Dealing With Hobby Burnout? Season 6 Ep 21

This episode of the Ball Card show is brought to you by our friends at Pristine Auction, where items are guaranteed authentic for the entire time you own it. Not just at the win, not just while the cert holds. If you own it, Pristine stands behind it for a limited time. Take advantage of $20 off your first auction when you register with the code Ballcard. Win the real thing. Pristine Auction. Foreign. Welcome to the Ball Card show, the sports podcast for the esports collector. I'm Jason Otero. I'm Gary Lemaster. Season 6 Episode 21 Fresh back from Shawana. Yep, in the middle of Indiana's no man's land, it certainly was no man's land once again. Although I do think I saw a couple more buildings up. A couple more buildings up. You know what hasn't changed? What's that? Pretzels. You know what else? What? A lot of horse poop on the road. Well, there's a lot of horses on the road. A lot of horses. Do you remember that dude we saw that had the gangster lean going on with his. Well, yeah. Did you remember the E bike gang we saw rolling E bike gangs were serious. Yeah, it was. We were like, oh, okay. I went in on this because I'm not exactly sure it works, but I don't think that the OGs out there are allowed to. E bike. That's like the non denoms. That's like the. That's got to be the mega churches that's letting their youth groups out on the E bikes. Because that just seems. I don't know enough about Amish and nomenclature to know, but I have a feeling you're right. E bike sounds illegal. Well, E stands for electric. Say it out loud. Yeah. Carrie. What? No cussing ship. We had. We had a fun time out there. Other thing that was really cool is we found this place called Snappers and how. Which is like 10, 15 minutes off the beaten path. And we were able to get out there with like 10, 15 other dealers after the Friday show. It was a lot of fun. Yep, we had fun Miss trade night. But that's gotten really peoplely. It's so popular. I can't. It is tired and everybody that goes to it has fun. But we're old and after spending six, seven hours peopling squeezing our way into a crowded room to people some more. It's like, you want to do that or would you like a frosty beverage and this food? Triple Smash burger. Gary's on Ozempic. He hadn't had anything. I had a pretzel at. Well, Gary, do you count your gas station stops or no? That day, what did I eat? I had a few rounds of beef jerky. A few rounds? Yes. I'm gonna guess a pound. Not even close. I bought that bag and that bag is still rocking and rolling. What we are saying is he was definitely not fasting. Okay, so we, so we get out there. Gary orders a triple. Was it mushroom something burger cheese. It was delicious. It was delicious. It's a good time. So everybody came out for that two day show holiday weekend of, of the three ship shows, typically a little bit lighter traffic, foot traffic because there's a holiday going on. But I'll tell you this, it was flip flop for us. Last show at Shipshewana, the second day was just absolutely bonkers on the sales. Like we were just tearing through stuff. By noon we're saying, do we have enough this time? We've been talking about that lower price band that's been kind of moving, flying. Anything that we had that was even semi relevant from 30 to $80 was gone in about two hours. Yep. I'd replenished my show. I had two spare rows out of the Zion case and they were gone within about two hours at the start of the show. So Friday it was like, I don't have enough cards. Which, that's the thing. Like as you, as you get more tuned into what is more liquid, what's more desirable, you're going to have a higher sell through rate. It is funny how like I haven't adjusted for the panic yet that sets in and shows on a, what, twice a month probably. It happens. Like, I mean it is it. Why does that mess with us so much? It does. It really does. I want to sell. I want to sell as much as I can. I don't want to sell that much. We're like the only ones that do that. Yeah. Until like that's because we have the, the pressure of, of sourcing and we know what that is. It's not that we don't want to sell it, but we just know that once it sells, now we gotta do the hard work again. Yeah, that's true. It's when you get that inventory, like you're dialed in. You've got your Zion case, it's full and you're like, I feel great about what I'm taking to this show. That is the most rewarding and fleeting moment you have in this business as a dealer because you're like, that's great. And then you sit it out in the showcases and you're like, oh, No, I have to do this again. I have to get it back to that again. And sometimes you do, and sometimes it takes three weeks to get it back to that again. Well, and you know, if you don't have an LCS or a brick and mortar, you really don't have a consistent base walking in for you to buy stuff. So then it comes down to how much can I buy at the show today? Yes. And I would say that I think a lot of the case hit stuff that we were seeing walk up is get. Just directly getting funneled over towards the repack space. I think some of these people's relationships have gotten to the point where it's a spreadsheet and an email now with a regular person that opens all the time or buys that stuff or. Although I did buy a downtown at the end of the. That's from a TCG guy at the end who ripped it in a bl in a blaster or a mega on the other side of the room 20 minutes before. Well, if you're gonna hit one, Sean Taylor's not a bad one. No, it's not a bad one. So yeah, pick that up. But for by and large, not a ton of that walk up. Now I did get like we both had some really interesting. I know one that I had was I had that keegan Hall Art PSA 10 Shay that I traded into a bunch of early 2000s baseball patches and stuff. Yeah. And then a nice Jordan insert lot that I picked up. But buying wise, both of us have gotten a. A little more picky. But I think that's directly correlated to the sell through rate. So we're. We're creating our own problem. I guess we could buy more bricks, Gary, if we wanted to do that, you know, you know, we would be able to stare at our showcase. Then you. Then you end up with the illusion of profit. That's what you end up with is. Is got into this stuff really. Right. It doesn't matter if it takes you three years to get it back. It's just an illusion of profit at that point. Y. What do you think you saw walking up more than you expected over the weekend? To be perfectly frank, I didn't feel like that much walked up and the stuff that did. You're leaving for vacation for a week and we've got all the shows coming up. So I was trying to make sure like you needed to buy stuff so that when you get back from vacation you're not in like panic mode. I've got a 10 day window in between, so But I even, Even you, I think, would say that we didn't have as many people bringing stuff up. It's kind of what we saw last summer when we were talking about people. Like, here's my case full of the stuff I ripped out of 30 blasters this month. Do you want to buy? Was a lot of that and the stuff that was nicer. But we had a few opportunities at. But people were pretty strong. And it's okay. Yeah, we had that one guy walk up, what's your percentage? Before, like, even saying anything. And when that happens, Gary and I are usually just like, really friendly. Like, hey, man, you're not going to like what we say. Just trying to like, if. If that's where it starts. It's not even if I can give you the number you're going to be mad about, you know? So turns out they were willing to work with us. And I was like, if this was $100 card, what would you say? And the percentage is way better. I was like, oh, yeah, we're good, we're good. We're in a good place. I said, just so you know, that's gonna send some red flags everywhere for any dealer. Right? You had the guy who came up, and I knew that it wasn't going to be a deal for me. When I asked him what he wanted for a card, and he hit me at 15 bucks over the highest sale ever. And I was like, okay, smaller card. Yeah, it was a Otani. It's like a $60 card. He was like, 80 bucks. I was like, oh, okay. Well, one just sold for 90 I hadn't been paid for yet. But that's okay. No worries. We're good. So Jason tries, and the guy just got real hostile and real aggressive. Is that David Robinson Auto? Which, let's be honest, not easy to move. Should be. Yep. They might be a great spot for it, but not always the easiest thing to move. Yeah. And I was looking at it, Card ladders, predicting it's up a little bit. I offered him the most recent comp, which was like within the last year. This isn't like some old school upper deck, unique. No, it's like a retail hit. And he said, well, I need this number. I said, oh, okay. I don't think I can get there. It's just, well, I need it. I said, well, my perspective is if I. If I pay that, and that's where the highest comp is. I just. As a dealer. And he said, I don't need any of your excuses. I don't need Any of that. I don't know your reason stuff. I don't need to know your reasons why. I said, well, have a good day. I think it's going to be a long one, sir. Yeah. I mean, clearly when that happens, somebody's already been to a few tables and been through it. Yeah. They've been. They haven't liked what they've heard so far. Yeah. And. And there still is this belief out there that for the love of the hobby, the people spending 20 hours driving for spending hundreds of dollars on tables, hotels, food, food, all of that stuff should be just a atm. Yeah. For. For everybody there. So it's a, it's not the majority, but there's a lot of people who have not thought far enough in advance to use math. Yeah. On like how this might realistically work in any other scenario in the world. At a show with vendors. Yeah. Like if there are some. There are some protests like that that are so exclusively focused on sports cards that nowhere else in the world do people assume you to believe that that's how it's going to work. I just don't. We are not selling gold and silver here, guys. No. If you like that, go get it. Go. But we're selling perceived value baseball cards and sentimental stuff. That's what we, that's what we do. There just happens to be some speculative market principles that come in play, but it doesn't matter. End of the day, short story, not so long. If I'm buying it from you and it doesn't have Ken Anderson, Luke Keakley or Ed Oliver on the front, I'm selling it to somebody else. And if I can't buy it from you at a price point where I'm doing nothing but trading money. Yeah. Then it just doesn't make sense. If you. Most people again, were really cool. Most people guess again. It's the, it's the folks. I and Jason won't let me do it. And I, he's right. I need to be a nicer human sometimes, but I just want to look at those people and go, you need to go buy a table. You, you want to. You. You're wanting somebody else to cash you out with. Doing it without doing the work. And the counter argument was easy. Is always like, oh yeah, it's real hard. Oh yeah. Flipping ball cards. Yet nobody's ever done it. Everybody say that. Has never done it. Kind of like, kind of like Jeff going, well, you, you, some. One of these experts should have done it instead of me. And then I would. Where were you, Mr. Expert? Yeah. Set up. Oh, I've set up. Have you ever set up more than once, back to back? Have you ever done it? Have you ever had to source inventory? Or are you saying I've done the same thing as you just because I have a shoebox that I've sold half of, I've had for 20 years? There's a difference. Yeah, and I don't. And it's not a condescending. You can't figure it out. It's that anybody that's done it knows it's. And it's not hard to understand. I didn't want that stupid Dave Robinson auto anyway. That's why I'm still talking about it four days later. Well, you know. You know what you did want? What's that? Can we give your wife some flowers? Oh, let's do it. Jason got his anniversary gift a little bit early. Some of you may have seen it on socials because he couldn't wait for today to show it off to the world. But the rest of you, that is a Zach Thomas PMG number to 50. It also happens to be the highest graded copy of the card on planet Earth in the world. And the subgrades are good, too. Yeah, it's two nine fives. We got the nine fives on surface and centering edges. Eight, five corners, nine. I mean, I. My wife was like. She knew because she was asking Gary, like, hey, I'm thinking about getting something. And he's like, this is a really cool one. Blah. She knew it was good. She didn't realize, like, this is one of Zach Thomas's best cards ever. Yeah. And it's the highest copy ever. Highest graded copy ever. Yep. So that makes me happy. Straight to the PC you go. Put it right with your red one. And that's too. Yeah, hold on. It's a round sound here. Yeah. You got them. You got them both. And there isn't a 98. So you've got the whole PMG universe. Rainbow. That's really cool. Celebrating 20th anniversary. 20 years. My high school sweetheart. Antigua, Antigua, Antigua. The Chillicothe of the Caribbean. I think Jason is very much looking forward to not talking to me for a week. I'm looking forward to not talking to anybody but my wife. Yep. I. I've. I've got, like, eight books. No way I get through them. But I'll. I'll try to read two or three. How many are fiction? Two. As I say, I know that's not your two. Well, I'll do a little bit. No, because my wife's got these page turner mystery things that she's been. And. And I'll For. For that. It's perfect. I'll read that. I'm reading Jeff. That's a big part of our community. Sent me the match banner under heaven, which is a TV series. Very interesting stuff. And then what else am I taking? I've got a bunch of mystery, some goofy, weird. I know you're not taking any of my recommendations, which is okay. No, I'm not a nerd like that. No. Like, I don't. I haven't ever considered, like, would I be an innkeeper in a fantasy novel? Would I ever, you know, anyway. Make up names of instruments? Like. I. I don't. No, I don't. But you keep doing you. I will, I will. The rest of us will just be fascinated by that subculture. It's just fascinating. Okay. Last week we interviewed Dale and Junk Wax Vintage. When we finished that, we had shared, like, this was one of the. Gary said it was his favorite interview that we've ever done. I. I felt very encouraged, motivated. But the big thing I took away from that is just a perspective and a reminder of the things that are most important as you're building out a car business, if you're doing content, if you're live selling like Dale does. And I think the big takeaway for me was to slow down, slow down for a second. And when it's interesting, when you make a priority that you realize just how fast you've been moving. Right. And how many other things that, like, the chaos just picks up cool quickly. And I. I'm assuming there's a lot of other people trying to grow a business in the same stage that we're in, where it's doing what you needed to do, but you have so much more growth that needs to take place in the business. And it's important for us to consider what happens when we take the time to slow down. What are the things that we notice when we're burnout or tired or things that we need to pay attention to? And Gary and I thought maybe we could do, like, a little more introspective right this time. Just looking at, like, here's the things we noticed when we're getting worn out. That isn't us at our best. That isn't the best that we can bring to our business or community. And then we're hopeful that maybe some of that will help you. You know, just some warning signs like, hey, I need to space this out. I need to set a pace. I need to take A day off or I just need to be reminded of these priorities that when I started were so important to me. But now the chaos and the demand of the day is. Is taking over. So we did a. We did one thing in response to. One thing we're trying to do is when we have a really good takeaway from an interview, we got to have some type of actionable to see, like, hey, are we applying this? If we're saying it's good to you, are we making sure that it's good to us? And so on Sunday, we did whatnot. We decided let's do 30% less auctions than we normally do. Let's. Let's set it to 30 seconds. And tonight we're just going to make a point of responding to every comment that comes in. Everyone we can read, we're hanging out. The cards are there. You're here because you love cards. And we're just spending time on the relationships in. And I'll tell you, it was such a good reminder to me why we do this. And it showed me how quickly. Not at once, not one overnight thing, but just little by little. It's easy to develop these patterns that just. Aren't you at your best? Yeah, and I'm learning, like, I am not at my best trying to fly through as many cards as quickly as possible. I'm not at my best fabricating an energy that I don't have or feel. That's what people tell me on a regular basis because I'm so vocal and forward. If I don't really embody that, it comes across very fake and it's very felt. What are some of the things you notice, Gary, if you're starting to get a little burnt out for fatigue, what are things that change? What are some of the warning signs, if you will? I think for me, it. There's two. Two things that jump to the front of my mind. The first one is I start getting so focused on the systems and the cards that I forget about the people. And that's not just attendees at a show like, that's family. That's. I'll find myself spending more and more time in my office and not spending as much time with my wife. I'll find myself when one my kids calls going, I don't have time for that right now and I'll call back later. That that's one of the. The big ones for me is just that when, when I start feeling that way, I get my toes dug in even deeper because it's like I got to dig out of this. The. The other one is that I find that when I start feeling that it shows up, it shows. It shows up at my interactions with customers. Hell, it shows up in our. With each other. Because we spend so much time together, we spend more time with each other than we spend with our spouses. So when. When we hit that. That stage where we're feeling the stress of burnout or we're feeling the stress of a. Of a string of shows that we know are coming with the challenges that we face with how we do business. Right. For me, it shows up in my interactions with other people. Yeah, I noticed some of the same things. It can get a little more transactional. And so things I'll notice is people that I spend a little more time with when they come up to the table or I'm hanging out with them, like I'm cutting the conversation short and moving on. That's me. Because I'm convinced it's more important. I am more convinced this year than ever before that if you're in this space as a business, relationships, not leverage, not IOUs, genuine relationships in this space will do more for your business than time, than the time you'll put in. And that's a pretty good exchange. But that won't happen unless you're intentional about it. It won't happen without making a point of building relationships, being helpful, being available, not being too busy. So, yeah, that's definitely one of the things that I noticed too. The other thing that I forget when I get really busy is this is fun. Yeah. I think sometimes we get into the things, like it's our job to create a fun environment. It's our job to make sure other people are having fun. But we live in a space and we work in a space that is all about people spending their extra play money on toys. Collectibles should be intrinsically fun. We shouldn't have to. We shouldn't have to externally make it fun. Like the. The act of buying and enjoying a baseball card should be fun. Yeah. Yep. I think the other things that I've noticed is it's easy to be more focused on comparison when. When I'm around people that are burnout in the space. One common thing that I hear is people that their business was humming along, and then they get kind of burnt out or whatever's going on. All of a sudden, shows were amazing, and now all the promoters suck. All the promoters aren't doing their job. And sure, there have been shows that everybody's been to. If they set up on a regular basis that just don't meet the hopes or expectations. Right. And sometimes that's not the promoter. Sometimes the show just wasn't promoted well. Right. Sometimes there's other factors. But when you're hearing people constantly point elsewhere, that's a time, that's a sign. If you're doing that, that's a sign that you might be a little bit burnt out, you're running out of options. You don't have a fresh thought on what to do next. I know Gary and I have had to revamp what we do 10 times. It's probably going to happen another 10 times in the next six months. Yep. You know, so you have to understand that to your point, when it comes to, like, when you're pointing outwards all the time, one of the things that you and I know for a fact, and it's because we spent so many years in sales, interpersonal sales, if you're feeling that burnout, if you're feeling that. That feeling of transactional, you know the nature of things. If you're feeling frustrated when people walk up to the table and don't offer you what you think you should for a card, you don't have any idea. You don't even realize the energy that you're putting off. That's a good. And I know that I've fallen victim to that. I'm like, what is going on here? I've got great cards. And I stop and I go, boy, I'm putting off the energy of a porcupine right now. Like, yeah, don't come near me. I'm gonna shoot arrows at you. Yep. And if you're putting off that energy, you may not even know you're putting off that energy, and it's costing you. And it's like a. It's. It's like, it's a scarcity mindset. There's not enough to go around. And sometimes it happens. Like, you can be having a good show right now, and you're thinking about the next three shows, and if I didn't do enough this week, then that means this is going to happen during the week, that's going to happen next week. And there's no chance this show does X, Y and Z. And once you're in that train of thought, you're already screwed. I. I don't know how people can perform in that mindset, but I sure know that it costs me money to live there. And I'm speaking from experience. I'm not saying I'm good at this. I'm saying it's tough. I think a lot of people, especially early on in the full time gig, if you're being honest about it, it is such a grind, you know, you figure out what's working and then sometimes it doesn't work. You know, I think of and sometimes it's as simple as a strategy or a purchase, you know, some advice you took on what you should be buying and selling. And you know, the ship's an interesting show for me because last time at Shipshewana when Banyama stuff was on the biggest discount we've ever seen. And then this time it is screaming hot and you just realize there's going to be ebbs and flows. If I hadn't done this for a few years now, I would be nervous because things have slowed down and it's late in May, except every year early summer before the national. This happens. Yes. And so if I'm too tired because I'm not taking time and all that, it's easy to just take that thought and run with it. And I know there's some of you listening. It's like this is kind of a weird episode. You guys are getting in the weeds over one specific thing. But if it's there, a reflection that we've been catching a lot lately with dealers where they're struggling, it's this fact they're. They're feeling a little discouraged. Or maybe it's a shop owner that, you know, with the way that the direct accounts have shifted and trying to figure out, like, it's not that you don't have enough to figure out right now. You're just nervous because you can't see what things will be like in a year. What are things going to be like in six months? What's going to be like next month with product releases? Right. And if you're new to the, the space, from the business side of things, maybe you've been a collector for a long time, but you just in the last few months decided, okay, I'm going to actually take this seriously. I'm going to set up at shows. And you've not been through these cycles that we've been through a few times. You might be coming into the summer swoon. There's always a slowdown. You might be going, oh my gosh, I was doing six grand a show every week and now I'm doing three. Is the market collapsing? Like, what's. No, it's just the summer swoon. It happens every single year. Kids are playing baseball, families are taking vacation. The national, things will start to pick up and Then football camp start and it's like, then we're off to the races again. It's, it's all cycles and patterns change here at the ball card show. When we decided to partner with Pristine Auction, it's because it felt like such a no brainer. Pristine has gone out of their way to make sure that the entire collector experience is as transparent and seamless and authentic as possible. They offer fast paced live selling auctions where every sale sets a recorded component. They offer 10 minute auctions where 10 lots go up and you can bid on them for 10 minutes. And they offer traditional daily and weekly auctions as well if that is more your speed. Most importantly, every item you purchase from Pristine, they stand behind and guarantee to be authentic for the entire time that you own the item. For a limited time, when you register at Pristine and sign up with the code ball card, you'll get $20 off your first auction win as well as three months of gold. Stat us as a consigner win the real thing Pristine Auction. So let's get on the solution side of this. So whether it's fatigue, whether it's burnout, frustration, quick reminder, the person walking up to your table is not the enemy. If you fe. If you're intrinsically in your gut, when somebody walks up to look at your stuff, feeling like you have to dig some heels in, that's an indicator. I'm guessing you haven't always been like that. I'm guessing that there was a time when you were actually excited to talk to somebody and see if they were interested in and whether it's the way the market changed, the way repackers, you know, not just the repack industry but like, you know, talk about these 15 year old kids rolling in and yeah, being disrespectful, you know, whether intentional or not, you know, sourcing that kind of stuff, I know that that's, that's changed the environment for people. But if you're feeling that every time somebody walks up to the table, let me just say this as point blank as I can. It's not only going to cost you something way more important than money, but it's definitely going to cost you money. And I think it's easy to forget that when things shift, sometimes the stuff that you're buying works really well for a year and then it changes. Gary and I are fortunate that we noticed a trend towards a lighter price point on some of the ultra modern. That's good and bad. It's, it's good in that we can buy a Lot of volume. And if players get an upside, that's great. It's bad in the fact that I think the reason a lot of repacks are moving to that is not just that it's consolidating, but when people are sourcing 50 cards, they found it's way easier to get to 80% by saying 40. And most dealers don't do the math. They're like, that's a cheaper card. Sure. Right. So these, you know, these kids are getting cards at 75%, 80%, that they have a hard time doing that with $100 and up stuff. So we are trying to adapt to what we see happening. I'll tell you what's going on right now. I'm halfway through a big stack of 90s Jordan inserts here. Have you guys taken a peek? If you're listening to this, that 90s insert market, especially Jordans, while it's been climbing, it has gone borderline hyperbolic. Hyperbolic in the way. Parabolic. Yeah, hyperbolic. Hyperbole. Wrong word. Parabolic in that, like, as soon as a PSA 9 hits, it's going for so much, and then all of the raw stuff around it are. Are running to those numbers to support it. Which isn't how that era of inserts has worked for a long time. No. We're seeing what you and I have been talking about for several years, which is the. The era of stuff that was popular when people our age were kids. We are all now old enough that either our kids are close to being out of the house or they're out of the house. There's disposable income again, and we want to relive our childhood. Yep. I've been saying this for three years on this podcast. If you listen to us three years ago, and you were out buying Jordan inserts three years ago, you are very happy right now if you still have them. Perfect example is the. The one that everybody calls the Scarface Jordan. That card three years ago was $20. They're doing 6 to 700 raw now. I sold a raw at 300 not even six months ago. Yeah. Picked one up this week, and it comps right around 600 bucks. Yeah, it's. It's. So. It's a little weird when you start to see a cop hit, and then it's like everything chasing that. The outlier. That's what I would call it as an outlier when you have a $30 insert and then a PSA 9, and it's not a super tough grade, all of a sudden. Pops off for 120 bucks, then the next five raws are $70. It's somebody trying to reverse engineer the equation. That's not necessarily accurate. But pay attention to what's happening. If the 90s basketball inserts are getting a lot of attention and what you've been putting in the showcase isn't getting much attention, that it may be worth taking a peek at some of that and seeing if there's some upside there. But, yeah, pay attention to the trends that are taking place, because sometimes the market has moved into a different sector. Space, price, band, sport. The attention's more on the goat than the rookie, whatever that is. If you're not having conversations with people and you don't have relationships with other dealers and you're not consuming any kind of content around the space, you're kind of in the dark without a flashlight. Just hoping your own experience will give you that feedback. And I. I think the feedback's available if you want. Sure. Yep. Yeah. So, Gary, what would you say to the person that's feeling, like, super bummed out? Where do you tell them to get started? I think that Dalen gave really good advice last week. If you're super bummed out, you're super feeling burnout. I hope that in all the hecticness that this business can throw at you, that you have a PC set aside an hour or two of your life and just go look at your cards. The stuff that's not available to sell to anybody else that makes you remember a time in your life, whether it was going to a baseball game with your dad or your mom or whatever it was, and just spend some time grounding yourself there. I would also really encourage you to try to change your algorithm, even if you have to forcibly change your algorithm to focus on the content that we consume in this space, to focus on the stuff that's more positive, that's more affirming. Not. I'm not telling you you have to go and just be happy with shills. I'm just saying that if the content that you consume is nothing but people complaining and bitching and moaning about the space, maybe try something else. Yeah, try and try to surround yourself with people who like it here, because the attitudes of the people you surround yourself with, the. The attitudes of the people whose content that you consume and take in on a regular basis are going to reflect in you. Right. Like, that was the big thing for me with that conversation with Dalem last week. I left that interview and that conversation just feeling more refreshed and more grounded. In this space than I have for a while. Like, this is a person who works just as hard, if not harder than we do. That's live twice a day, six days a week. That is building a community that is running a business. And he still has that level of genuine appreciation for a base. Third year Corbin Carroll Stadium club card. How do you do that? You do that by not letting yourself be fed negativity all the time. And you don't forget that there's more to it than making a buck. Yes. Yeah, I think that's really important. And it's hard. Hard for us to do that when you're paying your bills with it. It is. It's. It's really hard. But even our content, like, yeah, unapologetically from day one, if we're putting the work in on this, we want to be able to have some value in the content. Not just that people get. Get an experience to have a chance to get to know us before they would see us at a show, but because we're trying to add value in the content that we offer. And so I. I would agree with you on that. I think the reminder he had was. He was talking about the. That that base card is like, there's somebody out there that would love this card. Yes. Because it reminds him of X or Y or Z. And then I began to hear, like, the examples he gave, and I began to think of these collectors who have never had anything beyond a nostalgic thing. And they've got a binder that's got a few base cards and a newspaper clipp. Their favorite playoff series where somebody hit a bottom of the ninth home run and a coaster and a bobblehead they got for free back at, you know, at the stadium back in the day. Like, I think the business end of this will pull you away from that. And you, as a business owner are going to have the responsibility to bring yourself right back to being centered there. And on the content side, if you're not surrounded with people pushing you forward, cheering you on, offering to be a resource, filling the tank rather than taking away, you're making it harder. You're making it harder. It's not easy to find that balance. I know that that's something Gary and I deal with is we have no issue having, you know, calling something a rough take or saying the man has, you know, made a bad decision or, hey, this is bad for the industry, or, hey, this is concerning. We set it on multiple fronts. And it can also be true at the very same time. Yeah. That we Love the cards that we collect. And we are trying to make as much money as humanly possible. Yeah. In this space as we do that, there's a belief that those things can't exist together. And to those people, I would say I'm probably never going to convince you. To the rest of the world, I'd love to meet you, get to know you, find out what you collect and have a good time. Yes. You know, enjoying the space on that. So. Yep. I just felt like the conversation with Dalen was a good reminder. It made me look inward on a lot of things. I'm not going to say that stuff doesn't suck. If it sucks. I'm not saying that. I'm not, you know, I'm not able to fake that super well. I'm not very good at that. But I do think it's up to us, where we put our energy and attention in the space and who we spend time with. And I think that's. That's the big takeaway. If you are. If you're finding yourself feeling burnout, finding yourself becoming negative about everything, finding yourself just every time somebody says something that's negative, you're like, yeah, yeah. If that's who you find yourself being, I'm. I'm willing to venture a guess that you weren't always that way and that if you were honest and looked in the mirror, you go, gosh, I don't like this version of me that much. In this space, my encouragement to you would be, you don't have to be that way. You know, you can be realistic about the challenges that we face without becoming woe is me. The sky is falling. Everything is crumbling down around us. The hobby is on fire. Like you. There's a. There's a spot in the middle where you can live that still lets you enjoy the space in a positive way and be a positive influence on the next generation of people coming into the space. Yep. So I was having a really interesting conversation with Keith up at Newhart Cards in Delaware today before we recorded this. And he was talking about how he's been training some guys in the shop. And, you know, one of the things that he's been trying to teach them is that just because a card has a comp doesn't mean it's a card worth buying, even if the numbers and the math look right. But he did a great job of breaking this down. So let's head to Delaware, Ohio, Newhart Cards, Keith with Shop Talk. Hi, this is Keith at Newhart Cards. And this is Shop Talk. Started this part of the podcast, talking really about the business side got away from it a little bit with the bellyache sessions about tops and fanatics and all what they're doing. So just want to talk about a couple little things in our business that we tweaked last week that again, nobody's going to notice, but we notice inside these four walls. So first of all, we do four whatnot shows a week. We've actually just cut one. So we cut our Friday afternoon two o' clock whatnot show. It was stuffed between three and twenty dollars. There's a lot of competition in the afternoons and it really wasn't even about that. It's about our processes. So when we get back, we have to ship all those 150 items. That takes one of my buyers off the showroom floor and makes him kind of ship for the rest of the day and not be a buyer, you know, a retail salesman out here. So that's one of the things we tweaked. Another thing that we've tweaked. I don't know if we've mentioned this or not, but talking about this with our guys is just because there's a comp on a car doesn't mean necessarily that we, we have to buy it. We have always buying on our front window, which basically means we are always buying. There's a lot of things that we just aren't good with. And we know that, you know, our main sports are baseball and football and Pokemon. Basketball and hockey don't sell for us that well. So if I'm buying a red finest rookie auto to 5 and a PSA 10, I know what's going to happen. That's not a shop card for us, that's an ebay card. So then you hope and you wait and you hope that the comps don't drop or something like that. So we've tweaked that and said just because there is a comp, it doesn't necessarily mean that's something that we need to buy again. We've been in business 15 years. We're always tweaking little things like that. But that's something that you're probably not going to notice. But again, inside these four walls, it's changes that we have to make. This has been Keith at Newhart Cards and this is shop Talk. Thanks, Keith. As we get closer to the national, we're gonna do some fun stuff in partnership with Keith. So keep an eye out on that. We want you to be able to go meet him, buy some cool cards from him at the National. Of course we'll be over there throughout the week. And then I'm Gary, I'm volunteering you for this. I haven't asked it. We're going to try to come up with some fun giveaway for any of the fans that head over to Keith's and purchase a card and then we'll have something fun for him from the ball card show. Be sure to take advantage of of that. You want me to hit you with a random popper drop here? Sure. All right, I'm gonna give you some names. You're gonna say pop or drop and give us a quick explanation. I don't need to answer. I'll just let you hit them. The first one we have to talk about because everyone is talking about Victor Womenyama. We're talking about current card market popper drop drop. Why? Because the season is almost over for them and I don't care if he scores 90 points in the next game. If they lose and don't make it to the finals, his cards are going down. Now if you still like Wimby and you plan on buying more Wimby, what would be your recommendation to those people? I would wait until late July to buy more Webby and then let's go. Extra bonus points. How much of an adjustment do you think there is to Wimby's market? Let's call it August or September. 20. 20 to 30%. 20 to 30%. All right. Yep, not a bad play there. All right. Mike Trout. Pop still too cheap. Still too cheap. Still a locked in first ballot, 99 plus percent of the vote. Hall of Famer, best player of his generation and he's healthy again and people are like I don't care. They'll care. They'll care in about seven years when he goes in the Hall. What would you target if you were looking for trout stuff? I know my answer but I'd like to hear what you think. His rookie stuff is so cheap and then low numbered autos like you can get transcendent autos number to 25 for less than 400 bucks like on card stuff and then his rookie stuff. Like I would be buying as many PSA 9 rookie variations as I could get my hands on if they were presented to me. Yep, I, I would agree with that on the rookie nines. The other thing I would say is the patch game. I, I'm really interested to see what happens when across all major three game use patches are the standard again. And I wonder if some of that now I know some of the dynasty. Dynasty stuff is already just because of what it is, a premium. But like Transcendent's a great example of that. So it's diamond icons. Yeah. You can get some absolutely gross patches now probably luminaries deal. What 250 to 300 to grand is probably the. The place you're playing on like the lower end of the premium stuff. But if you can find unique game use patches that are low numbered, that's something I'd be interested in because I think that entire space is a little bit untapped on that. But I'm. I would agree with you there. Wimy is a weird one because it's like, does the. Is the market looking for a SH experience in the NBA? By that I mean for the first time in a very long time, we saw a player's market continue to rise through the off season with sh. Yeah, I think that the difference could do that. No sh. That didn't happen with sh until it was three MVPs and two World Series deep. Great point. Right. But recency bias is quite a thing in this space. It is, but wimby it. Wimby is an absolute freak show and he has all of the ability to be an all timer. I don't think anybody has a question there. Ohtani's already that. Yes. Ohtani could have a. Something happen tomorrow where he never plays another game and he's gonna get in the hall of fame. His black. Fine. I101. Did you see that? Did it go nuts? Oh, I know. Mars bought one, didn't they? Well, no, this is wimby. Wimby. Oh, Wemby's black. Finite. Oh, I'm sure it went stupid. 5.1 million. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, again, that price point on a Wimby, what's he gotta do for that to hold? Like that's. That's the. Well, the market just has to believe. Right? That's. That's what we're talking about. Will the market respond? Not should. Yes, but. But how will they. I also think that it's really important thing to ask yourself as you're dabbling into this kind of stuff. I don't think very many people listening to this podcast are spending $5 million on a Wimy. But there might be some of you considering spending four grand on a Prism Silver with a pop of almost 6,000. I would not advise doing that. One thing to watch. I think that's a great point when you're looking at cards like that. Like the silver 10. Right. Not the most rare card in the world. Okay. If you see going into playoffs a double up, almost a triple up on comps, it should at least be a pause to get rid of it. The tendency early on when you're getting into this is, oh, it's a gold rush, It's a bonanza, Go get it. But most of the time, you're a little late to the party there because everybody else sees that data too. So be careful with that. All right. The next one's a little fun, but I want your honest take on this. Popper drop, Kyler Murray pop going into the season. Every quick flip. I mean, it can be whatever every quarterback. I said earlier, I showed you this earlier. Sometimes you make a mistake and you hold it long enough that you can probably break even on it. Here we are with this blue. How big was that car back in the day? I mean, it was a 5 to 700 card a while back, and then it dropped down to like a hundred dollar card. Now it's about a $220 card, which is about what I paid for it because I screwed up. I made a mistake, which happens to all of us. But every quarterback not named JJ McCarthy has looked awful good in that offense. And I think that most people who know football and watch J.J. mcCarthy in college knew that it wasn't going to be a smooth and simple transition to the NFL for him. Even though he seems like a great kid and he works really hard. Kyler is three foot nothing, but he runs really fast and has a really big arm. And every time he's been in an offense that opened things up and played to his strengths, he's put up good numbers. And Minnesota has some real good receivers. Pretty good running back, pretty good offensive line. Yeah. So. Yep. Okay. Shador Sanders, pop or drop? Drop. Why already speculative pricing. And every rumble that I've heard coming out of Cleveland is that there is a reluctant realization that Deshaun Watson might be their starter. Oh, I think. I think they're definitely going to start desean. Yeah. Which is terrifying. But that. That seems to be the case. And if Shadur doesn't start off the rip, all the speculative buying, we're gonna see exactly what happened with Will Levis cards Two years ago, Will Levis at the national in 2024 was the hottest thing you could buy. If you bought it, you moved it. And I think we'll see the same thing. Okay, let's keep it rolling. Misarowski. Jacob Mizarowski. Market has really popped in the last month. It. It's a drop only because It's a young pitcher. I mean, look at even the best young pitcher in the game. Paul Skiing's. His market has settled and Mizarowski is a freak show, but still a young pitcher. Chase Burns, Same thing. Chase Burns. I am actually the opposite on because his market has not exploded and he's been the best pitcher in baseball. Not named Ohtani. Yeah, I like it. Last one, interesting case here. Ellie De La Cruz. Still, I Last year it was a drop. Now it's a pop. Why is that? Because he's playing at an MVP conversation level on a team that is staying above.500 somehow. As a Reds fan, I don't know how they're doing it, but they are. And his market is starting to pick back up, but it still has not reached the point that I think it will. I think there's another 15, 20% there by the All Star Game. I like it. I like it. So by the time that you all check in on this episode, I'm already on the beach. I'm thinking about all of you individually by name, even though we've never met or maybe we have. And I'm thinking fondly of our community. I'm just kidding. You're not thinking about anything other than the book you're reading, where your next drink's coming from. Yeah, absolutely. So a couple of things. Let's go to the rundown of the shows coming up this weekend. If you're catching this on Friday, when it drops on Saturday, Gary will be in Chillicothe, Ohio, for the Southern Ohio Sports Card Spectacular. Spectacular Sounded wrong in my head, but that was right. Yeah, that's Rob Dolby show, correct? Yes. So Rob from Game Time puts that one on. We've been there a few times, been a fun show every time. The following week, Indianapolis, Midwest Monster. I'll be flying back from Antigua Thursday night, landing supposedly at 10:30. But we're flying back American. So who knows when I'll get in? Leaving what, five, six o' clock in the morning the next day? Yep, something like that. Straight to Indy. We'll be there for two days of the Midwest Monster, Noblesville, Indiana. Be sure to check that out. Then we have a week off. A week after that we will be in Nashville, Tennessee, 1200 table show. Definitely check that out. If you're anywhere close. If you want to see a larger show that has a good mix of vendors. Yeah, that's it. That's the one. Following week, end of June, Columbus Card Fest at the Columbus Convention Center. Big show. And I keep hearing lots of very special surprises along the way for that. A lot of it hasn't been rolled out. G14 classified. If that's still a thing before we head out, quick reminder. Be sure to like and subscribe. Give everything a follow. Visit our friends over at Pristine, where you will get $20 off of your first auction with the Code Ball card when you register. We will be live on Whatnot on Sunday at 6:30. Gary's going to be holding down the fort next Wednesday when I normally have my solo show. Gary is going to be doing a solo show then and we'll be back the regular routine the following Sunday, so be sure to check that out. Without further ado, this has been the Ball Card show, the sports podcast, or the Esports collector. Bye now. Peace.