Booked to Last: How to Sell Big Wrestling Cards Without Losing the Plot

Foreign. Welcome back to Book to Last, the official wrestling card podcast here on the Stacking Slabs Network brought to you by my good friends at RBI Crew 7. The biggest, the baddest, the best place to buy your wrestling card singles and wax. You can do that@rbi crew7.com and speaking of RBI Crew 7, Mr. Banister is back in the fold tagging it up with Adam as they discuss so many different wrestling card topics that make this episode fun. The market has been reset a little bit on the WrestleMania patch auto side since Adam and I last spoke. There were a lot of sales that go down. These guys get into a very fun title match topic on that front and a whole lot more. If you are going to be at the national, make sure you sign up for the wrestling card takeover. Friday, July 31st at the NBC Suites. We are throwing a wrestling card extravaganza and want you to be there. Make sure you rsvp@booktolastpodcast gmail.com and if you want to show your support for the broader Stacking Slabs network, hit the follow button. Tell a damn friend. Run on over to the Patreon Group. Wrestling cards are fun. Adam and Ryan celebrate that fun in this episode. Let's get into it. Welcome to Book to Last, a wrestling card podcast for the card collecting community that goes from the top rope to top loaders. We are your hosts, ryan Bannister of RBI Crew 7 and Adam Gelman of Main Event Wrestling Cards here on the Stacking Slab Podcast network. Don't forget to like and subscribe here on Stacking Slabs, especially if this is your first time you're joining up. You can find the patreon@patriot.com stacking slabs and you can follow Adam and I on social media at RBI Crew 7 and at WWE. Respectfully, let's ring that bell and get this slobber knocker on the way. It's episode 24. Yes, it is. I have returned and I am fired up to be back. Ah, man, it's good to be back. Adam, how we doing today? It's good to have you back, man. It is, it is good to have you back. I listen, you guys had a great podcast last week. By the way, outstanding job of you and Brett. Thank you. I appreciate that. We had a good time. I'm gonna, I, I have a slide prepared because I, I, I feel like this is appropriate. That's great. Yes, it is appropriate. For those following along on Patreon, I am showing Eric Bischoff. He's back and better than ever. I Was gonna put an extra tan on him, but it just took. I am actually a little tan right now. I will say that it has not gone away yet, but it will when I'm inside the next, I don't know, month. So, so vacation was nice. I, I, I've heard. So, yes, it was. Except I didn't get sick there. But I was kind of under the weather earlier this week. So that's why we're recording this on a Thursday versus a Tuesday. So I actually did not have a voice. It was not that ideal. You actually, we zoomed that day to talk about stuff and it was difficult for me to talk, so I didn't think doing the podcast on Tuesday was too wise for my throat and the condition I was in. But I am great today. That is good. I'm glad to hear it. There's a lot to talk about, as always, because there's never a dull week in wrestling cards. But glad to, to have some time to talk because, man, there's been a lot of stuff that's happened. We'll get into all of it. Yes, yes. But, you know, it's, you know, when you get into the summer and we said this, like, when we started this podcast, we're like, oh, we're heading into WrestleMania season. Like, it's going to be crazy. And then it's just like. And then it's like, this summer is also going to be crazy. So it has. Well, as we're recording this, I am about 48 hours away from seeing Adam's beautiful face in person in Monticello, Minnesota, where I'll be this weekend with my family for the grand opening, MN Sports Cards, which you have not been to the new store. I haven't yet, but I've seen how it, like, I've, I've driven by it because my son plays baseball out there and store looks from the outside. The store looks awesome. I can't wait to see it. My kids are gonna come. We're gonna. I promised them Pokemon cards, so they're, they're very excited. They'll have that. And, and yeah, we're gonna, we'll come during the afternoon. My kids have some games in the morning, so we're gonna come in the afternoon. Have a good time, get to see you. The banisters are in your town. Oh, boy. It's not always a good thing. So hide your Hydra Town, here we come. So let's get into the opening pyro, because I, I'm sure you heard our rants on the last one. Just about the way things are going, it's. It's gotten worse, unfortunately. It's all these, gosh, I. I don't, like, I don't want to spend the next 20 minutes, like, bashing WWE booking because I've been a supporter of the Triple H era for a long time, and this is honestly, I think, the worst it's been. Like, I. I think they've booked themselves into so many corners here. Oh, yep. And it's just. It's so hard to, like, stay interested here when you know that these things impact the event that people in your city and you're hopefully yourself are going to attend for thousands of dollars. And the main events of those nights are determined by outcomes of this tournament. And the Queen of the Ring and King of the Rings are not shaping up to be great sort of, you know, examples of primary booking in your biggest championships that exist. So coming out of RAW this week, we now have one of the finals for the men, one of the finals for the women finalists. Sorry. For the men finalists. For the women, we have Obafemi. No shock there from the men, and then you have IO sky from the women. And the issue is not Iyo sky or Obafemi. Both of them deserve to be in the finals. It is what is happening outside of those matches that has humongous impact on what is going to drive. Not only the result of this tournament, the collectibility of these stars, the booking of these stars, which impacts the collectability. Like, there's so much stuff here that has impact on the market. I think the market has reacted to some of this as well. It's just terrible. Overall, this tournament has made me more upset than I've ever been. So rant over. Have you had a chance to catch up since you. Well said. Yes. Because let's be honest, Oba's probably going to interfere to this match. Whoever. Especially after that promo. Yeah. Yes. With Brock. I'm assuming at this point it's got to be Jey uso. I mean, like, I just don't think Javon's ready for a championship match yet. So you got to think it's going to be jc because you're trying to make the bloodline even stronger this time around, the way you've made Fatu look the way he is. And at this point, you were like, oba. If you didn't have this feud with Brock Lesnar. Brock Lesnar and Oba was done after Mania, which should have happened. We all know that. But since it's not here we are and you know, we're going to get over Brock at SummerSlam. There's just no way that would be the way to go out at this point for Brock's career if it's over or the the way to end their one and one record right now. So you got to assume oba's losing to more than likely J. Uso. So Jay USO is your king of the ring for the men. What are we doing? I mean how many botches can we make out of this time around? But okay, so he wins. So then is he fighting Cody for the belt? I don't know. You've got to assume people were suggesting that too. And they're going to tell him Cody and then go the bloodline is going to have both belts then. And then you go over to the women at this point is I love the eos perfect. But I think we're on a closure course for EO versus my opinion Charlotte. Which are Rhea's two girls friends I guess you would say. I just don't. What's the point of live. Like what is the point of living this. Why is she in this turn? Why 18 times? Like why. If I could have seen it. If you had Liv and Raquel on a collision course. But that is dead in the water. Because that would have been. No, no, hold on a second. If Liv and Raquel face off in the. In the. In the championship match for this or the the finals for this. They can't they now. But I'm saying if they could have. If they. If they had. Yes. So then Liv and Raquel wrestle. Raquel theoretically wins. Then they do the same match again at SummerSlam. Like that doesn't mean make any sense. I don't know what to do with this thing. Yeah. That's what I'm saying is like these like this is why tournaments never happened in many of the like the high level wrestling organizations. Like I like Japan. AEW loves tournaments and they just. They don't because they don't book angles the way that WWE does. WWE is much more rich in the way that they tell these stories. Stories. Yeah. And like you can't tell a story around a tournament. Like should live in Raquel eventually have a match. I said this last week. Yes, they absolutely should. But is this the vehicle to get there? No, absolutely not. That stable has been there for three years at this point you're going to break it up over a fucking King Queen of the ring tournament. Like come on. But anyway. But anyways. Like I think the. The idea here is that Oberfemme should not have to take another loss. That's number one. It's got to happen. You assume gonna happen because Brett Brock Lesnar is going to be hater of the year, fly all the way to Saudi Arabia to interfere in this match. And, and then you have Jay and Javon explain to me why maybe you go with somebody like La Knight instead. Because La Knight, it has a huge crowd reaction, just like Jay does, has history with the bloodline and Roman Reigns. You're telling that story too. It seems like La Knight would be a better choice. Is it the SummerSlam match that everybody had hoped for? No, but you booked this tournament like, so I'm sorry. That's what we're left with. If you, if you had had Rollins win instead of Javon, even though Javon is awesome, he's. You said it right. He's not ready for this. And I think collectors are. Are left with this big giant. Like, what the hell am I supposed to buy right now? Like, I can't feel confident in Obafemi anymore because I know he's going to be facing Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam. Hear me out. Maybe he wrestles Brock on night one and Roman on night two. But like, I, I don't know. Like, there's so many question marks here that is. Is made worse by this tournament. Interesting. That's a good point. Exact. Okay. Cause let's be honest. Oba against Jay or Jifon Squash Bash, no matter where you look at it, Jay obviously has more of a career more. Okay. He could put on a better match. Devon is just, he's a half the size of Oba. There's just. Okay, so he did have a good match in nxt. I like what you said. There's an outside chance that Oba could still win this. And then he fights Brock one night and Roman the next night. But we don't. You. Let's build up Roman Oba. Oba. Roman does not need to happen. Roman is not dropping that belt anytime soon. You're building up the bloodline. So the ideal situation is you make Jay win this, then Jay fights. It's not going to fight Roman. I mean, you're not going to have Jay Roman again off the. But that's kind of what they're telling this because like Jay and Roman and Jacob Fatu, like, they're all sort of like swirling around. Like that story that they're telling on Monday Night Raw is that there's division already in this new bloodline and that Jacob Fatu is really driving this. So, like the and I love that story, like kept me alarm. The yeah. Jacob Fatou's element of this, what they did with Eric Andre was beyond awesome. Like Jacob Fatou is awesome. Jay is not. Jay is a tag team wrestler. And I, I love like, I love that they've been able to get something out of a guy like that who's been there for 10 plus years. Tag team wrestler. They found a place for him in the main event. He gets the crowd going. Everybody loves him. But he's not a five star match guy and he never will be. You don't need to be a five star match guy in WWE though. You need to be a three star match guy and I don't even think Jay is that. So it's like we're in a situation now where okay, most of the time coming into SummerSlam, coming into WrestleMania, collectors are like, I want to buy the person I think are going to win these matches or at least be featured on this pay per view. None of that is clear right now because of this tournament. You and I am incensed by the fact that people like, like Tiffany Stratton, people like Bailey and Lyra and all those other guys on the women's side didn't get any chance because they put live in this stupid bracket for no reason. You have Charlotte Flair who doesn't need another one of these opportunities at this moment, given her storyline with Alexa Bliss, given everything. Collectors don't need to see that. They want to see people like, you know, Sol Ruka, like those people on the women's side and on the men's side. Maybe Dominik Mysterio does deserve more of a spotlight here. He is hugely popular with everybody. He gets tons of heat. Maybe he, maybe he doesn't need to face Oba in the semifinals. Maybe you don't put Oba in this bracket for a reason. Right. Maybe he gets injured and they say, well, he was going to be in this but now he can't because Brock Lesnar attacked him. They're going to have a match at SummerSlam instead of Oba being in this tournament and taking another loss. Like those are the types of booking decisions that were not made. Instead they just had chatgpt build these brackets. Makes me so upset. Yeah. All right, well, I don't think we need to beat the dead horse anymore on this. I think this is beating it up last week and it's just pounding more on the ground and I think it's next week we're going to talk and it's still going to be the same feeling on this situation. So. All right, there's two other items that I want to cover here. One, there's been a lot of talk that Rhea Ripley is hurt and she might have a knee injury. That is the worst possible news for smackdown, which is already down. Drew McIntyre, they're already down. Randy Orton, they're already down all these people. There is nobody left to tell good stories and the way that they need to be told. Because as much as I love EO sky, like, she needs other people to have a story with, and Rio was one of those people. But, you know, still, it's like those types of things are driven by people being available. And it seems like Stephanie Vaquere is not available. Like all these other people not available. Now Rhea Ripley too, like, geez, that is bad. Yeah, the. The product is not that great. I mean, you get the right names, but there's really no good stories to go with it. I'll be honest with you. Smackdown I don't ever watch on tv. I just watch highlights I read and I just catch up that way. I just don't being Friday night, it's just too much going on. A and B, it's just. It's not a good product. I mean, it's. It's night and day. How Raw is for smackdown. Raw is a product that you go, I'm watching this. Smackdown. Used to be that way. Used to love smackdown. Smackdown was great back in the day. Feel like they've got to figure this out sooner than later because it continues to get hurt and hurt and more. Just. Just not watchable, let's be honest. But outside, outside of this tournament, Raha has been great. Penta and Ray, the Jacob Fatu thing, all the stuff that they're doing outside of this tournament on Raw is great. Like, literally great. Like, I'm very, very happy about it. The tournament's what drags everything down. But smackdown, on the other hand, I don't think. I don't think there's anybody from a collecting standpoint that I would even want to go put money into at this point. Like, Cody Rhodes is dead in the water as a champion, it feels like. And like we're just waiting for somebody to take the belt off of them, for them to build up somebody enough to take the belt off them, which collectors are going to respond to in the market. And they have started doing that market softening overall for sports cards in general because of the PSA news. Now I think this is going to start affecting the fringe areas like wrestling more than sports. Cards. So having people on TV not holding up their end of the bargain is only going to hurt that further. Do you agree? I agree. I think Cody is going one way to go right now is down. I think once he loses this belt it's going to be a while for it gets put back on him. I think he was supposed to drop the belt at Mania, but things change with potential Orton injury. Orton should be carrying this belt right now and terrorizing everybody on Smackdown as a heel, as the 09, 2009 Orton. I think Smackdown would be a lot better shape. But again that's me being biased. But let's be honest, we were on a trajectory for that. So I think yes, right now we know we're coming up. The hype of Mania is done and SummerSlam is hype, but it's not the Mania hype. And we had a lot of products released and again PSA is affecting it for sure. But I think it's also the time of year too. I think there's a lot going on. It's just time of year. This is just shifting. This is very common. I think at this point, let's be honest, July is huge. We have three massive shows in July. We have the west coast card show and the Fanatics fest same weekend. Oh, and two weeks, 10 days later is the national. So we know people at this point are probably saving their money to go to these shows because let's be honest, west coast, east coast centralized three massive shows across the country. So if you're not willing to fly to Chicago from California, oh, you can go here. If you're not willing to go there to there, you're grabbing everybody in a, in a two week span. So I know people are saving money right now. I have employees who save money all year to go spend it there. So they cut back on their spending. Unless your name's Nathan, who is addicted to buying something every day of his life. But I'm saying is that this is very common. This has been going on forever. It used to be you save up for the national, you slow down online buying because you want to go there and have more money. Because let's be honest, you walk the national money does not last long there because there's just so much opportunity to buy. So I think that's something to put in consideration as well too. Yeah, no, that's, that's a great point. I think like overall summer is bad for cards. Like, like it just, it always has been like basketball ends so that that wave comes to like a very screeching halt, mostly football hasn't ramped up yet. That doesn't happen until later in the year. So things slow down because people want to spend money at the national. They want. Football will ramp up next month in July because everybody's hyper leading into this. Correct? Yes. So, like, you, you have like, summer is always a slower time prior to the national vacation, vacations, everybody's home from school. Like, there's a lot more money that has to be spent on your kids and stuff like that. So, yeah, I get it. But I think from a wrestling perspective, we're starting to see, like, more of an impact than other aspects that I think some of the values are. We'll get into here in a minute, but some of the values are dipping a little bit on products. With the flood of stuff that's come, like, we knew that that was going to happen. I think by the time we get to Survivor Series, a lot of this conversation will be a mood discussion. But like, right now, like, the TV product lining up with all the summer shit, like, not, not a great situation for wrestling cards overall. Add in more 4000 case products being dropped on our heads, probably not a great situation either. So, like, we'll get into that here in a second. So I think if we're looking at the summer as like, okay, SummerSlam kicks off kind of that second half of the year, even though WrestleMania was only two months ago, like, this is like after SummerSlam, they start building up to War Games, which builds into WrestleMania and Royal Rumble. WrestleMania is in Saudi Arabia too. So, like, I keep forgetting, like, there's not going to be like that core group of people gathering in in one spot again. So really interesting times all around. Yeah, you're right. Let's get into some card mic and high spots here. I wanted, because we, we didn't get to talk last week, get to some final thoughts on Cosmic now that we have the seen the full breadth of the release. You have, you know, been paying attention clearly. But I think we're both in a position where we're watching rather than actively participating. And I'm just curious, like, now that you've had a week to digest what Cosmic is all about, like, what are your final thoughts before we sort of like, okay, what's next? I think it's a horrible pick, your wrestler case rip. I've joined just the people I told you I joined. And I literally have dog shit for cards. I mean, look, I think the best card I got was like an Orton at 25. Now granted, I'm not buying Roman and all these other people. But I think it's not ideally a good because you're not getting that autograph per box. You're not getting, you're getting three a case. I guess it is two, three, four maybe. The cards look incredible. I'm, I'm not going to say that, but I just, I think it's, it's better than Cactus Jack. It might, yes, it's better than Cactus Jack, but it's on the same level because the lack thereof. So at the end of the day, I, I, it's trending well on the B back end of it right now where it's like deal or at B2B. It's actually doing well and it's selling well for us too. I think it's better off being ripped as a personal than to join a pick your wrestler case break. To be honest with you, that's my initial thought. I could just tell you by the packages I received and when I looked through it, I'm like glad I didn't go heavy on this one is all. I feel like. So you mentioned Cactus Jack because I, we just got the odds in like today. So like we were getting to see how much of this was created. Cactus Jack, we, we both agreed, I think they inflated the print run to meet demand and, and, and as a result only three to four autos a case left a really bad taste in people's mouths. This feels worse. Like I think there's a thousand more cases of this than there were of Cactus Jack from what I'm seeing. And it feels that way. I think the, like ripping through an eight box case and walking away with two or three autos feels absolutely horrendous. And like for people who are building products like this, you have to understand 70 to 75% of the print run is going to be on camera. So like when you're ripping a case, people are seeing how these things play out and it's, you open a pack, you get the dual card, you get the, the, the refractor, you get this, you get that. It's very, very repetitive in terms of the way that the product and the break structured and then there's no autograph or there's no planet in the box and you're just left like what just happened. And I think that's really a detriment to what looks to be a pretty cool looking set. Like, I think the planets look awesome in hand. I think a lot of the case hits look awesome in hand. I think a lot of the colors have cool Stock patterns on them very similar to the way Cactus Jack did. Like, those types of things go far with collectors, but they can't enjoy it because they're paying 330 a box and getting nothing. Yeah. Now argue, is it better to get a, you know, Joe Gacy autograph? I know store subject, but let's Joe Gacy autograph or case hit of somebody else that's maybe valued 20 higher. There's an argument there. Like there's an argument you made about Topps Chrome Hobby versus Get this Cops Chrome Cosmic. Like there's. There's arguments to be made both ways. This feels from a ripping perspective like it's worse than Cactus Jack only because the. The price is. Is holding much higher than Cactus Jack does. There's more of it. And I think the late. The autograph checklist is significantly deeper than Cactus Jack as well. Yeah, I. I mean, I'll be honest with you. We. We ripped one case as a family and. And then I think we did a couple boxes on the Our Kick with the Crew podcast as a preview before I left. And I'll probably have the kids, probably kids probably rip some boxes while they're in Minnesota this week. I have no desire to go rip any cases this anymore. The other day I ripped some Hobby Chrome the other day and some delight just because I was like, I want to rip something. Wrestling. This was not even consideration to me. Again, I think the cards look great. I think the product looks good. But I don't like the fact that you're like, oh, I'm hoping I hit an autograph. Oh, and my autograph is such and such for $25. Nikki Cross or. I keep. I don't mean to keep going back to your subject. To me, those are. I'm sorry, those are wins because those are for my kids, you know, so they, they did it in Nikki Cross, which was awesome. So, like, to them, again, if you add an autograph per box, which is what they should have done, but again, that's the. The cosmic way across the landscape of the products they make. But to me, like, them pulling a Nikki Cross was awesome. They were happy. But if you could deliver that one a box, it makes it feel the sting. Not as much when you're like, great. Your case. Yes. Yeah, exactly. You're like, hey, I'll. I'm happy with the Nikki Cross on it for my kids. Like, I just think an honor per box should have been really thought about when they made this and really added the element because, you know, right now these are training at about the same price as the tops Chrome hobby, which, which is guaranteed. Two autos a box. Give me hobby all day. Not even close. The other thing is like the, the format that they chose for this is based on baseball and, and basketball where the planets are worth triple to quadruple. Because the market is bigger, it can support this wrestling. It's brand new Wrestling collectors are notoriously weird when crossover stuff happens. But I think like if you pull a planet in a baseball box, like it's a big deal here. Like a sun goes for like 50 bucks, Mercury goes for like a hundred bucks and then so on and so forth for there. We'll get to the odds here in a second. But like I think baseball, if you don't pull the autograph and you pull a planet or a case, it, those are more valuable now. The boxes cost more too. So like all of these things just swirl around and it's just like this is why people are upset. And I think like if this was $225 a box and there was an autograph per box and you get two or three planets a case, like that's a home run. Like that's a grand slam product. Well, so. Yep. And it's. And like it goes from like, I'll ask your star rating here in a second. For me this is like two and a half, three stars. Two and a half was the number in my head the whole time. Yeah, two and a half, three stars only because I think the planets look awesome. But like if, if you put an autograph per box, it's 225 bucks. You take away all the bad. This is what we always say, take away all the bad stuff. It's a four star product. But like that's where I think Topps as a product development team needs to look at this and say like, do we need to honor the format in wrestling knowing that this is a significantly different market? Right. No, I, I 100% agree with you on that. I hope that if they do make this product again, which I don't know if is on the calendar for next year at this point, if they do that, they go, all right, let's take it to consideration to not be in that format. Let's give an auto a box. Because we've been vocal with them about this and they understand, you know, the wrestling card community wants an autograph per box. And what they do, at least one, just give them one. One, you know. But I think the products that do well, I mean, give me universe all day long over this Three hits versus this all day. Three hits. Like I still think Universe is Universe underrated product. Universe Crush and the first year Universe should hold long term value because it's match you stuff because we know the next. Yeah, that's somewhere. See, I don't even know the slide that's coming. But our break like link. I don't, I don't get. I don't. You're still in Thunder, dude. Well, I don't know. You don't give me a preview. You just roll with it. Then I'm like, I already say yes, you said it to me. But do I read it? No. I like the element of surprise. So. But again, I'm gonna agree. Two and a half. I was between two and three. So I'm gonna go snap that right there. 2.5 starts out of five on this one again, I think everything looks great about it. I just hate the concept that oh, you're not guaranteed in auto. You know. I think that's. That's sucks. Yeah. Because like royalty five star product brought down by ripping experience. Both like massive like sort of problems there. This is probably a three and a half star product brought down by a totally negative ripping experience. I like, listen, like planets are popular. The, the cards are popular. Like I get that it's deserved. Right. I love the look of a lot of the stuff. I'm not a fan of the base cards. I talked about that ad nauseam. Not getting into it. But like overall like Topps didn't do a poor job here. We're not saying Topps design team shit the bed here. We are saying there needs to be more consideration of. If you're going to release 4,000 cases of this, there needs to be consideration of like how this breaks. Because again it's all on camera and we're very small community. We all talk like there has to be some consideration there. And like, yeah, add another autograph. Add two more autographs per case. At least. Softens that blow. You add six more autographs per case. All of a sudden we're in a completely different discussion. And I. It's funny, like those autographs aren't going to be $100, $150 cards all the time. They're going to be 10 and $20 cards. But the experience just feels different. And that's so important. Right. Let's talk about real quick. Compare the contrast. First year Revolution WWE was $100 box. Sometime they got a little less than that and you were guaranteed. I think it was like inner. I think four autos of Master, that was before they even had kabooms and they had obviously galactics. But at $100 a box you were okay. You didn't care. Yeah, exactly. 3:30. Exactly. And then the next year they implemented the kabooms with the same autogr. But that took a while to take off because the kabooms didn't take off. But you only got one kaboom case. So I think consideration price point back to what you said. Lower this box down to two and a quarter guaranteed auto home run, you know, but it's $3 box one auto now. Tops did sell it at 225. So like we can't fault them completely, but they didn't guarantee that autograph. I think if you had a guaranteed autograph, you could rip hobby for the same price as this right now and get two autos a box. Yes, they may not be the best two autos, but you might get one really good one, might weak one. But you're still getting autographs and that's you're every wrestler more satisfying. I will say this. When it comes to wrestling cards, for the most part, a common autograph, just a basic run the mill is at least five bucks. In baseball, it could be like a dower. You know, let's be honest, in wrestling, most of them sell for minimum five bucks. If it's a bottom of the barrel, lowest to low, you're going to get, you're going to get five bucks. Baseball, you're paying three, four hundred dollars a box. You get some rookie pitcher that you don't even know and next thing you know, he's in your $2 box. So wrestling always is about that $5. So again, just another thing to consider it. It's all about the perception about the value of what the collector is getting when they rip this. Yeah, I would say if I'm tops next year, and this is, we can move on after this. Number one, double down on the autograph content. Like that has to be something that is like collectors need that in wrestling, as Ryan said. Number two, reduce the amount of case hits. There's too many cases. I think there's five here and then there's 10 different planets. So you have light years, you have geocentric, you have cosmic dust. And you have some parallels that are case hits too. Like I know they're trying to backfill things without the autograph content. If you add more autograph content, you can reduce the complexity there. Really important for adoption, really important for crossover appeal, for access. Like wrestling cards need accessibility. They need to Be easy to understand. So following a, a baseball model for this isn't going to work the same way in wrestling. You need simpler stuff. I'm not saying wrestling card collectors are dumb. They're just newer to this type of format than and you're trying to bring new people into the hobby because most of the wrestling card collectors that are coming in are not coming from baseball and NFL and basketball. They're coming, they're coming from seeing it on tv, seeing it at conventions, seeing people just talk about it online. You want those people to come in and have an accessible product, a cheaper product. And I think Topps is like well we sold this at 2:25. It's not our control if it goes up to 3. Yeah, but sell it like build it to be a lower price product so it's more accessible. Because that's what really would make Cosmic just so much better. What I want to know real quick before we move on is I'm going to use blood for example right now. Blood cards right now. Cosmic's 290 a box there. However I just looked universe on there. 210 a box, $210, 100 almost a hundred dollars less. And you get three hits a box. Two autos, one relic versus a product almost a hundred dollars or more. You're not guaranteed an auto. And then the case hits. I mean the Pluto's, the, the or whatever the, the planets, you know. But I give me universe all day. Not even close. And they're $100 difference of box. I just don't get it. Yeah. So I want to like just before we, we move off of Cosmic I we did get the odds today. So we do have a better understanding of how many planets exist. This was a hot topic coming out because the sun cards were everywhere. Mercury cards were everywhere. I think we're starting to see why that's the case. We predicted that a lot of this stuff was going to be very very easy to understand that the inner planets are going to be very common. And they are I think based on odds. And these are just projections, they're not actual print runs. I would expect there's about 450 of the suns are 1 in 134 packs. 250 of the Mercury is about 1 in 215 packs. Venus you're getting down in about the 100 range. 12001 in 322 packs. Earth you're already getting close to 50 copies. So like a gold ish type refractor. 1 in 644 packs. Mars now we're under 50, likely even the 40 range. 1 and over. A thousand packs. 1,007 packs. Jupiter, now you're at 30, give or take 1 in 2,000 packs. 20, 13 packs. Saturn, 20 copies. Those are really getting scarce at that point. 1 in 4,000 packs. That's why so few of them surface. When you get into the outer planets, this is where they become very, very tough poles. Uranus, Uranus, whatever you want to call it. 15 copies, give or take 1 in 8050 packs. Neptune. I was lucky enough to pull Becky here with skill. Congrats, man. One in 16, 100 packs. There's about 10 copies of those. And then Pluto. I've heard as low as two copies. I would say it's probably around five. Just to keep this simple. One in 32,280 packs. That is insane. But I will say we have seen two Pluto sales. One for Seth Rollins at a thousand dollars and one for Cody Rhodes at about 1400. I think those values are probably going to start to climb once people recognize how few of these Pluto cards actually exist. Then if they're trying to build a rainbow, too. Yeah, yeah. Where? Solar system, I've been calling it. Yeah, that would make more sense to call it a rainbow, I guess. But if you want to build your solar system, your rainbow, whatever, like, you're going to need to jump on those outer planets sooner rather than later. Yeah. Here's the thing, though. I mean, you've given us information. If they're following you, you know, and they're paying attention, you know, this is something that people are uneducated about. This is you guesstimating on these numbers. That's another reason why this product has got issues, because people don't know that this is that rare. Like this first time I'm hearing what you're speculating based on what you were giving the information, and this information is now out there from you and you're giving to your followers. But think about the people ripping this that have no idea that a Uranus could be number to 15. And then, you know, there's just no information really out there. And I think that is a lack thereof. And I think that people need to be more educated about this. Yeah, that, that. Well, that was the whole reason. Like, I think this is a key discussion for that reason, is like, these concepts are more familiar in baseball and basketball and football now because people cross over those much more easily. This is what we were talking about in the last podcast. Like, is there a ceiling to this market because of the Lack of education and information sharing that exists. And I said no. But I think like, in certain circumstances, the answer is yes. Because, like, there's not as much familiarity as you were just implying here, which I agree with. Like, not as many people knew that there were only going to be two to five planet cards for that Pluto size or that that Pluto odds sheets being at the size that it is, like 32, 000 packs is enormous. And we're talking tens, tens and tens of cases here that before you even get a sniff at a Neptune, let alone Pluto. And so I think like, like we saw AJ Lee sell at $900. We saw, I'm sorry, Alexa Bliss sell at $900 at Neptune. We saw AJ Lee Uranus sell for 4, 80 or something. Like, these are expensive cards for a reason. They're very tough to pull. All right, I want to quickly talk about this UK product because it's big, been a hot topic Topps decades, 1990s. This is really Topps's first Legend only focus release since 2019, I believe. Where they did the last Legends product, was it 2019 or 2018? I can't remember 2018, if I'm correct. I think it is. Okay, they did two years of legends 17 and. Or 16, 17, 18 or something like that. This is the first product they've released in a long time. That's only Legends and they chose the right decade. Obviously the attitude here in the 90s, yep, $160 a box, give or take, converting from euros or pound sterling here. It was only available in the uk. Very short run, I would guess compared to what we're seeing in the U.S. one autograph per box. So again, 160 bucks a box and all of the autographs are Legends. I mean, like the more, more features. Fuel for your argument there. This is probably one of the best deals of the year. And it's not even close. I have been majorly critical of UK sets in the past. I'm still critical of this one. I'm not a huge fan of a lot of the designs. Especially, especially some of these dual autograph ones look really weird. I think the, the, the design work has always been suspect for Ukraine, but this is the best that they've done. And oh, by the way, they found some Roddy Piper autographs. They found some Terry Funk autographs, they found some Kamala autographs which last appeared in 2012. Like we're talking long deceased wrestlers who have sticker autographs clearly in this set. But when was the last time Roddy Piper Even crossed your mind as somebody I'm going to go chase in a break. He hasn't had autographs since 2015. He passed really tragically early. So like, stuff like that makes a difference. This is huge. Yeah. No, I mean adding that element's great. I mean obviously this is the, the prime time of wrestling that you and I grew up in and watching. So to me, at $160 a box, no brainer rip, I'm obviously this was UK, it's going to come over here. It's going to go up, I would assume and be minimum 250, $300 a box. I would guess it ain't going to be 160. I'll tell you right now is we did not get offered much if almost any of this under our tops account. So very limited to us. And so again, I like the concept. I'm kind of with you. I'm a little indifferent on the designs and looks, but curious to see what these look like in hand. Like this Undertaker Superstars card could really pop and look really cool in hand with for all we know. Is there like, is this your like vert attempt of a kind of a kaboom? Is that you know, in a way you don't know. So. But yeah, add an element like Roddy Piper O Heck, I mean I saw Pela, he's got autographs in the 26 Pro next week, so he's still kind of autographs coming to product. So I mean I'm sure there's stickers sitting everywhere. I'm sure they still have Hogan stickers too, but. But he's in here too. Yeah, of course. So I mean, I like it. I, I don't, I don't hate it at all. I'm just curious. I think it's still early phases. I. We need to see what these things look like in person. But the right names are in this. I mean you're getting people from. It's going to be low numbered. Yeah. I think, I think Austin Rock Undertaker, like those are probably going to be five, like historically UK products. The good names are very, very difficult to pull. They're very low numbered. The Rock has on card autographs in this product from what I'm told, so does Triple H. So like really good checklist. They're just going to be crazy hard to hit. Yeah. But I wonder, I, I mean, is this something they may. I don't can't see them making a lot of this product. I got. I'm sure this is a much more limited product. So I'm curious to see how it plays out. I can't wait to. For you and I to talk more about it when the product gets ripped and we get to see some of this stuff. So yeah, it'll be accessible. Like, I think you can probably get a rock autograph out of this product for probably 500 to a thousand bucks. When all of his other autographs are two, three thousand a piece. Like, that's an opportunity for people. Like, if there's. Now, if there's only five of them, then great. But no, not happening. But yes, then not happening. But if there's. If there's 10, 25 rock autographs, like, they may be 500 bucks a piece. Like, that's hugely accessible. I think Austin's autographs are probably gonna be 150 bucks. Hogan's probably gonna be 100, 150 bucks. Like, those are the types of things, like, because history has not been kind to these UK products, like, they don't sell for much. People like me historically have just said, I don't collect the UK stuff. It's not my thing. And there's a lot of old school collectors that still feel that way because we didn't like what they were doing before. This is at least a step up. So, yes, step in the right direction, I guess we should say. Good, Good call. Exactly. All right, now we're getting into the meat of the discussion here. There have been four WrestleMania patch autographs that have come into focus over the last couple of weeks. I'm going to go through them one by one because I. This is, I'm sure, the part of the podcast that everybody's been waiting for. Tiffany Stratton, Jay uso, Finn Balor and Ray Phoenix, all public, publicly offered. There will be three public sales that result from this and one private sale on the Finn Balor sold through Santiago Sports Cards. Tiffany Stratton was listed at Buy it now on ebay at like 60k. Over a week's time. It came down from 60k down to 22, where it officially sold. The seller dropped that Buy it now price pretty regularly. Gay USO sold on the Fanatics weekly. That was Alex Breaker. Mayfield's card sold for $18,600. And then Ray Phoenix is currently sitting on the Fanatics collect. It ends on Sunday, so it'll be the day after this podcast airs. And then the. The Finn Balor just sold on Instagram for 10,000. So everybody has had their own take on this by now because these sales happen pretty early in the week. Like I said, we're taping on Thursday now. So we have the benefit of hindsight here. I think Alex was pretty disappointed with the Jay USO sale. I it's about 10x where his cards have sold. I mean he had a three thousand dollar prison black sale from 22 but this is almost, you know, 8x7x what his cars usually sell for. Tiffany Stratton had a ten thousand dollar sale of the liquid gold from royalty but before that she was under 10 grand for any of her sales. Finn Balor hasn't ever had a card sell above a thousand dollars is legit publicly. And Ray Phoenix, like I don't even know what to say about Ray Phoenix. He's too new to really have any history there but a lot of people were saying like this is really low and I'm like I don't know about that. But Tiffany Stratton I think was the outlier here being lower than I think it probably should have gone for. But Jey USO at $18,000, $20,000 like that's pretty much where I expected it to go. Right. Yeah. Okay. So obviously this has been something a lot of people have been discussing everywhere and I'm excited to finally dive in and talk about this being that obviously I own one. I want to put a consideration here. So me getting that Orton had more to mean to me than the card and obviously oh I didn't know I was going up against an NBA champion in Carthage Towns and bidding. Right. So that was the first true one to sell on the market. So I think people are like oh well that's there that's two people going it was basically two people going head to head for that card and one outbid the other one. So could that orton gone for 2025 which is probably what it's truly honestly worth should have but take into consideration who it is so when I see this juo sale j uso yes the patch is very significant. His first ever world championship winning at mania 100% beats gunther but at the end of the day, let's be honest Jay use is peaked out. I mean I think he speak out with his career. I think that that was an opportunity. They strapped a rocket on his back as Triple H said yeah, that rocket botched multiple times but again two each is their own. So I think this Jay USO went about what it probably could have capped out at. Yes, I agree Phoenix too early to tell, doesn't until Sunday but you got to think common guys are going to be bringing in that 3-7k range. I would guess more the lesser tier. I'm guessing we don't know this is still new. And then Finn Bauer doing 10K, some say undersold, some say just right, some say oversold. I think it was sold at the right price. We know that Drew McIntyre did 10k privately before the Orton sold. We know that J Cargill did 7k which people agreed that was grossly undervalued. I think Finn for what you put best his cards out there. I mean Finn's in his 40s. I don't know if he's going to get in our world championship shot but I think that is spot on. Then we get to tiffy. I think the tiffy under went way under. I think that the person who owned it hit in a break for whatever the tiffy spot was and was looking to get the fast cash and couldn't wait. I think this card should have went to auction somewhere but that person clearly was ready to cash out. I think this thing should have went probably about what the buy now is lowered to. So it was lower from 60 to 50, I believe to 35. And when it got to 35 is when the offers came in 35 it could have been hit. But I think it was one of those things where unless you were following it, you didn't know unless you got alerted. I think Tiffany should have done in the 30s. Whoever bought this and we know who bought it, I think they got a great buy. I think they got it honestly opinion a steal for how significant that card is for who she is, for where she's going in her career. So out of all these tiffy to me under went under. But the seller was clearly ready to sell, motivated, motivated sell. So again, we don't know financially what that seller was, what they were going through. They may have needed the money for all we know but I think if there was patience with it would have gotten the right hands. We might have seen this card go higher than the Orton maybe, but congratulations the person who bought it. But I think we go back to the other ones. I think we're spot on. You said Alex is disappointed. I mean I think it's where it need to be. I didn't see this going over 20. You know, I think if Finn went to auction, I don't know how much more of a 10 it would have gone. I predicted it was going to go like 22,5 I think last week not to. I mean like in the grand scheme of things it's like you know, 20% 10, 15% off. I I like you take a risk every time you send it to auction and you do. Good on Alex for being confident to put that public comp out there. Like, I think the tiffy sale hurt his auction because it ended literally like an hour or two before it ended or whatever it was. But yeah, man, like Jay has reached the peak of his career. Like nothing will ever be what he did at that WrestleMania. So I don't think that they. Even if they come back with another WrestleMania relic here for him next year, I think it goes half of this maybe. And like I think Finn Balor is never going to be the guy. I mean, as much as he was cool, I loved Finn Balor back in the day when he was the demon. Coming up on nxt, when he still had a lot of career ahead of him, I think Finn Balor is likely peaked out. Neil probably doesn't like to hear that, but like Finn's a cool character, but he's not the guy that's going to drive humongous sales. Giving Finn a five figure sale is a huge deal. I think giving Ray Phoenix. Yes, giving. Go ahead Phoenix. Sorry guys. Giving Ray Phoenix like a close to a five figure sale is absolutely ridiculous given where he is on TV. Right. There are people. Ivar is like what 3k sold for 3k or wherever it was like bottom. That's common spot. That's a huge sale for. That's a huge sale. But I think when you put. That's where. And again, I didn't know that until you told me that now. And I think my guesstimate is 3 to 7k on the. The more lesser tier wrestlers. Yeah. I think Finn has one more championship run in him. I think that they're going to find that opportunity for him. I think he's, he's. I hope so. He deserves. I mean as much as I give Neil crap, Finn Bauer is a phenomenal wrestler. He is. He's really. He's really good. And when he is the demon, there's like nothing like it. It's amazing. So yeah. But yeah, I think at the end of the day, I think yeah, I could see the Tiffany Hu Jay maybe that night maybe it. It did go pretty viral pretty quick. The sale was kind of like wildfire. Once people knew it sold. It was. It was. Yeah, it went fast. Yeah. So. But the end of the day, I think these cards are incredible. I think they're truly a piece of wrestling history. Not just wrestling card history, but true wrestling history. I think they're very significant. I know it's being first year. And I think the patches will base off what they did at that mania to what their value is going forward in future ones because we know we're getting them in SummerSlam as well. Yeah. And. And so there's. There's two things I want to end on here and then I want to get into a topic. One, I don't think this hurts John Cena. Number two, I don't think this hurts Rhea Ripley. And I think the last piece of that is I think Randy Orton was an outlier. You've admitted to that. Why it had such a huge personal connection to you. Like, everybody needs to understand two well funded bidders going against each other. As Ryan just explained, one's an NBA champion, one is one of the owner of one of the largest card shops in the nation. Like you guys are on a different tier than the traditional collector. Theoretically, most of these are not going to the collectors that usually chase these guys. Like, you know, it's not like I would pay $60,000 to go buy Becky lynch as much as I would love to. Like, those cars are probably attracted to a specific market space that really doesn't exist outside of these cards. And so I think if you look at Randy Orton as an outlier, somebody had a personal connection to that card like Ryan did, signed in his store during the biggest night in his store's history. Like all, like, maybe not sales wise, but in terms of personal, like those drive people to make decisions like Ryan made and rightfully so. He will cherish that card forever. I think to use that as the benchmark is. Is a tough. Is tough for most people to grasp because they may not be familiar with your story even though you had your 15 minutes of fame. They may just see that sale and then see Tiffy win for half of that. Despite being a younger, more sort of potential focused wrestler. I just, I'm not ready to close the book on WrestleMania patches just because Tiffany Stratton sold a 22K to a motivated seller. Right? Yeah. No, and I mean like you said with the ordinance, to me, it's like I kept that hush, that story hush. It was pretty much people that I was close to knew that it happened. And I also kept the hush about me going after it and my intentions because I didn't want people to know what that meant to me until after that I acquired it. So sure. I mean, did I overpay? Absolutely. I know this. I don't care. I'm happy I have it. It is the most important Randy card, Orton card in my collection. It Brought me an opportunity to, to meet Orton. And it just, it ties so much into that moment. And even the aftermath of when he and I reconnected talking about the card. Those are moments like that that just mean more to me than the actual money and overpaying for card. Absolutely. And I think when the Cena does sell, I mean, at the end of the day to me, Randy Orton is the goat. He is the greatest of all time. Again, me being a fan and a wrestling guy. But if Cena does do 100, $150,000 now, Orton doesn't look like I'm overbidding at that point, does it really? I mean, if Cena's got to go to a public auction, whoever pulls this, send it to fanatics to golden, send it somewhere where it's going to get the right eyes and the right amount of people bidding on it, because that card needs all the exposure it's going to get. Yeah. And I, I, I can't really add much more to that. I think that's exactly how I feel. What I do want to cover is rather than us saying, don't sell your card lower, like, I want to go through this discussion quickly here because if you're following along with us on Patreon, there's six steps listed here and this is my guide with Ryan's feedback to selling a high value wrestling card. Some of these things are going to apply to selling a high value card. Some of these are going to apply to selling a wrestling card. Some of these are only going to apply to selling a high value wrestling card. So keep that in mind. These are somewhat universal, but somewhat niche in a lot of ways. Some of these steps should be table stakes for everybody. But if you pull a big card, we're talking thousand, five thousand, ten thousand dollars. And there's a few of them now, like every set has a card from wrestling that likely is in that $5,000 range, which historically puts it in the upper 1% of like wrestling card sales. Number one. And we'll go through these individually. Step one, comp your card like, and there is always a comp. And I want to say that even though wrestling data is limited and it's hard publicly to, to do this, it's an art form. Comping cards. Find a way to comp your card, ask for help. Look on card ladder, go through sales history, comparative wrestlers, comparative sales in other sports, whatever you need, you have to get the number that you are comfortable with. Agree. Yep. Okay. Number two, you have to find your audience. Now, this is where I think you and I have agreed considerably. Is that as you get into the 5,000, $10,000 range, wrestling cars, how many buyers you think exist in that platform? Not as. Not that much. Not as much as the Orange Brother sports card, that's for damn sure. Right. Yeah. And that's where I think if you start getting offers from the people that represent that audience, like, it's likely they are at or near the top now in these WrestleMania patch autographs, where there is some crossover appeal, there's public eyes on it, there's wrestler eyes on it, like all those other things. Maybe that adjusts a little bit, but I think this is where a lot of people tend to lose the plot a little bit too. They get that audience and they think this audience is 10, 15, 20 people. When you're up that high, I think it's probably under five. Yeah, agreed. I agree. I. I think it. It's a. It's very low number. I don't know the exact. But yes, it's very short. Very short. Printed. I guess you should say, yeah, depend, like. And that's. And somebody said to me, like, I bought this card because I knew you would want it. That. That was told to me this week. And I'm like, okay, here's my offer. And they said, no, I don't want that offer. I'm like, you just said, like, I am the person to get this offer from. I'm giving you what I. What is generally acceptable as the worth of that card. And you're saying, no, recognize who your audience is. Now, I'm not the only Becky collector. I'm not the only high end Becky collector. I. All those things are true. But recognize who your audience is. I think that's a key thing that people can lose the plot on, especially if they have a high value card. They're thinking about this like, oh, my God, this is worth $20,000. Oh, this is. And then somebody gives them an offer of five and they're like, I can't take that. My number is too high for that. Well, that goes back to step one. Number three, pick your platform. You were just talking about Cena and what you were thinking about with Cena and all that stuff. Platform of sale is humongous in any sport in wrestling especially putting in a high value wrestling card on a platform depends on a number of choices, but it could impact the eventual final sale. Yes or no? Yes. You're 100% spot on there. Yes. So Alex chose to put his card on Fanatics Collect, which I think a lot of people were saying was the wrong choice. I don't really have anything either way. I said really? There's only five to 10 people that are going to buy and the chance that some of them didn't see it on Fanatics live is very low. Like everybody saw that card and we were promoting it. Fanatics promoted it to multiple times. Everybody who needed to see that card saw that card. The bid ended where it ended. But putting it on ebay you have factors of if we're going to run an auction on ebay you set it to when Randy was was going there's chance for manipulation. There's all these other things same on other platforms. To try social media I curated a list of Wrestling Card PCs. You pull one of those super factors or whatever, go on that list, find the people that collect that person, go to that platform and get in touch with them. Their contact information is on the list. Really important stuff like if you can pick your right platform you may get more money than you expect. And if you get your number, take it. Like there's like bird in hand versus two in the bush is always the thing. My dad used to say he grew. He was born in the 50s so that goes to show you but like if you get your number, take the offer. Like just why are you, why are you trying to get more by going to this auction platform Unless you feel like you've undercomped your car. So again back to step one, ask for help, get all that information ahead of time. Then number four, choose your tool set in your or your partner. So things like we talked about MC sports cards, one of the sponsors of wrestling card takeover maybe using a consigner will get you more attention because guess who does a lot of marketing. Those people? Yeah, the bigger sellers in ebay like your dc, your mc, all those top sellers. Basically yes, they're going to promote it and they obviously have the following for it. So going there with bigger ticket items is key. I think to your point I think the orton should have went to fanatics. I think it would have honestly done more. I think there's ways that fanatics if you have a rep and you have let's just say items in your port you got collateral to say hey how much can I bid on this and can I sell it? I think there's opportunities there when you go. So I really think back to the ju so it was put on the right platform in my opinion to make that sale. I don't think it would have garnished what it got on ebay and it may not have got, may have been terrorists as you said, if it went to ebay. So I think, you know, using those as examples is huge to know. Like, I think sometimes are better off going to fine X. I think there's a lot of times things better go to ebay. Yeah. And like this is layers to an onion. So. And this is just my opinion on this. Like, don't take this as the bible, but like, I think it's, it's really important to say, like, if I choose this versus this, there could be pricing impact to the way that my final value eventually comes into my hands. That includes things like public sales on the platform are on a platform like fanatics and ebay are going to be everywhere. So you better be ready to deal with the fallout if something doesn't go your way or goes above what was your way. Because then you may be, oh, this guy doesn't know what he's doing. Or this guy, wow, what a, what an awesome sale. You have to be ready to deal with that. And I think like private sales, especially in wrestling cards, you and I have both engaged in them more than anybody in the recent times with the chrome sets and the royalty sets and everything coming out. Like there are people who will give you the best price and you can avoid the fees. I'm not going to say what else you can avoid because I might get in trouble. But like, you know, like things like that factor into a decision where these are reported there. You're going to get a 1099 if you sell on some of these platforms. So just be aware of that too. There's, there's give and take to everything. Then you got to choose a format that's step five. So are you doing an auction like we saw with Jay uso? Good on Alex for putting it on the community to prop him up. But maybe he didn't feel it went his way. Maybe if he had chosen the Buy it now format, things could have gone different. We saw what happened with Tiffany's friend. According to the seller, he didn't get any offers. So when you choose your format, you better choose the right price. Now this is where that Comp youp card step becomes. That's why I put it at step one, because you got to find your number and find it fast. If this is something you have to sell now, and if you put that Buy it now price 3x 4x, you scare away a lot of people. You put it under 0.5x, 0.25x in some of these cases. It sells right away and you feel. So you really have to find that middle ground where it's not too high but not too low. And that's where the art form comes in and that's where asking for help becomes really important. Lastly. Go ahead. Anything to add there? No, no, not really, No. I mean, I think that's case of point. The tiffy, I think it just was too high to begin with and scared a lot of people off. And I think by the time it got lowered it was just, I think they missed the opportunity on capitalizing more. So I feel like the tiffy should have went to a auction platform. But clearly seller wanted money, wanted to cash out, therefore that's why we saw what it went for. Yes. Yeah. And then lastly, I think just the final step here, which I think Alex did a ton of, I don't think this Tiffany Stratton guy did, any of which is promote your listing. So like we all have social media. If you're not on social media, like you're going to have a negative time, you're going to have a bad time. Because social media is where the card business happens. And if you're selling a high value card, you need to be on social media. Like it's, if you don't promote it on Instagram, you don't promote it on Twitter, you don't promote it through the, the, the consigners, whatever. It's not going to get the level of eyes. Especially if you're selling it from an account that only has 100 or 150 feedback. Like those are really important things. You've got to get the word out there. And listen, Steve and I try and post every big card that we can, but we don't tell people, oh, it's this price, it's going here, go find this. Because like I'm not gonna help you make this sale. I just want to make sure the community is aware that it's out there. Like I, it's just not my role as a educator, informer or whatever to get somebody a card sold. Unless they're coming to me with a personal relationship and saying, hey, Gelman, can you help me here? My answer is almost 100. Yes, like I will help you if you ask, but you've got a has. I think like that's, that's where the relationship aspect of this is. And I think to close this out, this step process, your reputation is everything. And if you have a negative reputation as a buyer or a seller, your ability to sell a high value wrestling card is going to be diminished. If you have a good reputation as a buyer or seller, the likelihood that you can get these things sold at the price that you need to is going to be higher. And I think when you put it to auction, maybe that's removed a little bit because it's more. Less public. There's no face attached to an auction. But you really want the top value to your card. You've got to have that reputation piece in place, especially to build a trusted sale for a $5,000 card. That's a lot of money to send via PayPal to somebody you've never met before. So, like just reputation is everything, especially in a small community and is everything is visible. Yeah, I like this. This is a great step process for everybody and. And something. Yeah, I like this. Patience. Keyword. The key word here is patience. When you get into the high value sale. And Brian THZ Sports Cards, one of our sponsors for wrestling Card Takeover, was on stacking slabs earlier this week and he talked about shop the card, like chop the card. He's not wrong. He does this a lot. He's very good at it. And that episode that Brian was on, go listen to it because it's a great episode. He talks a lot about making deals and wrestling cards. Patience is key because it gives you the opportunity to let things develop. If you're just dropping price and dropping price and dropping price, that's very visible. People are going to see that. And I think the other aspect of this is the idea that a card is desirable, makes it more valuable. And this is the group think sort of way of the hobby. If I see other people want a card, I want that card too. It's just the way people are in this hobby. It's sad, but it is what it is. If I see less people want this card, this guy's not getting offers, then I want that card less because I see it's not as desirable as I may. As that person may have thought. Right. Yeah. Keyword is patience. I've learned that a long time ago. And to really capitalize and get your top dollar, I mean. I mean, what was it that Goldberg Hogan, he had for quite some time and actually, you know, he sold it. I mean, it just. It's all it takes. One person. He's one person. It's one person is all it takes. But just be patient. And if you feel like you were going to get your number, then eventually, it's not astronomically insane, you might eventually get that number if you just be patient. Yeah, but again, like, that's a really key moment here is like you might get it, you might get your number. You just got to be patient. Now, if you're a motivated seller, I got to sell this right now. You are likely chopping 10 to 20% off of your capabilities if you have more ability to sit there and let it develop. I mean, people need money. They're going to have to arrange funds, sell cards, they're going to have to fund their purchase. So you can't just expect that somebody's just going to be able to drop $25,000 in one fell swoop without making some arrangements first. Like, you have to give people that time and doing all of this in a week, dropping it four times like tiffy did, I don't know if that was the right call for that reason. Maybe I don't have time to go to the wharf. Brett talked about buying the John Cena super fracture today on stacking slabs like he had to go to fund your cards because he wanted to use the equity in his collection. People do that all the time. You do that? Absolutely, yeah. With mc, I give people the time to do it, use that and I build up my money and then I go buy cards I want. It's basically what I do. Yeah. I got this question on Twitter. I want to close it out by the mayor Pete at the mayor Pete on Twitter asked, given my recent acquisition of a one of one superstar who is off TV right now, can you also cover the greater raw factors for one of ones and other rare cards and selling in this type of a space, Is it required to grade a card for me? Honestly, no. It's you as a collector, if that's what you're wanting to do, if you want to preserve it. For me, it's grading a lot of my stuff that I'm keeping. If we're talking collecting standpoint to make my family's life easier, something would happen to me. And also grading is growing in the wrestling space. It's still new, but now things have shifted with PSA shutting bulk value down for a while. So I think we're going to see less and less wrestling cards graded unless it's on the higher level, which is like 70, 80 bucks. So I think it's one of those things where you have to decide if you want to add value. I. I think if it's a valuable item, you should grade it because it's going to make selling it a lot easier. You as a collector, you have to decide. I don't care to grade my orton because I think Just seeing the patch and touching, it's really cool to me. So I don't think I really need that one in a holder. I may change my mind one day, but if I'm grading certain things, I actually almost grade every super fracture. I used to say, oh, you don't need to grade one on ones. It does add tremendous value if it tends significantly. So yes, I. There's two answers to this based on the approach. I think for me there's a lot of factors. Pete called out one, someone's off tv. So clearly like, like a Bianca Belair. You have time if you want to grade it before you sell it. If you, if you're not motivated to move that card right this second and you know you're gonna sell it. Not a bad idea. Especially if it has a chance to 10. If you have somebody that is hot right now, somebody like Chad Gable maybe coming off of that. No, Chase, sell it asap. Yeah, you want to sell that asap. Grading is not your best option right now and I don't think it's probably ever will be for speed again in wrestling. Wrestling is very week to week and you know it's not. And the season is year long so a lot of stuff going on. I don't know if grading is really the, the best opportunity there. But if it's a one on one is a high value card, the auction houses won't accept it unless it's graded or at least reviewed. That's what happened with Jay USO and Tiffany Stratton of the Super Factor that Alex sold. Stone Cold Steve Austin. Like all of those cards are not graded by cgc, they're just authenticated. So you can't submit a card to auction without it being in some sort of holder. But it's. This isn't a holder and in this case it's a sleeve with a sticker on it. But like recognize that grading does make things easier and it takes a lot of the risk out of it too. From condition standpoint, you can't say, oh, this card is. You know what you promised me it was a nine. It actually came back a five. Like you, you save yourself that burden. And if it's unnumbered, the switcheroo deal where people take in unnumbered cards, swap it and return it, that's not something that's going to happen either. So. All right, should we move on to some big sales? That was a lot. I feel like we're catching up for two weeks of me being called. But you guys had a show last week. So. I know, yeah, you know, I, I just wanted to cover that because like this is of all the questions I get on Instagram. Number one question is like, what is this worth? Or how do I sell this? Or who should I sell this to? Yep. Like that segment was meant to help a lot of people. I don't know how many are going to actually hear it but. Or need it. People listen to a podcast network like stacking slabs probably a little bit further down the rabbit hole than most people in this hobby. But if you go onto like the Facebook groups and stuff like that, there's a lot of people who need this help. I hope they listen. I hope people stumble upon this and hear that. Because comping cards is really hard. Like it's probably the hardest thing for a new collector to do. Buying and selling based on those comps is even harder. So hopefully that at least gives somebody a standpoint of like, oh, okay. These are the types of things I need to consider. Yeah. So big sales for the week. There was a combat sports auction at golden that ended. There's a few sales in there that were really big. One of them was this one of one black select from 2022. So this is the debut edition of select is the premier level. Went at the auction for $17,080 on Golden PSA 9. Humongous sale. I, I was not expecting this card to go for that much. Giant, giant price. Yeah, I think this goes with the, the panini error and the blacks and being the first year and I mean this is 100, almost $10,000 less than the prism went for, you know, and this image is actually awesome, you know, so. And this is a PSA9 as well. So yes, in landscape, if you compare it to other things high. But when you think about it long term, I think at the end of the day I think we're all very strong on the Panini era and we think that the value is going to continue to go up as it's been showing. So this is another example of what the panini era is doing in the wrestling card space. Especially once you see some of the. If you go on card ladder and you search and you look like most of these sales that are trending up are panini sales that have really jumped kabooms, downtowns, all that stuff we've all talked about ad nauseam, this is an eye opening sale. I think for me I own a ton of Panini cards. Like I loved that era, you love that era. We all love that era. And people are going to see this and say, wow, maybe I need to start thinking about my PC in terms of like what I need to get from that era. Especially from Flawless, especially from Prism select. The big sets. It's gonna be eye opening. Really interesting sale here. This just happened. There was a Booker T 1999 WCW autograph. It's the later set because it's the. The new WCW logo. That was logo. That one. Yeah, yeah. But this is one of the rarest in the. In the set. I think it's there. There's not many of these that. That are in collections, let alone transact publicly. Someone listed this for $6,000 and someone smashed that bin. It is very tough to get these cards and especially the rare ones, you know, hardcore Hack, the Sandman one or whatever. Some of those really tough ones, they go for a ton of money. This could have actually been undersold by a little bit. So I don't know, you're. You're a little bit more up to speed on these than I am. Yeah. I mean the thing is a lot of these didn't get turned back in and maybe these wrestlers did not sign as much I. E. Booker T. Because no Booker T autograph card should be doing $6,000. But if you're completing the set, which a lot of people build this set, this is a very popular historical set that if you're trying to complete. Because even looking at these autographs, this autograph has seen the light. It's little faded, I mean the way they use the ink. But. But yeah, I mean that's insane. But again, for set collectors, I mean you got a lot. You know, I don't know how many people build the set, but yeah, I think at least. Yeah, exactly. So somebody who really needed this was not risking it. This could be the first one to pop up in years. I think it was. Yeah. So that's the point. So again, could have been undersold, but that I understand because of how iconic this set is and what it represents. Yeah, there's a few of them that only have had like two or three public sales and they. They're much lower than they would go for today. So yeah, really huge number. But I mean PSA 5 maybe, but here's. Who cares? You got your second pleat, man. That's just in the dance from a guy used to build stuff. That's. That's huge. Yeah. So one of the other cards in that. In the fanatics weekly auction where Jey Uso ended was this Stone Cold Steve Austin 101. It is from the Catchphrase set. Probably my least favorite design in immaculate. Honestly, I'm just not a fan of this design. But I just want to call out like these cards continue to sell for huge money. Stone Cold is a big name. I. There are not many Stone Cold cards that sell for this that aren't like black 101s or super fractors. Seeing this one sale for almost $4,000 is pretty big. Yeah. I was actually watching this on fanatics and I was curious to see what it went for. So I think again, I think these are going to continue to go up. And I mean it's got a flawless esque look to it. Which is what immaculate was prior to flawless. And I love immaculate. You and I both love immaculate. I get your point on the set. Very small window. Not a lot of picture there with it and stuff like that. But being who it is, being where some of his other one on ones have gone for, I think this is about what it's turning. It keeps turning up. Like we talked about. Last one we'll talk about here. This is the 2022 gold prism for Brock Lesnar. BGS 8.5 sold via auction. Went for $3,350. These golds rarely transact. Now people are hunt. I think there are people building the set. The gold set. Yeah. Brock. I. Someone saw an opportunity. I completely understand why. I don't know why it's in a BGS holder, but who knows. It's weird things happen. And BGS 8.5 nonetheless. So it's like a PSA 7 or a 6 or something. But like honestly this card is so interesting to see what these end up selling for. His black would have won, I think transacted 20, 23 or 24 for like eight grand. So you. We're almost at half of that for this gold. Yeah. I think if they put that black up again, it's probably 10,000 plus at this point, right? Oh, easily at this point. Especially with this sale right here. I mean this is just. I. I wonder what these were going for a year or two ago. I mean you gotta remember Brock's roller coaster career of in and out, in and out. We're never seeing Brock again with all this Vince McMahon stuff. But this is just to me blows my mind of a sale. But I do know somebody, Max from who actually built this entire set. I know. I saw that. It's. Yeah. He has the entire set of this and it's insane. I still am in the hut for the Orton gold. To be honest with you. I have the gold, the three. I have the black 101, but I don't have the gold. So. But I, I don't care if I completed. I mean, I'd like to get one one day, but I'm not gonna overpay Godly to get one. So I'm, I'm just saying like if you are sitting on a treasure trove of Panini cards, keep sitting on it, man. Like these cards, like there was a podcast I was listening to where they were talking about like, let's go 10 years into the future. Like this was a three year period. If you go multiples of that period into the future, think about how people are going to look back on this time frame when the cards never sell. Wrestling cards, wrestling collectors lock this up and like it's just going to keep going and keep going even if the market starts trending the opposite direction because something happens in the greater scheme of things. These are the types of cards, the prisms, the flawless, the good stuff from Immaculate. Those stuff doesn't change hands and it's going to only continue to be desirable. All right, we are just about a month away from the national guys. Ryan and I and Neil spent what, like two hours on the phone today or this week trying this. Yeah. Wow. We put a lot of work into this, guys. This party is going to be so much fun. I cannot wait for everybody to join us. If you are going to join us and you want to be a part of this event, you just made the list. We gotta get, we gotta get people to understand just how crazy this is gonna be. We just ordered all the shirts, we just ordered all the signage. We're gonna do a ton of giveaways. We've got awesome sponsors. Acknowledge our sponsors. This is gonna be so much fun, guys. Email booktolastpodcastmail.com I also wanted to know here's something as well. I talked to Swish at Blez. They actually have a special code for anybody on Bless Online that wants to go and buy their first pack. Use code takeover20 and you'll get 20% off your first pack on Bless Online. They're going to be doing some more stuff as we get closer to this party and as we get into the party situation here. Can like awesome, awesome stuff. Check out Bloods Online if you are looking for breaks of cosmic and everything that we've talked about on this podcast. Go check out Card Shop Live. They do ton of breaks every night. Go check out Stephanie. She's running Disney stuff too. So if you're into that, go Check out her stuff. Wax culture. Awesome guys doing tons of breaks, royalty included. Card Vault. I was just there at the Mall of America. Can I tell you, my kids absolutely love that Mall of America card vault store. I ripped a box of Cosmic there and pulled a Ray Phoenix autograph or something and they ripped some Pokemon cards. Harvard's a cool place. Like go check them out. Yeah, we've. I've been to the Chicago one, the Vegas one and Sylvie get to see Louis when I still go downtown much enough. But I will be able to check it out. You would think I get time in the Mall of America. I don't think we have time this week, but yeah, they have some really cool shops. They really do. Shout out to Brian from THC Sports Cards. MC Sports Cards as well. We've talked about them on this podcast. Chad at Sportscard Junction is going to have an insane setup at the National. He's talked about it on this podcast before. And BCW supplies, if you need holders or anything for all the cards that you're ripping and breaking, check out their stuff. It's great quality stuff. And then lastly, we've talked a lot about Card Ladder. They are huge supporters of everything hobby wide. Make sure you check them out but let us know you're coming. This is going to be a good time. Yeah, no, thank you again to our sponsors. I don't think we can reiterate that enough. This wouldn't be possible with all of them and all the work that Adam and Brett have done and obviously Neil now stepping into the role. We, we've got a lot undertook this week. We've got, we're going to give, giving away shirts. I've got stickers in line. But again we're, we're going to be doing a lot of fun stuff at this event. It's going to be that Friday night. I'm excited for it. And please email us at book glass podcast gmail.com if you plan to come. Try to get a better idea ahead. Count. I know the room can hold 350. We would love to see it over full. I mean not crazy over full, but we'd love to see all, all this come together. I think this is going to be an amazing night, maybe arguably the greatest wrestling card night in history in one room together. So make sure you're coming to check it out. You'll be. It won't guarantee that. Look at the comments. It will be. Yes. Love it. So again, thank you to sponsors. We're getting everything going that the ball is rolling with. Everything we're doing on the back end. It's going to be fun. I cannot wait. I've got to get ready for the national as well, but this is another added element that I'm excited to be a part of. Yeah. So Friday, July 31st, Embassy Suites starts at 6pm get there early. We're going to have a great time. It's going to be great. Yep. All right. Last thing of the podcast. We're finally at the end. This was, this was a lot. I wanted to talk. You mentioned Universe early on and I said you were stealing thunder. This is why our title match topic are people correctly valuing the event worn relic cards that are included in Universe and Royalty and so on and so forth exalted. And if Tops eventually switches to player warn, which I think is probably going to happen. What does the future markets hold for this event worn stuff versus like where it is right now? Yeah, the thing is this is always a topic of discussion in the sports card world outside of wrestling. It's educating and making sure that the collector knows the difference between game use player worn. This item has nothing to do with anything. And I think at times people see a cool patch like oh that's sick and they pay crazy number and that patch has nothing to do with anything. Basically a manufactured patch as far as I see, even though it's cut from a jersey, I think long term they're going to be in demand. There's going to be value there. It's just going to be the educating that no hey that these were event used from this year's Universe and also this year's Royalty. Whereas we know Universe this year will not be event use. We assume Royalty would be. We assume that they're going to save all the Dynasty venues for premium stuff like Dynasty and Royalty. But Flawless brings big money for the Stars watches and they're nothing to do with anything. However, if you take Stark Swatch into account in other sports that's always been a popular set. So I, I think long term it's going to be there. I think right now it's flying under the radar because people just aren't really understanding the difference between this item has no nothing specific versus event used. But the event used if you go into other sports is a huge deal. When it's game used it is a massive deal and it's continuously growing like with Babe Ruth relics with all time greats. With Michael Jordan we're seeing LeBron James jerseys that used to be 10, 15, 20 bucks that are now minimum a hundred dollars at this point because of the educating and that people are being aware of. Like this was game used. This was worn in specific something that's big that to a collector gets you closer to the game and in wrestling gets you closer to the event, the match. You know, I got to think there's just so much value in these long term. Yeah. And royalty has dipped. Especially the relic cards universe has dipped because it's settled. Like market settles. It has to get locked. It does. It happens. It's not because the set is bad. It's because this is what happens with every single set. I want to call attention to a couple of things. Number one, we were going to talk about it on a previous podcast. The one of one Hulk Hogan my favorite person his dual relic one of one sold from Royal from royalty sold for like 2500 bucks. I can't remember there ever being in the modern era at least maybe earlier on in the flir era and some of the other things there might have been. I can't remember the last time there was like an event Warren Hulk Hogan anything and like stone cold Steve Austin his one of one relic. Dual relic from royalty sold for like a thousand bucks. Nine hundred bucks. Like I I don't think people are going to value these correctly until they see that there's an alternative that is an event. So I think to your point, as these things grow beyond just hey, we're going to put it in royalty and Dynasty, the only products out there that'll have this stuff. If that eventually ends up being the strategy, I think these are flying under the radar too. These might be the last time they're accessible in this respect. And if those are the products, not everybody can buy a box of Dynasty. Not everybody can buy a box of royalty. So if you want to go spend 200 bucks to get an event worn stuff universe is there right now. Curious if that changes once people see next year. I think from the previews they don't say event warn on the preview cards. So I don't know man. I think this is an interesting sort of situation that many collectors may not be considering. Yeah. It's funny you mentioned Hogan and and match use event use whatever. I've been buying the There's a Hulk Hogan leaf magnificence card Magnificence from this past year where it's a jumbo swatch and the autograph is Hulk Hogan. The lips. Yeah, Thunder lips. It's match used and I've been the the swatch is just as big as a star swatch in flawless which has nothing to do with anything nice. Yes, flawless is on card. Yes, it's flawless. But I've been buying these for 600 bucks for all one of ones and I think leaf made like 20 total. But I feel like I've been buying them up and they've been surfacing. I'm like this is a no brainer to me. Like this is Hogan's done. We know there's still stickers out there, but you're getting a Hogan autograph, an inscription with it and oh I E. It's match used relic. This is something he wore for $600. But if you go to flawless, what are you paying now? Minimum three grand for a flawless star swap. Maybe 20 minimum. I did, I get it's on card and it's flawless 100%. But there's really nothing with licensing difference between leaf and flawless. There's no wrestling licensing really. I mean he could still write Hulk Hogan, you know. So to me it's like I'm educated enough to go, I think these are a good buy. I think I want to buy. Well now everybody knows. Well, that's why I'm using an example. If you now if you want to go get one, I just educated you. You see what surface, go buy it. I just had one deliver from Australia I bought the other day. So I think I paid like 600 bucks a piece for these. And just to writ the box is 450 bucks for one card. So I mean if I were to pull that, I'd be thrilled, you know. But I think these long term have great value and I think that goes to the event use match worn stuff long term will have the value when more people are educated. Yeah. And as they call out more of the dates on the back where we saw with royalty on some of the cards when they could identify it, they did. And when they could identify in dynasty, I assume they're going to do the same thing. Like I've seen some of the stuff that's coming. It's insane. But I think even beyond that people are like oh, I don't want to buy. I don't want to pay 250 bucks for this. Roman Reigns out of royalty autograph relic Jumbo relic is one color but Roman reigns does not have a ton of like match worn stuff to go around. He is notorious for keeping stuff close to the vest. The shield vest if you will. But like I think it's, it's really important to like consider this. And I don't think collectors really truly get like how hard it is to chase down event worn stuff for wrestling. There's a huge, like trading community everything around this. I own one of the Becky lynch leather jackets that she wore on smackdown in 2019. One of my prized possessions. I own an NXT shirt she wore on a broadcast. Another one of my prized possessions. These things are really rare. I am the top collector in a lot of these areas. I only have two of these things. Like, imagine the people out there who just have the opportunity for 200 bucks a box to buy this event worn stuff next year. I don't know if that's going to be the same thing. It could be more mat relics, it could be more unaffiliated relics. You never know. So I think that was why I wanted to call attention to it. I think it's a cool topic. Y. All right, so that's the end for this week. Sorry for badgering people with our, our, our stuff here, but I think like a lot of this, these discussions are, are key for people to make considerations, especially on the big sales. I hope that was helpful. But yeah, I mean, like, just stay, stay, like stay true to yourself. I think that's a key thing here too is like don't overextend yourself because somebody else is doing something that you feel is the right move. Do what makes sense for you. And this podcast is really just Ryan and I's opinion on everything. And I know that that doesn't always sit well with people, but it is something where we've created this platform to share these opinions just because we love talking about wrestling cards. But maybe other people have different ones. Go listen to those stuff. Go check those podcasts out too. Like there's a lot of opinion out there now. So next week we'll probably talk a little bit more about stadium club coming out. Maybe a little bit more. As SummerSlam develops. National is bearing down on us. So it's gonna be a lot of fun stuff coming in the next few weeks, but it was good to get all of this out another hour and a half episode after last week's hour and a half episodes. So a lot of, lot of stuff going down. Thank you for first taking the time, Ryan. Well, but always, always. I'll see you here in a couple days, my friend. In person. Yeah, I can't wait. That's the first time I seen you in person since what, national last year? Yeah, yeah, it's been two years ago. Two years ago. It's been two years since I've stayed. I wasn't in Chicago last year. Yeah, that's right. Been a couple years since I've seen. No, I saw you. I came to Minnesota one time and that might have been before the Nash. I can't remember. Jesus. No, that was, that was. It's been like a year. It's been like a year or so. So y', all, I will see you a couple days, you and your family. I'm excited to be up there. Am in sports cards on the shout outs. But yeah, we're gonna probably be covering a lot of the national coming up with Wrestling Guard Takeover. It's, it's on the horizon. I think we look today it's 42 to 42 days away from the national starting when we're recording this. So I gotta get my butt in gear with a lot of things. But it's good to be back. I'll be on next week as well and I should be on the Tuesday. Should be good. I'm going on 4th of July trip and I think I'll be there in time to record on the Tuesday. Yeah, I'm going to be. We're going to have baseball tournaments literally every week in July. So we might have some fill in guest hosts. Yeah, I do want to call out if you are setting up at the national and you have wrestling cards that you're planning on bringing, let us know because I am planning on doing an episode here where we highlight all the dealers of the show that have wrestling cards for people to see. So if you do have wrestling cards in your plan, if, if we don't already know you, if we know you, don't worry about it. We'll cover you. If you, we don't know you, we haven't mentioned you before. Give me a shout out on Instagram. We want to add you to the list of people that we're going to cover on this episode. So just I wanted to shout that out. I forgot. But other than that, we will, we'll see you next week. Gu. See you later. Thanks so much for tuning in to another episode of Book to Last. We appreciate all the passion, the support that is coming from the wrestling card community. We'd love to see you at the Wrestling Card Takeover. Make sure you email us booktolastpodcastmail.com to RSVP until next week. Happy collecting. Take care. Talk to you soon.