Buy Low, Sell Smart: Understanding Sports Card Cycles is the Key to Flipping Cards

We beat out the Kelce Brothers on the Apple sports chart this weekend. That's insane. We're just getting started, too. I know. We don't take it for granted. We opened the packs and one of the first ones was the Paige Becker's. It wasn't numbered. Probably like a $30 or $40 car. No. You looked that thing up from like 140 to 190. That's amazing. PSA buys, Beckett, they're just going to bury it, get rid of the brand. And there were people adamant about that. I can tell you with almost 100% certainty that Beckett is staying around. You know what's crazy, too, is when you look at car, the cyclical nature of it, there's times to sell and there's times to buy. I wouldn't have believed it. Getting back into the hobby two years ago, 18 months ago, how one day, one game, like, how it just impacts it. So if you're listening and you're going to the national, hand raise, first 10, mention it in the comments. We don't want to give away a ticket if you're not going to be there. But if you're going to be there to say, hey, I'll be at the national and I want in. Welcome to the Collector Nation podcast here on the Collector Nation Network. Whether you're chasing grails or calling bluffs, we take you inside the hobby. Here's your host, Ryan Alford, and Brian Lutton. Hello and welcome to Collector Nation, here on the Collector Nation Network. Always joined by my good buddy up in chi town, Brian Ludden. He is the CEO of LudX. The greatest, best, finest, most efficient, lots of new featuring app on the app store. Ludx. Yes. That's all the adjectives or descriptors I could have today, Brian. Yeah, that's pretty good, though. That's more than I thought. That's more than I deserve. Oh, hey, man. 300 cards. Hey, get. You know, I. I'm just going to go right at that. You know, that was pretty impressive. I. You came and Brian was telling me 300 cards in an hour on ebay. If anybody does ebay selling, they should be pumped to hear that. Yeah, I think I could put like 30, 30 to 40 on regular from a card perspective. I don't know how you could. Just because he's not going to super bowl, how Caleb Williams cards couldn't be going up. I. I haven't looked at the data, but I bet you there. There should be a positivity around him, but we'll see. What happens in the numbers? Yeah, I mean, I agree. Like he, you know, people are like, this guy's got something special and his cards are up. I mean, what cards? Like when you look at like Bo Nicks, like if he wins, he broke his ankle. So like no one's cards are going to go up if Denver wins, if New England wins. Yeah, probably Drake May will be up again, but like that's it. And then Seattle. No, like Darnold. He's cheap. Anyways, I'm buying Darnolds. I told you that. I've been buying Darnolds the last two months. If anybody's been paying attention on the show. I said that. Yeah, because he's probably gonna win a Super Bowl. Did you get your hotels and flights to the National? I'd love to tell you. Yes, Brian, you better get them. I know last year ahead I of I am than last year already. I mean, so I booked them last year like a month before. I don't know how I did it, but I did stay at the. The Bravewood Inn along with Del Griffith. You know the shower curtain ring fella though, if you know that reference. I. We should have a beer sometime. That's Planes, Trains and Automobiles with John Candy. But me and Brian are going to share a double bed. That's one of the greatest movies of all time. But no, it was practically that. It was some kind of Homewood Sweets and it was homely. But dude, I sent you the. We beat out the Kelsey brothers on the Apple sports charts this weekend. No way. Yeah, they were it like literally, like it was fun. I took the screenshot and they were next to us and we were higher. That's insane. Dude. We were like number. It was like we were five and I think they were six. We're just getting, we're just getting started too, man. I know. So if you're listening, we appreciate it for the, you know, pushing things to the top. Our download numbers keep going up. Our YouTube numbers are actually really going up significantly and that's where you get traction. And that's the fastest growing podcast platform, which is YouTube. So look, we appreciate, we don't take it for granted. So don't think that Brian. And like we're. We're trying to bring you valuable content and do this the right way and give you insights and knowledge and have fun doing it. But it's not lost on us that you have a choice in what you watch and listen to. So we appreciate it. Yes. I second that thought. The audience and it's just you and I talking, which we'd be probably fine with anyways, but exactly right is Brian, I was our to, you know, shoot the shit a little bit. But I will say this. I'm going to jump into this so a little bit, you know, I do keep my eye on the market. With the store opening, I'm going to show you a product here. It might surprise you, might not. If you, if you're, if you what they say if, you know, you know, I we k is it I y k I k something like that. Something like that. WNBA Prism box out of Costco. I hesitate to give this away, Brian. Like I, I sell these and they will be for sale in the store. But they're a fun rip and I kind of want to hog them to myself, like so. But I'm going to be nice to everyone and give you a little hint. These are a hot product right here. What do they cost at Costco? 45, 46 bucks. And you get what you get, six packs. And let me tell you, these are loaded packs. These aren't. These aren't your crappy Walmart blaster packs. And I know there's some blasters that are hot. Don't nobody DM me and say, well, you know there's hot blaster. I know there are some, but most of them aren't. So this are like six packs out of like of a hobby box. Think of a hobby box because numbers, autographs galore. And then you get this bonus pack and it's, look, it's, it's got three pair like Pandora parallels. One's a red, which is out of 199. You're guaranteed a one out of 99 out of that pack right there. Plus two silver Pandoras. And let me just say if any of those are, you know, start with the names that you might already have in mind. Obviously Caitlin Clark, even being her second year, you're talking hundreds of like a thousand dollar card probably out of 1 99. And who might actually be the more talented player? This year's rookie, Paige Beckers is the hot rookie. And Brian, let me tell you, we opened her packs, we opened the packs and one of the first ones was a Paige Beckers. It was like a blue scope or something parallel. It was numbered. Oh, it wasn't numbered. And I thought, hey, hey, it's probably like a 30 or 40 car. No, you look that thing up from like 140 to 190 was like the sales resales. Yes. Just a Bluesco parallel. I'm like, okay, that's amazing. I'm sleeping on this thing. And if it had been numbered. Are you kidding? I mean, if that's one I added, if her freaking one blue scope is, you know, 150 bucks, 180 bucks. What's a one out of 99? Probably like five or 600. There's no law saying that you have to sell it. This is true. And I'll probably hold on to hers because she's, I think, going to be something else. And we've had a few of these back, like a few hot topics on the show that get in. And I respond to the YouTube comments. And look, if you're listening, we appreciate you. Hey, the way we know you like it is if you give good hate or love. So we appreciate positive, negative, or different opinions no matter what. I guarantee you this segment, if we do a highlight clip, which we will, now that I've said, it will generate discussion because there is a lot on both sides of this, there will be people that will come up with the hard argument that any, you know, natural solution that wipes the smudge off or water or like pushing the corner that bent up, you know, down like, okay, like, what did I just need to leave it? Like, if I push it down and it wasn't really creased, but it was just kind of flaked up and then it gets a 10 or a 9. Did I cheat the system? Pushing the corner down, you won the system. Yeah, like, come on, man. You know what? Talk about social media. I'm glad you respond to these people. You're better at it anyways. But I responded last Friday from a. We did a post on some Pokemon and Miles Garrett jumped in. That's awesome. And he's like, I opened these boxes. I got this card and this card and this card. And so I did respond to him, but he didn't respond back to me. But that's. I don't. He's too busy polishing his, you know, sack record trophy. Yeah, yeah. I don't. Man, I'm the worst social media person. I, I just. Not on it. Okay, we've got some card movers. Am I doing this or are you doing this this week? I. I got it. I got it. Oh, you got it. All right. And the first one was something you mentioned. Caleb. Caleb Williams, up 51%, went from number 15, trending to number 10. And I think it's what we, we said. Like, he, he, he makes amazing plays, and people love watching him. This next one's no surprise. Drake May. I'm kind of getting sick and nauseated, talking about him every week being number one. But yeah, I mean, his, his card's up 50% again and he's still 101 on the trending players. And then again, Sam Darnold, his cartridge is like for a bronze PSA 10. So Donner's optic bronze 10, it sold for $105 on the 4th and now it sells for 217. So it's up 14%. He went from 134 to 73. But that's not a lot of love. No. And you can't tell me if they end up winning the Super Bowl. Yeah, the defense will drive it, but he'll have to make a player too eventually. And if he does and he wins the Super bowl, that's a 500 card. Yeah. So like easy. It probably should be more than that, but it will at least double, I would think. It's almost like in this industry, it's like if, if they come in cheap, they always stay kind of cheap. That's right. You can't become the superstar if you didn't start the superstar. Yeah. So a faller, which 100%. I've, I actually never seen a quarterback play this bad in the playoffs. Did not take care of the ball. If you're a Texan, Houston Texans fan, you are just like, what the hell are we, we doing? Because that defense is a world class defense. He dropped 20%. He went from 48, trending down to 235. Sorry, I don't mean the last UCJ, but I, I, I never was like, thought he was like a Josh Allen, a Mahomes or like a, or even like a burrow or like, But I thought he was good and, but watching him, I was like, this ain't it. Like, and everybody can have a bad game. Like Josh didn't have his best game, but he wasn't rattled. And obviously Josh is an older player, but still CJ is not a rookie anymore. No. Brock Purdy's down. I mean, they just got their butt kicked. I mean it wasn't, I don't even know if it's on him. I don't know. It should be down, but like it's like he, he ran into a buzz saw. Yeah. No one, not there wasn't one team playing last weekend that was going to beat the Seahawks. This one I understand the least. Let me. Yes. It's a great to buy this card. Yeah. Bo Nicks, PSA 10. He played, he freaking played his ass off and looked good. He made some Throws. And I didn't know that he. I knew he has. I know he's got a strong arm, but he made some touch throws that I didn't know he necessarily had in his bag. And he won the game and has a freak accident. I get these. Not gonna win a Super Bowl. Why would he drop? Yeah, I mean, you're looking at this like he broke an ankle. It's not like, like they're taking off his arm. Like. Yeah, they, like, cut his shoulder off. Yeah. He's. He's gonna be. Guys, everyone. He's gonna be back. Yeah. On the field in six to eight weeks. So. So just. He's not going to win the super bowl because. But he played like, you could say played better or equal to Josh Allen in some ways. Let's just be honest about that. As far as head to head and you're just dropping. I don't know. That's. This is, this just shows you how speculative game sensitive, like, is. Yeah. There's like, a futures market that could happen here, you know, and you can almost, like, buy options and futures on these, on these prices. They move so much. But Bob Nix is a buy. You know, they're going to have a good defense for a while. He doesn't make tons of mistakes. He manages the game well. And you could get it for about $250 lower this week than you could have last. Yeah. And if it dropped that much, I'm kind of, you know, maybe ride it one more week and see if it goes even lower. I, I, you know, I think there's a, There's a pretty. There's a floor that's not too much lower. I'm buying it. If it gets under 5. If it gets under 500, I'm buying that card. Well, let me just tell you. Here they are. Oh, you got them. I got one's Drake May one's Bo Nicks. The silver prisms right here. Did you clean them up? And are they going to be a 10? Yes, but I have, I have. Dude, you know, much prism football. Me and the boys ripped through. Like, I have at least 10 of each of these, so. All right, so I might be buying it from you. I mean, I'll buy a raw card. I don't care, dude. I'll clean it up and send it to you, and then you can. Or I can send it in for grading and then ship it to you. The. Oh, I got something. I got something on the grading front. All right, Beckett, PSA buys back. Which one's that? This is a Rare insert that's kind of funky. It's a tops which is un. Obviously it was unlicensed, but this is main attraction tops. It was the insert. Like it was an SSP in tops. Chrome tops has really started. I love top what they're doing with the inserts. I think this one, they're doing some cool ones. I think it was just chrome, but yeah, it was a fun one. It's like big top. I don't know, like on the circus thing. But it's got some funky colorations. I've never. I know there's others going to go, oh, there's millions of those. Well, I hadn't seen many of these. Anyway, show and tell, dude. I got so many. These guys. I have boxes of the rookies because we open so much football 2024 like boxes and stacks of the rookies from last year. Anyway, Anyway, so just hobby news. I heard whispers that PSA buys Beckett and they're just going to bury it and get rid of the brand. And there are people adamant about that. And why should they? They shouldn't bury it. There's a monopoly. Blah, blah, blah. I can tell you with almost 100% certainty that Beckett is. Is staying around and they. PSA is going to put investment into them and that brand is going to be built back up. That's positive. A good friend of me. They should be. That's what they should do. It has a lot of legacy so that people listening and you know the trolls out there that just assume they're going to bury them. And I didn't know what they were going to do, but I. I thought it'd be different than sgc. And I still don't know. Supposedly just do the same thing with sgc, I think, or try the brand. The Beckett brand is so much bigger in this industry. A million times bigger. And just you see it, whatever. It's another acronym that no one knows what the it is. Yeah, that's right. I still don't know what it is. You ever notice this industry is all acronyms? Oh, it's all acronyms. All acronyms all the time. Ssp, sgc, SAP, SAP. But mpc. Did you get your tcg? I got my own. Got me mpp. Are you down with opp? Hell yeah. Like, I'm like. It took me a year just to get the. The slang down. Hobby slang. There should be like a. We should do a spoof on that or something. And even like the new companies come out collector. Collectors. Collects, yes. Like all that stuff. Collectors. Like I'm Just like, stop, you guys. How about put like an ounce of energy into thinking of something different, like ludx or Collector Nation or Collector Station. Hey, we got a train going through here. We got a lily and a theme song. We're going to play that on the. We have to play our custom song on air, like for the. Y' all need to hear that. It's fun. It's meant to be fun. It's. It'll put a smile on your face. It's catchy. It may or may not have like a background group of choir singing going collective nation. Is Bella singing? Yes, she is. She has a really great voice, actually. Especially when you add. What's it called? Auto tune. Hey, I heard that. I thought you might be sleeping back there. She was listening. Damn it. I'm just kidding. She's probably sing better than me. She does a lot of things better than you. I mean, this is true pretty much. Except for hanging cords. I'm a better cord hanger because I have taller reach. Yeah. I was about to say I. I'm at a severe disadvantage for that. Yes. Go go Gadget arms. How tall are you? 5 7. Oh, that's pretty good size. Yeah, but I'm a big. Ryan's like six five. Yeah. So I'm a big oaf over here. You know, I'm right in the middle of you. Yeah. Oh, we got some NBA news. For the first time in 21 years, LeBron James isn't a starter in the NBA All Star Game. Oh, I didn't see that news. That's not, I mean, gonna happen. Right. I'm just curious how that will impact his cards and their ranking. I don't think it. We could look. I don't think it. I think he's legacy goat. Yeah. So, I mean, I don't think long, like twice as long as a lot of guys did at level unthought of. Yeah. And. And I'm not the biggest LeBron guy, but I respect the hell out of his longevity and his game. It's just not personally, you know, my cup of soup. Yeah. I didn't collect any cards during that time, so I have. I have zero. I didn't either. I was like, right after, you know, I left, you know, he kind of came in. I was Jordan and Pippin and Larry Bird and you know, Larry Bird was kind of end of his career. Magic and Bird were kind of coming down and Jordan was ascending. That was kind of my time period for basketball cards. And then when the Braun came in, I was officially into, you know, playing ball, chasing girls, doing whatever you do as a teenager. Teenage. Teenage stuff. You got it. That's interesting. How's the shop? Are you on schedule to open? Yeah, the 28th. That's a week from tomorrow, I think, or a week from today. So maybe the 29th. 28th or 29th. We haven't. We're like, quietly. Not like I talk about it on here, but we haven't been, like, marketing it. We get people driving in and like, you know, banging on the door every day. I'm like, one week, two weeks. We're opening soon, but it's looking great. It's. We're fine tuning at this point. We re. We did a few things really quickly because we had to, and now that we've gotten the big stuff done, we're kind of going back and fine tuning. Like, I redid supports of the floor, and my guy Cole, who's going to be working the shop, has been lining the cases, cleaning the cases, and I've been working behind the scenes on a little tech for the store, which I'm going to actually show you here at a couple. Pretty awesome. The tech's pretty awesome. Yeah. And so it's fun. And we'll be ready. And then grand opening, probably like that early March weekend. I gotta look, that's what we're doing. We're doing soft openings party. Soft opening party. Soft opening. But like, you just want to make sure things are up and running. Exactly. I want to kind of work the kinks out and see how the traffic flow is and then throw a big party. I'll be there. I know. I got it. I. I want your schedule for like those first couple weekends in March, if one or the other would work. So look at your calendar. Get back to me on that. I will, but. Yeah, I think that's it for today. Any final thoughts, Brian? Nope. All good, my man. All good. Sweet. Well, we appreciate everyone for listening. Get in those comments. Like we said, you're gonna be the national. Hey, what? More than the LX Lounge, vip. I'm telling you, it's a good time, it's worth it. And we appreciate you for paying attention and spending time with us. Don't forget, go to the App Store. L U D E X Download ludx. Lots of improvements coming. New things. It is the X factor in your collecting. Whatever you want to call it. How you collect. How you collect. Love that app. It's great for tracking your collection improvements. Exciting things coming from them. Always appreciate you, brother. Likewise, my man. It's Always a pleasure. The collectornation.com find the highly clips, the full episode links to ludx links to our content, and we'll see you next time on Collector Nation. Thanks for tuning in to the show. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and don't miss the full video version on YouTube. You can find us at www.collectornation.com or follow Ryan on Instagram at ryanolford. Now get out there and collect yours. F.