Can Gen Z And Millennials Be Right About Pokemon Cards Beating Stock Market (And Any Lessons To Be Learned From Gen X Who Collected Sports Cards In COVID Era?); Another Round Of Quiz Show!

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 Cards to the Moon. This is episode 304 and my name is Clark from 5cardguys.com and 5cardguys on Instagram, YouTube and on Facebook. Hosting with me today is Will and Roy. They are back by popular demand. Welcome back guys. Hello, hello. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. All right. We did our mic check earlier, so I think we're ready to go. So yeah, let's get right into it. Off the top, Roy, another episode, another show you set up at recently. Do you want to tell us how the latest one went? I believe it was a CSC show this past weekend. And while you're sharing what happened, can you tell us whether the Pokemon market is still white hot? Yeah, so the show was all right. I found it a lot slower than previous CSC shows. And I think, I don't know if it's like, if it's the summertime or if it's like fatigue of so many back-to-back shows. Every weekend there's like two shows on a Saturday, Sunday. And all the newer shows that are coming up, they're all free admission for people where the CSC is still charging $20, $25. So I don't know if people are like, hey, why would I need to pay when I could go to the shows that are free every other weekend? So I don't know if that was kind of causing it to have less people or if because the venue is like much bigger than the other ones. I did find it slower, but the good thing was people were willing to spend more on like bigger cards at the CSC show versus the other shows. So you know, there's a fine balance of being busy and trying to sell volume versus people who are willing to spend more. So overall it was a good show for me. I sold some pretty big slabs, but yeah, overall it was fun. It was a nice show. Nice. So what was the biggest card you sold at that show? That one was probably a Coral Coral Mew, a Shining Mew. There's a Tag 9. So very close to a Tag 10. And yeah. Tag rating for Pokemon cards becoming a thing now? I think so. I do like the slabs. They do look kind of weird with sports cards in them, but for TCG, I think it looks really good. Yeah, I agree. I think I was pretty early on endorsing Tag. The first expo that we went to, I think you got your Pokemon cards. Yeah. I was like, oh yeah, those look really nice. I got Tag 10 for both, you know, so it makes me like them even more. Isn't that a Tag 10 really hard to get? Your rating percentage is like 900. You're batting 900 with grading overall. I just look at centering, man. And make sure there's no obvious scratches, but that's pretty much the extent of, yeah, what I do to prep for grading. Well, you didn't go help out with Roy? No, no, no. Okay. No, I can't. I can't do it the way Roy does. He's such a hustler and he's always working so hard and I'm just lazy and trying to sleep in on the mornings. I was just saying, isn't a Tag 10 really hard to get? I think for the, I don't know. I think it's like all grading companies across the board, there's some 10s that slip through and you're like, what the heck? How is that a 10? That's true. Right. That's true. But they have the report, so I feel like, you know, they got to justify their 10. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, it's not like PSA where they just make it up on the spot. Yeah. Do you guys see that PSA 8 that they cracked and crossed over to BGS and it got a black label? You don't need to give more reasons for him to hate grading, right? But we will talk about grading just a little bit later on in the show. But yeah, thanks for the update. Wait, wait, can I ask a question about the CSE show? Sure. Roy, did you get to walk around at all? No. When I'm by myself, it's impossible to walk around. That's true. I just, like even going to the washroom, like asking someone to wash my booth, I have a little bit of anxiety. You know, some pretty big cards in there, but you know, I trust the guys that have been with me because I usually set up with them pretty much almost all shows that I do. But at the same time, it's still like, okay, I got to hurry up. I do want to walk around, but at the same time, it's probably not worth it. But I'm really curious what the, if there's like a Pokemon fatigue that's like going to start soon. Yeah. I don't know. It's crazy hot still, you know, you think it's going to keep on, it's going to go down sometime at some point, which like some of modern has, but like, there's always something else that people are, you know, that's going up in value. And you're just like, okay, I should have bought that card. I should have, you know, I should have started buying this and like seeing these trends. But yeah, I don't know. I don't see it cooling down anytime soon. Well, I mean, case in point, you know, as of this recording where we, there was the drop for mega evolution, right? So Roy and I, we were able to get some, but you know, um, Will has different priorities. He puts his business before Pokemon, that's, you know, you'll probably make more money with Pokemon at this point. Okay. It's the, it's always the, like, it's always the problem. These drops happen like middle of the day when I'm trying to be a professional and do my actual job. I'm always so sad that I miss out on these drops and it's like, ah, that could have like flipped them for like a hundred bucks profit. Meanwhile, I'm like trying to sell stuff that's like thousands and thousands of dollars. And I'm worried about these Pokemon things. That's the reality we live in right now. But I was going to say, it's the case in point is that with this mega evolution drop, I don't, I think it's still pretty white hot because there's like a couple of guys at my church that were that like, talk to me about this too. Now I'm like, whoa, you're into Pokemon as well. And you heard about these drops, like there are more people like really getting into, you know, um, uh, whether they're in discord or whether they're in on Twitter or X to kind of get the heads up about these drops. So it seems like, I don't know, there are more people getting into it still even now, but at some point I think we're all in agreement at some point it's got to correct itself. We just don't know when that'll happen. You'll know when, when it's about to, the bubble is going to burst when your parents are like, Hey, Clark, is there a Pokemon drop today? That's when you're like, okay, sell everything. If any of our parents say that, you, we got to message each other and say sell in big capital letters. Okay. Um, all right. Well, thanks for that update. Before we move on, Will, you said you had a wrestling cards update, uh, for us as well. So let's hear it. I'm like, I'm excited. Yeah. So when I think when you started having me and Roy semi regularly on this pod, I was talking about how I was going to make the shift to wrestling and I, I also shared some cards that I was going to start chasing and hunting. I felt like the market was soft on a couple of cards and, uh, I was talking about like, uh, panini inserts like color blasts and kabooms and downtowns. I thought, I thought that the, the card market for WWE fans, they hadn't kind of caught on to how valuable these cards could be. And so I was chasing those and I bought a couple of different, um, prison, uh, panini inserts, but it also coincided with the 2025 tops Chrome release. And I was super excited about that. And I, I saw some insert sets from WWE, uh, from the tops Chrome set and it looked like it was super low pop and I thought, okay, I might, let's jump in early on these and we'll watch these, you know, go to the moon, right? Cards to the moon podcast. I was so excited. So I bought 17 cards of differing values and I'm here to report that today, months after, I think about six months after doing this whole thing, I've turned a profit, well, just talking about value, I have a profit value of 2.1%. So slightly better than my banking, uh, my savings account, significantly worse than Roy's Pokemon investments. But I think the problem is I got way too excited about the WWE, uh, tops Chrome release that I bought heavy on a few insert sets like Helix. You've probably seen Helix and the, the other tops Chrome sets. It's the color blast alternative that tops came out with. And then there's this other set called mania, which is like a silver background and it's got the wrestler, uh, from a significant WrestleMania moment and you know, WrestleMania is the, the quote unquote, uh, you know, championships like the finals kind of thing, uh, for each year. And so if I take those tops Chrome cards out of the cards that I bought, I actually have a 30% profit. So I was right when I said, Hey, you should be chasing color blasts and kabooms and downtowns because those are up huge and I'm doing really well on those. But these Helix and mania ones, it's a, it's kind of, it's kind of, I bought in a little high at the beginning. It dipped a little. It's starting to rebound. And actually if you look at the total sales, a lot of these cards have less than like less than 20 sales in six months. So it tells you that these are actually really low pop cards and I think the market just hasn't figured it out. So I'm just going to say longterm, I think I'm still right, but in the short term I've got a 2% profit. I think you're early. You're definitely early. I think I'm early. Yeah. It's okay. Trust your gut, man. Like if I just never vended and I just kept all my cards and just never traded them, like I was on the right path, like by, by selling all these cards early that I, that I enjoyed that I thought would do well and they're like plateaued for like two years. Those all went up like crazy and I'm like, okay, if I just waited and did nothing, I would have been much better off than, you know, wasting all my weekends vending. Although it is fun, but yeah, you're onto something and you know, just stick with it. Don't get discouraged. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Wrestling is growing, man. Or it's feeding me, the algorithm is feeding me more wrestling clips now. Every time it's Monday with Raw or Friday with, you know, the, the events that are on are streaming on Netflix. Yeah. It's, it's, I feel like it's growing. I gotta tell you, this past weekend was a really big, big weekend for wrestling. AEW, the alternative promotion, they had their biggest event of the year. And so WWE, the scumbags that they are, they do something called counter-programming. So they have all these events going on at the same time that AEW, every time AEW is like, hey, we're going to do a pay-per-view, WWE's like, oh yeah, we're also going to have a show. Actually, we're going to have two shows. We're going to do three shows. So this past weekend, there's a lot of really good wrestling on and I gotta say some of my PC wrestlers, they, they did really well. They put on a good show. So yeah, the hype for wrestling, I think, I think it's still, I think it's still in its infancy. I think people are going to start jumping in. And then as soon as like, you know, as soon as that tipping point happens and people just look at it as a profit, like to turn a profit, you know, then that's when I'm going to be like Roy and just like, swimming in the cash. He's going to be at every show, just selling his cards for profit, profit after profit. But yeah, thanks for that update guys. Always fun to see what's going on in the Pokemon and wrestling card market. And yeah, it'll be an ongoing thing. I'm sure just because it doesn't seem like that those markets are going to slow down anytime soon. Okay, let's move on to hobby headlines. So I came upon another interesting article and I want to go through it together because it's focusing on the Pokemon card boom and how Gen Z and millennials in particular are using quote boy math unquote to argue that it's better. It's a better investment than Nvidia stock or even the S&P 500. In fact, the article from fortune magazine is called quote Gen Z men are obsessed with Pokemon cards. They're using boy math to argue that they'll beat Nvidia stock and the S&P 500 end quote. Now I see strong parallels between this story and how it could have easily been written a few years ago saying something like Gen X men are obsessed with sports cards and they're using boy math to argue that they'll beat the stock market, right? And we've seen how that kind of turned out for the most part. Not exactly the way we imagined, although there are some winners. So what I want to do is let's see where the parallels are, you know, and where it's actually different between sports card, the sports card market during peak COVID to the Pokemon market today. And then, yeah, and then we'll see if there's any lessons to be learned. All right. So I'll include the link to the article in the show notes if you guys want to read it more in depth, but I'll read a few quotes from the article and then we can discuss each one. All right. So first quote, it says Gen Z and millennials are in agreement. Their obsession with Pokemon may never let up. Despite the Japanese franchise nearing its 30 year anniversary, young men in particular continue to be on a. lifelong mission to catch them all and are spending hundreds sometimes even millions of dollars collecting trading cards end quote. So the question for you guys to start this discussion is do you think for those who grew up with pokemon this has become a lifelong obsession and do you think this is also true of sports card collectors or is the affinity towards pokemon just much stronger in gen z and millennials you know like you guys are i feel like i'm gen x i feel like you guys um are a gen generation lower or younger than i am so you tell me what's what's this obsession of pokemon is this accurate at all i i don't know i really don't know what why they would keep on why they're like trending towards pokemon because like for for me like i i grew up watching only one season i ripped base set and like i didn't really go past that but i think it's just the artwork um and like social media people you know ripping packs it's kind of like that you're getting that dopamine hit they're like okay i want to do the same and then they do it they get a big hit and then it's just a snowball effect um and then they just dive right in and then for the most part like when i see people come to the shows they they come with a group of friends so like they have they're in the hobby together with other people and that makes it you know a lot easier to to spend money and when you see something you buy a card at one show and the next week it's already up 20 and then the next week it's up 100 you're like okay this is amazing so then you dive deeper right so yeah i think right now it's just like a time where it doesn't make sense but at the same time it makes it fun um whether you're ripping or you're just buying singles and you know you're seeing the values go up i can definitely see that but everything you just said is you could say the same for the sports car market you know like three four years ago you get that dopamine hit when you hit you know get that nice rare parallel or that auto right um so i see the parallel in that but um there is one difference i think there is and before i share that will do you have anything that you want to share um yeah i mean first quote i mean generationally we are a little bit kind of um we're kind of on the fringe right you're you're on the fringe of gen x and i'm on the fringe of millennials and so when i think about pokemon there's so much nostalgia and there's so much so many fond fond memories uh because in 98 when pokemon red and blue came out for game boy i was 15 years old and that was like the height of my video game playing like time like i was playing game boy like anytime i was traveling or going to church or going to school like i always have my game boy i'm playing pokemon and at home i'm on my computer playing starcraft and so there's just so much nostalgia attached to playing pokemon and then you know anyone who's like a little bit younger than me they grew up watching the cartoons and so it's this perfect storm this perfect system that they've put into place where they've raised children from the from the 90s until now and you know before roy really started i think educating us and just opening our eyes to pokemon one of the thoughts that i always had was like well i mean how like i don't want to have like i don't know which charmander to get or i don't know which you know which card is good which card is bad and what i realized as i've continued on this pokemon journey is it's just like its name you got to catch them all and so you know we've talked about this a couple times on the pod i'm i've been looking into butterfree and now i'm about to pull the pull the plunge like i'm about to buy butterfree cards there's like i think like 40 of them that have released over the 30 years and so it's it's super gettable and i want to get them all and they all have different artwork and so it's like you know i look at these pokemon instagram accounts and there's so many uh pokemon collectors who actually just collect the same card and i have a binder of like 300 of the same card and they they get so much joy just flipping the page and each page is just the same card and yeah i don't know i kind of get it now and i think like well with sport cards sports cards the problem is outside of the rookie card image you don't really want to collect anything else from that player good point right like like you don't want to buy a lesser set like top's finest maybe there's a top stadium club you know because those image images are really nice but you're not gonna buy these lower end sets because you want the rookie card of vladdy in every set but you may want every butterfree that's been made in the last 30 years so so i'm really starting to see the appeal of pokemon and like the article says yeah for millennials and gen z it's like well of course of course we're choosing to spend our disposable income on these things that brought us so much joy when we were kids yeah that's a great point that you you know you mentioned even about not wanting to collect every um card of a certain player for sports cards right and that goes beyond even rookie like who wants the second and third year cards of those players it's just you know you know that's base garbage right it's like you were how do we give those away um the thing i was thinking about too and the one major difference is that you know even if the nostalgia factor is there for both sports card collectors and pokemon card collectors right the nostalgia is what gets us back and now that as adults we have disposable income we could spend more on cards but the one differentiator is if you're a sports card collector um and you're you know you want to get the top prospect of rookie you got to wait every season like one year before the next rookie class comes out pokemon like we're joking like off air you know we're gonna rank the whole scarlet and violet era and then i named five i'm like did i get it did i get them all and you're like roy's like no there's a lot more they just keep printing different sets that come out like every month and a half and like i've lost track of you know which ones have come out and which ones i've even ordered you know and i just got to notice that my black and white is being shipped today i'm like oh yeah i forgot that i bought that a couple months ago right so i feel like pokemon is really taking advantage of the current market right now and like you know what we might as well print more because the demand is ridiculous right now yeah and i think they're being strategic to nostalgia as well like 151 that brought like so many people in right like the the people my age and our age that grew up on like the 151 but they're also printing like the last time i don't think they ever printed a black and white until this year so they're they're like strategically saying okay like we we got the the the basic guys in now how are we going to bring like the the mid era guys okay we started doing ex cards again we have black and white um mega evolutions like that's the xy area so i feel like they're reprinting all these different eras to kind of bring that nostalgia back and be like okay come back and start you know coming back to the hobby right yeah excellent point well i guess it's not a surprise because the second part i want to read is that um from the article it says pokemon cards have seen the largest long-term increase in value among all card categories up 3261 percent over 20 years according to car ladder so even looking at a one-year investment the average pokemon card is increasing at nearly 46 percent a pace far exceeding hot stocks like nvidia so far in 2025 or the s&p 500's average 12 percent annual return rate which is really high um so yeah my question now is are you afraid and i think i kind of know the answer but are you afraid of a major correction coming or are we holding on for dear life i mean at the end of the day for me at least or for most of us it's still a hobby so i haven't put too much cash like luckily i got in a time where my collection or portfolio has gotten up a lot but if it crashes you know i'm still gonna enjoy the cards and it's not gonna be it's not gonna affect me that much right i'm not putting my life savings in i'm not doing options tradings with you know with pokemon cards yeah right so like if you're putting in more money than you could afford to lose then you know it's pretty much gambling at this point right yeah yeah for sure i mean i've seen some instagram posts that there are people that are pretty like they're really deep into it and yeah yeah you're sad to see that but yes good advice roy um what do you think will yeah i mean i was just thinking about when you're talking about like if there's a down market it's like that's actually a great buying time when when baseball hit that dip or when all sports cards started to dip i think i bought more during that time or that's when i started buying bigger cards yes you know when the when the card market was on the rise i would just buy like 100 cards 200 cards and flip them for like 200 and 300 and make a little bit money but i would never think like oh yeah that vladdy gold that soto you know that acuna like these high-end low pop um like color variation cards i would never think that i could get them and then when the sports market was dipping it's like oh yeah i can start chasing these bigger cards so i actually think during those times it's a lot of fun because yeah it's like roy said if you're if your only goal is to make money in this hobby i don't know i don't know how to talk to you because that's not how i am in fact i'm probably losing money and that's okay because this is my it's my hobby i'm enjoying every aspect of it and if you're not enjoying it then you have to like re-evaluate why you're doing it what you're doing you know if you're putting too much money in and you're not getting any fun out of it you gotta you gotta correct yourself but yeah i think if the pokemon market starts to dip you're and roy's gonna have the time of his life buying up you know his mario pikachu that he's been wanting for the longest time i know even even like two months ago on the pod i still wanted that card i'm like it's gonna go down it's 2x since then and 2x from you know from the previous two months before that so i'm waiting for i'm waiting for a correction i need to buy some uh some some pc grail cards well uh we're recording this on a tuesday but um and the the episode that came out recently was with dc and uh the pick one for that show was mario pikachu and a baseball card versus luigi pikachu another baseball card and it was a it was a sweep everyone just wants the mario pikachu and of course i was just i was just joking with dc i'm like the last time we recorded because i've been kind of doing an episode with him monthly it went from 8 000 to 15 000 and now we're like it's going to be 20k by the time we record uh you know in a month and so on my cards and buy that yeah that's when it goes down that's why i also joke too so you got to be careful but going back to the article i mentioned that pokemon over the last 20 years um you know if you look at the car ladder data went up 3 261 percent which is incredible second during that if you include the sports cards is football 12 90 1290 percent then basketball 1174 percent baseball at 716 percent and then if you did the smart thing and invested in the smp 500 over the 20 years you're good but you're only at 421 percent so so i guess those pokemon long long-term pokemon collectors are are laughing all the way to the bank right now um okay i'm going to read a quote uh third one is nostalgia plus business equals the new art these things are appreciating like crazy as collectibles are becoming very low supply high demand art pieces and that was said by logan paul one of the big time pokemon card collectors agree or disagree with that statement yeah like i i agree because especially like the lower pop stuff um like it's it's a it's a cardboard like if you think about the mickey mantle that's you know it's an old card is it fancy no but it's like it's a piece of art it's a piece of history you know pokemon has a bigger market in terms of popularity so the pop might be higher but it's a artwork that's really well done on a piece of cardboard there's rarity um and that that will bring value so i do agree to a certain degree what was the beginning of that quote nostalgia what plus business equals the new art equals the new art what does that even mean oh so as you're not art as in like art like artwork but i mean like later on in that quote he says these things are appreciating like crazy as collectibles are becoming very low supply and high demand art pieces so i think it's also alluding to seeing these trading cards in particular pokemon cards as art pieces do you see it that way as well yeah i guess i i always felt that way right because i always actually like the the image of the card that's always my that's always the thing that i look at the first look at first but as you were reading that quote i was like this sounds like the most obvious thing that anyone could say and then when you said it's logan paul's okay great like yeah i'm correcting my assessment and i love logan paul as a wrestler i'm really enjoying him in the wwe but uh i mean that's that's kind of how it is right like nostalgia is just this this power inside all of us this we crave it and we love it so much and you know old people always want to be reminded of their young days and so they'll buy they'll buy things that remind them of that make them feel younger and then young people like teenagers buy things that make them feel older or more mature and that's just kind of how it always works like if you're marketing you're always trying to market to one of those two groups right like hey you old guy you could feel young again or you young kid you could be cool like the older kids or the older people yeah yeah nostalgia is powerful yeah nostalgia is a drug for sure for sure yeah and you know like for me the the whole art thing like we even mentioned in in past podcast episodes where we almost relate to some of these really high-end low supply cards as art pieces and we could see them appreciating as such because the you know there are you know some of these cards are being auctioned at Sotheby's where they auction high-end art pieces like legit art pieces right so now it's kind of on that level and and I don't know if you saw the clip of Dana White UFC president and you know he was showing his office and like he has like a collection of what 12 15 cards behind this like vault but you could see the cards behind the vault like it is totally secure that's on display like a legit art piece yeah kind of yeah so it's kind of it's kind of cool to see that and it's worth over a million combined because there's a PSA 10 Michael Jordan Fleer in there that's Tom Brady Bowman chrome refractor I saw a GSP autograph card in there so it's going after all the great cards okay next quote this is from Ryan Hoge the president of PSA all right they interviewed him for this article he says quote I think sometimes people want to break from the digital and this is a good outlet for it and not only do you get to hold something in your hand but you also get to interact with a community of like-minded people that have similar interests so your thoughts on the whole idea that we're just you know need this break from a digital and that's kind of adding to the growth of the hobby and as well as you know just being in part of this community of like-minded collectors yeah thoughts on those two things yeah no for sure like especially now that I'm vending more I've been meeting a lot more people whether it's other vendors or you know just customers or just other hobbyists and it's definitely awesome to just interact with them because when I was collecting Pokemon you know we have our chat group nobody knows Pokemon so I'm just doing it by myself it's kind of a lonely road I'd be like oh I'd show a card and I want to just be like cool cool story man okay but now that I get a chance to you know talk to talk with others you know it makes me enjoy it a lot more than I did and I get to see cards that like I wouldn't you know wouldn't be in my collection per se but I get to see them physically I get to touch them and then you know you know I was just saying like I bought grated guards for my cards because it has that physical aspect and it just makes that card look even better so I definitely agree with that so yeah I think definitely the physical aspect of card collecting it's it's really special it's so it's tangible it's something you can touch it's something you can look at it's something you can feel in your hands and and that kind of reminds you of childhood as well right like when you collect the cards and you put these sleeve them and put them in binders and you flip through them I think one of the great things about the like life now is that we can break away from the digital and have these like things in our hands but we also have the ability to post these like images of our cards online either on Instagram or Facebook and so you actually get this bad even better ability to build community and you get this chance to see cards that you never would have gotten to see beforehand right like it would just be you know in our in the 80s it would just be like a myth or a legend like oh yeah the card shop had a Wayne Gretzky one time yeah yeah it was in that it was in that display case it's like oh my gosh it was there three weeks ago I missed it but now it's like you know these truly rare cards you get to see them displayed online on Instagram and and so I really like that too I really like the way the world is now and with all the technological advancements we have you kind of get to enjoy the best of both worlds yeah I know it's like a full circle right and like a full loop and to your point you know when you know we discussed at length the whole Paul Skeen's 101 MLB debut patch that sold for over a million dollars and when I went to Fanatics Fest it was kind of almost surreal to see it in person like on display right yeah in the in the Dick's Sporting Goods section of Fanatics Fest and everyone's taking pictures of it or taking video of it and kind of goes back to this the previous quote about just treating it almost like as an art piece it's on full display and you know so hey take a picture of me standing beside this Paul Skeen's 101 MLB pointing at the you know pointing at the card like this yeah it's kind of cool how things have turned out and you know like it's yeah and you know like of course I agree with the whole the sense of community that the hobby is built right it's like this podcast is built on it you know just like having all of the listeners is this kind of this great big community of collectors just enjoying the content that's being put out there and you know just talking about the cards that we have and and the issues within the hobby where we're all kind of in this community together so that's kind of cool I know my youngest son really enjoys the physical aspect of Pokemon cards he was trying to build a house of cards with the Pokemon base cards that you know and he's just really enjoying that aspect of it and you know they're all PSA ones now right but that's it's good he had a good time and my oldest one he's eight and yeah he's he knows more he's kind of you know I think Roy and I can relate to to that having kids around the similar age and that's kind of cool too to see that they're getting into the hobby as well so different generations as we talked about before all right one last quote before we close hobby headlines and the article says and even though over 75 billion Pokemon cards have been produced demand is still sky-high according to Barry Sam's who is the vice president of game development and community engagement at the Pokemon company international and he says quote with explosion in demand we're printing at maximum capacity to deliver the greatest amount of cards possible to fans for current expansions while ensuring we maintain quality standards he tells fortune so there's two things that play here right like there is a game aspect to this this is a TCG game we almost forget that right and there are players out there so I guess him as the VP of game development that's his main focus so he's saying listen people want to play it's popular we're printing maximum capacity right now but as a collector you're like okay this is kind of like you know high you know high supply you know and is this gonna crater the value at some point so yeah your thoughts I'm just gonna leave that open what do you think of this this quote from Barry Sam's so he's giving us a warning so modern yeah I don't know popular like the popular it just makes no sense like that Van Gogh Pikachu is now the biggest or the most graded Pokemon card of all time and those PSA tens are still going for what like $1,500 now so yes yeah Canadian it's crazy yeah I still think there that has to correct you know it is a great card but being printed at that volume and like it's just is it that great of a card though like I think it's a great beautiful it's beautiful what are you talking about well I think I have to look at I have to look at it again no it's iconic but I mean to Roy's point I think he said something like that you know it's got to go down at when I was 500 bucks when I was 600 bucks when I 700 bucks I think he said that about Mario Pikachu so I don't know what to believe right now no I can't even believe myself like I said earlier like I just didn't do any of these shows all and I kept all my cards I would have done very well for myself you should be in a good position because I feel like Pikachu is like you know obviously the card that in general the value keeps going up the other ones kind of you know has it's more volatile right yeah I mean yeah like the ponchos are doing like really well Festas are doing well but I sold a bunch of them thinking okay you know what like I think we're in an economy where things you know people aren't gonna be spending that much but it's the opposite like they're spending more on Pokemon it's just like dang so I sold that like a month ago like that stamp Pikachu that you have I was okay you know it's 1100 right now I think it'll go back down to like six seven hundred now it's like two thousand I'm like oh man yeah baby maybe I need to sell that actually soon so we'll see did you see the Van Gogh you change your mind well yeah I mean like it's it's nice and I was like you know I'm not the biggest art aficionado so I googled what is the what is the significance of a gray felt hat I guess it's from his Van Gogh's self-portrait so I'm like okay okay I get it but you know which Pikachu card I really like I like the screaming one much like I think that's I think that's way more iconic and the artwork on it's way better I just it's just Pikachu in a hat like it being an English exclusive definitely helps even with the high pop but yeah speaking of which there was a rumor that Mario Pikachu so Mario Pikachu but I don't know I'm sure Roy saw the rumor that there might be a Japanese version of it oh did you hear that a Japanese version or is it just they're just releasing the English version in Japan good question I thought I was Japanese first but I could be I might be wrong I could definitely be wrong but um but I think I've been to the English version of the podcast gonna what double but I think I think it's a ruin of like being the cards being more printed I also think they're also being kept sealed by a lot more people than they used to be like mmm everyone has a sealed collection of hundreds of our like you know 10 boxes 20 boxes whereas before that would probably wouldn't be the case right yeah yeah I agree I feel like those boxes will disappear really quickly like sure a lot of people are holding on to these boxes but also like as time progresses people will start ripping those boxes and then I'll just become so scarce yeah so wouldn't wouldn't it be a smart idea to be buying vintage boxes because those are like literally disappearing right they're being ripped at a crazy rate because of whether it's like the streamers or whatnot but so expensive for that reason though so expensive right yeah but like you just got to think like will that still be in demand because like 10 years from now are people gonna be like hey I want to rip journey together I don't know maybe if it's like four dollars a pack yeah but if it's not then now for every box yeah not for every box I I have a couple of or I had a couple boxes of prismatic evolutions I think that's one of the boxes so I actually sold one last week oh no 250 250 Canadian so after all the eBay fees I'm keeping one it's on display in my office just in case I think I'm gonna just keep that one see what happens to in four or five years I mean PC ATVs are good because they're exclusive so but like regular ATVs right those ones I don't know how they'll do over the long term that's true yeah we'll see I mean you know since you guys are coming on these days once a month we'll just keep monitoring it when when you see Roy disappear from the pockets that means the Pokemon markets over where's Roy oh yeah the poking no one's buying Pokemon cards anymore that's when I wrote the most though when I was like I was like slowest 2000 like 23 right buying packs all the time like $4 pack like under retail go to a hobby shop and it's like anywhere from yeah three to five dollars right sword and shield there yeah only you're good turn back time all right that's that's the article again I'll include the link to that article in the show notes below so you guys can read it for yourself all right let's move on to our next segment called quiz show all right so these are five questions I got prepared for you see let's see how you do and the first one you kind of answered it Roy it was about the Van Gogh you know the question was which Pokemon card is the most graded by PSA now that was easy Van Gogh but I could spin off that question with a part two and that is so do you know how much how many were graded no I have no idea total of eighty three thousand four hundred eighty six oh my god we're graded and 40 it's just over PSA just by PSA I believe yep and yes by PSA and just over 40,000 are PSA tens so that's a gem rate of what 45% or so right so almost 50% but it is if you include sports cards graded you know like the other sports cars that have been graded by PSA where does it rank do you think in terms of the most graded cards that Van Gogh Pikachu it's number one Pokemon card but where does it rank in the top do you think if you include the sports cards as well I'd say top ten probably seven or eight mm-hmm well you will I was gonna say like top three oh really Okay, Will's definitely right. The third most graded in all of cards. Yeah, I figure it's like Griffey. Yes, and then I mean if you look at my collection, it must have been Boba Shett. What's number two? I gotta check. Lewis Robert. I think Griffey's 1 and 2 or something. It might be Wemby. No, I think Wemby's like 50k. I'll look it up later. Yeah. All right. So yeah, that card is ridiculous. Okay, next question. This is kind of more fun. You might know this already but the new Pope, the new Catholic Pope, Pope Leo recently autographed a Pokemon card. Which Pokemon card was it? Why did he sign a Pokemon card? You'll know why when you hear the answer. Oh, okay. Starts with a P. I've never heard of this Pokemon, so it could be a hard one, but it makes sense when you know what it is. Come on Pokemon expert. Oh, I said Will. I was telling you. Oh, I have no idea. P? It starts with a P? Pinsir. Pope Leo, right? Yeah, it's the Pope Leo. Pope Leo or Pope Leo. Yeah, you know what? That's pretty good. That's like how they have Kevin Durant signing that Durant Pokemon card. I mean the guy that got it signed by the Pope, he was not prepared. He didn't have a Sharpie or anything. It's like this pen that didn't work on the first streak. Come on dude. Yeah. Could be worth a lot more if he got a nice auto. Yeah, otherwise that would have been a sick auto. That's pretty good. Pope Leo. Third question. We'll talk about V-Friends. How much did the Gary Vee Topps Chrome V-Friends Super Fractal 1 of 1 autograph sell for recently? So in the V-Friends. Speaking of which, I know you just got two Hobby Boxes. Will, did you flip them yet? Or what are you doing? It's like 600 now, right? Oh, no, it's more. I think it's like 750 Canadian or US. No, 750 Canadian. 800 Canadian. Something around there. Yeah, so 600 US. Yeah. Yeah, 600 US. Roy told me that I should give them to you so that you could sell them to David Adams when you go down to the National. I guess. What are they buying? Check their website. Yeah, I don't know. I want to rip one. Rip one, flip one. One's a little bit dented. So I think that means you have to rip it, right? That's the rule. Yeah. That means there's a major hit in there. Yeah, but I mean also at the same time, I think if you just hold on to these, they're just gonna keep going up in value. Good. No, you never know. Because it's essentially the first edition. I know he had like this other. He has a Zero Cool. But he's like retconning that. He's like pretending that that one didn't happen. No, no. What are you talking about? No, have you seen the card on the top's chrome ones? They have like, it says like V friends, like first or something like that. Yeah. Yeah, so the first chrome cards. It's like an homage to the first Bowman chrome. Exactly. Exactly. So that's why I think if I just hold on to these boxes and let my kids. Yeah, let my kids rip them or sell them later on. I mean, you might change your mind after that question. The answer to this question. Like there is an entrepreneur elf subset within the V friends, right? And it's like actual entrepreneurs and they have autographs on card autos in the subset. Obviously Gary Vee is one of them. Michael Rubin is another, right? And there is a superfactor of each entrepreneur that they signed and someone pulled the Gary Vee superfactor 101 auto. How much did it sell for recently? What are your guesses? Raw. Raw. I feel like I saw it. So Rory, you should go first. What are some other auto 101s that like superfactors sports players that have sold recently like rookies? There's no, it's no comparison. It's so different. No, I'm just trying to like justify this answer. Like, I don't know like $40,000. Okay, and Well, you saw it. Well, now I'm concerned because I thought I saw it. I thought I saw it like 512,000. Oh shoot. Okay. I'm way off that. Oh, no. Roy's closer. Yes, yeah, that's what you did. $55,000. And and if you know anything about Gary Vee, the guy who bid on it probably is a huge Gary Vee fan because Gary Vee's favorite number is five. So $55,000 is on point for that card. Gary bought it himself. Gary's shell bidding? Oh my goodness. eBay user is Foxes. Not Gary Vee 035672. Lucky cat five. Very, very lucky cat five. Yeah. All right, two more. And like I said at the beginning of the show, I had, I was gonna bring up grading. So we're in July. That means Gemrate, they released data for the first half of the year. So January to June. All right. So in the first half of 2025, how much market share does PSA have in terms of the number of cards that were graded in 2025 from January to June? And also how much, and obviously PSA is the number one market share, right? How much market share does Beckett have, which is number four out of the four? I would say PSA has 70% of the market and Beckett would have 3.5%. Yeah, I was gonna say like 80% for PSA and like 2-3% for Beckett. Wow. No faith in Beckett, eh? He's the fourth, right? Four out of four. Well, the answer is 72% for PSA. So Roy was pretty good. Beckett, 3%. Oh. So there you go. Roy's got it. Roy's spot-on. Spot-on today. And if you're interested, SGC, 8% and CGC, 17% in the first half. Wow, CGC, good job. Good for you. They're gonna run and obviously TCG cards have a big part of that and speaking of which, how much market share of TCG graded cards does PSA have versus CGC in the first half, the top two? So if you're only looking at TCG cards, what's the market share of PSA and what's the market share of CGC? 90-10. No. I mean, you gotta include Beckett too. There's Beckett and SGC. Oh, I thought it was just between... Yeah, just those two, but... Yes. Oh, you have to, it's like, it's not 100% of the pie is those two. Right. Unless you think Beckett and SGC have 0%, which we don't. No, no, that's not what I was thinking. I thought we were just counting PSA and CGC. I would say like PSA would have like 63% and CGC would be at 22%. Okay. I feel like he's Googling these. You're right on. The numbers are so detailed. 65.3%. Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna go with Roy. 65 and what did he say for the other one? 22. 25. 65-25. You know, well, it's just like those Annoying Price is Right contestants, you know what I mean? $1, Bob. $901. Yeah, just $1 above the other guy, you know. The answer is 71% for PSA and 25% for CGC. So there you go, Roy. Pretty close once again. You know what? Last time we did Quiz Show, Roy was like 4 for 5. I think Roy has the best record for Quiz Show. The worst is probably John. Worst is probably John, but you know, John. I think I'm a close second. You know, well you might have been near the, you might be at the bottom now because when John came back on the pod because he has been off for a few weeks. Yeah, and then when he came back on we did Quiz Show and he went 5 for 5. You know what? I listened to the episode. Yeah, he came back a different man. We're talking about like TCG. My question, our questions are TCG or like WWE based. So we kind of like know generally, but sports is like, you know, John knows nothing about football. You ask him about football, he's gonna get it wrong. He's gonna get it wrong. What are you talking about? He likes football too. Even baseball questions. Maybe you should just give Jess, next time he's on, just do Quiz Show just for him. 10 questions, hockey. Just see how he does. Yeah, you know, I feel like he'll do well. That's why. So it's no fun in that really. But alright, well that's Quiz Show for today. Let's end the show with our regular weekly segment we call Pick One. Alright, so when it's just Will, Roy and I, I usually like to ask Will to start things off first. You got one for us? Awesome. Yeah, so it's been roughly a month since the NBA season has ended. And, you know, we saw our Canadian guy Shea win MVP this season. I think he was finals MVP as well, right? And won a championship. And his star is just going up, up, up. And his cards are going up, up, and up. And so I wanted to do a Pick One with Shea. His silver PSA 10. So silver prism is kind of like, I don't know, it's like the standard that a lot of people look at basketball cards with. So your Pick One, you have to choose between a Shea Gilgis Alexander silver prism PSA 10. Or Anthony Edwards silver prism PSA 10. Or Wemby PSA 10 silver. The Shea sold for about $1,500 Canadian. Has a pop of close to $700. The Anthony Edwards ant one is close to $1,000 Canadian. And has a pop of $2,150. And the Wemby one is almost $1,000. But has a pop of $4,600. Wow. So which one are you buying? Now obviously the Shea is the most expensive. But it's also the one that's seen the most inflation in recent months because of his past season. What is the pop for the SGA? $700. Super low. Lowest pop out of three. 2018 release so the pop is just a lot lower on them. If it was me, I'd just go for the lower pop. And being a Canadian, I'd want to go for Shea. But seeing clips of Wemby, he's training with monks. He's getting stronger. I think he's going to be generational. Okay, yeah. That's true. The pop is almost $5,000 he said, right? It's five times the Shea. So I have to go Shea. Okay. I thought you were going to go Wemby for a second. You talked about him with the monks. The pop on Wemby was a lot less. If it was like $2,000, I might have went to Wemby. But being that low, under $700, I still think Shea has a lot of room to grow. So I'm going with Shea. Interesting. I'm going with Ant. I feel like he's the best value. I think like you were saying, there's been an increase in SGA obviously because of what he's done recently. So I think there's a certain premium. With Wemby, the pop count is an issue for me. And also Wemby has a ton of other cards that I think will be more valuable or more sought after than the Silver Prism. Even within the Prism itself, there's like 110 different parallels of Prism in his years. The Silver Prism doesn't stand out as much as it did in the 2018 year when SGA was a rookie. So Ant is kind of in the middle with the pop count. And I think Ant is also going to be a stud. So I think his value will also go up. I think it's been decreased a little bit just because the Timberwolves didn't achieve the success they probably wanted for this past season. So I think there's more room for the Ant card to grow. So if I'm going to have to choose between the three, Ant Man it is. Wow. Okay. It's interesting because when I first came up with this pick one, I thought Wemby was the worst card to choose just because the pop is so high. And his injury risk and all that. He's proven the least out of the three players. Obviously Shay has the more accolades. is. Ant's my actually, like I actually enjoy watching Ant the most out of those three. I love his game. Yeah and then Shay's Canadian and we're Canadian so we you know we root for him. I can't believe I'm saying it. I think I'm gonna go Wemby just because I think the upside is too high. Like if he can stay injury free he might be like LeBron level. Is that blasphemous? Wow not blasphemous but that's very high accolades for sure. Yeah I don't think Ant ever wins a championship. That's my reason I can't pick Ant even though he's my favorite player to watch. I don't think the Teewles will ever win a championship and then with Shay yeah I mean like they have a good chance to keep winning but Wemby maybe he might be the next LeBron. So you're saying he's gonna be the best player of all time? He might be. You know Jon's not here and he's not listening to the talk so he doesn't care. Yeah I'm gonna pick Wemby. Wow three-way split I don't I think this might be the first time in history of Cars to the Moon we had a three-way split. There you go good one. All right Roy you got one for us? Yeah so mine's gonna be Pokemon focused so there's you could have a set of the Pikachu battle festas so 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 PSA 10s with a rough value of $25,000 for the four of them and then I'm gonna put it against our favorite card the Mario and Luigi full art PSA 10s with roughly around the same value just under $25,000 so which one are you going for? Can I ask a question? Yeah. What is the significance of the festa card? So there's a there was a playing tournament in Japan that was like the battle festa tournament okay so then all the people that went there would get a promo card and these would be the promotional cards that were in it. Oh I see so it's like very you don't get it in a pack it's no no yeah they're all promo cards. Oh cool cool and it's all the four is that that's a complete set? Yeah so yeah those are the only like the battle festa tournaments I think after that they have similar artwork but they're not a part of the festa tournaments so they're not called that but yeah for me it's easy especially after having DC Stefan Martin on the pod last last week and when I put up Mario Pikachu it didn't matter what the other side was it was Mario Pikachu you know what I mean like it doesn't matter what the other side was and I'm like wow there's some diehard and you know well of course Roy is haunted by the Mario Pikachu going up in price and now I'm feeling it you know I'm like okay I kind of want the Mario Pikachu because everyone else wants it you know so yeah for me it's Mario Pikachu with the Luigi that's you know bonus kicker because really the Pikachu festa I like the 2016 like that's the only one I want with all the original starters the other thing I don't even know what they look like so I'm not as into them as I probably should be I don't know but yeah for that reason I'm going with Mario and Luigi. Yeah it's 100% the Mario and Luigi I love I love cards that come in pairs I don't know why I really love connecting two cards and Mario and Luigi is just the perfect connection super nostalgic you know I talked about playing Game Boy when I was 15 but you know my first system was an NES system and playing Mario and growing up playing Mario Brothers 3 it's like yeah that's a special special card. Nippers yeah for me like the festa the 2016 festa you just talked about that's the card that got me back into the hobby like I was doing sports cards before that and then that nostalgia of seeing the three starters and Pikachu all in one card and then also like the fact that it's like the 20th anniversary card I was like oh I need that card and then I kind of dove deeper I'm like oh these other festas so I had the most I had at one time was three I sold two of them I still have the 2016 festa and I have another two at PSA right now I should be coming back soon hopefully of the 2016 no no no I think I sent in the 2016 and 17 oh um okay but and like the artwork is like it's so nice but yeah again like the Mario Pikachu it haunts me like I need to have that in my in my collection um I could have got the whole set for 6,000 and now it's like 25 so I have to go with Mario as well like and I think I think what I do like about it like I love the artwork and it has like all these other Pokemon in the background but I actually kind of like the fact that it's just like one like all the focus is just on like the Mario and then the Luigi on their own separate cards so I like that simplicity and like the artwork is just so good so I ain't gonna have to go Mario Luigi as well there you go again back-to-back weeks Mario suite Mario Pikachu suite can anything defeat the Mario Pikachu in a in a weekly segment pick one gotta think of Charizard maybe I guess that's probably the closest but all right we'll see a good one all right I'm gonna you know Xiang if he was here he would choose a couple of Aaron Judge cards because he still thinks Aaron Judge is criminally undervalued in comparison to especially Shouhei so he's been like what two months now of a podcast where he's done a pick one with Aaron Judge like a lower to mid tier end to get the best value I'm gonna go high end though I'm gonna keep with that theme that Xiang's been on and I'm gonna but I'm gonna go high end Aaron Judge cards okay and these ones sold within the past month a couple months and they're both valued at about $50,000 okay so the first one is the 2017 Topps Chrome Red Refractor autograph card which is number two five of course and it's a PSA 10 all right pop two PSA 10 2017 Topps Chrome iconic brand that's the one where he's jumping it looks like he's jumping by the wall you know and then catching it and then there's the 2013 his Bowman Chrome right autograph rookie or prospect card and that's iconic as well but it is the black wave parallel right or refractor sorry but it's graded PSA 10 10 I believe the auto is also a 10 all right so and the black wave if you didn't know in that here is number 250 so a little bit confusing not out of 10 number 250 the black wave yeah PSA 10 10 but it's a 2013 his prospect auto card which one are you going with I'm going rarity out of five pop two still rookie card um they probably even do waves back then did they for Topps Chrome 2017 I don't think so yeah I think it was more true color yeah yeah so true red out of five like um like with that guy that that you guys always refer to you got to go for the rarity right and deep value investor deep value investor yeah so I think that's that's the card that I'll go for it's rarity it's still a rookie uh and you know there's only one card better than red right so mm-hmm yeah oh you will yeah I hate Bowman Chrome so it's oh really it's always Topps Chrome for me really yeah it's like for me it's a hobby logic thing I get that everyone loves Bowman Chrome more than they love Topps Chrome but you have Bowman Chrome cards Boba Shett not by choice someone made you bid that for that card the value well I mean it was like it's his Bowman Chrome it's gold auto like the gold got me the gold tricked me into buying it but also that card was uh I felt it was undervalued when I bought it and so I thought it was it was just a good play okay and fair enough I mean we just need him to sign his stupid contract and be a blue jay for life and then all the Boba Shett like all the fans who are just like scared to invest in Boba Shett will come back like as soon as Bo signs this contract but yeah that's why I have that's why I was Bowman Chrome uh but yeah Topps Chrome it's red it's out of five I actually don't like the image of it very much I think it looks kind of weird because there's other colors that are in the image like there's a blue and like a gray tone yeah and those kind of it the red doesn't stand out to me you know like like other red ones the blue refractor looks exactly like that same card because it has blue and red does it no no no I'm sure they could have gotten away with it they did you know yeah yeah no you're right it doesn't stand out so it doesn't yeah right so I really like it when the red's really strong and I gotta say I am we were so wrong about Aaron Judge and we were so wrong about Shohei I think with Aaron Judge it's the fact that he's a Yankee so it's very hard to like him but he's like but you have to like him like I can't help but like him and I'm a great ambassador to the game I'm so annoyed that I like him so much and like this season he's just like it's not that he's just hitting the home runs it says batting average is like 370 or whatever it's like is there nothing that he can't do and then you look over the national league and it's like oh there's that guy who does what Aaron Judge does but then also pitches and I just want to hate him but you can't help but love him and today you know our recordings are a little bit uh delayed so tonight is actually the all-star game and my wife and I were just watching the first inning with our kids and Shohei got this bloop single and my wife says to me he is so good looking and then she said if if I ever met him you should be careful and I was like hey if I ever met him you should be careful and then he hits the bloop single and she's just like what what is that what is that like like almost like and then she was like it wasn't just like what is that like disgust it was like what is that like he's so amazing that even he can like just hit this bloop little single and I'm like I can't help but love this man so I don't know why I got on this tangent but we should be investing in Aaron Judge and Shohei Otani and Pikachu those are the three investments but this is also the reason that Will's wearing that Wrestlemania shirt after that comment from from his wife yeah it's not gonna make it onto the I don't think we have any viral clips or anything to show but this is my Wrestlemania t-shirt it's a Wrestlemania 41 it's my featuring my three favorite female wrestlers Rhea Ripley, Bianca Belair and Io Sky and those were the three that I really enjoyed for a while and then they had a Wrestlemania match together and I was like I don't care how much this shirt costs and how much shipping is and how much the stupid tariffs are I'm buying this shirt and my wife is so disappointed oh wouldn't be an episode without a Will tangent yeah so glad we snuck that in at the very end but um I agree with you Aaron Judge you can't I don't know if you saw him on the Pat McAfee show but you know he was Pat McAfee was saying how does it feel like to be the guy in New York the Yankees you know and and Aaron Judge being the humble man that he is it's like you know I don't know if I'm the guy and then Pat McAfee is like yeah that's what the guy would say you know so it's kind of like you know you like Aaron Judge even more and then I saw the clip of Shohei Otani you know that I don't know if you saw the clip but when the the Dodgers were playing the Padres you know how there's bad blood between those two teams and there's so many guys getting hit by pitches and Suarez one of the pitchers from Padres nailed Otani in the shoulder right and Otani was you know then but the benches were about to clear but then Otani was telling the the bullpen to just stay in the stay on the bench don't come out right because he didn't want to cause like a disruption and then Suarez and Otani are on the same national league all-star team and then Otani went up to Suarez pretending his shoulder's still sore yeah and then Suarez like just kind of gave him a hug how can you hate Otani you know what I mean like how can you hate Otani and Judge like you can't be you can't be good looking and be an amazing athlete and also be funny like funny is the one thing I got like stop blogging it oh man all right so um oh yeah I'm gonna go for the Topps Chrome Red Refractor too so that's that's I thought we were talking about the Pikachu I completely forgot so there you go two sweeps and uh yeah two sweeps and one uh three-way split so there you go we balanced it out at the end of the day there you go all right thanks guys for coming on the pod we'll have you again next month and thanks for to all our listeners for tuning in as always so yeah we'll have a brand new episode for you next week talk to you then bye peace hey thanks for listening to Cards to the Moon we'd really appreciate you subscribing to our podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts and you can also connect with each of us on instagram and you can also connect with each of us on instagram at 5cardguys or you can follow Hyung at Integrity Sports Cards or John at TradeU at Recess. You can also check us out at 5cardguys.com. Thanks again and hope to connect soon!