I'm like, oh Donnie. I'm like, I didn't even know what they were. Right. They were both 20, 26. One was a Sun card and one was something else that were like, you know, like 15 or. Yeah, 16 cards that I bought and I just looked today and one of them was like for just last sold for like $42. And like, and that was just since Sunday. That was like four or five days ago that I bought that. And those are 20, 26 cards. So I pop back again when. And I know I like to go to Mahomes because he's been like part of, you know, a big part of my hobby. Right. And nowhere it, nowhere are we gonna find with him that a seventh year or an eighth year, you know, refractor, you know, unnumbered numb number, just a refractor in, in, you know, optic or prism or something like that is going to be sought after. Those cards are going to go into a one to three dollar box. Right. I mean there's not going to be a lot of, you know, value in it. So it's interesting to see these 20, 26 cards, you know that it's his eighth year. Right. He was a 2018 rookie. Right. So eighth year cards and it. And they're still, you know, getting, you know like they're like they're numbered or, or you know, something rare, A little bit more rare. Absolutely. And speaking of something, I've been trying like images and meaning on the cards that are very important. This is going to be a slight intermission for pop it or chop it and you'll see. But I don't even think I should shared this with you directly, Ken. This was one of the cards I asked for. Not a bounty but like looking out for last year I had on a Facebook post that I had literally like last July I was in search of this card. Look what someone commented on and then I closed the deal for and it's here. That's insane. You know exactly what that is. Yeah. The caveat to this, this is the stadium, like the, the old stadium club version. So not only is it this auto that I said I don't care what condition is, I don't care what it is, I'll take it. I don't know if you see that 10 out of 10. Oh, this is. Oh yeah. So it's not just the card, it's the card. Yeah. Like crazy and probably not gradable. I don't care. I'M gonna, I'm gonna have it in a one touch. I ordered like a, what do you call it? Like one of the magnetic things, you know, for the one touches specifically. And that's in there. But, but to that point of like the point I'm making is I think like the importance of that image on that card, right. Like far outweighs a post playing days David Ortiz autograph. Right? Like, it's not even comparable to like some of his best stuff. But if you're a Boston Red Sox fan, if you're a fan of American history, if you're a fan of any of that, it was post Boston bot. I can't say it, but that's right, baby. That is right. And it was the, the front of our jersey says Boston, not Red Sox. Like, he got, he came in third place for mayor on write ins after that dude. Like, it is such an incredible and powerful story. And, and that's just that. Right. It's. Which may mean, I mean may. May mean more to a lot of people than Ohtani having the greatest single baseball game of all time, but probably just in, in this area that we live in, but still it just the same sentiment is the card and the. I just think it matters. And I think if you're trying to find, if you want to get in the Otani market and you're like, I don't want to drop 800 on a PSA 10 paper tops, base card, there are options that are still out there all the time. Our buddy Adam from Cardboard Association, I flamed him in his DMS because he ran a big stack sale and he sold a Otani Cosmic chrome refractor from this year for $5. That's 180 card. It's 180 card. And he had no idea. And I, I went in there, I was like, well, if you want to give away steals, just hit me up. I'll buy them all. Yeah. Because. And then I send the screenshots. But brutal. Like those opportunities are still out there. And Adam is so knowledgeable with cards and he's at every show. He's the mayor of the Boston sports cards community. That's what I say. But I just think that stuff matters. I don't know what you think about like images on a card mattering, but of course there's a lot of sentimental value to that card too. And, and one of the things you find right now, and I've been saying this all along, is there are cars coming out that people haven't seen in forever. Like people like, you, you've been hunting for that card and a year later, all of a sudden it just pops up and not only come up, it comes up as a 10 of 10, right? And there's. There's a lot of other cards that are just showing up that, you know, haven't sold in, in forever or, you know, haven't sold publicly, haven't been in any auctions or on ebay and people haven't seen them. So I mean, all, all of a sudden these cards pop up now. They're rare and scarce cards and you know, you gotta, you're starting to make values up. And I know we're going to get into that a little bit later on national pricing, but, you know, it's just crazy to start seeing some of these cards that just come up. The last thing I want to say about that Otani card, how he found my post. There haven't been comps. There's never been a comp on that out of 10 card. And he ripped the 2022 box like, like a couple weeks ago. It just came out of a package. Oh, wow. And. Yeah. And he's in that bad shape. Yeah, I. It's a, It's a paper card. It's. It is what it is. Like, I, I don't even care that, like, I really don't. Just like, I wanted that image that they, dude, they literally don't come up on ebay, any version. Like, they're just not out there. So to get that sent like through me directly, he. He went through and searched in Facebook that card to try to find it and he saw my. In search of post and that's how he found it to me. And we came up with a, with a, you know, with a price. And I was, I was so happy with it. And, and like, he truly, like. Because, you know, I've been looking for that card forever. I was like, dude, like, I'm not. Because he had a buddy who wanted to buy it off him to flip. And I was like, it's. I was like, I don't know if this matters. It's like, it's literally going nowhere. I was like, I don't care if it's beat up. I don't. Like, I'm just put it in a one touch and keep it. Like, it means so much to me. Like, I look back at that time period I was in high school, the Red Sox won the World Series after the bombings. Like, it was this huge rally thing and it's just, it's great and just cool. When Stories like that happen. But we'll continue with popular chop. But I'll talk about, I can talk about that David Ortiz card. Literally. It's funny, I remember reading the comments here and Ziggy no says, did you guys buy any of the NBA Update Chrome or MLB Tops? Chrome just for fun breaks. And then Billy is good says open by, you know, NBA Chrome Update being opened by Tops before sold that. So that was one of the things I was going to put in for the Popper chop. Funny that they talk about that. And surprisingly enough, yeah, I bought four boxes of those and I would have thought they would have shipped by now and amazed. That must take them a long time to cut the wrappers off. Oh my God. To you. I thought I would have them before going to the national, but what the hell do I know, right? But yeah, that was, that was definitely. Billy is good. Ziggy, you know. Yeah, that was a chop for me. I, I, I just, that, that that's horrible that they're like, oh, we'll sell you the box. We're gonna cut the wrapper off. Yeah, that's. I, we're gonna sell you to it retail price, but we're gonna cut the wrapper off so you can't resell it. So you better rip it. Yeah. All right, let's, let's continue onward. I apologize to our next chop. I veered. Oh, okay. Joe Burrow already established as well. Hold on. There we go. There's the crack. Something broke as one of the NFL's premier quarterbacks. Is Burrow a strong buy below Mahomes pricing or does injury risk cap the upside? I put him right there with Jaden Daniels. They can rehab together all season. I mean, I'll probably give him a chop too, just because, like, I don't, I don't see their team competing. Like, he could come out and have a great statistical season if he's just healthy. But like the one caveat is he's got like a little bit of a cult following. Like, people love him and he's like so cool. He's Joe cool, right? Like, but yep, if I had say, I'd say chop. Yeah. Yeah. All right, big one here. Caitlin Clark, one of the biggest attention drivers women's sports has ever seen. Is her hobby market built for long term staying power or is the current demand impossible to sustain? You're killing me here, Smalls. I, I considered not putting it in because I know like it puts you in a tough predicament. So. Yeah, but I, yeah, I mean, at her, I I have, I have a whole case full of her cards to go out and people, I, I think what's going to happen is if people are going to think her market's down, she's a buy right now. I mean she put on an unbelievable performance the other night, but I think, if you ask me personally, I think that whole WNBA market is cooled off. The, the hottest player. Oh, here's somebody saying Paige Sophie Cunningham. Right. I mean she's not as talented as, as some of the, a lot of the people in the W. But all of a sudden that, you know, she, she's like, has this cult following. Well, I almost feel like it. I hate this. I don't want to invalidate it. Just. It feels like with wnba, like if you're good or not doesn't even really matter because if that was the case, Asia Wilson will be far and away the most expensive. Like. Yeah. Right. Like not even close. And. Yeah. So however, however, I, I think I'm gonna say pop. Yeah. And I'm gonna say pop because I, I kind of, I, I put a caveat around long term staying power because similar to the Herbert market, when people invested all that money. The difference is she's like a mav. Like it's past the WNBA for her where I think people will always remember this period in time to where she, she, she elevated the sport. Right. And I think that will matter. And also she has shown she can be elite. Like, she has shown that that is in her with that, what she had that 45 point game. Like, I, I just think she's gonna have to do something and I, I can't imagine she won't, I can't imagine she won't do something. Yeah, I, I mean, I think the talent level is there with her. Yeah, I mean that talent level is absolutely there. I think this year is, you know, she was injured a lot last year. I think she probably could have come back and didn't. I think this year she's, she's has a lot of growing pains through, you know, with the league, with her team and things like that. But I think at the end of the day there's, you know, it's, there's so much money invested in, or people have so much money invested in our cards and a lot of WNBA cards. And I think right now what you're going to find probably over the next six months is, is if you're a collector of wnba, it's a buying market for the wnba. It's a buying mark. And if you're, if You're a fan of, of, of Paige or Caitlin or any, you know, anybody. It's, it's definitely a buying market right now. Long term sustainability with her cards. Yeah, I mean, I think every player that comes in comes into the league. Like she came, like she came into the league like no other player. Right. And she kind of transformed, you know, and, and really bought. Not only brought all these people into the hobby to collect her, but into the wnba where a lot of people who came in to collect her realized that there were all these other players. Right. And started finding other players to collect as well as her. So. Absolutely. I, I'm, I, I don't, I don't hate the long term. Look for Caitlyn Clark, especially on her. More rare stuff. Yep. And if you're buying Caitlyn, come see me upstairs. Table 20007 at the National. I have a whole case of high end Caitlin up there. I'm gonna have you carry this and I'm gonna run off camera for five seconds. Lamar Jackson, one of the most accomplished quarterbacks of his generation. Is Lamar still strangely undervalued in the hobby compared with his actual resume? Yes, I am popping Lamar. I think Lamar is undervalued, and I think this could be Lamar's year to make a little bit of a run to show. I think they have, they have enough, enough people on their team to, to make a run at the playoffs this year. And it's going to be interesting to see, you know, what happens to him and that team and how well they do. But he's definitely a pop for me. And you know what? His market has been so low. I bought a ton of his cards I felt were so super undervalued. And I'm already seeing pricing for next week. I'm already seeing, you know, the, the value of those cards going up. So super excited about that. Yeah. So with his actual resume, super undervalued. The. I just, I, I don't know. Right. Like, I think that, I think I mentioned this earlier. Ziggy, like, what Ziggy said is, the logic doesn't always matter. And in a perfect world, I'd say, yeah, Pop, because I like Lamar. I like watching Lamar. And I mean, what was it, the, Was it this last year that they lost with the Mark Andrews drop? It was a great pass in a great spot and it wasn't even him, really. You know, I'd like to say Pop, but he has to get over the hump. He, he. I'm happy to see a new coach in There. Shake it up a little. Me too. Yeah. And I in, in that same thing. I think Harbaugh will be good in New York as well. I think, I think it's a change that's needed. He was like the longest tenured coach, like, by a long shot. So I'm gonna go with Pop because that's just more of a heart pick. But yeah, it's funny, I, I, I went looking, you know, at a lot of these shows over the last two, three months. I went looking for Lamar Coach cards, and every time I found them, I'd be like, I'd be that guy, right? I'd be like, hey, you know, the Last one sold 250. You got a 400 price. You know, they're like, no, it's firm. I'm like, damn. Couldn't even get in at the last price on some of those cards. You know, like, people were just like, crazy high and not coming down. Even though the market was super low on his cards. Yep. That's the type of, See, that's the type of guy, like the, the optimism thing kind of goes into it is need to catch his stuff on auction and not worry about your public comp. Right? Like, that's the, that's the type of thing is like, if, I think if, like, if you really feel that, like, I'm less and less worried about buying off ebay now or really not, especially when, like, you're buying off ebay from like a low feedback seller and then you use one of the consigners, you just, it's like it's a totally different, like, auction sometimes. It's like, it's just not even the same eyes. So it's something to consider. National prices are fake prices. Does the national temporarily inflate the market because everyone has money in fomo, or does it actually establish legitimate new comps? Yeah. Okay, you go. Yeah. I mean, I think the prices are all inflated at the national, and I think at some point people, you know, it. I had a long talk with Bill and Billy last week, met up with them at a show. We went, grabbed coffee afterwards and, and we were talking about, you know, buying in the show versus the trade night and, and things like that. And, you know, we all agreed that, you know, when you leave the show and go out to a trade night, everything becomes equal. Right? So you're not, you're not paying like a dealer price at a table and things like that, that they feel that the, or we felt that, you know, you're probably paying a better price through the trade nights or in the VIP room and things like that, just with other attendees walking around. Because most people are willing to be at the con, you know, at a lower, at, at the comp or just below the comp versus when you get into there, I mean, any of this modern and modern cards, it is what it is. But when you get into, you know, like, you know, anything older, rare, scarce, more valuable vintage stuff, things like that, I mean, just. People will just make up the prices on stuff like that. And there's not even, not, you know, as soon as you pull your phone out to say, hey, the last one, they're like, I don't care. I don't want to hear it. Right. Yeah. They're just like, that's my price. You know what? My sticker is my price. You want to pay for it. I think the FOMO part is real because what Military Breaker just said. I'm hoping to capitalize on inflated pricing, selling to those, quote, buying at 100 quote for my first National. I think more than any other show, people go to the national, like with the acceptance of like, I'm gonna have to overpay. Like, I almost feel like that's a mindset for a lot of people and it's just like. Or, or it goes into not even talking about like the, the business side of it. It's. Yeah, I'm just gonna pay it because it's, it's like an entertainment expense. Like, I think you have that part of it that's really, that that's more real there than other shows. Than any other show. Yeah. Which I think plays into it. And then also I think I mentioned this a week or two ago about like the high pop go card spike, like that Brady Bowman Chrome PSA 10. There could be big money behind that. Just going to dump all those to repackers. It's almost like I, I never really understood this before. When I hear. I'd hear people saying this and I'd be like, I'll tinfoil hat. But it could really just be like money laundering. I know this is taking a weird turn, but like, but like, dude, like you, you. You've stocked up on a bunch of these and then you just go and make all these really high comps and you, you and a buddy and, or, or conglomerate just bid them all up and you already have like a hundred of them. Dang. They just, they just went up 20, $30,000. There's an entrepreneur in the making right there. I mean, you know, you know, another thing at the national, too There's a lot of collectors. Well, there's a lot of people that this is the only show they go to all year. I think Al Capone's behind this. It's in Chicago. But like not that that's all of it, but I think like you could definitely have some stuff where comps are influenced with the national coming there. Yeah, but I think, I think what you're saying. Yes, I mean you could have somebody doing that, but I think it would, it's more, more and more difficult with so many different markets out there. You know, we, we, we as dealers and, and buyers out there were so quick to say that's, that's a one off comp. Or, you know, I, I don't know. Well why, why are those, why are those ones over there selling for 8,000 but over here on this site here, they're only selling for 5,000 or 3,000 or 4,000. You know, I don't know who's buying those on ebay. Well, I'm buying mine on Fanatics or, or you know, somewhere else alt or whatever. So I, I mean I understand what you're saying, but I just think it's, it's hard to manipulate that market as, as you're describing. Not saying it's impossible, I just, I think it's hard. I agree but I just. So the pop of the Brady PSA 10 Bowman Chrome is 1200. So it's for a, for a Brady. Like that's, I mean that's not crazy, right? Let me pull this up really quick. I'm trying to look here. I want to see how much it's gone up because it's pretty insane. Why is this acting a fool on me? Military breaker says if he can recommend, he wants to pop Mike Trout if traded to the Red Sox. Very manageable contract. He has to get out of Otani Shadow in la. I don't know what I'm doing, but I can't pull this up in a no chart. But I know it's gone up like a ridiculous, like I remember not crazy, crazy long ago it was less than a ten thousand dollar card for sure. Ken. That card's selling for thirty three thousand dollars. It was a five or six thousand dollar card. His market's hot. Brady's part of the hobby now after Fanatics Fest. I get that. Yeah. I'm interested to see what happens. Yeah. Going forward. But also to be fair, it's probably, it's, it's like his rookie card and PSA 10. There's only, there's only 1200 of them. Right. Like that's, that's something. All right, PSA nines becoming relevant again. With PSA10 prices getting expensive, are PSA9s becoming undervalued or are they just consolation prizes? Well, if it's a player that nobody really cares about or is not that popular, you can get tens on them. But if, if it's, you know, if it's the top players, it's so hard to get a 10 on there. So I think the 9 prices become, you know, more relevant on, on liquid player, on, you know, the names. I think that, yeah, I think the nines matter on the, on the names and like, especially more on, like, like, I just think tops, Chrome, like gold are better. Like the nine will give a premium, you know what I mean? And just to jump back, Jeff Willis said 25K on that card in 2020. 2022. Yeah, Jeff, if you could pull it up for me, then what did it do? What did it do in 23 and 24? Like, I, I, I, I totally get where you're coming from. It just then we saw what happened. I'm, I'm kind of curious because I, I, I would appreciate it if you could pull that up. Shout out to the listeners for helping with the data because I can't use card ladder and I use it every day so I'm usually on my phone, not on the computer. Clearly Military breaker says yes. Yes. Like my PSA 9. Tyler Shuck Zebra. Oh, that's a, that's got to be a massive, massive upgrade for a PSA 9. You pulled that live on Facebook. Oh, oh, that's excellent. 100 to $500 cards are the hobby sweet spot. Forget six figure grails is the mid end actually the best combination of liquidity, upside and enjoyment. You know what I, I want to say Pop and, and I, and I'll tell you, I'll tell you why. Because I mean watching all this content coming out of Fanatics Fest last weekend, you know, with the million dollar deals and the 35,000 and the 65 and the 80,000 dollar deals and it's just like, I mean that, okay, that's happening at that show, but that's not the hobby. For the majority of the hobby, like the, like the majority of the hobby, they're not showing up the Fanatics fest to spend 20 or $30,000. Right? And they're not showing up at the national to spend that kind of money. But the, the content coming out of there is just, it's crazy. Jeff Willis said it went down to 6, 6 at 6700. So sorry about that. Yeah, no, I, I love that range. And you know what my favorite range for that is, is to buy raw and grade that range. Because that range feels like you can get some real juice on the PSA 10s. Yeah. Like real juice. So I, I like that a lot. I, I bought over 200 raw RPAs, put them in one touches for the, you know, for the national. All different players and all those were, you know, probably anywhere from a hundred to nine hundred. Yes. And, and I'll tell you what I, I think right. Knock on wood. I think I'm going to crush it selling those out there that the value they all came up just buying them raw, buying them at the right time, buying them in January, February, March, April, you know and now all of a sudden now, you know, they're. These are what people are looking for a lot of these cars especially like the repackers and things like that. I just think it's going to be, I'm going to do quite well with those. Yep. Last one we're going to end on tonight. I really like. Population reports matter less than people think. There's a low. We have, we have to do two. Yeah. Because we have to do the sports cards as gambling too. Okay. Because that's, that's part of the advertisement. I don't want to go back and change it. So. Okay. Population reports matter less than people think. Does a low pop actually create value? If nobody wants the card. Demand over scarcity. Pop it or chop it. Well that it's funny because you say if. No, if nobody wants the card, it doesn't matter if it's rare and scarce because who's buying? Let's chat. GPT ruining the little, little script. Yeah. I mean if it's a, if it's you know, a top, top tier player, I think it drives the market and if it's, you know, somebody that you know is, is nobody's not a sought after player. I just, I just think it doesn't even matter. I have some cards of play, you know, really nice cards of players that nobody cares about, you know, like, like Zach Wilson Prism. Prism. Number to 10 gold. Gold to 10 PSA 10. It's a great card. Who cares, right? Yeah. This, that was a Mahomes card. It'd be worth, you know, five, $8,000. It's a Zach Wilson card. I can't even get over 200 or 300 for it. Right. Yep. I think the player for sure matters and what, what I would say so it's like I, I think there are still a ton of opportunities in these like top players we were talking about where you can go in and research pop reports and see inequalities. We'll call it like I think there are still Jordan cards that have low pops that like if you're comparing them to other Jordan cards you could, you could probably still get somewhat deals as they continue and clearly Brady I guess too because Jeff Willis said that card went down to 6, 6700 and then he said his Brady downtown bottom to 800 and it's 32, 500 now. So. And we know downtowns aren't necessarily rare. So the pop report I think if you do your due diligence and have patience can play over time. But I would say it has to be that top tier guy. Last question of the night. Prospecting young players is basically sports gambling. Buying cards of unproven prospects based on future performance, investing, collecting or just gambling with extra steps. Question mark. Yeah, gambling with extra steps. Yeah, I agree. People are going to say I do my homework. I used to say I do my homework. I really watch these players and I mean you can't predict you no matter how much and how much I, I deep, deep dove into players and their college and their, the team they went to and the, the, the scheme that they were running and it just doesn't matter. I'm like you don't know, you don't know what the character, what's inside the head of the player. Right. So you know, sometimes every, everything lines up and then the players just doesn't want to do it or would rather go out drinking and driving or racing his Corvette down, you know, Las Vegas Boulevard. You know, it's just, you don't know what's gonna happen. So. Yeah, I, I definitely think it's just gambling with extra steps. Absolutely, absolutely. Especially with like the Bowman chrome first guys when they're like so they're so young. Like you got like 16, 17 year olds on the absolute youngest side of it. It's just like I couldn't imagine someone investing into me when I was that age like the money that they do. So yeah, I think it's just extra steps of gambling and all you really break it down and you see all these like you place a bet at the casino and it's done in like what instantaneously almost. They're like just like going into the sports book and saying hey, I think a futures bet. It's a futures bet, right? There's bet and then Then you. Instead of. Instead like you can wait all the way for the futures bet to hit or not hit or you can hopefully, you know, they give you the offers ahead of time. Time. And you can't go. Or you could go buy an Otani card or a Jordan card and wait for that to go up. Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. That is popping or chop it. Oh, wait a minute. We gotta do one more. Sorry. The death of the death of the rookie card. Okay. With 50 plus rookie parallels, inserts, autos, variations in brands for one player. Does the term rookie card even mean much anymore? So the way I took that was like for the newer stuff because like clearly what we're just talking about with the Brady, like rolls are limited. Right. That that rookie card means something. Yeah. Now it's like. I don't know. I think. I think it comes down to the. The best parallels of the. Like, let me think. Let's use Drake, man. We started. We started poverty job. What's his rookie card like? What do you go to? Yeah, I think most people would probably, you know, start, you know, at a Prism Silver. I. I was thinking the same thing is that's what I would go to as like his. Not the base, though. No, no, not the base. And then you go up to national treasures or you know something. He doesn't have the true autos in there, but I hear you. But he doesn't like for him. Oh, that's right. Yeah. There's caveats to that. Even so. Yeah. Well, that's that funny time too when it's between panini and tops and yeah, it's. It's really straight. I think. I think with that question it's hard to do. I would say probably chop it that there's not really a rookie card anymore. I think it's really. You gotta find out what like for Drake may like be like, you know, it's the Black Finite Prism 101 or the True Gold Prism out of 10. Those. Those are like. I. That's what I would just go to as that's his best rookie card. Right? Yeah. It's not a. Yeah, it's. There's all the parallels. It comes down to the hierarchy of it. And I don't even think. I don't. I don't like Prism. I like Optic way more than Prism, but like the, the brand. And I like select more than Prism, but the brand recognition of Prism is clearly there. Like that is it. Yeah. And you know what? For the next year, probably Tops Chrome is better. Like for Dart. I'd wanna. I'd want a Tops Chrome instead of a Prism. For sure. I like Tops Chrome more than Prism too. I think they're nicer cards. That's just a subjective opinion. But, you know, but you love. You like Tops anyway, so. I do. Yeah. Top sky. Probably. Probably. Yeah. Now we're done. Cosmic. Alrighty. So, yeah, I will. I'm going to skip my Sunday episode. I will not have a Sunday episode, but I will be providing a lot of content next week from. From the national. So we won't have an episode next week either because I will be at the national unless we figure out a way to get you on. We'll talk. We'll talk about it. Maybe that Thursday episode. I'm not, I'm not opposed to it. I just don't want to. I mean, I figure it's just a timing thing for me. It's more you being busy out there than me. Yeah. Because I got for me, I have a 8 o', clock, 8 o' clock dinner on Thursday night and a 9 o' clock dinner on Friday night. So we'll talk. Yeah, we'll talk. We'll see what we can. All right, man. But this is it. This is the end of season eight. Our next next episode that comes out will be the beginning of season nine, ESPN the Ocho. I want to thank everyone for watching. Thank everyone for listening. Please, like, please, please subscribe. If you're not subscribed, hit that subscribe button and I will be re coming to you live from the national next week. And we will resume normal episodes the following week after the national. Zip. Enjoy your Enjoy your week next week. Do as well. Talk soon. See ya. Sam. Sa.