The National 2026 Day 1

Welcome to the Sports Card Lessons Podcast with your host, Big Ken. A retired teacher bringing you lessons each week. He's learned in the hobby by taking you behind the table and inside the mind of a dealer and a collector. Sit back and relax. There one-of-one be a test. The only thing being graded here is the cards. Welcome to the Sports Car Lessons Podcast. I'm your host, Big Ken. Whether you're watching on YouTube or listening on a streaming service, please let, like, subscribe and hit that notification bell so you'll be notified whenever I drop any new content. What is going on? Live from the hotel room, day one of the national, here with my guy Carmine at Carmine's Cards. Yes. How was the day? How was day one? And I think it was. It was good. We had a motto for today, and it was one-of-one the day, which is the motto here on my coffee cup. And I think we can consider ourselves that we did one-of-one the day. We both did pretty well. For me, even though it was just Wednesday, first day ever, setting up at the National, I didn't really know what to expect. You had very high expectations. I was trying to temper it because I hadn't set up before and sold about $7,000 worth of cards with probably a 25% profit margin, which was really good for me, and Beckett up some good ones. And it was only Wednesday. I think we were both impressed at the foot traffic, the sales and action, and people were motivated, the hobbies in a great place. So it was all good. Well, first of all, yes, we one-of-one the day. Yes. I mean, one-of-one the day. We one-of-one that day. And yes, I've been saying all along with foot traffic at the national every year, it seems like you're going, you're off a day, off a day. Because it used to be Wednesday would be kind of a ghost town. You could run around. You could go from table to table to table. That's why I always like getting there early, get my VIP badge and. And just go. Yu-Gi-Oh Today the place was absolutely mobbed. Upstairs, downstairs, the line of traffic. Now, by Friday last year, people were showing pictures of the traffic all the. The line of people waiting to get in all the way down the street. Yu-Gi-Oh You know, half a mile, three quarters of a mile, whatever it was that that photo was today going around today, people standing out there waiting to get in. And. Yu-Gi-Oh it was. It was just insane, the amount of people that. In the foot traffic that came around on a Wednesday. Yu-Gi-Oh I know. I can't even imagine what this place is gonna look like come Saturday. They Might have to widen the aisles for Friday and Saturday because the way people were having to squeeze through. I mean, we were talking about it during the show, since we were right next to each other, obviously set up at the same spot, and we saw people leaning over, other people taking a photo of our setup and zooming in on the photo to just get a view of what we had in the showcase, just to see what was in that case. Yu-Gi-Oh So it was. It was great. I was impressed. And that. That is my. That is the thing. I cannot stand going to a card show and being more than one person deep. Yu-Gi-Oh Right. And we've got three, four deep. And even try to go to the bathroom. Right. I mean, you can't. You're like, you want to hurry. You're like people at the table, you want to hurry. You're trying to. You can't do that. I mean, there's just so many. Be knocking people down. There's so many people in that place today. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh But, you know, I mean, overall, I have to say, you weren't here for that yesterday. But the move in, I showed up yesterday, I was a little nervous about it, thinking, like, I didn't know what to expect. Right. Yu-Gi-Oh So I. All I can envision in my head was pulling in and people saying, you can't park here. Trying to find a place to park. Trying to go in and get my badges and my pass so I could drive in and not know where I need to drive in to go drop my stuff off. Yu-Gi-Oh Pulled in. They're like, I'm like, oh, I'm a dealer. It's like, oh, Yu-Gi-Oh just park anywhere. Just go get your stuff. I'm like, oh, okay. Went in, walked right up, got all my information. They said, yep, just go out, take a left, go up the ramp. Easy, easy. Drove right into the building. Drove almost up to where the table was, unloaded everything yesterday, it was so smooth. So hats off to them that they, like, they. They made that so easy. So most of my stress that I was feeling building up to coming here was just completely diminished. And then day one. Right. Yu-Gi-Oh And I think another X factor, too. The easy load in and load out, like you said. But also the X factor of us bringing a little extra. Well, you brought, obviously in your car, two extra tables, and we're able to slide our showcases back and put the two row boxes in front of the showcases, which enables us to have hundreds of more cards out there rather than just the showcase, which probably was where most of the people bought my cards. From was in the two row boxes instead of the showcases. So, so that was a huge help. So I want to touch on that because. So you really took advantage of that. And I've got a ton of that stuff that I was really just trying to figure out today. Like what's the best way to advertise my, all my, my cards. Right. To get them on the table. Yu-Gi-Oh And, and you said, you know what, I'm putting those boxes in front of that case. Yu-Gi-Oh And that worked out so well. And I think they. People were hunting those single cards more than the graded cards today. So, so we've talked all along. I talked with zip on the hobby chop and stuff like the, the, with the grading shut PSA shut down on bulk. Like what is happening to do with the, the, the slabs, the, the PSA 10s versus PSA 9s and things like that. And interestingly enough I think today's crowd was digging more through boxes and looking more at singles. So I had a mix of singles and one touches with cars cards in my case and I did better on the football side with the singles than I did graded. Okay. On the WNBA side. You know all that is great. And I just, I did so much better with the, with Caitlin Clark. Like people were just buying her cards. So that was an easy, an easy sell for me today. But I really think, and I'm glad I have, I have a couple boxes of stuff single in football, the RPAs, the autos, the patches. Because I think that is really what people are hunting for right now. Like a lot of the crowd coming in, that's what they're looking for. They're looking to dig in those boxes. Yu-Gi-Oh Whether they're reselling them, whether they're going out Whatnot or repacking or whatever, it's just people, you could tell people really wanted to dig in those boxes. They okay to look in the cases but they wanted to get their hands on cars and well because they know two in the boxes that's most likely going to be more affordable than what's in the cases too. So like a lot of people were packaging together, you know, a forty dollar card with a one hundred ten dollar card and paying around one hundred fifty at least in my case going through my two row boxes. So a lot of those deals were cards between 30 and $160 and there were a few bigger ones. But Yu-Gi-Oh a lot of people want to get some stuff they can bring home with them that isn't going to break the bank at the same time. Yu-Gi-Oh And One thing we didn't talk about, and I'm just thinking of this as you're saying that I thought people made strong offers today. Yu-Gi-Oh they did. Like, like, you know, the cards Last sold at 480 and I got a 525, you know, price tag on it that they were that 480, 490. Like they weren't saying can, can you do 400 on the car. Some people maybe, but I think most people were right in that 480, 470, 490 were all within that, you know. Yu-Gi-Oh very close to the last sale, I would say. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh definitely strong offers. Later on, you know, we went, we met up with a bunch of fellas, we all had pizza, talked about the day and I really think everybody said now we didn't have a chance to walk around but everybody said prices were really high. Yu-Gi-Oh people had sticker, sticker their price Zebra high. I always price my, my stuff a little bit over. Yu-Gi-Oh but I don't go crazy like I'm not hundreds of dollars over which people were saying on some of these cars were not maybe even thousands of dollars over. So maybe two being realistically priced helped us out too. That people were like, oh Yu-Gi-Oh these guys are, they're close, you know. Yu-Gi-Oh they're within 10 or 15 of, of what's going on. So you know, maybe that helped us out too. Yu-Gi-Oh it probably did and it helped you out. Probably make one of the big trades you made too. I don't know when, at what point you want to talk about that, but we can, you know. Yu-Gi-Oh we could share some cards. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh So I got into a trade today. I'll show you what I Beckett up at this Bonix Downtown PSA 10. Oh, there we go. Right in the light there. Great card. Funny thing about this card was what was on auction today. So, so as I'm buying this card and I'm looking at the comps, I'm like, okay, the last sale, right. There were six hours to go on this, on this auction on ebay. And the last sale was where the price was at on the card. So we knew, I knew it was going to go up something. I don't know how much. I mean I felt it was probably going to go up higher than it did, but made a great deal. I, I think I traded another Downtown a Jerry Rice Downtown PSA 10 and Tyler Shook Genesis PSA 10, those two cards for this card. So. And I really think, I mean I still have this card in my hand, right. So I priced this card at 2, 000 today because I didn't know where that. The. The actual ebay ended up at the end of it, which. Which ended up over 1500. So, you know, it'll be priced better tomorrow knowing that that's what. That. That's what that price was there. You know, that's what it's sold for. That's what that comp is on that now. So this will be priced better tomorrow, but it'll probably move. And I think this is probably going to be a little bit more liquid than the Jerry Rice and the. And the shook card. So. Yu-Gi-Oh we were joking about. How crazy is it that a Bo Nicks Downtown rookie is more liquid than a Jerry Rice Downtown in a PSA 10. But Yu-Gi-Oh no, you're right. I mean the prospecting quarterbacks is still a big thing even though the goat market has Beckett up crazily recently. Yu-Gi-Oh the prospecting side is still alive and well too. So. Yu-Gi-Oh I did pick up some Sophie Cunningham, an auto and a couple of her cards today. Yu-Gi-Oh Zebra hot. Just crazy right now. Absolutely. Liquid. The woman paid you over. Over the last sale. Yu-Gi-Oh So, I mean, I bought this car today. I. I priced it up Accord, what I thought was accordingly. And it was over the last comp. And the lady came in and she offered you over the last comp. Yep. She. She said. We, we. We said, Yu-Gi-Oh we both agree the Last comp was 340 or 342. She's like, I'll give you 400 for it. I'm like, Yu-Gi-Oh perfect. Where's Sophie? There. But Yu-Gi-Oh she's Zebra And people, everybody. Coming up. The two names I've heard all day. Right. That people. And in the women's basketball was Sophie Cunningham and Olivia Miles. Right. And everybody who asked for her talks about the. The past between the legs, which was just last night. Yu-Gi-Oh Which was last. Recording it. Yu-Gi-Oh So. And I, So I Beckett This was an easy pass, by the way. No offense to Olivia Miles. Was it Mabry who hit the three on. On the. On the. On the pass from Olivia Miles? I mean, she was. She was. Nobody was near her. She threw it behind the back. It was an extra Fleer she didn't need to do, but it wasn't like, oh my gosh, you know, crazy. I mean, you can hold that commentary after I sell my card. I. I think she's a great player. I think that should carry the weight more than. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh That she's tying Maya Moore for 20 point and five assist games in. In team History, I think, is the main thing, her quality of play. But. And this card is numbered to 75. Yu-Gi-Oh that's cool. Yu-Gi-Oh happy to have that card. So, Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, all the Sophie, Sophie Cunninghams I Beckett up, I sold today and I can't seem to buy enough of those to just, just to resell them. And these are the other cards I Beckett up. But I talked about this all along. Like, I'll pick cards up that I know I can drop back in my case and sell that. And it's. And it happens every year at the national you show and people start asking for that. And I'm waiting for the. So Bo Nix was somebody. People were asking about people asking for big Bo Nicks cards. So. But that I really haven't heard. I have a bunch of. I've shared with you guys Caleb Williams cards and, and, and Carmine Beckett up some nice ones today. He's going to share with you, but I just expected those cards would be so hot. And day one, they were not numbered and everything, but they were not as hot as I, as I, I felt. Colston Loveland seems to be a guy everybody's looking for or asking about. And Erlacher, like I have a. Sold in Erlacher today. Rookie ticket. Yu-Gi-Oh So I, I mean, I'm guessing he's probably. This is hall of Fame year for him. Maybe he's up for hall. So there's. I mean, people are really looking for his cars today. I mean, he's an all time. Yu-Gi-Oh he's an all time great. So. And I actually in those boxes, I have two auto. Two, you know, Erlacher Auto. So I'll be happy to pull those out tomorrow. Yu-Gi-Oh On the table. Yu-Gi-Oh But talk about what you got today. Yu-Gi-Oh So to bridge the gap from Bo Nix to Caleb Williams, I got this dual rpa. It is college uniform, but it's player worn, which is cool. Nice patches, which is from inception. And it's a dual auto. Caleb Williams and Bo Nix numbered out of 50, so that's cool. And also helps that they both went to, you know, iconic football programs with Oregon and usc. And then so that was in a deal that I got for around 1500 total from a kid who was about 10 years old. And I said, listen, I could probably get you. He was there with his dad also for some backup, but I said, I'll probably get you around 80. And he said, oh, well, I, I bought into these, you know, pretty cheap and so that's good for me. And so we got the numbers out. So we got that dual auto from the young man there. A top space auto Caleb Williams, that's around a 400 card. The Bo Nixon Caleb Williams duel is like 350. Got a future stars Caleb Williams auto rookie numbered out of 150. And then this is probably the coolest one, which is the tops. Cosmic chrome rookie Caleb Williams auto numbered out of 50, PSA 8. And the young guy said, oh, keep the slab. Mag came with the slab. I said, that was. That was nice. So we were both happy and so was the dad and kid got 1500 bucks out of it, which is good. So it's probably between 80 and 85%, which I think is great on somebody who's real popular. Obviously being in the Chicago area is huge, like you mentioned with Loveland and Erlacher. So that's definitely the. The team that people seem most to be looking for is the Bears. And coming off a great season last year. And it's local too, right? I mean, you probably get a lot of local guys driving in too. Yu-Gi-Oh You know, so got those four Caleb Williams, which I told you going in, I wanted to get in the Caleb Williams market because I think he's excited because he listened to Big Ken on sports car lessons. Who. And Zip, Zip was. Zip was very behind Williams. But I'm like, he's, you know, the local hometown hero, hometown quarterback. He's on the upswing. The team looks great coming off a good year. So, you know, kind of makes sense. And then I got this exquisite Peyton Manning auto numbered out of 35 on card from my buddy Mikey's cards, who I have a lot of cards from. But the last sale was 350 and I paid 340. But I just think it's. It could, you know, you could hold it for 400 probably to the right person if you want to sell it. But I just think exquisite Peyton Manning is a. Is a nice buy, even if it's right close to the comp. So. Because some people will pay over like we saw today. Yu-Gi-Oh they're really looking for something. So you had that Christian McCaffrey. Yes. Yu-Gi-Oh So I sold. This is a kind of unique one. I sold this Denzel Washington autograph which is from Upper Deck icons and it has the letter E from his Herman Boone role as the coach. And remember the Titans, he very rarely signs. He has very few autographs out there. Obviously he's an A list actor of the last 40 years. So for people who are higher end pop culture collectors, this is a desirable card. So I got a Actually, this guy messaged me from ebay. He was looking at this card on ebay, messaged me on Instagram, said, hey, can you do any better on that? He said, are you going to the National? I said, Yu-Gi-Oh Said, I have the Adam Sandler of the same card of this, which is from the longest yard in his role as Paul Crew as the quarterback. And I said, oh, well, I would have been probably a little bit cool. I didn't say it to him, but I said, the water boy. I would have probably preferred the longest yard, but no offense, Bobby Boucher would have been better, but. So he ended up trading me a Christian McCaffrey, Flawless, true RPA numbered out of 25, which was really nice. And a BGS9 with a 10 auto. And if you're watching on YouTube, I'll pull up the photo of that. So two color patch, McCaffrey RPA. That's about a $750 card. So he gave me that plus 1300 for the Denzel, which is right here, again, if you're watching. And that was good for me because I was into the Denzel for 1600, and it's a bigger card of somebody I don't really PC. Like, Bird is my main guy. Larry Bird. And then, you know, inscription autograph. So this was a cool thing, but I'm like, it's run its course. I got it at the national, or. No, it was either at the Net. Yu-Gi-Oh I was at the National, I think, two years ago. So this card. Yu-Gi-Oh Denzel. Yu-Gi-Oh So I'm like, it's probably time to let it go. Cause it's. I'm into it for 1600. So I took the McCaffrey and 1300. Then you were there when I sold the McCaffrey for like, seven. A little over 700, which was great. It was like, at least 90%. And so I ended up making, like, 400 off of the deal of the trade and the sale. So that worked out well. That was definitely my biggest sale of the day. So I was very happy about that. Yu-Gi-Oh And this is the kind of scorecard you need right at the National. It's like, I got this, but that. Then I sold that, but I took that in and I traded that for that, Right? Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh It gets a little crazy, but it makes sense. It makes sense to us, you know, to card guys. It all makes sense. You try to explain it to somebody who doesn't know cards. No, but you go through a few of those deals, and then when you cash out at the end, you have the Return based on a few moves you made to get there. So Yu-Gi-Oh I talked about the, the logo woman card a couple episodes ago. I moved that today, Day one at the National. I moved that card today. So a number of people who saw it on the podcast had come, come to look at it and one of the guys, kj, KJ Washington, he, he came and made a deal and he bought that car today. So Zebra excited about that. You know, the power of social media. Right. You just talked about you had that on ebay and. Yu-Gi-Oh you got that deal done. I put one out in the podcast. Someone come to see me and. Yu-Gi-Oh and another huge shout out to all the people who just today who came to see me, all the listeners I know out there. I almost took my Sharpie out to try and, you know, see if you could sign something. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh It was at least 15 people, like you said, who came up. Oh, I love the. And Even like an 8 year old, 10 year old kid, he's like, I listen every week or every twice a week. See zip. That's, that's why we got to keep it clean. We got the little youngins. We want to set a good example. Right. Yu-Gi-Oh that was great. I mean people from 10 years old to 60 came and said they listened. That was cool. What's wrong with 60? No, I'm just saying that was relatable. Maybe a little more relatable than, you know. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh So. Yu-Gi-Oh so we one-of-one the day. Yes, we did. We lived up to the mug slogan that we had. I can't imagine tomorrow. I mean it's only, it can't get any worse from here. Knock on wood. As far as the opportunities we'll have, worse opportunities are just going to get better. Yu-Gi-Oh And, and I'm not sure the other thing too, I heard is that the, the buying stations, so interestingly enough that people are starting to separate the upstairs and the downstairs where they figure feel the, the younger people are all upstairs and the older crowd is now downstairs. Yu-Gi-Oh And, and talking too about a lot of the buying stations that a lot of people weren't happy with some of the offers that were coming in because, you know, I didn't expect. And I talked about this, I didn't think there'd be many opportunities to buy at the show because I just felt like people would be just going to the buying stations. Yu-Gi-Oh And some of the, some of the people saying, look, I went to the buying station, they really didn't, you know, offer me much of anything. And I think what people are Doing now is they're looking, they're like, hey, I like this card. Similar to, you know, what can we make in deals or something I have in my case that you want, maybe we can make a trade or, you know, and at the end of the day, maybe if you didn't take my card, it gave me an opportunity to buy somebody's cards in their case. So still day one, but I felt there were really good buying opportunities today, more than I expected. Well, also, they want to sell to somebody who sells that stuff or is interested in the same type of stuff. So they see all your WNBA stuff. They say, oh, like you saw with that couple earlier today, oh, I have this Caitlyn or I have this page, or I have this Olivia Miles or Asia Wilson or, you know, Sophie Cunningham. What do you think about this? They know you're knowledgeable about it. They know you sell that stuff. You personally like it. It's somebody they can build a rapport with or like you said, trade for something else similar where they're going to get a closer value. They're not going to get Velocity if they go to a, you know, another station. And I don't know what percentage they're paying, but it's not going to be equal trade to what they might be able to get from a dealer who does the same thing. So. So expectations tomorrow, day two. Now, the performance today has raised my expectations. I wanted to go in, yes, I wanted to go in hopeful that we one-of-one the day, but now that we've one-of-one it day one, I feel like the bar's raised now. You feel like I did yesterday. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh You were ready to go. And I know you were like, oh, you're finally hopping on the train of, you know, feeling like this is going to be really successful. But. So if I sold 7,000 today, I would hope to exceed that tomorrow. Yu-Gi-Oh it should get. It should just keep going up every day. That would be amazing. Yu-Gi-Oh And then I'll have a huge stack of cash by the end, which would be great. I have to exchange it into hundreds. But Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh I hope it's. I hope it's. I mean, it's going to be more people. There's no way it's going to be less people. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh It's going to be even busier, too. So maybe some, some more purchases. So we'll see what happens. But we'll be back here tomorrow night, right? Yu-Gi-Oh the same thing again. We'll be back tomorrow night for day two doing this. This is great hope. Glad we're able to, to have the opportunity to do this. Like I've done this myself the last couple years but now, now being set up, having the person I'm set up with. Right. Yu-Gi-Oh this is great. So we, Yu-Gi-Oh looking forward to doing this each night this week. So anything else before we any shout outs before we leave? And I think just shout out to anybody who came up to the booth said they listen to sports card lessons and is going to listen to this and come back tomorrow and say we listen to your day one recap. And also thanks for letting me set up, you know, with you there and, and experience this and sell, you know, a great number of cards and then see what else is out there for the rest of the week. Good. All right, that's what we got here. We'll be back tomorrow with a, with a brand new episode. Right. So until next time, take care of yourselves and everyone around you.