Tough Card Show Conversations & Tim! S6 Ep34

This episode of the ball card show is brought to you by our friends at Pristine auction, where items are guaranteed authentic for the entire time you own it. Not just at the one-of-one not just while the cert holds. If you own it, Pristine stands behind it for a limited time. Take advantage of $20 off your first auction when you register with the code ballcard. one-of-one the real thing. Pristine Auction. Oh, God. Just a trash product. Can I grab? Yu-Gi-Oh right. But I had no idea. Like, I thought, I'm like, Yu-Gi-Oh where's the Upper Deck Fleer I need? I'm looking for a hologram, you know what I'm saying? Like, do I get a sticker in this pack? Hello and welcome to the ball card show, the sports podcast for the esports collector. I'm Jason otero. I'm Gary Lemaster. And this is season six, episode 34. And if you happen to notice a glow on our face, a twinkle in our Yu-Gi-Oh Your boys didn't have to set up for a show this weekend. We had the weekend off. It was kind of weird. Yu-Gi-Oh it's the first uncomfortable. Well, it's the first time that one of us wasn't on vacation somewhere where we didn't have to set up at a show for a while. We don't usually get weekends off, so it was. It was nice to chill for a little bit. I still ended up going to a local show to see if I could buy some stuff for us, but I was only there for Workaholic. Yu-Gi-Oh I was only there for about an hour and a half or so. Saw a few friends that I don't get to see very often anymore. It was a show that we used to set up at on the regular as our business was just getting started and beginning to grow. It was fun to go and see it. Really busy. It's like a 30 table show in a small town and it was hopping. I saw some pictures. It looked like it was hopping there. Yu-Gi-Oh it was. I love to see that. The evergreen show that's going to exist forever. I think Brad Bowman said that like those smaller shows that have been around a while, they've had the same promoter. They're evergreen. They'll have some waves, some ebbs and flows, but at the end of the day, they're. They're going to be around as long as the hobby is. Sepia. Yu-Gi-Oh I. I felt good. It was good spending so much time with the family. Now we did not take the weekend entirely off. We tried for the first time a Late Night Show, 10pm Eastern on eBay Live. Now, let me be honest with you. I am pajamad and in bed by 9:30 most every night, way past. And I take pride in that. That's something I'm proud of. I like to watch a reality show, make fun of everybody on tv, feels better about myself, and then drift off into sleep, you know. But we ran 10pm we ran for three hours. It was fun, man. It was fun. And there was a lot. I noticed a lot of new buyers, meaning we probably were reaching to that Pacific coast, getting some of that time zone over there as well. It made more sense to them. So I don't want to speak for you, but it seems like both of us, like, well, we'll be doing that again soon. We'll be doing that. Yu-Gi-Oh I will definitely try to figure out how to take a longer nap. I think I only slept for about an hour in the middle of the day. I need to probably stretch that to a couple by. By 12:30. As that show was getting close to being at the end, we were both like, sudden death. Yu-Gi-Oh let's run sudden death. You guys all good with sudden death? Let's get these last 20 auctions. It surprises me a little though, the need for the nap. Because when we do shows and it's like we're back at the hotel and I'm going to sleep, you're like, you're. Or on the way back, you're always like, man, I'm so tired. Then you kick your feet up and find some type of sugar snack and you're. You're scrolling for like two to three hours. I have to wind down. Even when I got home from that show on Saturday, I came downstairs and sat in my recliner for probably 45 minutes before my brain was ready to go to sleep. Yu-Gi-Oh that is something. We'll be doing that again on Friday. So you're listening on this Friday, not the day that this releases the the following Friday, which is the fourth. That sounds right. Yu-Gi-Oh We will be live again late night, so be sure to go give that a follow bookmark check mark whatever you do on ebay live. That has been really fun. And we are finding our people that love the 90s 2000 stuff, which is last. And you know what's funny is like now we'll try to sprinkle in some ultra modern football like a. A case hit rookie. You know, that's a 40 card all day. Not here, bro. Get that out of My House. But you give me that mutumbo, that Matumbo Refractor. Let's go, baby. So I, I love that people that like the same stuff we do are kind of being drawn into that. It's been a lot of fun. You're getting deals on the ultra modern stuff if you come into our show. Yu-Gi-Oh Or the first 15 auctions. Yes. Come one of them. The plate clean. You will do well as we're getting warmed up with that. But it's been a lot of fun. So ebay has become more and more viable to us. I know a lot of you have asked questions. You, you know the different live selling platforms we want. We're finding a really good match for us on ebay live. It's been a good fit. We're enjoying it. We'll be there for a long time. We're coming up on 6,000 reviews on the store. So, you know, quick reminder to those of you that are grinding it out on the high volume, low end, you're building the store out all those metrics. Even if it's a 20 cent net, 50 cent net on a card. Like you're still building out a store that will open up opportunities down the road and that customer service matters on that. Couple things coming up and then I'm going to shut up for a second. A couple things coming up today, Tim from over the years sports is going to be joining us. One of the most iconic mustaches in all of the hobby. Also co host of the no Bangers podcast. Right now. Carrie has been on. Yep. From American Arbitrage. Tim is on and I'm sure Rob's gonna let us know that we're in trouble for not having him on yet. Right, Right. But we'll get there. We'll get there. We'll meet you. I gotta meet you first. I gotta make sure that you're not a crazy person, you know, who knows? But he'll be on in a little bit and then Gary and I are gonna talk through. The biggest feedback we're Getting is more 101 educational show scene vendor. So we're gonna talk through tough conversations that happen that shows. So what are the things that people get nervous about setting up at their first shows that might happen? We're going to give examples of times those bad things have happened and just our advice on how to navigate situation. A stolen card, not being able to agree on value, somebody bringing a card back after purchasing it at a show and expecting a refund, all of that kind of stuff we're going to be talking about. It will be a little emotional. It's rooted in experience. So we don't want you to miss out on that. But before we go anywhere else, I'm going to go about 15 miles north of My House of Delaware, Ohio. Keith at Newhart Cars for this week's episode of Shop Talk. Hi, this is Keith at Newhart Cards. And this is Shop Talk. Just wanted to kind of talk about a subject today. Again, I'm really bullish about the industry, really bullish about the market. I think there's so much new money come in. I think there's so many new players in the game that the market is on a trajectory up. However, I wanted to talk about something that goes back to my past and what I used to do for a living and kind of merge the two again. I was a stock broker, right? For 15 or 16 years, big national bank did individual transactions. One of the things that we looked at when we were analyzing a stock was something called odd lot sales or odd lot buys. Basically what that means is you look at a stock and anything trading and you look at the number of transactions that were 100 shares or less of a stock. When you see that, that basically meant your retail buyers were coming in, right? Your low end, kind of your secondary market, the institutional guys are doing 10,000, 100,000 share lots. The retail buyer is buying 100 shares or less. That gives us an indication of typically when the stock is hitting a high, right? So that is when grandma sees that the stock market is going way up, she wants to buy Amazon at this price. That's usually too late. So let's hearken that back to the, to where we're at right now in the shock. Shaq, the Jordan, the Kobe market. Right. Again, the higher stuff I think is safe. I really do. I think that's kind of where the market's to going, going. It's the card you want to look at that went from five to $200 in the last couple weeks, even months, right? That's what you really want to look at. You don't want to be left holding the bag. Great market to buy, go through value boxes, find those cards, flip them, but don't, you know, don't, don't rely on that for your retirement income. Right. So again, you have any other questions or anything, love talking about this stuff, reach out to us. We promise to answer all your questions. This has been Keith at Newhart Cards and this is Shop Talk here at the Ball Card Show. When we decided to partner with Pristine Auction, it's because it felt like such a no brainer. Pristine has gone out of their way to make sure that the entire collector experience is as transparent and seamless and authentic as possible. They offer fast paced live selling auctions where every sale sets a recorded computer. They offer 10 minute auctions where 10 lots go up and you can bid on them for 10 minutes. And they offer traditional daily and weekly auctions as well if that is more your speed. Most importantly, every item you purchase from Pristine, they stand behind and guarantee to be authentic for the entire time that you own the item. For a limited time. When you register at Pristine and sign up with the code ball card, you'll get $20 off your first auction one-of-one as well as three months of gold stat. As a consigner, one-of-one the real thing. Pristine auction. All right guys, we hope that you are as excited as we are to have Tim from over the year Sports jump onto the pod with us. This should be a really fun interview. Give me a bargain box and free my soul. I want to get lost and find some cars that I can flip online. What are we doing right now? That was for Tim. This is Tim from Over the year Sports ho. One of the hosts of the no Baggers podcast Signature move is freestyling a song to welcome everybody in Gary. I can't believe I've never thought of that one. That is a good. That's a Good. That's a 10 out of 10. That's a 10 out of ten. Yes. Right off the rip. Hey guys, if you haven't noticed, the room has shifted. Tim is in the call joining us live. Baby on stream yard. Tim, we're so happy to have you on here. Honestly, it's truly a joy. I'm very excited. Listen, I, you know, we were talking before we, we, you know, started the recording here about how I, I thoroughly enjoy your guys content. I mean it's, it's hard to digest a lot of content doing what we do, but at the same time it's also important to digest the content because I feel like it's an opportunity not only to learn stuff but to get different ideas and perspectives because everybody does this different and the more that information and knowledge I can soak up, the better. So like, and you guys do it really, really well too. You're like smooth, you know, you guys got the good voices, good transitions. Because I do, I do multiple podcasts. I also cover the NFC East. That's part of one of my jobs. I authentic in the beard. We've done seven seasons. It's like a real like TV show and so like I'm always, you know, no dead air and Stuff like that. So when I listen to you guys, I'm like, oh, they're. They're good. They got the transitions down. They know how to, you know, move into a different topic, not talk over each other too much on no bangers. We're just raw sometimes. But that's because, like, we're three of the same, you know, guys, but three totally different, you know, know, opinions a lot of times. And so that also makes for really good, you know, entertainment and education, because I feel like sometimes you get into those arguments or debates or conversations, and it's like, if you don't walk away, like, thinking about something a different way, then it's kind of pointless. So, like, I love that too. Yu-Gi-Oh absolutely. And so a couple huge things that I want to draw out of this too. I think one of the reasons I connected with your content, the stuff that you do, is that you and even your circle of friends, I identify most with your timeline of niching down into the card space. I was a pastor at a church, and in the early 20 teens, like 2013, 2014, I was like, I had to do some kind of side hustle. So I heard about people flipping stuff on one-of-one no money in that church. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh didn't make it, baby. We were working towards righteous gemstones. We just never got there. But I. I really appreciated the, like, arbitrage focus and the mindset. And there were. There was a lot of content, but there wasn't a ton of people running around with their cameras of like, hey, I'm going to the Goodwill today. Hey, I'm going to the flea market. As soon as I say that. All of you remember spending countless hours binging it on YouTube during COVID but before COVID there was a group of people doing this. You were doing that as well. Guys in the podcast all kind of have that mindset, so I want to start there. Your story is like an arbitrage focus for a business of something you enjoy, and sports is woven into that. So do you mind giving us just a little bit of your story? What led you into this card space to this point? And how does kind of the arbitrage and the flipping, all of that kind of weave its way into it? And I'll do this as short as possible, obviously, because we'll just cut. Anybody who knows me knows I could talk, you know, so let's give you the buzz. So I. I'll make it quick for you guys. So when I was growing up, my parents were both collectors and dealers, right? I was growing Up. I played sports year round. I've always been a sports junkie. You guys can see I got all my, my, my trophies and stuff like that up there, right? No big deal. So my parents used to sell at the flea markets and I sold cards while they sold antiques. And I did that for years obviously. And then I, I kind of grew up and you know, playing sports, it, it took that away from me basically. And a few years back, maybe about, I don't know, eight years ago, eight to 10 years ago, my mom got fibromyalgia and she can't move around as well anymore. And so she had all this stuff and she was like, you know, not like hoarder but like, you know, like collections and, and stuff. And she was just like, I, I can't do it anymore. She's like, I need you to get rid of it. So like I started researching and I was like, there's a market for this. I actually started selling on Etsy first. And so I started, you know, I knew some stuff, basic stuff as far as in the antique world because I grew up around it. And then I started just. I'm a sucker for knowledge. So I started doing research and diving in and stuff like that and I started flipping stuff all. I mean I've, I've sold anything and anything under the sun. Like if I can find it for cheap and sell it for more money, then I am game. Right? Okay, timeout. Weirdest, weirdest, weirdest non sport thing that you flipped that you're like, I don't know what this is, but I just have a feeling. Can you think of one? I should have given you a heads up on this. Something real bizarre that Eyeglasses. Okay, but vintage and antique eyeglasses. Oh, okay. So if you guys didn't know if you're ever out picking, you're at a flea market or yard sale and you see antique glasses. Always check the inside bar right here and the handlebars because a lot of times they're made with gold. Hey. So like, you know, stuff like that kind of slips under the radar a lot, a lot of people know, they look at it more as just all these are antique glasses. But 12 karat, you know, gold filled bars and, and, and, and bridges. I mean I've sold glasses for a couple hundred bucks. I sold, I was, you know, in Virginia picking the 100 mile yard sale and I found a antique Gillette razor. But, but it was inside of a Shriners box from Boston. 19, I forget it was 1908. I think something like that. And I bought that for $4, and it sold for 250 bucks. Yu-Gi-Oh I was in Ohio this after national picking in a barn, and this guy had a box of silverware. I bought the box of silverware. Some Stife bears. I bought a box of jadeite glass, some shoes, a golf club, and a baseball bat. It was 200 bucks, and I sold the box of silverware within a week for a thousand dollars. So that's awesome. I mean, I. I have a weird one, too. Jason will remember this because he was doing the. Before he got into selling cards, he was doing the same stuff I stumbled across. And this is weird and kind of morbid. Yu-Gi-Oh I stumbled across these turn of the century, and for you youngins, that doesn't mean the 2000 century. These medical kits. One was a blood transfusion kit that still. And it would have the doctors, like, badge on it still. And the other one was an embalming kit maybe. And I said, can you do something with these, Jason? He was like, I'm sure I can do something. Yu-Gi-Oh I'll find a way. Trust me. Those were my weird ones. That was like a. That was like a Facebook marketplace thing. A lady was like, porch pickup. I was like, I don't want to see your porch. Hey, you know, there was some. There was some. There was some emo goth kid went walking out of Hot Topic, and that notification hit on ebay, and they're like, Yu-Gi-Oh so. So, Yu-Gi-Oh so, like, I kind of just started helping my mom out. And then at the time, I was working in the restaurant industry, and it just kind of, like, Beckett up. Like, the pace was crazy. And I was like, Yu-Gi-Oh I'm starting a YouTube channel to help promote my. My stores. I didn't think about it as a, I'm going to make money making content or I'm going to make content for content purposes. For me, it was more of an advertising thing. Yu-Gi-Oh Turns out there was a whole world of resellers on YouTube. And so, like, that took up. It Beckett up a lot of pace, too, because it was. You know, my mom is kind of a wild card. Like, you know, she's. She's the best. And so, like, and my wife. And so, like, we kind of were all doing it together, and people really enjoyed that aspect of it. So that's how I got in the content. And then Covid kind of came around, and by. At the time, I was like, before COVID happened, I was talking to my boss, and he's just like, look like, Yu-Gi-Oh you're making all this content you're full time reselling. Basically you're working in the restaurant like it's a natural French one-of-one bistro. And I don't drink. So, like, I could like, you could put 10 glasses of one-of-one on the table and I could smell them all and tell you which one was which. Right. But like, my boss is like, I think you should do it. So I ran it past my girlfriend, who's my wife now at the time, and she was like, you know, let's go ahead and take a stab. And one month later, Covid hit. So it was crazy timing. And then I've always been, I'm a sports junkie. Right. I'm not. I'm sports. Before I was sports cards. Like, I am sports. Like all sports. I will watch anything and everything. And I am like, invested. Cricket. Like cricket love. So I was in St. Lucia and almost went to a cricket game. Yu-Gi-Oh Cricket's huge in the Caribbean. A lot of people don't know. They think, how about highi? What's that? Highi. That's with the, the little cone in the ball, right? Yu-Gi-Oh Look at this guy. Have you ever seen finish baseball? No, but I have seen the ground. Yu-Gi-Oh Finnish baseball is wild. But like, I've sold bull riding cards. Timeout. Time out. You and Gary are too similar. This is. He does what he says. Wild. Exactly like that. I've been roasting the last three weeks because he one-of-one just say the word wild. It's always wild. And I'm watching you two and this is the most bizarre thing because you have the exact same energy to the things you're excited about. If you like weird food. I don't know what to do. Oh, dude, trust me, I, I listen, I will eat just about anything puts on the, on the menu. I'm yet just Takayaki. I need, I need to know how you make your octopus. I need to know how you make your Brussels sprouts. Those are the two biggest things for grilled and then roasted. Yu-Gi-Oh Little flat, little flash fry with some honey on top of it. Oh, man, we're going all over the place. I could talk about food for a whole hour too. But one-of-one I'm walking through Target and I see cards and I'm like, and at the time, I'm a big Gary Vee guy. I've been following Gary Vee before he was anything. Right. So like, long, long time. When he was making one-of-one videos. Yu-Gi-Oh Like way, way, way back. And so, like, I was always intrigued by him and his energy. I know he's not everybody's cup of tea, but neither am I. So I guess that's maybe why I like him. Right? So I walk in, I had heard him talking about cards, and I was like, I was so out of the loop that I didn't even know, like, they made them anymore. And I saw them in Target and I'm like, hold up, are those football cards? And, and I was like, blown away because I grew up going to the house of cards where, like, you know, it was an lcs. It was, it was a card shop. Like, there was no. You could go to like, KB Toys and like, Kmart and get some cards and stuff like that. Right? But they didn't have that smell. They didn't have that card shop. Nah, nah, it was different. It was different. And so I bought a pack of, I believe it was 2020 Panini Contenders draft picks. Oh, God. Just a trash product. Can I grab? Yu-Gi-Oh right. But I had no idea. Like, I'm like, Yu-Gi-Oh where's Upper Deck Fleer? I mean, I'm looking for a hologram, you know what I'm saying? Like, do I get a sticker in this pack? And so I open the pack and it's like, it's like a scene in a movie where like, like a little kid opens up a treasure chest and like, like glows out of the treasure chest. Like, that's how the cards look to me. I'm like, Yu-Gi-Oh this is not Fleer, right? Like, you saw Prizm for the first time. Your head almost exploded then that, the Mosaic. Let me tell you, I bought into so many 20, 20 Mosaic breaks. I probably had an entire four row box of Clyde Edwards Hilaire cards. So, like, I pulled though a Levisca Chenault Jr. Numbered to. I still have this card because it's, I keep this card for this sole purpose because it reminds me of, of when I got back in. And I think it was, it's either number to 10 or number to 5. I had this card for maybe a year before. Then I started going down a rabbit hole before I was like, oh, this card might be numbered. Because they didn't have numbered cards when I was, when I was in the car game. I went and I Beckett it up. I was like, Yu-Gi-Oh this card is numbered. I'm losing my mind. I'm thinking, I just one-of-one the lottery. And so I, I, I have a Levisca Chaul collection spot in my PC box. That's awesome. And so, like, for me, like, that's, that was my introduction back into it. And then the two worlds collided where I was like, Yu-Gi-Oh I love sports. I'm a reseller, and there's cards. So naturally, like, I just hit the ground running because my background in sports, like, I. Knowing all these players from college and football, baseball, basketball, like, there was obviously a learning curve there, you know, like, I bought way too much Panini prison baseball in 2021. Right. Like, that sort of stuff, like, haunts me to this day. Didn't know. You didn't know. You had no idea, right? Like, because you grew up with so many different licenses and everybody was making cards and so, like, it. It took that sort. I mean, the first time I did like a pack opening, I wore gloves, you know, like, those sort of things. Like, I'm not ashamed of, like, admitting, like, it. It's. It's part of the growing process. Like, there's so much gatekeeping. Like, oh, you came in. In Covid and this. I. I might have come back in covet. But don't listen, I'm an og. Like, I'm out here. I was. I got yellow top loaders with price tags on it from when I was 11 years old bringing in $400, which means I was about Maryland 25, probably because I'm old. So. So you got back into cards. Arbitrage, retail. Not retail arbitrage, but yard sale picking, which is a fascinating world in its own account. You got back into cards. You were like, these two worlds are gonna collide, and you started niching down. Jason, I know this was your question, but we kind of already hit this, so I'm gonna dive into it. Yu-Gi-Oh you went, okay, cards, flipping. What made you decide that the best opportunity there for you was to just go all in on the lower end stuff and be like, listen, I'm going to pay a dime for this and sell it for $3. What was the deciding factor there? Well, because it's. It's a. A profit margin thing, right? Like the. My job as a picker, as a reseller, is to buy at the lowest possible cost and sell for the most amount of money, right. What do you say to the person that would push back there and say, well, that's cool and all, but if it takes you an hour and a half to make that 3,000% margin for $2 and 70 cents, and I can make 200 at a 4% margin in less time. What's. What's what. What's the response there? Is it just a volume game? So the thing, this is the thing is that I think people have kind of have the wrong idea of what bargain boxing really is. Okay, right. So it's not about like, did I sell low end cards? Some. So I did sell a lot of low end cards. I mean, everybody's definition of low end is different, right? Sure. There's people out there who think, you know, $100 card is a low end card. Let's be perfectly honest, you know what I'm saying? So like, yep, for me, like I was an early adopter in live selling. So like I was, I was selling on Whatnot. Like I was preloading 500 cards when nobody else even knew how to preload 500 cards. Right. So like I was, I was living because at the time we had a squatter and my wife and me were getting, getting ready to get married. We had a squatter from COVID on our property that we bought. So we're living in my in laws house. I have the entire dining room tables full of cards and I'm running Whatnot auctions for six, seven hours and my mother in law is putting cards in, passing me cards. Everything's organized by teams and stuff like that. And I, I paid, most basically paid for my wedding doing that. Right. Like you, I don't know if you know how much a luxury porta potty costs, bud, but buddy, buddy, my daughter got married a year and a half ago. I'm gonna be paying for it for the next five. I get it. A luxury porta potty cost me like $1500 for like 10 hours. Like what are we doing? You know? So like that was one whole stream right there. So, so for me, that's how I was looking at it. I was looking at it as I went, I spent 200, I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna make four or five hundred dollars. Right. Like that's how I looked at the end game. Yep. And so, but the one part that I think people misunderstand is they think that because I buy dollar dollar cards or I do low end in the bargain boxes, they think I'm buying three dollar cards. But that's not what I do. Right. What I do is I, I go in the dollar boxes and I find $20 cards, $100 cards, $10 cards. That's what I do. What I do is, is, is, is not low end. I mean like there's not a day, the time where I go to a card show and I can, you can give me 200, I can go to a card show and I can come home and buy with about a hundred to 300 cards. And I could turn that 200 into 800 in 24 hours. Whether it's live through private, you know, through private sales to people that I shop for or the ones that I list, you know. And I do all of that in, in value boxes now. I do, I don't shop showcases at all now that I work at the card shop. I do more showcase shopping. But my mentality is the same. Yu-Gi-Oh Like I, I went to a card show, I set up at a card show for the first time ever two weeks ago. That was fun, wasn't it? Which you've been to thousands by now, right? Like you've probably been to 500 shows. There's times I'll go to three shows in a day. That's what I'm saying. Like you're, you're familiar with the scene. You just set up for the first time. Just set up for the first time. It's wild. By myself, two, two six foot tables. It was the worst thing in the world because I could not go shop. Yu-Gi-Oh Like. And I was there. Check in was 6:30. I was the first person in the parking lot. Sun coming up, shining down on me. I'm like, let's go. Because I want to, I want to be in there so I can at least shop for a little bit. Because. Because what's the best part of this niche? Down where it's like bargain boxing. What is the Absolute best part of it? It's not the sale. It's. I mean it still matters. The thrill. The thrill of the find and treasure hunt. Yu-Gi-Oh When you're on the dealer side of the table and you see all your buddies that know what they're doing in those boxes, you're like, you son of a guy. Well if you know on this side of the table, you know how came up to me during the show and was like damn, you Beckett the wrong weekend to be on the other side of table. Cuz people love people. There's one thing about making content too. And so I do that Friday, the Friday show short every week where I give people like stuff to look for in bargain boxes. I get my inbox gets flooded with pictures and messages of people finding stuff. And it is. That is the best feeling of about creating content is like genuinely like helping other people. They're like dude, I would have never known. And then they find a Christopher Sanchez card in it for a dollar and then they sell it for 50 bucks and they're like I just want to thank you. And I'm like, you know, I do it for the people. Right. Like I love that but like being on the other side of the table was brutal. It was brutal. But I, I hid, I made sure I. I made awesome bargain boxes because I knew, I knew I was going to be judged by the other bargain boxers. Come on. Oh, look at it's got. He's cuz cards are all priced to comp and I'm like, nah, I left y' all some gems in there. Quarter. I had a quarter box, right? I had the old. The old men love quarter boxes. Oh Yu-Gi-Oh they're in the quarter boxes. Then I had dollar boxes. Then I had two to seven dollars. And then I had one two row of ten plus. And then I had one showcase that was my two six foot tables. So I did really well. Just. But like buying was kind of tough. But I did find a sweet bargain and it's like, that's the thing is like not all bargains are created equal. So it was a Bryce Eldridge Zebra short print die cut Bowman to 49. You know, like the, not the nugget ones but like they kind of look like they're reminiscent of the old school Bowman best Heat Wave. Yu-Gi-Oh I know exactly what you're talking about. Yep. PSA9 and the guy had $80 on it. And so like I. And I don't comp. Right. I do a now more so because I'm buying if I'm buying for the shop. Right. But I'm like, there's no way that card is not 160 to $200. So of course my natural reseller in me, I was like, would you take 60? Take 60? And he's like, n. I can't do 60. I was like, how about 70? He's like, all right, cool. So I bought it for 70 and it's like I think a computer. There's no sold in a PSA 9, PSA 10, I think last sold for like 500 and a PSA 8 sold for like 121. So like 200 card. But like that is. That is the same mentality that I'm using when I'm shopping. Showcases what I use in the bargain boxes. But like such a interesting thought because you said you don't comp. And for Jason and I, we have found that to be the case too, especially for our live selling stuff. Yu-Gi-Oh And that you. I love that you guys talked about that in the last episode. Yu-Gi-Oh We just, we find the stuff that we think looks cool, that we think our audience has shown that they like. And then we Buy it. And we don't, we don't make a big deal over it. It's just like, here's the stack. What do I one-of-one you when you do live sale, you've been, you said earlier you, you been on Whatnot. You guys had did for a while. Are you still doing it too? No. So we're in the process of transitioning dibdit cards. That sort of announcement will be probably be coming out soon. So. Okay. Breaking news. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Broken news is what we like to say on no bangers. Because I always like, read my phone and I'm like, dude, guess what happened? And then like two days later the episode comes out and people are like, really? So I had to change breaking news to broken news. But Yu-Gi-Oh And now through the shop, we are selling on loop. Okay. And so for those of you that don't know what loop is, I always tell people it's like, what, not for adults. That's how ebay live feels for us too. Yu-Gi-Oh So hopefully that's in the pipeline too. So you'll wait and see. But Yu-Gi-Oh that's. The live selling is, is a different beast. If somebody was going to say, hey, I, I feel really comfortable and confident in the dollar boxes. I want to start selling live if you could give them. And I'm going to limit you here because you're like me and it'll turn into a rabbit trail. I got you. If you could give them two pieces of advice that would give them the best opportunity to be successful relatively quickly, what would those two pieces of advice be? The first thing is simple. And you can apply this to anything. And that's going to be you make your money in the buy. Right? So like, if you, you can't be worried about what your card sells for, I'm, I am one who's anti $1 starts. Right. But I, I've kind of, you know, that's, that's something that has changed over time, gone back and forth. Right. But like, for, for certain people who are just starting out, don't ever start at $1. Right. Don't ever start at $1. Make your money in the vibe. Start at $2. Because if your card sells for $1, you pay the $0.30 transaction fee. You pay this and that. Next thing you know you're making 15 cents. So unless you're buying your cards at a cost per card average of $0.05 per card, then you're going to lose money. Right. And I'm just being perfectly honest with you. Most people lose money. So I, My, my Thing is, if you started $2, it gives you a little bit less of a thing. And if your card is good enough to sell for $1, it sure as hell better be good enough to sell for $2. Okay? And the other thing is too is like you have to, you have to read the room. Reading the room is so important, you know, like, and take. There's so many things. Read the room. There's all kind of bundles together. Read the room. Be in control of your stream, right? Be confident, but don't be obnoxious. You know, like those are the sort of things and adjust and adapt the. I've run 25 different style shows on live before, right? So like, and you know, time is, time is money. And also you want to, you want to bring your customers back. So. And be organized. God, that's the number one. That's the number one. Be organized, Be organized. Because listen, do you know how many times somebody says, do you have such and such. Oh, hold on, let me go look. And then next thing you know, you're in a two row box for 10 minutes, you come back and there's two people in your room. Yu-Gi-Oh right. So my cards when I'm running live are always, if I'm, if I'm running a particular style life, everything is always organized by team, by player. So Chicago Cubs, it has all the same Suzuki's in a row and then the next player, all their cards in a row and then if there's cars, the players that only have one card in my Chicago Cubs stack, they all go back to back to back in the end. So I can flip through an entire thing like real fast, right? So like being, because players get hot, the markets change, right? Somebody, it's so like this. If you're live at night time and somebody just goes off and they just drop 52 points in a game, people are going to come in the streams and they're going to want those cards, right? But if you're not organized, you're not going to be able to, to capitalize on that moment. And that goes for selling cards, period. Because if somebody if, when Joshua buys. And by the way, I've been, you go back and check the receipts. I've been telling y' all about Joshua Baez for damn near two years, right? Do you know how many people hit me up after that and would like, thank God I listened to you. Right? Because that's another guy. You could have bought him cheap. Nobody was talking about him, right? So like I, I had so much Joshua bias. As soon as that happened 10 seconds, I'm already ready to go, you know what I'm saying? Like all those cards are listed sold, Bam, boom. Let's talk a little bit about the sales Velocity because I think that's the thing that I think people that have been in arbitrage, flipping in other spaces understand in cards when we use the term collectible all of a sudden sometimes there's like a different mentality with that and a lot of people end up putting stacks of two to four row boxes off to the corner and they really never process them. When you talked about why you like live selling, you would say hey, if you send me with a couple hundred bucks and there's decent value boxes within 24 hours. So those of you listening that are selling low end, please catch that. Because that little caveat is everything in this business. And I know you said it intentionally, but the ability to get instant feedback on your buys, that is the reason that Tim knows how good he is in the boxes. Because if he just bought 500000 cards in a bulk deal, he may have gotten them for less than a penny a piece of. But if it's going to take him three years to present those, to sell them, he doesn't know how good he bought. Yu-Gi-Oh the margin looks good. So I just want to give you props on that. Do you mind expounding on that? You're talking about timing, you're talking about this mentality of within 24 hours. How would you encourage people that Maybe so like when I was doing the high volume low end, I was scanning in because I had a goofy schedule and I just scaled it to 50,000 by and I now cards and. And I realized I cannot maintain the shipping and continue to do this without hiring people. And I can't hire people. And so it was like something has to give. So I just had to make that ship shift and leap to live selling sales Velocity. Like how important that is it to you? What are maybe like what's a lesson or what do you do to make sure that you're staying fresh on your buys or that you're not over buying that you're buying enough that you feel urgency to sell quickly. Those Topps of things. The biggest thing is, is like and this is a reseller thing is like you don't want to have a death pile, right? Like you know how many people were sitting on Elmer Cruz Rodriguez autos and completely missed that boat because they just thought it was a paper auto and a two row box of Bowman. You know what I'm Saying, so like I go to a show, I buy my cards and also I make content. So it's easier for me to press the issue of going through my cards because as soon as I get home from a card show, I film a recap video, right? But before I film the recap video, I organize all my cards by support, by numbered, by auto, this and that, and I pull out the ones I think are worth $10 or more. I make sure double check my, my, my head math because like I said, I don't necessarily comp on the Fleer And I'm like, okay, bam, this card is a $40 car. I did good on that one, right? And so all those cards, I instantly photograph them in my phone, right? And so then I fill my video and then my cards, I just, you know, remove the background, add shadow in photo room. And I started using ebay card scan to list my cards. So I was doing bulk Yu-Gi-Oh listing. I did bulk ebay and then I used a different Yu-Gi-Oh program. But the cool thing about when you scan your cards through ebay scan, like as a price check, that gives you an option to list the item. So when you list the item, it pre fills all of the item specifics for you. So like you don't have to go in and do that. And you know, ebay loves the item specific. So. But the, the point here is you gotta be turn and burn, baby. Turn and burn. Because a lot of people who do what we do, they don't have a lot of capital, right? So it's like you don't want to have all like those cards already tied up and just sitting. You can't make money if your cards aren't listed, right? And so, and you always want to have, if you're a live seller, always have a live scheduled. So, you know, like that's what you're getting. And like if you're doing that, it's easier for you to capitalize on trends. Players who are hot, players who are not. You know, college football season is about to start. You know, like foot preseason football. Like, I was ready for Carson back to go out there and have a good game. I was ready for Drew Aller to go out there and have a good game, knowing that flagship was about ready to come out. This is your only window to capitalize on those Bowman cards. Yu-Gi-Oh so it's like, it's just being like using your brain and strategizing and just being quick. And it's difficult because not everybody has time. I have a kid that's gotta be 18 months old, right? But, like, I'm also not buying 5,000 base cards. You gotta buy. I've been. I'm always learning how to be a better buyer. And so it's like, if I'm running live streams, I'm not buying base cards. I'm just not. There's no point in buying base cards. There was a time and a stretch where, like, I would love to pick up first Bowman Mojos at a dollar, right? But the market changed. Now it's not worth it to buy first Bowman Mojos at a dollar. There are a few, you know, if I find a Jesus mad day. Or for those of you, here's a little tidbit, here's a little no nugget. Oh, if you ever find a Bowman card, that baseball, that's a mojo pre2025. Always pick it up if the code on the back is bdc Bowman draft for the first time in the last release was made a retail product. That's where Mojos come from. So every other year before then, if a Bowman draft is a Mojo, it is a short print Asia exclusive parallel. And those can be worth a lot of money. So that's awesome. Yu-Gi-Oh that was a good one. I thought you were about to give us a player to watch. And then I was hoping it'd be somebody I didn't like and we could argue about it. We do that next time. Oh, shoot. All right, tell me. Tell me a little bit about the lcs. So you. You had a recent shift. You're getting involved with the lcs. You said you were buying for an lcs. So are you a corporate shill? Yes or no? Nah. Never a corporate show. Good answer. All right. Except for this lcs. Make sure you visit it. No. So, like, that's the thing that's cool about working for an LCS is, you know, so the situation was basically like, I live in Washington, DC. It is not cheap. My kid is just turning 18 months old and he is an Absolute tank. Like, he is wearing like 5T clothes. Like, and he's not, like, just chunky. He's tall, he's got big feet. I don't know what's going on. He's an Absolute machine. So we have to put him in daycare now because it's just too difficult between what I was doing and my wife was doing. It worked for a while, but like, you know, because she works from home, you know, four out of the five days a week. And I worked for myself. So we were doing our best, but we weren't Doing what we needed to do to be successful in both of our careers. So those of you that don't know daycare is like a second mortgage. So it's insane. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh $2,000 a month, basically. So my, I, I went and you know, my wife's like, you gotta, we gotta get some extra money. So I mean, I put out applications and all different Topps of stuff. Social media managers and content creation and, you know, I put out some applications with some of the big card companies and stuff. And it was just brutal, right? Like, I haven't had a job, my application, it's like my resume is like, there's like a eight year been there, bro. I have been there. So like I, I, you know, I, I have good relationships with all the card shops in the area. And I saw in the card shop that they were put. Delta is the name of the card shop. If you guys follow. Delta breaks on Instagram and Facebook and we're on the Loop app. And so they put up a ad on Instagram. It was like, you know, looking for sorter and shipper. I'm like, oh dude, this would be great. Like, I'll go in after I do all my own stuff. I'll, you know, make 20 bucks an hour and I'll just shipping and sorting cards. Like, what's like, that's awesome, right? And then I'll help pay for daycare. I go in and I interview and things kind of just snowballed into a greater position with the company. And I just, I clicked well with the owner and what his ultimate goal was. And I loved his aspect of community, diversity in the staff and stuff like that. And like, you know, what they were trying to accomplish and the opportunity. I always like to be as ground in the, the beginning of something as possible. Right? Like with Whatnot. You know, I was, I was selling on Whatnot. I started selling vintage clothes on there and there wasn't even a vintage clothes category, you know. So like when I was selling cards, there's 10 people live at a time. So like being in the ground level is, is amazing. And so now I am breaking like, which is crazy because I, it's funny, the is. I put out this whole thing online. I was like, I would be the best breaker out there. Like somebody hired me to be a breaker and a bunch of people sent me messages and I end up being a breaker now. And it's, it's awesome like, because I can be everything I hate other breakers are and not be that. Right? And so it's in like I Love talking as you. I'm sure you guys know, 36 good at into this. Good. So I'm breaking. I'm buying cards. I'm managing the shop. You know, we're working on processing collections, the amount of people that call. Like, I see it all the time when I'm out of card shop. Because when I go to a card shop, I'm not a card shop for 20 minutes. I'm at a card shop for five, six hours. Right. Like the Bel Air card shop, which is one of my other favorite card shops. It's one of the. If you guys ever get to Maryland, you know, come visit me at Delta and then, you know, go visit my friends at Bel Air. But, like, I used to go there for seven, eight hours and just dig through boxes. Right. We've got a shop in Cincinnati that way for us. Yu-Gi-Oh So it's like, you know, you hear it all the time, people calling in, oh, I got this. You know what? And the first question that somebody answers the phone is, what year? So I already know what the question was on the other end of the phone. Right? So, like, you doing that is, like. It's, like, fun right now. You know, it's always fun for me because I grew up in the 90s, right. But, like, it's fun right now because it's all about, you know, Shaq Jordan. And my PC is Anthony Hardaway when it comes to basketball. Oh, nice. So I actually just look at this. Anthony Hardaway. I just Beckett this up at the show this weekend. Finest Refractor. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh I got. I got one for you that we Beckett up recently that hasn't sold in about a year and a half. Look at him slow rolling this. All right, here we go. It's the hardcore plus. Yu-Gi-Oh Oh, that's nasty. Yu-Gi-Oh that's nasty. So, Yu-Gi-Oh so I. I love Anthony Hardaway, but, like, you know, and we talk about it on the no Banger sports car podcast a month ago, because we. We started seeing that. I started seeing the trends, you know, Shaq. I mean, Jordan and. And Brady. Because this was probably like, you know, three, three or four weeks before national. And we started talking about, like, stuff that we were kind of eyeing because of, you know, pre national, you always kind of do your homework, and we're like, damn, this markets are going crazy. And then it really went crazy. And then we were like, well, well, who's undervalued? That falls in those categories? And Shaq was one of the people we talked about. And it's just funny because, you know, Rod bought the beam team set, the Stadium Club set, box set with the beam team Shaq rookie in it. And it's up like $3,000 from when he bought it at National. Listen, I got the whole set, the members only set at the Cleveland national in trade for a gold Shimmer like third year Joe Burrow. Yu-Gi-Oh both, both were worth about 500 at the time. I think I sold that set for about $900 a month later. And boy, every time I think about it, I want to crawl into a. Listen, I, I could sit here, I could give you an hour of Shohei Otani stories alone. Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Michael Jordan like all that stuff, you know. But like that's the other thing about turn and burn. Like some people are like, oh well, you know, should I hold? I'm like, never hold. That's our motto. We tell people all the time that we believe this firmly. There's no such thing as selling a card too fast. Yes, you will occasionally miss out on massive rise on one or two cards. But the ones you sold that don't do that all went down and it all balances out. Right. There's a guy that you really believe in. This is what I tell people. And I always, I have guys that I buy. Right. And like a stash. But I'm, I'm cheap, you know what I'm saying? I'm not out here buying 101 Zebra fractures or PSA 10 red lavas or whatever, you know. Like I'm buying the sneaky cards that I could are affordable. But like I always try if there's something I really believe in, I always try and buy three of the same card or three of the same range card. One to hold, one to sell. You know like when that first like bump hit happens. Yep. And then one to really try and play down to the last minute before like long term hold. Yep. So like, you know, and there's, there's times to buy and stuff like that too. And it's like I, I hate selling baseball cards in the off season because people are like, oh well, this is the off season price. I love buying it. Yu-Gi-Oh I'm not telling you it's off season prices because I, I don't do that. Like it's other thing too when I'm shopping at a card show, unless it's somebody I know personally, I'd never use the word percentage ever. Yu-Gi-Oh never use the word percentage ever. Like I, I just be like, I will. I throw just boomerangs at people. They don't even know what's coming back because they're so used to people, like, talking to them a certain way. Right. Like, for me, I'm just like, all right, this, this, this, and this and this. How about this? And they're like, wait, what? And I'm like, I'm like, Yu-Gi-Oh Because, like, that's how. When I go to a card show, I, If I spend $260 and I buy 300 cards, my cost per card average is that it doesn't matter what the stickers say. I take every single card I spent and I get a cost per card average on at the end of the day. So sometimes I come home with a card that I, that's a 200 card. But I, you know, I, I made it. It might have had a $20 sticker on it, but I only paid $1.79 for that. Son of a. The important thing about that is. And you know, this is because the only way that works is if you sell all 200 cards. If you, if you apply that. Well, I only paid a dollar for this $200 card. But the other 199 cards you bought just sit in a box forever. Well, you paid $200 for that $200 card. You probably sold it for 180. So you're down 20 bucks. That was one of those gems I heard at the, the last episode. I was like, oh, that's good. That's good. Yu-Gi-Oh it's easy to park that money. And this, the thing is, like, there's so many opportunities out there. Yu-Gi-Oh Like, and I, I never know. Never go to a card show either. Like, okay, this is what I'm buying today because that never works. When I was at National Day four, the day my, I'm, I'm editing day two and three video right now, I just Tribute day one. And day one was crazy. Like, you know, I found the junior Cameron arrow, rookie to 50, had a $3 sticker on it. And, you know, that sold for $45. You know, stuff like that. But like, day four, I'm walking around and I'm just like. Because, you know, at some point in time, you're just like, you're like, almost like you're just, you're zombied or a high and you're just kind of. Yu-Gi-Oh Like floating through the convention center. And I, I, I, I somehow mysteriously ended up in front of these cases of, like, the weirdest stuff. And I was like, oh, this, this is like, this is mind blowing. I saw a 1974 Chuck Norris PSA5 from Way of the dragon. And I was like, they told me to buy the goats. So I said. I said. I said, we got $125 on this. I said, listen, man, I give you 65 bucks right now. He was like, Yu-Gi-Oh He's like, this is all I could. Simon. I got to call my buddy. So as he's doing that, I'm looking at a slab Cool Runnings ticket, like, autographed by all the Cool Runnings. Yu-Gi-Oh Who I met backstage at the Cleveland National. Was that three years ago now. Those the only auto tickets you bought? Please say yes. I didn't buy it because they were $200. But, like, I have. I have something better than their autographs. Like, I have, like, a. On camera, me and Carrie, American Arbitrage cars, for those of you that are curious. We had. You know, we have. We get media passes for National. So in Cleveland, we're backstage at the. Like, the autograph signs and stuff, and we're walk by, and Malik Yoba and who's. You know, and Junior are there signing a Jamaican bobsled suit. And I'm like, oh, my. Because Cool Runnings is my. Like. Like, that's, like Cool Runnings in sandlot. Like, you know, like Mighty Ducks. Best movie trilogy of all time. Like, that's what I grew up on, right? Yu-Gi-Oh So my kids grew up on, too. I walk by, and I'm like. I tell the guys. I'm like, I just want to let y' all know that the scene where you guys are talking in the mirror, that's, like, one of my favorite movie scenes of all time. And Malik Yova turns to me, he says, oh, Yu-Gi-Oh do it right now. And so I look at Carrie, and I'm like, this is like, I'm ready to rock. And Carrie's looking at me like, I don't know what to do, right? And so, like, I start saying it line for line, and I'm, like, pointing at Carrie. Carrie's not answering. So I'm saying both lines at one time. And Malik Yova looks at me after I finish, and he's like, that's good. I like that. I like you. And he looks at Carrie. He says, I don't know what the blank you were doing. And I have it all on camera. So, like, that was awesome. But anyways, the guy was like, Yu-Gi-Oh 65 bucks. The guy said, it's cool. So I bought that Chuck Norris. I had no intentions of really selling that card, but I was like, Yu-Gi-Oh you know what? I'll put it up for a buck 25 nobody's really gonna buy it. Like, I can at least get back home and enjoy it for a second. Two days after national, it sold, and I'm just like, damn. So, like, the goat thing kind of goes a little bit further than what you think. It's really interesting. So. Yu-Gi-Oh So, like, that's the sort of stuff that I love too, man. Like, it's just. There's so much to love about cards that, like, that's what I've tried to focus on because there's so. It's so much complaining, right? Yu-Gi-Oh And. And that just. It runs rampant. And it's okay to be dissatisfied, it's okay to be upset. Right. But, like, when there's 200 people online complaining about their hits in flagship, I'm like, what are we doing here? Like, if you don't know by now that flagship is. Is not National Treasures, I can't help you. And if you don't know by now, since Fanatics took over, that if you're gonna buy a flagship product, your best luck is in retail. I also don't know what else to tell you. Yu-Gi-Oh Like, at the end of the day, the. The point of negativity is. Is one that Jason and I have really, really embraced, not necessarily being the opposite of that. Because there's problems with the everything sunny all the time crowd too. Right? Yu-Gi-Oh It's okay to talk about the things that are wrong in any space, but you don't want to wallow in it. And if you're going to talk about what's wrong, at least bring something that resembles a solution to the table. That was another one of those. Those. Another one I heard you guys talk about recently, too. Because, Yu-Gi-Oh it's. It's. It's easy to complain. Right. But, like, there's. And I. This is one of the best comments I get about the content that we make. And this is kind of why this was the lane that I chose to make content. Me and Carrie and Rod, we kind of fall into a specific niche. There's a few others out there. Right. But, like, there's such wide space in between the ends of the spectrum of sports card content. Right. It's either the sky is falling or I just spend $500,000 at a card show. Right. Like, there's. Those are such small groups of people that digest sports card content. Yu-Gi-Oh And they both live in their own echo chambers and think they're the only ones that exist. Yu-Gi-Oh It's wild. Right. How that works. But, like, there's so many people, like, the more there's more people that shop in the bargain boxes than they then don't. Right. And it's not even just bargain boxes. I, you know, people think bargain boxes. They think I'm talking about dollar boxes. I'm talking about anything that's not in the showcase, basically. Right. Like, and there's nothing wrong with buying downtowns and stuff like that. It's not like, it's not my cup of tea. Right. Like I, I'm more of a short print guy than a case hit guy. Right? Right. Because I feel like the end user of a. It's, it's quicker for me to get to the end user for a short print than it is to get my case hit to an end user. Why is that? I, by the way, we are setting a record for the longest podcast. But this is good, so I don't care. Gary and I said we were going to do a 30 minute session. It went 50. We said we're going to do 25 here. I'm still fascinated why what you just said is Zebra important and I don't want to leave any crumbs. Okay. All right. I want to make sure everybody gets this. You just said that short print has a faster path or a more direct path to the end user versus the case hit. Yu-Gi-Oh So why does that matter in the context of a business? Because you're a. Your margins are going to be better. Why? Because you're not having to compete against a million other people and paying 90. I'm not paying $900 for a Downtown to hopefully sell to somebody for $910. Right. Like what? What? Like that doesn't make any sense to me. But like if I find a short print image variation because people don't understand what's the end user. The end user is a collector. The foundation of the hobby is the collecting. Right. The foundation of the hobby is the card show. The guys that you see with the three ring binders at the card, the box set every week. Right. It like they're the people who are hardcore sports fans. That's why, like, it's so important if you want to be successful in sports cards, take the time to learn sports. Because I'm gonna be honest with you, I watch some of this stuff and I'm just like, this guy's telling me about Jaden Higgins. The dude tore his ACL like two weeks ago. Why are you trying to sell him in a break spot to these people? Right. Like, just look like, take the time. It'll make your life so much easier. Because you can find the end user. Right. The people who buy short prints. Like, you know. You ever patch auto the name of that show? The. The Dudes who Love Topps Chrome image variation spitballing. Is that what it is? Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Long cards. Yu-Gi-Oh Those guys, like, they like, those are the sort of guys you want to sell to, right. They might not necessarily like, eventually they'll probably sell some of those cards. Right. But they love that stuff. Yep. Right. It's. And it's so much more rare. Some people think because it doesn't say out of 10 on a card that it's not a print run out of 10. You know how many times I found blue and red retail Prizm football cards? Like, and people have no idea. Yu-Gi-Oh Like when I saw you guys at national, what was the car? I turned around and showed what you guys about. Julio Rodriguez Savage Sluggers out of Stadium Club Pink foil. Because those are extremely rare. There's only one example sold of that card ever. Right. And it, it like that's a, A mass. Not a mass produce, but it's a heavily produced. Pretty heavily produced product. Yu-Gi-Oh So like that sort of stuff, like the people who are building sets, the people who are looking for. Because people want to try and stand out more and more people you're going to see have the really off the wall stuff because people are going to eventually get tired of walking down every single row at a card show and seeing a cards, the same 5, 10, 15, 20 cards in every showcase. Right. They're going to get tired of it. So when you are sitting in the middle of a sea of downtowns and you have a Zebra short print Roger maris image variation PSA 10. Somebody who knows cards, who knows sports is going to stop the Yu-Gi-Oh and see. Like, I've never seen that card in my entire life. Yu-Gi-Oh How much do you want for it? Yu-Gi-Oh So a million dollars, sir. That's great. All right, Tim, before we wrap up, by the way, I'm volunteering you to come back on the show anytime. It. It feels like I'm kicking it with somebody from high school. This is kind of weird, right, Gary? Just like, right. Like within five minutes I was like, he's in. I love this guy, but we're gonna have you back. But I want to send our community to you to. To digest this content. I know for a fact our people have found tremendous value in a lot of the points that you brought here that are going to be useful for them right away. They want to follow you. How do they stay on top of whatever you're putting out right now. So over the years, sports on Instagram, Facebook, our Facebook page is growing rapidly on YouTube, on tick tock. You can find me on over at Tim walk on water2. On Twitter. I do a lot of hobby content and sports content in general on Twitter. That's X for those of you who aren't as old as we are. And then no Bangers Sports Card Podcast which drops episodes drop every Wednesday morning at 11:00am Eastern Standard Time. And then Delta Breaks on loop. I break probably like two or three times a week and then follow Delta breaks on on Instagram and Facebook and you'll be able to find out what we're are in the lab cooking up right now. So that's. I'm all over the place and you'll. I'm sure you'll see me in a million different places saying a million different things. But I do it for the people. I, I love the people. Well, I'll tell you this, it's been a Pulsar Like it's been a blast having a conversation. I'm sorry that I dragged this along. I really. No, best case scenario, absolutely. If it was boring, we'd have shut it down 30 minutes ago, baby. Yu-Gi-Oh Listen man, thanks for coming. We appreciate it. This is fantastic stuff, man. Can't wait to have you on again. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you guys very much. I appreciate it. That was great. Be sure to follow Tim over the years Sports, be sure to check out the no Bangers podcast. Good content. Again, the thing that we emphasize is if you're going to listen to somebody in social media space, video, any of that, we just think it should be rooted in some level of experience. Yes. We're not saying everybody is the end all be all, but at least make sure that if you're asking questions about buying and flipping low end cards, it is people that spend time in boxes digging and they do content around that. So yes, hopefully you found great value in that like we did. Let's jump into our little educational meat and potatoes for the day, Gary. Tough conversations at card shows. So we're gonna rapid fire these off. We're going to go like, we'll, we'll alternate here just so I don't talk the whole time. I'll let you start with the first one. These are common situations people run into as vendors that are challenging and how to navigate that conversation. Now listen, Gary will do some things different than I would and some of you watching and listening would do things different than both of us and that's okay. Unless you're wrong is, Yu-Gi-Oh you're wrong, but it's okay. And just, just realize every difficult conversation, you have to find a way to think through. Through that. Don't let it be a reason to stop you from potentially setting up at your first show. So, Gary, kick things off. You see the first one there. Go for it. Yu-Gi-Oh I think one of the hardest things that happens when you're either, even if you're just walking a show and you're selling to vendors, but as a vendor is trying to figure out what to do if you and the person selling you the card, or if you're a walker, you and the person selling you the card can't agree on what the actual value of the card is for us. Jason and I do this very similarly. Not exactly. I'll let Kim kind of give you his variation on how I handle this. But when somebody walks up to us and they say, hey, are you guys interested in buying stuff? Sure, let's take a look. And then usually we'll go through their stuff, and most of the time we end up with anywhere from five to 50 things in their case that we're interested in. And I, I try to nip this part of it in the bud before we even get down. Too far down the rabbit hole. Because if you don't, you can waste a lot of time. I say, hey, here's the ones I'm interested in. This is what I'd like to do. This is kind of how we do things. I want to look at each one of these individually, and let's see if we agree on the value. If we agree on the value of a card, we're going to put it in this pile right here. And if we don't agree on the value of a card, no big deal at all. We'll just put it in this pile over here and we one-of-one worry about those. And then I proceed to do that. We go through. Jason usually is sitting down with the computer open, and I'm usually overdoing other things. I'm the backup buyer. It's a good day. If Gary's having to buy. Yes, If I'm having to buy, it's been a really great day. And. And we just go through and say, hey, these are the ones we agree on the value on. These are the ones that we don't. And I will start by saying, hey, on these ones we agree on the value of. What do you. What do you want for them? And I just don't say anything until that person responds to me. The easiest way to get past the not agreeing on the value is to not have it be an issue to begin with. If we don't agree on the value, set the card aside, it's not worth the the push and pull. It really isn't, unless it's a card you're never going to see again. And in that case, you got to remember one really important thing. That seller has all of the leverage, you have none of the leverage. So you either want the card at the price they want to sell it for, or you let it walk and somebody else will buy it. Yep. Yu-Gi-Oh I agree. And it's a two sided conversation too. It's also people walking up to your table. But I think a lot of this is mitigated in the first 10 seconds of the conversation. So I can tell pretty quick. If we're selling and somebody's coming up and they don't agree on the value of the card, the approach they take really matters to us. If they're saying, are you open to offers on this card? And we say, what are you thinking? I have opened the door for them to give an offer and even give support as to why they think it should be. And if value's the reason, it's a perfect opportunity for them to say that. If they just start pointing and they say last one did, and we've been through this a bunch. The first thing that I say when I hear last one did is just a quick calm. I'm not even disagreeing. I say, oh, okay, what did the two or three before that do? All it's doing is painting a picture. Sometimes I'm wrong, sometimes I was too narrow on my search and they actually do have relevant sales and we are in a different spot. As I'm buying with the value, the only thing that I do a little different is sometimes I'll go card by card and ask them what they're asking for each card and if they're within like 5 to 10%, which I know for some of you this sounds crazy, but there's a lot of cards there that I'm trying to buy. Right? 5 to 10%. We're close, right? Anything where they say something different but I still want it, I do a different pile. And what I tell them is, hey, there's two piles here. There's one where we're pretty close and there's one where I'm seeing something different. It's okay. If I separate these out, you can either put those back in your case or we can look at it together. Most of the time, people will do that. Now the red flag. I can tell you right away. And Gary knows where this is heading. Here's a. There is a red flag where you can just decide to stop wasting your time. Okay. When somebody has walked the room, you're not the first table. And it's a right player. So it's a Shohei numbered card. Right. And before they have handed it and you've turned the card towards yourself, it's a pop 17. The PSA 9 green wave to 274 in 2026. And the card ladder value. If you're hard selling that thing and I haven't even seen the card yet, we know for a fact you are reaching above and beyond to infinity and beyond with that card. Yes. That's where you're going with that. Your Buzz Lightyear in that card. There's a principle way too far. So there's a principle in sales there that. That comes into play. The person who has to do the most justification loses. Yu-Gi-Oh And you create a tug of war right away. Yu-Gi-Oh There's a guy that will remain unnamed at a large Midwest show that shows up 30 minutes before it ends every time. And he does the same thing. And he has it like a presentation almost. He thinks the vendors want to spend an hour. And it's like a paper SGA rookie. But it was a parallel. And it's in a PSA 8. But there was a weird 7 sale. But for. It's like, dude, no, I'm not playing this game. one-of-one So for us, that tough conversation when you can't agree on value. Couple big things that I like to use. One, if they're like, I just think it's going to be. It's gonna be whenever it's. I just think it's gonna be the easiest thing you can ever do is. You might be right. Give that back to them. Sure. You might. Because here's one thing that Gary and I have learned. There are cards that it shows will sell for $100, let's say $20 all day. But on a live. Because it's something that they haven't seen. And maybe your audience doesn't go to shows and this is how they find the stuff they like. It might do 40 bucks and everybody's happy. Yep. Right. So I'm. Who am I to say you're wrong? Like, I just. I just can't be at the same place you are. But. Well, I think it's got to be worth. Well, we both know it doesn't have to be worth, but it could be. And sometimes it's just like, I think you should hang on to that. If they do X, Y or Z, you'll probably get it. And it's just. And sometimes by doing that they're like, well, I can work with you. So it was just, you know, one-of-one so that's one of the ways I handle it. What do you do when it's like an impasse? What are some, how do you want that conversation to end? By the end of it? You say you want people to leave feeling good. You had a chance of relationship. You think it's a hundred dollar card. They're convinced it's worth 150. How does that end amicably for you, Gary? As long as the entire interaction has been respectful, everybody's been honest about where they're at. For me, it's just, hey, it sounds like we're probably not going to get there on this one. No big deal. I'm still interested in these other two or if it's just one card, hey, I, I appreciate the opportunity. We're just not going to be able to get there on it. I, I hope you can get it. What you do a lot of times is if it's a case hit or something like we have Brent on last week, we, we walk people over to the guys that we know pay stronger than we do on that kind of stuff. Hey, we're not the guys for that. But Yu-Gi-Oh here, let me walk you over to Brent or let me walk you over to Logan or let me wherever and see if they're interested in it. They may be a better fit for you. The key for us is always and if you do this in your business, guys listen to me really closely and I'm not going to say I'm perfect at it because sometimes people get under my skin and sometimes I get grumpy. But if you look at every interaction is, hey, how can I add some value to this interaction? Your business is going to explode, it's going to grow. People are going to want to come back to you even if they didn't buy a card or sell a card that time, you're going to get those opportunities again because you added value. If you can look at every interaction through that lens, how can I add value to this? You're going to be in good shape. Example of that last week was that show hey. Or Shipshawana that Shohei tops fire rookie that's numbered came walking up. Now, this isn't normally the case, but as everybody Shifted to the goat market. Gary and I are quietly getting way better deals on Shohei right now. I'm sure some of the other vendors aren't talking about it because everything's moved to that 90s goat stuff. But shohes are more reasonable. And by that I mean everybody's not assuming that the next comp is gonna, you know, outpace everything else like it was doing six months ago. Right. So this was a card that hadn't sold recently. It is scarce, it is a bookend, it is a numbered rookie, and it's a product tops fire that does have a little bit of like a cult following in the space just because they were really shiny cool. And the retail hits were. one-of-one that was a card where I had to project where the value was going to be. Card ladder had a suggested value and honestly you could make an argument over that or under that. I knew at that time I was going to have to buy that. So. Right. For me to feel comfortable with the volume we bought. I walk that down to Triple Crown 24. JT, he made a deal. He's happy as can be. I brought him value by bringing him a type of card that he is perfect for him. And I brought value to that family that was able to cash out. And they're happy. I. I'm fairly certain they're going to return when they see me again. They're going to give me an opportunity or they go to JT and maybe JT walks something over my way. I have no idea. But all right. We can't go this long on all these. But no, that first was a good warm up. All right. Second, tough conversation. Can't agree on condition. I'll start with this one. So you're looking at a card, somebody grabs it and all of a sudden they're flipping it over and they say, can I take a look at it? The right answer is yes always. Right answer is always yes. If you say no, they're gonna put it down. Let them look at the card. Yep. What's important here is if you know of any noticeable flaws, it's not a bad time to mention them. Especially if you're running some of those Jordan inserts in the 90s. So if it's got some edge wear or there's a back corner corner that's touched. We had a Kobe that had a wrinkle on the back. It was a first day issue and on the tag we literally wrote back wrinkle, like. And priced it accordingly. Yes. Like, it priced it at what, 50 of the last sale 60. Yu-Gi-Oh like 55 of the last sale. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh So they'll look over the card. A lot of times people would be like oh I, I just don't think this is gonna. Jim, the first thing I will tell you is Yu-Gi-Oh probably not. I don't know. Sometimes people send cards in their jam and sometimes people send cards and they don't. But by a rule of thumb most cards don't gym that you buy. It's even easier if I'm like Yu-Gi-Oh it's near mint but I have, you know, I'm not a grader. I don't know most of the time when people keep going on condition. Now we're looking for a discount. We're not, we're not just looking at the card here. We're disagreeing on the condition that it's in. Gary and I would really strongly recommend that the easiest way to, to navigate this situation is to be very conservative on where you think the condition is. So that means if we have a 90s foil insert Jordan like a SPX or one of the ones that has popped off like a metal or whatever where there's some large value on that. I promise you if unless it has been lucky it has probably got some edgeware and the back has probably got somewhere as well and probably one of those corners because it was a textured card is not be realistic. You're probably assume most of the time you're gonna get a six, maybe a seven out of that car. What, what do we, what do we. Every single live card that we sell, we place it as ex condition and I really try to go over it. Ex are better. Now there's going to be some near mint and we've had. I had a boat. We, we ran a Bowman best Shohei rookie that was in a dollar box, not even penny sleeved and it had been there for years and somebody bought it and jimmed it. So it can happen. But when we're talking condition, the only time I think you're really going to get yourself in trouble is if you start stickering your cards as if they already have been slabbed at a certain grade. Yu-Gi-Oh Most of the time if you're like man, nobody believes me, there's nothing. The card's perfect. It's Beckett for fresh. Stop using the word pack fresh. That means it has nothing to do with the centering of a card. Centering alone could be a reason to not gym. It has nothing to do with that. Service corners, edges, all that could be impacted by the way it moves around in the pack or goes somewhere else. But I promise you, centering does not change pack, fresh or not. Yu-Gi-Oh and it's. And it's. I know it's tempting when that person comes up to your table to just go, if you want a 10, go buy a 10. I know it's tempting to say, don't do that. Yu-Gi-Oh don't. Don't do that. I. For me, we've been selling a ton of the Jordan at and Kobe and mid-90s stuff, even at shows in the last several months. And I will jokingly say, especially if the person is pretty jovial, they'll be like, oh, this got a little. Little bit of corner, where, Yu-Gi-Oh man, the tens are doing, like 17k. If I thought it was a 10, it probably already would have been in the mail. And I'll give a laugh with it. If you can. If you can pull that off and kind of diffuse it a little bit, it's good. But there's. There's a certain point where it becomes, like Jason said, somebody fishing for a discount, and you just kind of get a. Get a feel for being able to Sepia, I get where you're coming from, man. Is it something that you're interested in making an offer on, or what do you think? Well, I had that heavy lumber Shohei case it. Do you remember that dodge? Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh Heavy lumber shohei. And I had it in my showcase for, like, two months, and I'm like, what in the world is going on here? The actual wood card. And I took it out of the mag to look it over, and somebody's like, is there something going on here? And sure enough, the laminate essentially bubbled. I don't know if it drew moisture at some point or whatever, but it was noticeable in that immediate moment. I said, if this is still a card you want, then I will absolutely take into consideration the condition on this. And he bought that shohei at, like, 50, because I'm not gonna get. I was lucky that we moved at that point. It was for a PC, so he's happy with it, but own it whenever they're right. And I. I tend to just be a little more excessive and dramatic about the wear that's on a card. Just to point it out, to make sure people know where it is, what to expect on that. But when people start talking grading, I tell you what, I one-of-one bake grading into my stickers, and you don't bake grading into your offers. Yu-Gi-Oh that's. That's fair. That's a good way to Hear that? All right, Gary, here's a fun one. One that I've seen you get hot under the collar more than once about. Yu-Gi-Oh One of the things that has happened a few times, and I think we're gonna see more and more of it as more and more new people come into the space. And that's going to be the person who buys a card from you, and then two hours later or three hours later, whatever comes back and wants to return the card. Now, I'm going to give you a few different examples here of times where that is bs and occasionally an example where we as dealers have to own reality that we screwed up. I'll start with that one. There was a show here in Columbus. This was before Jason and I brought everything under one roof, but we were still setting up at shows together as the ball card show at the Kasich Center. Steve Greenberg Greeny Sports Cards. Really great show. It was a great show. I had a 1988 classic Barry Bonds and a PSA8 in my showcase, the old classic board game. I made a mistake when I was researching that card, and I thought that the color back that I had was the rarer version. I thought that it was. And I was. A guy came and was interested in it, and we talked through it, and I was like, Yu-Gi-Oh this is what it is. And I was certain of it. 100 certain of it. I would never. And he bought the card. I gave him a little bit of a deal. It wasn't even a big car. I think he paid 60 bucks for it. It. Right. And we went on with our day, and about three hours later, he came back in and he looked pissed, and I was like, hey, man, what's up? And you lied to me. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Slow down. What. What are we talking about here? This. This isn't the. This isn't the rare one. The other color back is a rare one. I got home. I already have that. This one, I was. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Slow down. Calm down. Oh, I'm sure they love that. Slow down. Calm down. Let's let. Well, let's just breathe for a minute. Show me what you're talking about. I didn't. If I told you something was incorrect, I promise you it wasn't my intent. And so he. He took a deep breath and he showed me, and I said, here's what we're gonna do. Here's your 60 bucks back. You keep the card. I. It's fine. Add this one to your collection. You said it's a higher grade than the one you Already had. one-of-one here's your 60 bucks back. I apologize. That was a situation where I, as a vendor, made a mistake and I needed to own it. But there are plenty of times where people make a decision later on. I'm going to tell a specific story, but we had a situation about a month ago down in Cincinnati. Somebody bought a Jeremiah Smith auto. They bought it at about, I don't know, 85, 86% of value. And about three hours later, he came back and said, Yu-Gi-Oh you think I could return this? No. Why do you know? And it three hours later, he had tried to walk the room and sell it to make his money and he Goldin And so he tried to come get his money back. That wasn't gonna happen. That wasn't a situation where I made a mistake. It was a situation where he thought he had a quick, easy flip where he could go turn his 420 bucks into an extra 20 or 25 bucks in his Beckett fast. And when he Goldin he wanted to get his money back. And that wasn't gonna happen because he paid stronger than all the vendors would be willing to, right? Yu-Gi-Oh he paid. He paid about 85. And he thought that he was going to be able to get a vendor to pay 90 or 95. And. Yu-Gi-Oh that doesn't usually happen too often. Yu-Gi-Oh I. There's gonna be mistakes. Here's what I promise you. You're gonna have things that you sticker the wrong way. Especially if you get into oddball, weird parallels, all that. There's going to be times where it happen. It better not be all the time. If it's happening all the time, you probably need to spend a little bit more time on card ladder. Look at the set registries, look at the checklist to see, you know, how rare is this thing? What are the things there? There are nerds that have gone before us. There are nerds that have gone before us and spent their time in forums. It's out there, the information's out there on the older stuff. When you make a mistake, get it. You know, I had a vintage Pete Rose, one of the local vendors around here that I had a day where a whole lot came in of vintage cards and they were set up. And I'd already done a couple deals recently with this guy, and I walked over a couple Pete Rose cards. One of them was in a top loader, the other one was in a screw down, right? And it was all scuffed up like they are. They looked good to me. I just found out, like A week later that one of those had a crease in them because they were so polite. Knowing that that wasn't the intent. It is my job to find a way to make that right for that, for that vendor. Even though there's like, it's fine. It's been a while. No. Your reputation matters so much that if you screw up or you miss something, on condition, always make it right. I know it feels like it's a $300 card. I'm giving them 150. You stand to lose so much more by not being fair in that situation and not being willing to hear people out. But there's a big difference between somebody trying to work your card around the room and you making a mistake as the vendor and I. I do think there is a really important part of this too, though, and it goes to the conversation about comps and everything else. We're not talking about when you're dealing with a little kid who is new to the space, just a little kid doing her thing. But if somebody walks up to your table and buys a card from you and you didn't do anything other than stick a price tag on it, and they look at it and they go, will you take X for it? And you say, yes. Yu-Gi-Oh that's the transaction. Yu-Gi-Oh The end. Yu-Gi-Oh Nobody held a gun to that person's head and said, hey, you have to buy this card. Like, nobody's doing that. Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything. Part of the reality is that buyers do have to take some responsibility for their decisions, too. Right. And sellers need to be honest. There are, yes. Sellers that intentionally will push the wrong parallel or the wrong year or the wrong subset or can't do that. You know you're gonna make mistakes as you sticker and tag stuff. Just remind yourself, like, hey, addressing this now is going to make me more effective and efficient in my business later. It's embarrassing. It is so embarrassing at cards because you are across the table from somebody, staring them in the face and surrounded by 10 of your peers within 15ft. Yep. And so it's humble pie. It happens to every one of us. Anybody saying it doesn't happen is lying to you. Or they're currently doing the thing I'm telling you not to do. Right. Everybody has screwed it up and made the mistake. All right, next one. Comping all the cards, but nobody's actually selling them. So this is a tough thing that happens as your business grows, especially if you have a buying station because you're trying to buy enough volume. We have to do that now, because we're moving, I think we need 2, 000 runnable cards a month for our live stuff. And we've raised the metric on what we're trying to sell, so it's taken a little bit more work. So we have to attract the buyers. But with all of the people new in the space, and especially if you do any kind of educational content, by default, people are going to have an expectation that you're going to help them or they're hopeful that you will. They've seen your video. And so I'm going to take my cards to Jason and there's a lot of times people will walk up, they're new. Here's the cards I had I'm wanting to sell. And what they really mean by that is, I don't know how to comp. And you seem to be pretty quick at it. Do you mind if I have you price out all my cards for the next hour? I don't really want to sell any of them. And we've all been there. I think the key with this is understanding most of the time, that's genuinely where they're coming from. From most of the time, they're not trying to waste anybody's time. They don't know they're just going to a show and they're excited and they know you or you had a buying banner up. Sometimes the best thing to do is you get into a box like that, or a conversation starts like that, or they open the case. One of the first questions we always ask is, is there anything in here that's not for sale? And it's amazing how that is a great way to diffuse people that are a little bit tense in the moment. But hey, if there's anything here not for sale, I don't even want to touch it. I don't want to mess with it. Oh, over here. Leave that. Okay, Let me leave that alone. And everything else in here you're looking to move. I would ask it again for confirmation if you get anything hesitant. We're like, well, I don't know. I say, well, who's your PC? So who is it that I'm looking through? Because if you tell me, Jordan, and it's 80 Jordan, I. I can't spend an hour pricing all that out with the line. Right. And you're not really motivated to sell it, but I can teach you how to comp the first two cards. And so I'll say, hey, open up this app. I write down 130point or eBay or like just showing Them the basic ways to comp out a card. But within five cards, I'm going to try to make a purchase. So I'm going to look through stacks. I'm going to build a stack of stuff that I think could be showcase cards that we're probably going to go card by card on here. And then stuff that's lighter, that's making the metrics for our live, that's probably going to be a per card average. And I buy the whole stack. Right. If I've tried two or three times in those first 10 cards to ask about ones that they've said they're gonna sell and they can't, it's probably time to say, hey, hopefully you've got the hang of it. I don't want to rush you off, but we do have some more people here. If you're ever interested in selling any of those Jordans or those Brett Favre or whatever it is that they were attached to, hey, be sure to stop by. But I think you, I think you got the hang of how to price them now. Yu-Gi-Oh I think that, I think that what you said there is the key. The takeaway for this one to avoid this is in the first three, four cards you see that you like, that you're interested in. Try to buy one of them and see how that goes. If it turns into a back and forth and this happens more than you would think, Yu-Gi-Oh I agree with that value. Yu-Gi-Oh I'm okay with that percentage. And you go, okay, I'm gonna give you this for this card. And they go, well, at that point, there's no reason to keep going. You're not buying any of the cards in that box. And I. And one thing that I do is I'll say, let's say I said 82%, 78, whatever. I'm turning my calculator around, I'm punching it in and I'm saying, okay, so we said it's a hundred dollar card. 78. So I'd be giving you 78 bucks. Argue with the calculator if we've already agreed on a percentage, right. Or if it's 80, it doesn't matter what, but if the number's agreed upon and then you see pause there, just take a note of it. Sometimes it's like, hey, I'm gonna keep going here, but we might spend a while. I would hate for you not to have the chance to go sell these somewhere else. If you think you, you know, so be okay with being done. Be a resource. Write down 130point, show them. You using card ladder. That's one of the things I love about card ladder and having my laptop open is I just spin it around and we look together. And what I'm really trying to do is show the range. I'm trying to show, hey, if we have 10 comps this month, let's look at them. Let's. Let's paint a bigger picture here, because I think then they're more informed, they see the range, and then I think there's more deals down the road, but that. That's what I'd say about that. All right, Gary. Parent, kid dynamic. All you, buddy. I said I was going to tell a specific story. We've told it before, but I'll refresh everybody's memory, give them the Cliff Notes of it. Had a kid at a show in Indiana come up and look in my showcase, the entirety of our interaction, because I was working another deal at the time. He interrupted the deal and said, hey. He points at a Nicola Jokic case hit that I had tagged at 100 bucks, and he goes, would you take 80 for that? And I went, that's a fair offer, sure. And I pulled the card out, he handed me the money, and I went back to my deal. That was the entirety of our interaction. Three hours later, three and a half hours later, he comes back, tries to return the card, tells me that it's only a 15 card. And I went, what are you talking about? And he pulls his. The card out, and he pulls his phone out and shows me a comp surrounded by $100 comps. And what happened was he tried to go flip the card around the room, Goldin flip the card, and wanted to bring it back. And I just said, sorry, buddy. No, I. I can't do that. He started trying to argue with me about it, and again, there's customers there. And I said, buddy. He goes, well, you told me. I said, no, no, no, no, no. I didn't. That's not what happened. And I'm not going to have you say that it is. You literally walked up, said, will you take this for this card? I said, sure. That's a fair offer. And you left. Our entire interaction was 30 seconds. So he huffs and stomps off because he realizes he's not getting his money back. About 10 minutes later, I see a man with fire in his eyes flying across the room at me. Now, this is not a. Not a big man. He's a little man. So I'm like, what is happening here? Am I gonna have to just, like, Put the child stiff arm out, Uncle Rico. Here we go. And just starts yelling at me about ripping off his kid. And again, I have to get him to slow down and. And just explain that's not what happened. And he kept going. And finally I looked at him and said, sir, you're gonna have to leave the table now. I'm not going to do this with you. This is not what happened. I told him what happened. He left. That's one type of parent kid dynamic you can run into. Didn't somebody come back later? Like the kid eventually got. Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh The kid eventually owned. Because as they walked away, the dad, you could tell the dad was trying to defend his kid, but he also was hearing what I was saying. And so I hear him as he's walking away going, is that really what happened? About an hour later I heard somebody else say, that guy calmed down. I think his kid finally admitted what actually happened. So like it. But those Topps of dynamics can occur more often. The dynamic that is a hard one to navigate that I see is when. When a parent wants to have the kid do the negotiation because they think they're going to get better deal and they're coaching them through the whole thing. Right. That works on some people. Not as much on me. Although I'm also the guy and Jason is too. If a kid really likes a card that's in our showcase, if it's not expensive, I'm just. If I see that kid rubbing $6 together and just looking for a spot where he can get something he likes. Yu-Gi-Oh I'm giving him a 50 card. Yes, exactly. I'm getting. Right. But most these kids getting Tribute off with a wad of cash and it's different camp. Yu-Gi-Oh Like no, no, you give me. I'm buying your stuff at a discount. You're the rich kid. Yu-Gi-Oh And the. And I think the sad parent child dynamics are some of the ones. I think everybody's probably seen the video from the national by now of the. The gentleman who's encouraging his kid or grandkid to steal a card. You see that unfortunately, a good bit. It is something that. That happens relatively often. Unfortunately. But in general, I think most of the parent kid dynamics that we see at shows are healthy and positive. It's a parent, a child enjoying it. Used to say a dad and a son. But man, there's a lot of dads and daughters doing it now and moms and sons doing it now. But it can be challenging conversation that happens a lot of times is the assumption that because there's a kid, there's a different kind of deal that's expected or because or when they pretend that things are PC that aren't. Oh, my son PCs Otani. No, he doesn't. Nope. What kind of allowance are you giving them? Five dollars. Well, you can do that. My son's three and a half. He can't pronounce Otani, but he PCs him. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh exactly, exactly. So there. That dynamic is there. It can get a little bit tricky. I always encourage you. Like, if it's a kid, there's a learning moment. There was a kid at a show in Cincinnati. I was at the. The tables were, like, in a V, and it was a mall show. There's a lot of foot traffic going on. And I look over, and this kid has his phone out, and he's trying to do three things at once. And then I see there was a vintage rose, Pete rose that he. That goes into his Beckett And at the exact moment it goes in his Beckett he looks up at me with, like, bright eyes. Not like he's trying to get away with something, but it was something very weird. So I go over to him, say, hey, buddy, I just can't allow any of that at my table. I'm gonna need the card back. And. And you can't come back over here today. He comes back later with that. He's bawling his eyes out. He's very apologetic, and he said, listen, I had just answered my phone. I set my phone down, put the card in my Beckett left his phone at the table. He walked off, and I said, completely believe you just understand where we're coming from. And he made a point that that's not the time to be aggressive with the kid. He felt like he was either caught and embarrassed or it was a horrible mistake, and he really regrets it. I try to make it an educational moment if possible, but if the kids are little brats, like the one, there's kids up at the national where I gave free cards to, like, a whole stack. And there was a bunch of refractors of the new names and stuff in there. And they're like, are these worth anything? I was like, oh, my gosh. Have a good day, bud. Have a good day. Have a good day. But one-of-one so the parent kid dynamic can be interesting. Next one. Someone stuck on a certain percentage. What I mean by that is, person walks up to your table, and they say, what percentage are you buying at? 1. One of the top three hardest starting points in any negotiation is if they come in rolling in, that they're just trying to quick transaction, you know, blah. And we just say, you know, it just depends on the card. It. Because it does. What's my line there? Somewhere between 10 and 80. I don't know. I mean, Yu-Gi-Oh I don't know. And I'll just ask sometimes if you're real, are you looking for like 95? If they say yes, be like, oh, Yu-Gi-Oh we can't do that. And I'll point you to a few people in the room that pay stronger and, you know, go give it a shot there. But here's if they start with a percentage, I've also had this happen where this is just what they saw on YouTube, this is just what they saw on socials. You talk percentages and you make a deal because that's what everybody does. There are times that people will start with a percentage. And I said, I don't know. Or is there a certain one you're expecting? He's like, no, I just want to make sure I'm getting a fair deal. Sometimes people just say that because their fear is it's like 40%, 30%, 50%. Right? And you can just say, hey, here's how we do this. Here's kind of the range on the stuff. If it's bulk, lower end, I'm going to want a better percentage. If it's Otani rookies and cool Jordans, it's going to be at the top end of my range. But it really depends on what you have here. But here's what I promise I'll do with you. I'll look at what these cards are selling for with you, and you'll see the same screen that I do. And sometimes that's a great way to bring everything down to get to the heart of what they're getting at. Sometimes it just is percentage. And to that person that says, I'm gonna say, hey, I took the time to set up a table here and do all this work and price all these cards. We, we put all this effort into getting here. I don't mind if it takes you an hour to walk to tables until somebody gives you that. I don't mean to be rude by that, but this is not an atm, right? There are other assets for that. It's not sports cards, I promise. So a lot of times when they're stuck on a percentage, what I try to remind them is percentage of what? So if I look at a card and it sold for 90, 100 and 110, I'm going to say it's about 100 to 105 bucks. I always lean a little bit north because I'm probably going to sticker that at 105 or 110. Right. And then I show them that the person offering you 95% may be only saying, well, it sold for 90 bucks last week, which is true, but it also sold for 100, 110, and now you're going to get 90 to 95% of the 90. Yu-Gi-Oh that sure sounds like 90. But the math one-of-one mathing. So sometimes it's a great question is a percentage of what are you looking at the last few comps, the highest, the lowest, and sometimes that'll just field enough for you to get a little bit of a rhythm there. So one-of-one I took forever on that one. I already mentioned stealing. Yep. Gary, why don't you handle the. The second to last one there? Yu-Gi-Oh Promoter makes a mistake. Yep. We all make mistakes. Especially promoting a show is a chaotic, oftentimes crazy, last minute changes type of job. Right. Promoters have dealers cancel at the last minute. They have new dealers that they try to reach out to to fill that spot off of a wait list. Sometimes you communicated with them and they just missed the email and it falls through the cracks. Yu-Gi-Oh You show up to the show and worst case scenario, you thought you had a table, you don't. Yu-Gi-Oh it's happened to me before. Yep. I'm, I'm lucky enough and blessed enough that we've created a, a career where it doesn't happen anymore, but it's happened to me before. Yep. Sometimes. You drove three hours to get there and there's not a table for you. You have a couple options at that point, you can go ballistic and lose your mind and burn that bridge. And in that moment, you might feel like, I never want to be here again. This guy screwed me, blah, blah, blah. Or you can say, hey, man, I really hate that this happened. And I'm gonna be honest, it really does suck because I drove three hours to be here. And here's the email where I, I said I was coming and you responded and said I was gonna be here. I know, I don't. I'm not gonna have the two tables that, that I thought I was gonna have. But can you squeeze a six footer in somewhere for me? Is there something we can do to just be. Let me put out a couple of my showcases, try to come up with solutions. And if there's not a solution there, the only other thing you can do is make the best of the day. And the smartest thing you could do is go try to buy as right as you can so that you're ready for the next show. And it will be very. The negativity will be very contagious. Yu-Gi-Oh If you start talking bad about the promoter, it is like a magnet to every toxic person in the room that has terrible pricing, a terrible attitude, doesn't get along with customers, and they are going to flock to you like your best friend. As long as you promise to stay miserable at every show. If you'll wallow with us, the moment that you have a good show, you are no longer welcome in that circle. So I would just say avoid that all together. You know, if at some point there's so many mistakes or a lot of things keep happening, then maybe it's just time for a different show on that weekend. Right. But give the promoter the benefit of the doubt. The day of the show, they have five times as many conversations as you do and you have a lot. So just give a little bit of grace there. It takes a lot of work to do a show well. It's not as simple as renting out a space. It's hard work. So understand that. They know that for the most part, they know that you doing well is their primary target. And as long as that happens, everything else takes care of itself and they focus on you as their client. Um, last one, Slow traffic. This is just a mindset. One pretty simple, but it's difficult. It shows. Sometimes we get to like 11 o'. Clock. We've show's been going on for two, three hours and Gary and I are like, okay, it's light here. That used to be something we would freak out about. Now we've made the shift to focus on buying. I'll take a lap. You take a lap. What can you find? I'll go over to friends of ours that have are regulars that have 10 times as much inventory as us. And I'll just say, where are your bricks? Point me out. Show me the bricks. Yu-Gi-Oh And you'll be surprised. Sometimes they show you 20 cards, but there's five in there that they are. They can't wait to get out of that. You already have a buyer for, you know, and they're going to give you a way better deal than sticker. You just ask, right? If you're in content, show people that moment. Hey, sometimes this is what it's like, right? But I think it's important, the mindset thing of like, the promoter doesn't one-of-one you money in that moment, the, the customer walking up doesn't one-of-one you money because it's slower. There's good shows, there's bad shows and the busy ones get real busy. So try to do everything you can to fight the urge to just point fingers in that moment. And if you find. Go ahead, Gary. I say, and if you find yourself saying almost all the shows that I do are slow, it's probably time to branch out. The shows that you're doing, maybe a wider geographical reach. Maybe you call the promoter and be like now how many tables you have? Maybe you need to ask the question, hey, what's the split on TCG in sport? I don't know. But whatever questions will help you make a better decision. You know, now's a great time. There are so many shows. I don't know if we'll keep this trajectory of how many card shows are happening in the US but right now it's happening. So popping branch out there and check it out. All right. Speaking of shows, Gary. Yep. Going to give everybody the rundown here. Yu-Gi-Oh September is a busy, busy month. Sorry I put October. I know you did, but I knew what you meant. Three really good size shows for us. September 6th, the Grove City Card Fest. Really fantastic medium sized show in central Ohio. It's about 200 sports tables, another 90 to 100 TCG tables. They are separated by gym. So if you're just a sports person, you don't have to wade through TCG and vice versa. If you're just a TCG person, you got a dedicated space. If you like both, you can go to both gyms. Fantastic show. It's a Sunday show. The next weekend On Saturday the 12th, September 12th is Xenia the Great American Sports Card Spectacular. Three buildings, usually about 400 tables. You're gonna find a little bit of everything there and then we're really excited. We are one of the sponsors of this event. The Mountain State Collectors Convention in Charleston, West Virginia is a three day show the weekend of September 18th, 19th and 20th. Yu-Gi-Oh speaking of shows, we are on ebay live every Wednesday and Thursday and this coming week on Friday the 4th we will be live. Is it 10 o', clock, 9:30, something like that? Gary? I can't remember. I think we set it for 8:30 but we may bump it. Keep an Yu-Gi-Oh on that. We, we're trying. We enjoyed the later show so we're going to give that a try as well. If you like the 90s 2000 stuff, hit us up. Another fantastic episode. Good job Gary. Good job. Appreciate it. Yu-Gi-Oh absolutely. Go ahead, say something. You started to. Well I started to and you did for too. So I was going to. Wrap it up. Wrap it up. This has been the ball card show, the esports podcast for the esports collector. Bye now. Peace.