1565 - Weekend Update: Hobby Edition

Foreign. Welcome Dr. James Beckett. Sports Card Insights the biggest non national show weekend in the history of the hobby. This is my weekend update. Thanks sponsors Topps Panini Upper Deck Heritage Auctions, Hug at the Scott Auctions, Mike Stadium Sports Cards, Burbank sports cards comp c.com and Beckett Media Beckett Grading, Beckett Authentications this past weekend, biggest card show weekend in the history of the hobby. Outside events all pretty much at exactly the same time. The same weekends, different hours for em and there's different time zones but east coast, west coast and here in Dallas in the middle. Not that people feared dealers had to make a choice. Collectors have to make a choice. Although back in the day sometimes we went to more than one show. But jumping around the country is not easy. When we did more than one show it might be at least in one part of the country. Seattle, Tacoma or two shows in Florida let's say. But that was a long time ago. But I don't think any of the events was disappointing. In fact, perhaps the Fanatics Fest was the best one ever. The Dallas show is right up there. I wouldn't say it was the best one ever, but it was great for me and it looked crowded to me. I wasn't there on Sunday, but I was there Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The West Coast Card show. I think they may have expected it to be a little off and maybe it was a tiny bit off from what I heard. But nothing appreciable. Here's the thing, the cannibalization. There's not a shortage of cards, there's not a shortage of dealers, there's not a shortage of money. There's not a shortage of people that are interested in this category. So there's enough of all of that to support all three. Now could there have been a a fourth one, a fifth one, a sixth one? I don't know what would be too much. But this past weekend it was not about which show won. It's just that the hobby supported three very large events without a real noticeable drop off and in total attendance. It's probably the greatest weekend in the history of the hobby. That wasn't the national, the high end buyers. That's not my lane anymore. In the old days I would observe the whole market, but now I don't have to. And that's actually hard to track. But the big high end buyers will go where the best cards are. It's like my lane. I know what I want. I know what's a good price for it. Again, it just shows the hobby's robust. We're not dependent on one event. They always talk about a bubble popping. I don't really think it even is a bubble. I've said instead of a big, big spotlight, it's more of an array of daylights. So there were three very big lights, and all of them came through this weekend. The Dallas show at the beginning of COVID was the top show that wasn't the national. And now the others have caught up. There's a certain chemistry of the Dallas show. I love living in Dallas. It's my permanent home now. I love it here. I've lived in a lot of different places, and this is the best. But Kyle is a victim of his own success. He's stuck in the sense that he's got a great location and a great arrangement. I think with the waters creek Marriott. There's a little mall across the street. There are lots of restaurants. They're accommodating for the trade night. Decent parking and access. It's right off central expressway. So easy to get to, within reason at least. But he can't double in size. He'd have to go to a different location, which would be a different chemistry, a different value proposition for him and for dealers and for collectors. The fact that he does not have a huge emphasis on autograph guests, he's doing more with that helps, I think. So he doesn't have to have a separate area that goes right by so you can see what's going on. But apparently the fire marshal over the last few years has observed and they don't want to have a problem. The chairs in the aisle, sometimes they're restrictive on that. The fire marshal didn't want to have big table presentations in some of the hallways outside of the main ballroom. Again, a fire marshal. A lot of worry about ingress. So Kyle is stuck in a great place. But to add a hundred more tables, I'm not sure he could do that. I talk to him occasionally. He's always had people pitching him. And he could move a little closer to town, maybe get a better location. But it's certainly not broken. So what I would advise Kyle is instead of trying to get bigger, can he make the show better? Better for the dealers and better for the collectors who are coming in. And to do that to me, this past weekend was an excellent example of that because there were some new dealers. I think the collectors that go to the show, they want to see the dealers that they like, that they always see, that they frequent. But some fresh dealers in there is good. So Kyle's always had waiting list. So If a few of his dealers wanted to go to the fanatics fest or a few of them wanted to go to the west coast card show, you can pull that. So again, the quality of Kyle's show is in large part due to the excellent dealers that are there. Again, I have relationship with several and so you didn't want to mess with that. But if a dealer had four tables and you reduced them to three and brought in one new person, some dealers need to have four or three or two, whatever, more than one because of the nature of their inventory and kind of the security. There's a certain kind of wall tables or corral type situations where the dealer can have enough to make sure that he's very security conscious. So turnover, not a bad thing. Again, Kyle's wait list, he didn't have to look for. There are people contacting him, hey, what's it going to take for me to get a show? And I think he handles that really well. I don't know how Kyle does this because I'm analytical and trying to be fair to everybody and transparent. But Kyle's in a situation with a dealer takes one of the six annual shows off. Does. Does that dealer lose that location or do they lose their priority in some way? So Kyle has a way to manage that because six times a year is a lot, but they're, they're great shows. Kyle doesn't like it if you leave early. No, no promoter likes it if the tables are not. Are empty. Like somebody doesn't show on a Sunday. And some are stricter than others. Kyle I think has enough strictness. If you go to on Sunday and by early Sunday afternoon, people are packing up. That's not a good look. You got a waiting list. You can say, hey, shape up or you'll get shipped out. Kyle's show is really at the point where it's 700 table or 700 dealers. I think it's probably more than 700 tables. You really have trouble spending a minute or two with every dealer, every showcase or every person behind the table, or spending a minute on every box or every showcase west coast card shuffle. There's a thousand dealers out there. Really would have trouble walking the entire show first. I just really don't think I'd do that anymore. On a smaller show you can do that. But the best buying hours are usually early. And so I dig in. I know what I want. I know my lane. I know some dealers that I can get started with or I can find one. Like when I went to Toronto, I didn't Even sniff it out. I didn't really know exactly, but you just have a sense when you walk up to a table. This is something where I can do this. And I got Rich and other wingmen who'll say, hey, you need to check out this thing over there. But every show, including Dallas Guard show or the national or any show I would go to, if I go more than once, I'm trying to figure, okay, here are the dealers I dealt with last time. I hope I can find another one or two that would be fun to shop at. And at the national, usually, yeah, I'll pick up. There'll be a couple of new ones for one or two that maybe didn't bring their stuff because not everybody brings a dollar box to the national when their table space is at a premium. Again, time is my problem at the big shows. Not so much the Dallas show, because I'm familiar with it, but the National. I'm going to run out of time before I run out of money. But I did run out of money the first day in Dallas. Now I reloaded. But I got there Thursday. Rich and I both had a plan of where we're gonna go first. So the first stop was we got there early and spent a couple hours, bought about 150 cards. So that's 75 carts an hour. That's below what I want to do. But Rich was there, and the table holder is a very engaging, loquacious guy. We had a very interesting conversation, Rich and I and this guy, about lots of topics, not just the hobby. So that was fun. And then finished that after a couple hours. So that was good conversation. But again, I'm trying to get a hundred cars an hour. The second was over in a different room. And over four hours, I picked out 800 cars. That's 200 cars an hour. That would be a really good place. Rich pulled kind of a record for him. He pulled 500, but I'm sitting in a chair. The dealers, again, very engaging. Most of these dollar box guys are personable. They kind of let you do your stuff, but they've got a running commentary sometimes. And I get my volume pricing established in advance as much as I can. And then I had an hour left. And in that hour, I went to the third one, which their feelings were hurt that they were my third stop. But I pulled a thousand cards in an hour. That probably is a personal record for me. Usually if I'm pulling a thousand cards in an hour, I want to make the guy an offer to buy out his table or those kinds of boxes, whatever they are. And yet, when I'm in town, I don't need to do that. I can pull really fast. Because I'm just setting aside the ones I want. It sounds like a lot, but there's some organization. You'll see a set or some variations that are all together. And they're all different, but they're all the same, same attributes. So I'll just set them aside. I wasn't going faster. My brain didn't need to work faster. My hands really didn't need to work faster. I'm sitting in a chair. It's thanks to their inventory quality, it hadn't been picked over again. It's the first day, so I can go fast. I wasn't going 10 times faster. Just there were 10 times as many good carts in there. I live 25 minutes away, and I bring a collapsible two wheeler put in the trunk of my car. In case I need to wheel something out. But that isn't very often. Go home for dinner. Sleep in my own bed. I promised Rob Barris I'll come out to the West Coast Card show one of these days. When the same weekend is something that's in my neighborhood. I'm not going to do that. But one of these times I really want to, because I'm sure it's great. The cards aren't heavy, even when I'm doing dollar box things. Even though you buy a couple thousand cards, that can be a triple shoe. I've said the national is in a week and a half now. And the Dallas show is my batting practice. I'm sharpening my eye, and I want to be able to hit the curveball and hit the fastball and recognize balls and strikes. Whatever metaphor you want to use. So don't have to worry about hotel. Don't have to worry baggage. So that was great, but I'm gonna have trouble doing that. Thousand cards in an hour works great for Dallas at the national. Could be a problem. The second half of the fun is getting home. And I'm kind of calling this reviewing the game film. In other words, I have my batting practice. Or maybe it's like a practice game for the National. When I bring what I bought home at the end of the weekend, Which I'm working through this week. I'm analyzing mistakes I made for the learning experience. Because some cards turn out to be better than I thought. And some turn out to be worse. But I've got to emblazon that to say, I don't want to do that anymore. Those Pose variations or those color variations are not as tough as I thought. That insert set looks cool, but it's one per pack or something like that. The short prints and super short prints. The problem is if you have to flip every card over, you're going to go so much slower. So a lot of the SPS and SSPs, you've got to recognize them by the front. Same thing with serial numbering cards. Some serial numbers to a thousand are fabulous cards and some cards that are numbered to a hundred are not good. My categories, it's hard to explain because there are exceptions to every rule. Do I pick out if there's a game used or an autograph card in there? Not always, even in a buck. Serial numbers, some are good, some are bad. Generally lower is better, but there are exceptions, refractors. But my point is flipping it over every time. Most of the serial numbers on cards are on the back, so if you got to flip every card over, you'd still be working on the first box. So I go super fast. I don't go by the sets and brands as much, except that I've learned that in the dollar boxes there are some flagship and very popular, not overproduced, but more mass produced sets. The variations, the inserts, the parallels are not so great. But a tougher brand can have a higher serial number. But I've got to recognize it again. Rich does it completely different because he's more in the vintage lane. I love pulling the cards. I love buying the cards and I don't love selling them. But I sell on ebay and I sell on comp C. I sell more cards on ebay, but I probably sell the better ones on comm C. Rich is able to grade his purchases almost immediately, and it takes me a lot longer because I'm not just trying to figure out is it a go or no go. I want to be making a decision for the future. Is this something I need to keep buying or quit buying those cards that are not working? My cell service, I couldn't even send a text and that was a little bit frustrating at the show. So again, that's something. Kyle. I don't know that he can improve it, but it's just something that was a nuisance. I did the episode about cash and if I were to do that episode again, now it's even more. There are a lot of bills running around the tangibility. $100 bills are photogenic, they're mediagenic. There's a visceral response when you see a stack of a hundred dollars. If you Pay somebody with a hundred dollar bill good rather than. I did write a check because as I said, I did run out of money that first night, but I wrote a check, somebody that knows me and I could have replaced it with cash the next day if they would have insisted. I did price lookups on a couple of cards. I thought, I'm wondering. And it just hung up. When you go to a show, you need that connectivity and you need good lighting and you need good security and you need good cards. You have the greatest lighting and the greatest connectivity and the greatest security. But if dealers are there that are overpriced or don't have the right. Right stuff where it's mostly Pokemon, which it wasn't, there was a reasonable amount of Pokemon. Another issue that came up on another podcast and I just thought I'd respond to, was just the whole idea of. At some of these shows, the National Fanatics Fest, Dallas, I know some people get media credentials or media passes and I usually don't do that. I have done that. Sometimes they've just given me one. I think there's a difference between going to the show and asking the promoter for a free pass. Or the show could contact you and say, hey, will you come to my show as a media person because you have a podcast or whatever. I don't have a big problem with that. Usually it's just through my old company because I'm an advisor. So I still get some credentials on behalf of being the Beckett, Beckett Media or Beckett Collectibles. But with PSA we'll see. Maybe they'll change now, but when I'm going the show, I'm mainly going to buy cards and enjoy the event. I'm going to do some content about it, but I'm not walking around with the camera and I don't have the huge audience. I'm not even trying to do that. I'm trying to influence the influencers and people that want to go deeper in the hobby. So that's a subset of the huge buying public. Again, your credibility as a media person, as a content creator is only as good as your truth telling. Just getting a free pass to get in is not a big deal. But if they start doing other kinds of things, you have no platform if you lose your integrity. So they can't buy my opinions. But obviously people generally feel more positive about people that treat them well and do nice things for them. But you got to be authentic. I know podcasters and YouTubers who have never paid to go in an event and they're great guys, but that's their prerogative. And if they got off the reservation and started, it's another form of shilling. You know, they're saying things that prop up a position that is not true. That's not good. None of those shows were unimprovable. I've made the distinction between gem, mint and unimprovable. All these shows I think are well tuned, but I think Fanatics has a desire to continue to improve and increase. And I think every year it's been better. Dallas, when you see it every two months, it's hard to make everyone better. But it's like a Broadway critic. You need to have enough criticism in your review of your Broadway show so the readers or the listeners can figure out, hey, this is. This person really did watch the show with great interest. So Kyle's doing a lot of things right. I know what I'm going to get when I go to the National. I've never been to the Fanatics Fest. I went to Mint Collective. I've been to all the Hawaii trade shows and all that stuff. So a show gets a reputation, just the content creators get their reputation. And I believe in truth in packaging. If my biggest criticism of Kyle, the aisles are congested, but that's because it's so crowded. But then it impacts me because I want to sit down in a chair and if I'm going to spend a couple hours at a dollar box, I don't want to be standing there and get bent over and get jostled when it's like that. So I'm admittedly being selfish. But isn't that better than 10 years ago when you weren't getting jostled in the aisles and the hall or the ballroom was much smaller? Thank you, Kyle, for doing a great job. Thank you, Rob, for your vision with the west coast card show and thank you, Fanatics brain trust, for having the vision to do this completely different event, which is way more than a card show at Fanatics Fest. I hope to get to that and I'm sure I will. So everybody enjoy. This was the greatest weekend in the Hobby until next weekend because the National, I think it's going to be terrific. So hope to see many of you there. Don't be afraid to pop in or I don't play hard to get, but I have mornings where I'm sitting still and afternoon, so I Real rabble. Thanks, everybody. Back again in a couple days. Another episode.