THWC 425: The Road To the National Begins

Let's get it. 425 episodes. That's right. 425 of these. 425 episodes of the Hobby with Cage. And this one here, number 425, brought to you by Arena Club by card ladder, use code, Cage. Save yourself a couple bucks. And by the Philly charge, I should say today. Also brought to you by the National, I guess, you know, even though they didn't pay for anything. Wax stars, the folks at the National. I gotta open this up. I. I'm. I'll owe more thank yous, but I got a box delivered to me today. It's one of those cool Zion cases, you know, with the national, sort of like Road to the National. I'm gonna let my son open it up. Maybe we'll do a little video about that. Very excited about that case. I've never had a Zion case before. I've never had a John Moran case or a Lamelo Ball case either. But, you know, it looks like we have a Zion case for the first time ever. I'm excited. Very excited. I gotta tell you guys, I haven't really come down yet from Fanatics Fest, and maybe I won't have a chance to. I mean, I went to work today recording this one later in the day because I went to work, I was in the city. Put the old suit on the old ball and chain. No fun. Good to come home and talk cards. And It's Thursday, Thursday, July 23rd, and I am. We got auctions tonight. I mean, the cards never stop. There's a local show here, first time on about 15 minutes from my house. I may even try to stop over. A couple of dealers who were setting up send me messages and said, hey, I'm setting up in case you want to stop by. Maybe I stop by, say hi, check out a local show. But yeah, we're all gearing up. I don't have airfare yet, but I'll get that. I'll figure that out. It's just a matter. Matter of what time I want to leave in the morning. Bring some sogies, bring some cigars. Yeah, maybe I'll smoke a cigar on the Cardboard Chronicles run. Maybe I'll do that. See how that one works. But yeah, I mean, listen, I am excited. I. I saw a clip of, of sports card nonsense, and if you haven't seen it, you should go check it out. Because they're always telling you, come check out my show. Never do that. They never do that. But I'm gonna tell you anyway. You can go check out their. I saw a clip posted on their page where, you know, they, they talked about, you know, the national and they had, you know, one of the guys who runs the national on there and you know, basically praising Fanatics Fest, saying how good it is, saying how, you know, they will convert people to, you know, to collectors and in turn that will make them show up at the show. And I mean, totally true, totally true. But I woke up today thrilled about Fanatics. That's my experience there. My son loved it. We had such a good time. But I also thought to myself, I've had some real great times at the national doing things that I. You can't do. Athletics fest. And you guys who have been with me, you know, for, you know, approaching. Oh, did I miss it? July 20th. I missed it. I missed it by a week. July 16th came and went last Thursday without any, any fanfare. That was six years to the day of we started doing sports car podcasts. I'm in year seven now. Wow. July 16th of 2000. That was the first episode recording of, of Lucas Tigers and bronze. And then we just did one every day for like three years. Now, six years later, I didn't do, you know, I was just under a thousand. I'm just under 500 in the following three years. So that's a lot of content. I hope you guys don't hate it, you know, but anyway, you guys who've been with me for a while, you know that one of my favorite experiences at the national and I do this every time I go is you find those tables that have, I'm going to call it junk wax. You find the tables that have packs, you know, 90s baseball. There was some, there were some 90s packs available at Fanatics Fest. I should, I shouldn't say they weren't available but you know, like I like to buy 100 packs, you know, like they're a buck, they're two for five and just open them and it is full on nostalgia. It is full on. You know, I remember opening that and getting that Marshall Falk rookie. I remember opening that and getting that, you know, electric gold card. I remember that Drew Bledsoe rookie and that Rick Meyer and you know, I remember opening those and looking for die cuts and you know, just straight on. You know, I'm, I'm back to, you know, being in, in high school myself or junior high school even depending upon the packs and I love doing that. Not because I'm expecting to get anything in those packs for my hundred dollars that's gonna get me 150 I have, by the way, it was one year I graded a bunch of those things with Arena Club. And I still get offers on some of the cards that I hit in those packs. But it is straight on nostalgia. It's like going to a show and remembering something, going and watching a movie. I put my money down, I open packs, and I am immediately transported back to a time where I was a kid. And that is the national for me. I mean, it's more than that, but that is what I look forward to doing. I look forward to just ripping packs. I don't even know what pack I'm gonna rip, but I know I'll find something that. That brings me back. Whether it's a stadium club, baseball, you know, or always something cooler. I mean, I try to do it. When I go to the Philly show, it's not cheap anymore to open up like 92.93 basketball. I open up some ultra, open up some tops, get Shaq, get gold cards. But, you know, Michael Jordan's in those. So anything with Michael Jordan and is not cheap. But I just love going open packs. I love the museum feel of it. I love the vintage sections being there. I love walking into a booth that you just don't know what you're gonna find. You know, to me, that's old timey card show. That is, you know, that's nostalgia. And I'm looking forward to that because it just dovetails so good so well with what we just had with Fanatics Fest these two weeks apart here, where you had just athletes and celebrities and just walking around that just. It was. It was a magnet to celebrities. Like, you know, you see Justin Bieber kind of showing up out of nowhere. It's like, all right, well, this is going on. I want to be there too. And, you know, and, you know, comes in those fanatics games that. It's a cool thing. And it definitely brought in people who would not go to the national yet. Okay. I saw a video of Da Card World. Troy posted a video and, you know, was a Cody Rhodes fan. And if she's at the table and they're just giving her car, she's dressed up like Cody Rhodes. And they said, do you have any autographs of them? No, but I have a couple, you know, cards. They give her an autograph and then, you know, he's talking to her about wrestling and a. Do you like CM Punk? Okay, well, I'm gonna give you one of his, but you gotta promise to go watch this stuff. Like, that's something that's gonna stick with a kid and family and, you know, maybe they start building a collection. You know, maybe now they're gonna be a Cody Rhodes super fan and super collector. And, you know, maybe they will find their way to a card show. There are plenty of them here. You know, maybe they'll find their way to a local card show. Maybe that's somebody you convert from a fan to a collector. And, you know, I've posted that on my page a bunch of times. That is a really thing. It really is. So anyway, we fast forward to the National. Some of you guys are on your way already. I mean, it's a, you know, the show's less than a week away. I know people go out there, you know, pretty early. People drive out there, you know, people go out, you know, well in advance. I'm gonna take a second now because I will forget afterwards to in advance thank everybody who was part of the national putting it together. Just like I want to thank, you know, everybody who. Who put together Fanatics Fest, you know, that whole team. Because, I mean, it's like unsung heroes, you know what I mean? Like, this thing is gonna go and there'll be complaints. There's always complaints, as always. It's too crowded or I couldn't get in the door or what? You know, whatever it's gonna be. The trade night was so packed, I couldn't get in the bracelets. And it takes a village, it takes an army to put stuff like this together. And 99 of you who are listening to this, who go, leave very happy. You leave, mission accomplished. You found that card you were looking for, you made that trade, you caught up with your friends. And by the way, that is a huge thing, too. I mean, there are people in this space that I talk to almost every day, but I don't see except for national, there are people who I bounce ideas off of. People you know, hey, I'm thinking about buying this. What should we do? They bounce ideas off of me. You know, we talk about how to get a card, what to trade for, what's the value. I mean, hours and hours per week. And you don't see them. Except for this. You know, this is the. I've called it sort of like the pilgrimage, right? This is that hobby pilgrimage. This is that time where you get to see your hobby friends. Because just like, we don't like digital cards, we like, you know, physical, physical cards. We like to hold our cards. It's the same thing with the friends. It's cool that national provides these trade Nights and these hangouts and just, you know, come. I say it all the time, right? Come to the card ladder table. That's where I'm going to try to hang out. As much as they'll tolerate me, I am not the easiest person in the world to tolerate in long stretches. So, you know, it's nice to say I'm going to go hang out at the card ladder table. I imagine there will be a moment where they tell me to leave and they say, okay, you've been here enough, get the hell out of here. You know, like you do not need to stay here and hang out. But anyway, if you are headed to the, the, the national and you're looking for the card letter guys, they are going to be at booth 2326 all the way in the back right before the emergency exits. You get candy if I've left any. You know, recharge your phones, pick up free stuff every day and you know, it's a lot of fun, you know, I mean you gotta, yeah, it. They're not selling you a card, you know, they're not, they're not looking to take your money for anything. It's just a booth that gets set up as sort of like a meeting spot and it always has been. My favorite one was the one where they were right, right under the stage, basically, you know, people giving presentations and there's card ladder kind of like off to the side of the stage. That was a funny booth also, I guess now we're by the emergency exits car ladder. So that's fun stuff too. I'm excited for the National. There are, I have a list of cards that I'm looking to, to pick up. I have a list of cars I'm looking to sell and maybe if all goes right, I'll use the cards that I'm bringing to sell to buy the ones that I, I hope to find. And here's a fun little topic. For five minutes I'm wondering if I'm the only idiot out there who thinks like this. There are cards I want, but I'm not going to tell you what they are and I'm not going to do a, like a, a post about them and say this is what I'm looking for. I, I waver on this and I want to know what you think because I'm curious what your hobby experiences have been. Especially if I want like a one of, one of somebody, right? If I say I'm looking for that, what do you want to do? Do you want to help me? Do you want to look for it and help me get it. Or do you want to go get it yourself? Right? Do you? Oh, Kate's buying. I'm gonna go buy it myself. And then if you're buying it yourself, are you buying it because you want to sell it to me for more money? You want to make a little money, which, by the way, is fine. Like, if that's the case, let's do it. You know, I'm willing to hook you up for finding it and, you know, bringing it to me. Or is it something you want to hold for ransom? Is it something you're like, ah, this is an idea. And I waver on that, right? Because a lot of times, I'll say on here, this is what I'm looking for. If it's a base card or a silver card or, you know, like, I talk about Jackson dart down downs. You know, I'll tell you what I'm doing, because there's enough of that to go around. But if, for example, I was trying to find all of the Kyle Schwarper one of ones that were available to show, and I said that I could see a situation where people were like, you know, if I post it, people grab the Kyle Schwabbers and sit on them, and then in a month or two, be like, hey, how was your Kyle Schwaber hunt? Oh, I. I struck out. I didn't find it. Well, I happen to have this one. You want to buy it and make money, which, by the way, perfectly fine, but I'd rather go and hunt myself instead of having to create competition and let you guys all know what I'm looking for. Am I wrong? Is that the wrong way to do it? Is that the wrong way to go about this? Am I jaded? You know, should I give the hobby more credit? Should I. Should I put out there my want list? I've seen people do this. This is what I'm looking for. This is what I want. I heard people at Fanatics Fest talk about Jeff Wilson had a list. And the conversation I heard was, hey, I picked up three cards I think Jeff Wilson asked for. I'm gonna go to his booth now and sell them for more than I paid. All right. I mean, if, you know, if there's a little bit of a markup, go right ahead. But if, you know, if you're trying to double it, that's no fun, especially on, like, 101 cards, you know? So, yeah, I mean, I'm curious what you guys think about that. Should I just give you my list and tell you What I want and what I'm looking for. And then hopefully someone finds it who has, you know, good motives, good intentions and messages me and says, come to T2326. The card you're looking for is sitting there. I told him you'd be over. He's gonna hang on to it for five minutes. Like, that would be great. That would be spectacular. The other thing, I see people with this same nonsense all the time. If you see a card at the national, pick it up because when you go back, it's gonna be gone. Okay, let's pause for a second. That may be the case. That may very well be the case. That doesn't mean go pay double the price. Right? It doesn't mean, okay, I gotta pay sticker because if I don't pay this, someone else is gonna take it from me. No, don't. Don't throw, you know, reason and rational thought process out the window because you happen to see a card that you think you want, you still gotta get it for the right price. That's the part that everybody seems to leave out of that. If you see a card at the national, don't say, I'll come back to that table and write the table number down. It's gonna be gone. Yeah. The reason why it's gone is because an hour or two later someone else saw the card and negotiated for it. They didn't just, you know, they didn't just pay full sticker. So if you see a card you like, you don't have to just be, gotta get me that before someone else steals it. No, it's be smart, guys. You gotta make your money last. The national is a long event, a lot of stuff going on. If you're going, send me a message. I'm curious to hear from you guys. Maybe we'll meet up, maybe have some extra cigars, you know, and let me know what trade nights you go into. As it stands presently, and I will be there at least three days. I don't have any after hours stuff to do. I have not made the hobby A, B, C or D list. No one has invited me to a, an event. I, in years past have been at Golden Dinners. Now I'm blocked. Ken golden has me blocked on Instagram. So I guess I'm not going to the Golden Dinner. I've been invited to whatnot stuff I think they do like David Buster's. No invite for that. I'm very close to being a Fanatics platinum member on their new rewards tiers, but I don't have anything for that. Yeah. So it's. You know, we're having some fun. I. You may find me in a hotel lobby ordering Portillo's for everybody because that's what I did last year. Oh, man, I'm excited. I don't know if you could tell I was excited for Fanatics Fest. It did not disappoint. And I. I've spoken to the folks from the national already. It's not going to disappoint either. I'm very excited about it. I have a lot of Michael Jordan cards because it's Chicago, after all. I mean, it's Rosemont, but you get the point, you know, if you can't sell a Michael Jordan card there, where are you gonna sell your Michael Jordan card? So anyway, guys, that is 425 episodes of the Hobby with Cage, brought to you by Arena Club, who I'm looking forward to catching up with their card ladder. Use code Cage. Save yourself a couple bucks. And by the Philly show, which is coming up in September. Be here before you know it. See you guys soon. Take care, everybody.