Breaking Down Early News of Fanatics Fest 2025 (and Impact on National?); John Elway in Bowman Draft Baseball a Cool Chase or Too Gimmicky?; Pick 1: MJ Fleer Rookie vs. Piggy Banx 1/1

You're listening to Cards to the Moon, a podcast about trading cards from both a collector and investor perspective. We hope you'll stick around for the ride as we take a deep dive into the state of the hobby, share some hot takes, hopefully some useful advice and fun stories along the way. Hey guys, welcome back to another edition of Cards to the Moon. My name is Clark from 5cardguys.com. You can also find me on 5cardguys on Instagram and YouTube. With me co-hosting as usual is Jon, who is TradeUatRecess on IG. Hyung is away for this episode, but he should be back with us next week. Alright, off the top, I wanted to talk about the release of this year's Bowman Draft. I actually wanted Hyung to weigh in and tell us which prospects and rookies to look out for since he's much more knowledgeable about prospecting than we are. The only thing I know is Jack Caglione. You might have heard his name. He's billed as the potential next legit two-way player. We'll see about that. Other than Jack Caglione, I don't know who else to be excited about if I pulled their card. We'll save that for Hyung when he comes on next week. I did want to talk about another chase in this year's Bowman Draft that everyone is already talking about. His name is Jon Elway, the two-time Super Bowl champion quarterback. Just like Tom Brady in last year's Bowman Draft, he was also previously drafted by a Major League Baseball team. To tell you the truth, I didn't know until recently. Before, Elway also chose to become one of the more iconic NFL quarterbacks. First, I want to ask you, Jon. Have you seen the promo video for Jon Elway who was daydreaming about being drafted by the Yankees? If you didn't, it has Larry David of Curb Your Enthusiasm. He reprises his role as the late George Steinbrenner. I know you're probably familiar with Seinfeld. That's amazing. I haven't seen it and that sounds amazing. I have to see it. What do you think of the Elway autograph card as the chase? Kind of similar to what Bowman Draft did with Brady last year. Honestly, I think it's really fun. Some might say it's getting a little too gimmicky. I'm sure there are going to be some haters. But I like it. I like that they're continuing it. Jon Elway is a great athlete. Hall of Famer. It kind of highlights an aspect of him that a lot of average Joe's wouldn't know. The two of us didn't know that he got drafted. That's kind of cool. That really shines a light on how awesome of an athlete. To get drafted in multiple pro leagues. That is just something special. I think it's pretty cool. Him getting involved in the promotion and marketing always makes it really fun. I think it's a great job. I think it adds a little bit extra. Maybe it's not for the hardcore collectors. But it does add a little pizzazz in terms of chase for the product. I'm all for it. It's definitely gimmicky. The only drawback is if... We can talk about this now actually. Even within our chat group. I think our friend Will was asking if anyone's ripping a box of hobby. We're just saying it's just so expensive. I wonder how much of that is because of the Jon Elway chase. Or if it's just in general that Bowman Draft is going to be expensive. Because of who I mentioned off the top. Jack Caglione and other potential rookies and prospects that we don't even know of. Do you know what I mean? I wonder if that has any impact. I don't know. I think hobbyists around. Maybe not so much people that are into breaking. But just old school collectors. It's getting really expensive. I don't know how much it costs retail. If retail has gone up. Has it? I'm assuming so. I guess it depends on the configuration too. What kind of hits you can get from retail. I meant the retail price. Sorry. That's gone up for sure. But it's hard to say. Going back to what I was saying. It's hard to say how much of this Jon Elway chase is contributing to that price. I don't think it is. I just generally think retail prices are going up. I don't think so either. I think regardless it would have been the prices. If that's the case. If we think that's true. Then I have no problem with it. I think it's just an extra fun chase. It might not be for the hardcore baseball prospector. Rookie prospector. It's kind of fun. Before we started recording. I was doing a bit of research. There's no autographed Jon Elway card that was sold yet. As of this recording. But there was an orange refractor. Numbered to 25. A non-auto version. That did sell yesterday. December 4th. For $800. Raw. It sounds like a lot for a non-auto orange. Even if it's an orange refractor of Jon Elway. If you compare that to last year's Tom Brady's orange. 2023 Bowman draft non-auto. There's one that's graded a PSA 9. Let's say PSA 9 and Raw are pretty comparable these days. That sold in September for almost $1,200. I think the Elway card will probably go down a bit more. We always say you don't want to be the first guy to buy it. But I guess people either really like Jon Elway. Or just want to be first. I don't know. But if you look at the autographed version of the Tom Brady orange refractor. A BGS 9.5 10-auto sold for just over $17,000 this year. There might be more value in the autographed Jon Elway cards. For sure. This is another thing we were briefly talking about off air. If they continue this trend of having athletes that were drafted by another professional league. But then they went on to become a successful NFL player in this case. Here's a list. You mentioned Russell Wilson. Got drafted by the Rockies. Obviously played for the Seahawks and now for the Steelers. Other names. Kyler Murray. More modern. He was drafted by the Oakland A's. Oh no way. Playing for the Cardinals now. We'll see how his career ends up. But he could be a potential pick. More older. Michael Vick. Drafted by the Rockies. Colin Kaepernick. That might be a controversial pick. He was drafted by the Cubs. This is a little different. Tim Tebow was drafted by the Mets. But after his NFL career. That might be a twist on a future Bowman draft set. Any other names come to mind? I just did a quick chat GPT search. That's what it gave me. Tim Tebow doesn't he have a Bowman card? You might be right. He did have that little stint. Was it the Mets? Yes. Yeah. You might be right. Yeah. Those are. I don't know. If I can't. I can't. You know. There's some players that played both sports. That are well known. That probably can't be included. Like Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders. Those would be amazing. Yeah. I don't know any others. That I can think of offhand. It would be fun though. If this. Maybe it's getting too gimmicky. But if we started getting into like pop culture. Like you know. Some celebrities that you didn't know. Played some legitimate level. Maybe not drafted. But legitimate level of a sport. Like not many people know Steve Carell. Played a pretty high level of hockey. I think he got to like B3 college. For like a hockey goalie. Yeah. That'd be cool. I think he might be for fun. But I think Elite Prospects. It's like a almost like a baseball reference site. Yeah. Elite Prospects. I think does have a Steve Carell. No way. Profile. Yeah. But I think that's something. Maybe too gimmicky. But I would want to collect that card. Like that's pretty cool. Like I think Steve Carell is pretty well liked. Yeah. Generally across the universe. So. No. I didn't know that. And that'd be. I mean like think about the marketing behind that. That'd be hilarious. That you know. He becomes this like top tier NHL player. You know. Re-enact that whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That'd be hilarious. Yeah. There you go. Tops. We gave you another idea. For next year's Bowman draft. It won't even become about baseball anymore. It just becomes so gimmicky. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. People just chase for these. You know. These gimmicky cards. But anyway. Yeah. Pretty cool. And we'll see. Yeah. I'm really interested to see how much these John Elway autograph cards go for. When they are pulled and listed on eBay. We'll see. All right. Let's move on to hobby headlines. So we got to talk about it. Fanatics Fest NYC is in fact returning for a second year. We discussed it on a previous pod. Two scenarios specifically. And one of them was the unsubstantiated rumor that it might be canceled. Which obviously is not true. The other one was we were exactly right. Or what we heard was exactly right. Which was that the three-day event is taking place in June of 2025. Rather than August. Which was when the 2024 event took place. So maybe we can take a deeper dive into what's been announced already for 2025. And give our initial thoughts on them. All right. First. The fact that it's moving to June. Which is notably before the National. Do you think that will have any impact on attendance? For either Fanatics Fest NYC or the National. What do you think? Oh. Interesting. Yeah. I mean they're really close together as well. Yeah. I think. I don't know which would have more of an effect on the other. Because I feel the general public of sports card collectors may choose the National. And the general public of sports enthusiasts or collectible enthusiasts will pick the Fanatics Fest. Yeah. But in terms of sports card collectors. They might cannibalize each other equally. Right? Because like for example the two of us. Including Hyung and some of our friends. If we were to do it. We'll probably pick one. Right. And I think at this point. You guys went to it last year. So maybe this year. It's like okay. It's the National's turn. We got to check out the National. Right? Yeah. You only really have a lot of families with kids coming from out of town. Like they. You can't make two multiple. Maybe you can. But you know. To make two big trips within 30, 40 days of each other. Right. So I think they'll kind of cannibalize each other in a way. I don't know which would be more. Have more effect on the other. But yeah. I would say equal. Yeah. No. This is laughing in my head. It's hard to convince your significant other to back to back trips. And the most of the time. We're just spending on sports cards. And they're doing whatever. Yeah. Yeah. I mean. 100% not happening. Yeah. We can be sure. Yeah. Unless you trick them. Right. Like oh. This is a great trip to New York. Awesome. And then like. Oh. Hang on. Let's just take a detour. Oh. What's going on at the Javits Center? That's interesting. Yeah. No. I agree with you. It's hard to say what's going to cannibalize the other. And I also agree with the point that. There's going to be a crowd that just goes to the National. There's going to be a crowd that just goes to Fanatics Fest. Right. Sure. So that's. That's fine. It's the. It's the crossover. Like who would potentially have to choose. Like us or others. I'm sure we'll be in the same boat. And how big is that crowd of people that have to choose. Right. So it'll be interesting because. You know. I think. After we. Hyung and I attended Fanfest. You know. Thinking ahead. At the time we're like. Oh. Let's go to National. We have to check it out. But this kind of complicates things. Now that it's in June. You know. All the marketing is going to be happening early in the year. And you're like. Oh shoot. The collectible space is. It's supposed to be even bigger than last year. Right. And then you're like. You know. And one of the reasons. Why Michael Rubin said. It's going to be in June. Rather than in August. Is that. Well three of the major sports. Are in offseason. So that. They could book more athletes. To come to these events. And in fact. I think they're expecting 500. To attend for Fanfest 2025. Versus 300. That came out. This past year. Which was you know. We thought was great. And there. There's these. Like Tom Brady's. Roaming the halls of the. Of Javits Center. And. And you can imagine. If you're almost doubling. The. A-list athletes. That are able to come. That would. Be a huge appeal. Right. And then. And then you know. As we see more news. Of like what the actual. Collectible space is. Then. Then I don't know. It might change people's minds. Right. Right. Like. Well question I had was. You know the. Now canceled Orlando show. Right. That was supposed to be catered. Specifically. Specifically for. Collectors. I wonder how much of that. Planning. Is going to be incorporated. Now into Fanfest. NYC 2025. Hmm. And what that's going to be like. What that's going to look like. So yeah. I don't know. You know. Did you. Did you feel. Going to Fanfest last year. That you had. All the bonus. On top of. The sort of. Sports card space. Where you can. Buy sell. Etc. Etc. Like the. Traditional sports card experience. All of the. Is it. Worth it? To. To. In general to pick. That Fanfest over. The national. Yeah. It's hard to say. Because I've again. I've never been to a national. And we have four festivals. So. You know just. What is the difference? Between a. A sports card. And a national. And a fanfest. And an official. And a national. And the. And it's a. It's a nice. So. It's a. It's a. It's a nice. It's a. friends that have been to a national that say it's just not the same, right? So, um, but you know, my personal experience, just having experienced FanFest, I thought I got the best of both worlds to tell you the truth, right? And maybe it's, you know, I'm biased because I'd made that Bourdain deal as well. So I got something out of it, you know, in terms of the collecting side of things and, and it was able to trade and, and, and have that experience as well. Um, so maybe I might've felt differently if I came away with nothing, but at the same time, um, I was going to talk about this too, that fanatics fast. Remember we had, we got tops Chrome exclusive FanFest NYC boxes that were able to flip for double. And, and you know, that I think on a survey that FanFest gave out to just solicit feedback, I wrote that more of that would be nice. And I think they're seriously taking into consideration. So, you know, yes, it's more expensive to go to New York. Uh, young talked about it before about hotels being the price they are, but if they, you know, for the savvy flipper, you can make probably at least half of it back just by going, lining up for an hour or two to get the exclusive merch or exclusive products that is only available at FanFest. So that might be a draw to that the national really can't do as well. You know what I mean? Is the national in Chicago? Yes. Cleveland is here, Chicago. Yeah. Which is a plus for the national side. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No offense to, no offense to our Cleveland listeners. We love you guys, but yeah. Um, but yeah, I don't know. Um, if you had gone to FanFest, I'm curious for you because you haven't gone, but one of the feedback is that, you know, maybe more interactivity between the sports side of things, like just the regular sports versus, um, the collecting side of things, you know, more interactivity between those two sections might be beneficial. Uh, what do you think you would like that better? Or do you think you like that they're separated in a way? Yeah. I think I, I, I think having, cause we, I only know of the expo, right. Yeah. And I'm sure expo is somewhat similar to the national, just a little bit scaled down. Yeah. Um, so I, would I want that sports car, true sports car experience mingled in with everything else? Like Tom Brady walking around and just lots of stuff out. Yeah, absolutely. I think that would make for a grander overall experience for sure, rather than it feeling a bit separated. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the pro for that also is that I've heard others also articulate this, but you know, it increased visibility to the hobby as well for like the regular sports fan that are just, that's really just going to see the athletes. Right. And then they're like, Oh yeah. And I think that was one of the critiques, I guess, you know, that a lot of these families and sports fans came out and then almost stumbled on the collecting side of things like, Oh, what, what is this? You know, this is all cards. What's going on here? So maybe if they're more intentional about intertwining those two sections, I think the hobby would benefit in general. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. I talked about this already, but is there anything, you know, like, I don't know what they plan for the Orlando show, how they will make it more collector friendly, but do you think there's anything you'd like to see at an event like FanFest for the collector that that might even make you think twice about going to FanFest instead of the national? Like, is there anything specific you're like, Oh shoot, I might really want to go to the FanFest this year. I think immediately off the bat location would, would be Delta national, right? Like that, that would be an immediate leg up because you can always, you know, for those that have a really tough time kind of making a trip away from family, you know if it was in Florida, if it was maybe in Vegas or whatever, where you can get, you can kind of kill multiple birds with one stone. You know, like if you're, I don't know, you're like really into hockey and Vegas nights and Leafs are happened to be playing. You can do like Leafs game and go to Fanatics Fest at the same time or something like that. Sure. And then also go gambling and party it up. Whatever, whatever floats your boat. Yeah. I think location definitely is huge. And whatever Fanatics continues to choose and I'm sure they would, they have the power and the pull to only have Fanatics Fest at big, big locations. So that's a, that's a huge leg up immediately. Yeah. And if things like, you know, the, the tops Chrome exclusive boxes, do you receive it for free by the way? No, no, you have to pay for it. You have to pay. Okay. But it's, it's general retail prices. It's not marked up or anything. At the place. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that kind of stuff is also super cool. Anything that kind of speaks, I mean, at this point they should know, have a pretty good heartbeat of what collectors like and what collectors want aside from just freebies. Everyone loves freebies. Sure. But if you kind of tune into that and give collectors what they like and want and really amp that up, I don't, I don't have the ideas in my head right now, but that would also give a leg up versus the national because the national is kind of old school, right? Not no knock. People love it. The classic old school, huge show vendors. You go walking around, you see all these like cards you've never seen before. But if there's some way that fanatics with all their power and their marketing and dollars can really tune into the collectors. Yeah. Like that would, that would be it. Yeah, no, I agree with you. Yeah. I was thinking the same thing in terms of the crossover. You could really use that to your advantage, right? Like last year or this past year was Travis Scott fans, you know, they, they were there because they love Travis Scott, but then he also came up with a specific top set. So, you know, people that like both Travis Scott and collecting, I kind of fall into that boat. It's a, it's almost like a no brainer for me wanting to go to FanFest, you know? So who knows? Like if there are, if there are 500 A-list athletes coming to this event, think about the opportunities that fanatics has to create exclusive merch, exclusive products, just at FanFest. And I think that'll be interesting to watch to see if that sways people to come to FanFest over the national, but yeah. I just thought of another one and you, I think you kind of touched on this, how they're creating a larger showroom floor for sports cards. I mean, if they get to a point where they can, I don't know, boast that it's the largest and then also maybe give a really good discount or easy entry for vendors. So it's not so expensive. If they can somehow convince all the vendors that are at the national to also come give them, you know, some sort of benefit to come to come showcase in fanatics. I mean, if you pretty much have everybody that's in that national at fanatics in terms of a collector, like boom, there, there it is. You pretty much have the best of both worlds. Right. So I think if they were to kind of hone in on the vendors, that can be huge for the collectors too. That's amazing idea. Yeah. I haven't even thought about that, but that was something that, you know, even our friend Carlos sluggers 55 mentioned how the booth was just seemed to be overpriced for what they got back in value. Right. So if they made it more cost-friendly, I guess, or they gave him more incentives than, than to your point. Yeah. Seeing more vendors and becoming the biggest card show, even just that space that they're offering at Javits that there'll be huge draw, I think. And that would make me want to go to the national or the fan fest again, for sure. Over the national, if that's, if that was the case, but speak of the national, you know, like the national is only a month after fan fest now in 2025. Do you think the national needs to announce something soon? Like generally speaking, they announced things in the spring, you know what I mean? They're, they kind of take this usual year after year, same kind of approach in terms of timing and scheduling. Do you think they need to be a little more aggressive in what their show is going to be about? Or you think national attendees will always be national attendees. They'll come no matter what. Oh man, this is tough because I would say they would have to, for sure. They would definitely, because now they're unfortunately competing with fanatics fest. So they would have to kind of up their marketing game. And I don't know if they have that capability. So on the one hand, and also if they, even if they did pump it up at some point, fanatics is going to go even harder and it's just going to like continue to one up them. So they're kind of in a tough spot. It's like you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't sort of situation, right? Yes. But regardless they do have to, they can't just sit back and do nothing and just hope that all the collectors will continue to just by default historically continue to go back. At this point I think fanatics fest is making too many moves for them to kind of sit idly by. So they'll have to at least do something, you know, make a pretty decent attempt. Yes. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, yeah, no knock on national. I really do want to go to national at least once for sure. But you know, like they guys just, I feel like they have to improve from everything I've been hearing from people that do attend. They have to improve the experience overall, right? They just can't offer the same thing, you know, year after year thinking that the, you know, thinking that the attendance numbers will always be the same now that there's some kind of competition, real competition involved, right? That's the X factor now. And, and, you know, I'm thinking about like autographs. So one of the things that fanatics did announce about fanfest 2025 was that they're also improving the whole autograph pavilion, right? So maybe making it more spacious, maybe making it easier. And you know, as someone that went to the expo recently to get Joe Carter's autograph, that was a horrendous experience. Like it took so long. And then, you know, I had my kid with me and that was like a, you know, I had to let him play on my phone for an extra hour. Cause you know, he was so bored. I felt really bad for him. That's an hour away. Two hour wait max. Yeah. So it depends where you are in line. Right. But, but you know, it's like, and then it was so crowded, like the lineup became so long. Right. And then you're, you're in front of different people's booths. So I'm sure there were, they weren't happy or pleased. Right. Sure. And then, you know, it's like, it's hot and then the people in front of me and people behind me were complaining and it was just, it was just a mess. So I could, I could envision that some, you know, something like that at the national too, like, you know, it's going to be crowded and you just can't set up the same way. Maybe you want to improve how you set things up even. And then, cause at the end of the day, if anyone did go to fan fest and they found that experience to be superior than the national, if they've gone to a national before, and they could get the same kind of, you know, tangible benefit in terms of collecting and trading, then next year they probably, if they had to choose, they'll probably go to go to fan fest. You know what I mean? You just go to the place where the service is much better and the experience is much better. And especially if, you know, the only thing that national has going for them right now is the cost of admission. It's probably half of what fan fest is, you know? But I don't know how much longer that can hold. I don't know. Right. So yeah, I think the national needs to do something pretty soon in terms of marketing, but but it's, it'll be hard to compete against fan fest on the marketing side of things, but we'll see. All right. Yeah, I'm sure we'll talk about it in 2025 as we get closer. Like, okay guys, what are we going to do? Are we going to fan fest or are we going to national? What's, what's the plan? So we'll see as we get closer to the day. All right, let's move on to our next segment. It's over under. All right. So people that listen to the podcast knows how it goes. I'm going to give John four cards and then I'm going to give him a dollar amount. And then he's going to say if the last or the recently sold price was over or under that number. All right. So I got four cards for you, John. First one, we always have to have this a Shoei Otani card. Okay. So the 2018 Bowman Chrome rookie card and it's the base rookie card. It's not the refractor, just a base 2018 Bowman Chrome, the batting position, right? Non-auto PSA 10. I'm giving you a thousand dollars over or under that. Oh, I think our buddy Andrew has this card. And I remember I think he bought it for $50. Wow. Yeah. And it went really high at one point. It was, you know, like 1500 or 1700 or something. It blew up and then it kind of came back down to earth thousand. It should be around there. I think you're, you're, you're, I feel it's, it's a sneaky, it's going to be like 911. It's pretty close. So it's going to be kind of a coin flip, whether it's over, I'm going to say under, I'm going to say it's like 900 something or 875 or something like that. Oh man, John, you're getting good at this game. You know how I think it's, it's under for $900. Oh man. See, we've done it enough times that you got your kids are catching up now. Oh, that's a good one. All right. Okay. This is a little trick here. Um, LeBron James 2008 Oh nine tops Chrome refractor that you know, the chalk toss a horizontal card. Um, James. All right. PSA 10. Okay. Um, yeah. 1900. Whoa. So this one, I don't know the pricing well, but I do know it's decent, but probably never over the Colby card of the same year. And the Colby card goes for, I don't know, 25, 3000 probably, probably settled around 3000 1900 sounds about right for that card. Oh, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm scared. I know your style now. It's all right. It's going to be like 2100. $1,500 so I got to kind of choose is it $1,500? Now LeBron's taking a big big hit though in terms of pricing I feel I feel like this could be another under I could feel like this could be like a $1,500 card so I'm gonna say under okay I like your thinking because it's sold for $1,500 in April, May, June of this year so that was that was the low but it's gone up to $2,500 now yeah $2,500 oh damn so it's over but I chose that number because yeah it did go it did dip to under $1,500 actually in June and at the peak it was over $10,000 just to give you context oh my goodness glad I didn't buy I was always looking at this card too because it's kind of cool but yeah yeah $1,500 is a good price for it I think if it comes back down yeah okay card number three it is the Alexander Ovechkin SP Authentic Future Watch Auto number 2999-2005 of course a BGS 9.5 okay 10 auto $8,000 over under whoa I do pay attention to the Sidney Crosby Future Watch I don't really pay attention to OVs $8,000 BGS min gem do you know I believe it is but I can check I would really I don't know if that would really help me $8,000 yes it was a min gem edges were nine it's OVs I mean OVs off to a hot he he's he's playing pretty good um yeah I think at this point the it's a lock he's gonna take Gretzky's I can't believe I'm saying this but I'm pretty sure he's gonna take Gretzky's record um I don't but that's like that's like close to double Crosby that's a lot I think it should I'm I think it should be under but I'm I'm scared it's not but it real pricing I think it should be under $8,000 a lot for BGS it's a lot but it's sold December 1st for $8,400 oh yeah I was scared yeah it's it's uh it's getting up there now I think people are anticipating already they he's injured now right but I think people are anticipating that he's going to break the record either this season he was on a pretty good goal goal pace before yeah for sure but yeah it's crazy $8,400 oh every time every time I see this card regrets I'm like oh I missed out winning for 700 bucks I bid 600 you know what I mean and I'm like yeah and this was the card right it was BGS95 yes this was the card it's exact same grade damn damn damn is right okay last card in this segment you got to go with the 1986 Fleer basketball Michael Jordan rookie card PSA 9 okay nine okay 19,000 19,000 and we talked about the BGS9 version of it last week during the blind ranking segment which was around 10,000 just to give you a comparison yeah okay I didn't listen to last I wasn't on last I don't think I was on last week no you were did this for the blind rankings you you did that game oh was I there yeah yeah 19,000 I remember a while ago talking about PSA 9 but this is a while ago and I remember it would be 17 18 19 like it was kind of around that yeah and it's at 19 now Jordan I don't know how well Fleer's been doing like I obviously the the the the 90s insert market has been just popping off but the Fleer I would say I would think it is just kind of stable if not not doing excellent so 19 sounds a bit expensive I want to say it's probably worth like 17 16 18 I don't know I'm gonna say under it sounds like this is an under sold on December 1st you're going with under for twenty thousand four hundred dollars that was not a good segment you started off so strong I was confident in you you know but you're like you figured it out but I got too cocky I overthink thought yeah that's getting too cocky but no those are hard ones cuz I was picking numbers close to the actual amount you know but right but no those and you're right though it's twenty thousand four hundred but it was 18,000 a couple months ago or in August so it's fluctuating around 19k on average right yeah but it seems to be going sideways at that point yeah I'm interesting all right that's a this our over-under segment and we'll finish off this episode with a regular weekly segment we call pick one and this is when both of us we choose two cards and then we debate which one we would rather invest in so he's not here he usually starts things off so John do you want to start things off this week yeah let's do it I'm gonna go classic 1v1 baseball rather unspectacular for what I usually pick as one of the ones but I mean it's it's baseball offseason for so forbid I mean we have a good contingent of baseball listeners yep and it's offseason this is the time to kind of go after cards that you need to go after we're kind of getting into that space so true we're gonna go Juan Soto versus Julio Rodriguez hmm okay so Juan Soto you know he's kind of moving into the the the lull stage where like there's not so much there's not as much volatility anymore but I would say for some for who he is his car prices are pretty pretty low you know it's sort of like Mookie Betts territory and then you know you got Julio Rodriguez his prices are also low but you got the volatility there so it's sort of a classic 1v1 this is easy for me because they're both on my watch list I kind of want them both so I'm kind of really I've been monitoring both their prices in general and for me it's easy because the value I think is still in Julio Rodriguez so I'm doing the value play there is volatility and you know we talked about Topps Dynasty as a underrated set and you know his Topps Dynasty cards are J-Rod has a great year that can double in value easily I think right so right and his Bowman Chrome is still a little inflated because you know his first Bowman Chrome will always be the most desired right but I like J-Rod's price for where where it is now and what he's capable of and you know I don't know if you were on the episode when I asked Hyung about J-Rod and and he was pretty much saying the same thing that he was just saying J-Rod actually didn't really even have a bad season last year he just started really slow and the perception of him having a down season was because the first two months were just horrible and then he just he pulled a Juan Soto you know I mean he just started to really play well during the summer and into the fall so I think J-Rod's still to play and the thing with Juan Soto I mean we're talking about Juan Soto all the time in Toronto because we're going through this again you know with Shoei last year now we're going through with Juan Soto yeah I'm not falling for it there's a 0% chance you know you need to keep telling me that because I'm watching like YouTube videos local YouTube Toronto videos where oh my goodness we got a chance we got a chance and our friend Will he's joking he says he's ready to be heard again so we're kind of you know getting our hopes up a little bit but anyway because of that reason his cards are kind of like inflated still you know I mean like he's in the news still even in the offseason right right so when he does sign that I believe he's gonna sign a 700 million dollar contract to tell you the truth I am I think that's gonna you got to wait for that news to simmer down to get maybe a better deal even so yeah J-Rod for me mmm interesting yeah I mean going back to just just quickly to the J you know what I'll take that back the J's do have a chance technically but the offer has to be ridiculous right like that's that's it like if our offer is 650 and the Yankees offer is 590 like he's speaking the Yankees there's no question right our offer unfortunately it has to be just something has to be 750 is unbelievable yeah like 750 800 just something an offer he can't refuse at that point that that's the way the J's get him unfortunately and many fans hardcore fans but you didn't spend that kind of money whatever it's Rogers yeah it's Rogers money come on they got boatloads just give them the damn money and let's get let's get one so anyways aside from that yeah I man this is hard this is this is tough this is like a because Julio I his price is so low and he's got that potential and I kind of like how young one time kind of highlighted fourth year breakout and all of that stuff rebounds right it's sort of in the stats so I think I would be I think I'm gonna give a slight edge to Julio as well because I'm in that state of collecting where I wouldn't mind putting some money in to get get it back so that I can put it into something bigger you know sort of in the trade-up scenario so it would make the most sense for me to take kind of take that risk but I mean on the other hand you know to the 49% almost choosing one soda it's long term I think he's got such great value for sure but I think one thing I will say for the both guys right now what I have been noticing and maybe it was just something I noticed and it's not really a true fact but I own the one soda update refractor out of 250 yeah and that card has gone down significantly oh has it yeah I think the PSA 10 last sold for like 1600 or something like that oh wow and even when one soda cars were starting to rebound that card was still going down and it's it's a it's a rare card it's not yeah you know readily attainable but it was still going down and for me I think it's kind of showing where the market is starting to shift fully away from flagship images and and sure of like normal refractors and gold refractors and stuff like that to completely back to autographs interesting like at this point you know a tops chrome 2024 Yankees uni one soda auto might have a better upside then the flagship update refractor as crazy as that sounds yeah I feel like you know even you look at Julio Rodriguez SP horizontal image like that card is what is it at now I think I was checking it was that like a hundred fifty bucks or 125 dollars yeah like I think flagship is sort of for us we love it that's that's the way you kind of collect it before but I don't know for any collector out there whether you choose Rodriguez or whether you choose Juan Soto or whatever Mike Trout I think at this point you got to go with cards that have autos love to hear it I was always an auto guy and never understood the non auto play but it's the world is becoming more sensical now to me logic and not hobby like yes yeah that's right that's right that's a good one though I didn't know but that about the your Juan Soto card that's really surprising to me for some reason yeah my trade value continues to decrease got a trade quickly all right good one okay I got a I got one that I think I know what you're gonna choose but I'm kind of want to point out the obvious but or point out something that's interesting to me okay yeah so we talked about the 1986 FLIR Michael Jordan right so the PSA 8.5 sold for about 10,000 bucks okay so we know the PSA 9 sold for 20,000 right PSA 8.5 sold for 10,000 okay would you take that Michael Jordan FLIR rookie card or would you take a piggy banks Batmobile Batman Super Fractal card one of one that's insane you're highlighting piggy banks yeah and piggy banks has been blowing up right oh my gosh yeah I pointed that yeah I remember seeing it and I pointed it out to you guys the Mandalorian one that's sold for if it's a legit sale for our six figures essentially hundred thousand right oh my gosh you know we had him yeah had him on the show way back in the day right I was gonna shout out our podcasts we've had piggy banks in season two I think before he started really blowing up but yeah yeah and back then I mean his retail price was and I wanted some cards I just couldn't justify it I was a big fan two three hundred yeah two three hundred bucks yeah to me I really loved it and I wanted it but I just at the time couldn't justify spending that kind of money on sort of like a custom card what was known as a custom card yeah but man it's just insane to see how much this is but I mean number one good for him yeah kudos in terms of a collector I'm a little worried that this is kind of getting into that sort of what was it again tops 5050 what was that what was the yeah the project project 50 where it like people just like jumping on thinking it's like the next greatest and and it just kind of like fizzled yeah you get the middle finger graph and it just kind of blows up on the high end and blows up on the low end I'm a little worried in terms of like I don't think if I was recommending so I personally would not you know and this is not not a knock-in against piggy banks but it's just not I don't know I'm a I don't know enough of this piggy banks phenomenon to know whether this is legit or not so give me a hundred percent yeah yeah it's I'm just highlighting how crazy It's become in terms of piggy banks custom card values and like it's like you said Kudos to piggy banks. I love it. Right and right and if there's something to be said about piggy banks I think he's probably one of the more OG guys now, you know, and he hasn't even been around that long in the and relatively speaking the hobby But yeah, you know like in terms of someone that's been doing it consistently now and has definitely has a style I think if you could invest in a custom card piggy banks is probably one of the more safer bets You know because there are other custom card makers but you know piggy banks seems to be the one that's kind of Floated to the top for now, right? And oh, he's he's he's clearly he's made it man in terms of custom cars. There's nobody Yeah, that has value like this is like he's become Banksy of like the sports, right? Exactly and I mean it looks high quality too, right? That's the knock on the project. I think it's 70 I can't remember what the number was but You know, it was and I have five of those. They're all worthless now, right? But I thought was cool when I got him because it's like oh, this is kind of cool artwork but when you get it the The slot that it's encased in is much cooler than the card itself now Like it was like it was like a piece of you know It's like putting my son's art on a plain white piece of paper in a nice slab It's like, you know, it's it's only worth so much when you do that kind of card with that kind of quality But with yeah, you look at piggy banks cards nice presentation. Yeah, for sure Yeah Exactly. So yeah, but that being said like it's so if you're a gambler if you're a risk taker Yeah, then this can keep going up, right? Yeah, especially the one of ones that he does like this like this one that I showed you for pick one, but Yeah, I'm with you. I'm not that much of a big risk taker. So give me the 8.5 Michael Jordan flirt All right. Another great episode of car cinema. We appreciate you guys if you enjoyed this episode. We really like And appreciate if you give us five stars wherever you listen to your podcast and yeah, we'll have a brand new episode for you next week Hey, thanks for listening to cards to the moon We'd really appreciate you subscribing to our podcast wherever you listen to your podcast And you can also connect with each of us on instagram at five card guys Or you can follow young at integrity sports cards or John at trade you at recess You can also check us out at five card guys calm Thanks again, and hope to connect soon