Episode 104 35 Year Anniversary Part 2

Welcome back to Sports Cars and a Cup of Joe. This is your host, Joe Davis and I am here today with my co host, Taylor Pruitt. Taylor, welcome back. And we are here for part two of our 35th anniversary episode where I'm in the hot seat. Taylor. Taylor's pouring a number of tough questions my way and I'm gonna do my best to give him some good answers. Hopefully you'll learn something or at least get a laugh at my expense, and that's okay. So Taylor, welcome back. Yeah, no thanks. And let's hear what we got today. You did such a good job answering the other 35 questions or whatever we did, I thought we might as well do it again. Sure thing. So the first segment we did a lot of looking back, what do you think about the last, the past 35 years of owning the card shop? We're not going to hold you to any of these answers because nobody can predict the future. But a lot of these questions are going to be what do you think is going to happen the next 35 years? Maybe even including, does this shop exist? Those kind of things. You game? You ready to do that? Yeah. Okay, let's do it. So when you think about the next 35 years of just the hobby in general, what excites you the most? I would say even just the next five years, I mean, which obviously that's the first step to get to the 35 and that some of that's based upon just the last few of what I've seen. Just there is so much excitement, there's so much synergy like connecting the actual sports to the game, players being involved with collecting and marketing and I mean, we didn't have that in the past. And so there's so many more kids coming in is great. So many more families, so many more ladies shopping for cards that we haven't seen. I mean, you gotta remember back in the day it was, you come in our store and it was basically, you know, 40 year old men and older. That was our, that was 90 plus percent of our, you know, it was guys pretty much my age and older and that was, that was our client base. So now it's, you know, you got five years old, you got 85 years. Yeah. And they're spending the same amount of money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the knowledge base that young kids have, they put me in my place at shows. Sometimes I'm blown away by the knowledge they have. And what's exciting is that these 5 year olds in 35 years are going to be 40 years old, obviously, which means I remember I came back 35 years later to being now 33 and liking baseball cards again. So the whole cycle of 35 years from now. Okay, so do you think, if you had to guess, will card shops still exist 35 years from now? I sure hope so. And it's not about me, obviously, because I don't know that I'll be around in 35 years. I hope so, but I certainly hope so. I mean, I know there's all the trends towards shopping online and live selling online and so forth, but I just believe there's a place in the hobby certainly today, and I hope so in the future that, you know, you can have that place to come and hang out. You can come and build relationships with other collectors. You can learn from people who are more experienced that you. You. I just, I hope and pray that there's always a place for card shops in the industry. Because I think, yes, I'm a card shop owner and I have plenty of close friends who own shops across the country, but I just believe there's still a need for us. I believe we are difference makers in the industry. I believe we matter. And yeah, I can go sit in my basement and livestream all day, or I can go sit in my basement and buy and sell and list and ship and never interact with another person face to face. But, you know, I would be missing out a lot in life if I did that. No, I'm with you. What do you hope specifically got baseball cards, looks and feels like in 35 years. If you're just dreaming, obviously it's not about more sales. I mean, your typical business owner's like, oh, I hope we can 10x our sales and we can 10x this or whatever. I mean, our hobby's trying to 10x. And that is a good thing because it means we're reaching more collectors, bringing more people into the hobby. But it's not a numbers thing. I literally had a new team member here recently asked me, he's like, why don't you go on Shark Tank and tell them about your company and see if you can get a ton of financing to just blow things up even more coffee shops across the world. Yeah, I'm like, no, I'm good. I'm like, that's not my desire. But I would say I hope we have more influence. I hope our influence continues to grow because we try to put out content that helps people. We try to provide education that helps people. We're not a hype machine. Those who watch our. Yes, we'll talk about a new product here and there and hey, we think this is fun to buy or whatever, but we're antithetical to a lot of things in the industry because a lot of things going on in the industry is about who can yell the loudest on their live stream and tell you every last hit you're going to get. That's why you need to jump in now and you need to buy whatever. And that's not me, that's not us. I hope we can continue to have a positive influence in the industry and hopefully decades from now, if that's God's plan for us to still be around as a company, whoever's leading it by then. You're saying 90, how old would you be then? Let's see. Yeah, I'd be in my early 90s. You're not saying 92 year old Joe's going to be. Yeah, so I don't think that'll be going on then. I'm not saying I won't still be collecting. That's different. But I don't want to be doing 80 hours a week then. So, yeah, I'd say more important to me is that can we grow our influence to help more people in the industry? I'm getting ideas as you talk about it, so I have to talk after our podcast. Okay, if you could build your dream version of a shop with zero limitations, what would it include? You just start from scratch, all the money you need. How would you build a shop? A lot more floor space than we currently have. The retail area. Oh yeah, retail would have way more space. A lot more space. You know, a lot of dedicated space just for people to hang out, just to come in and open boxes or look through dollar boxes and you build community. Or we have that space here, but not nearly as much as I would like. I would have educational areas. Like I literally thought about this one time, like if you had unlimited funds, it'd be cool to have just a baseball card in a museum where you're not there to sell stuff. People just would come in. Because I love going to the Schultz Museum in Santa Rosa as a huge Peanuts fan and I love going to Disney. I've been to Disney museums and you always get ideas. But yeah, I'd love to have this huge space. We would just walk in and they'd see every Topps pack, they'd see samples of every Topps card over the decades. Maybe your Babe Ruth ball. Yeah, maybe my Babe Ruth ball that I sold too cheap, whatever. But think of a baseball hall of Fame or you know, think of your combination of all the different sports hall of Fames, but now tied into trading cards. That's cool. So like, yeah, you got information about Wilt Chamberlain, but you also see his 61 Fleer rookie and you've got a huge, you know, likeness of Michael Jordan. Statue of Michael Jordan. And then in front of that you see his star company rookies and his Fleer rookies. Cool idea. So a synergy between players and. And their cards to provide education on the. Because without the. When you're talking sports, without the ball players, you don't have the cards. But without the cards you don't have the hobby. So this great synergy. So education. Awe inspiring images and things to look at. Plenty of community space as well as. You know, there's a lot of things we do in our retail store here that if I had more space, we would take it to the next level. You know, I love what Nate does at Grand Slam Tennessee with the vintage wax and we do that here. We just don't have the space to do it like he does. But I love being able to walk into a store and see 50 years of old packs or, you know, 100 different old boxes that are 2 bucks a pack or whatever. And because that provides education, but it's also a throwback. And so I, you know, you got, I'd love to have that. You also want to have, you know, the new, the high end as well as, you know, I love some of the sewers. I love some of the things HQ's done. Having Breaker pavilions right there so you can connect people to. Hey, we're live streaming. So like when we're not open, it's kind of. I love that concept because you're educating people. I'd love to move our live streaming studio downstairs and people can see what's going on. Yeah, that's a cool idea. Those are good ideas. It starts with space. It starts with space. Breathable. I mean, yeah, you want to have showcases, you want to have stuff filled with cards. But. And great staff, which we have. But even with a bigger space, you'd need more people and so more people there answering questions and a whole. Definitely. I would love to dedicate a whole area for PSA grading, but not just dropping off, but education about grading cards. Things we do through video content, things we do when we talk to clients on the phone, but whole area showing. Here's what you want to look for on centering, corners, edges, surface. You know, here are the tools you can use to help you screen Card yourself. This is what we do here at our shop. And so to. I want collectors to have those light bulb moments where they go, ah, that's what off center is. Oh, I do need to look at the back of the card because there are print lines or there's scratches. So a whole education area to help collectors learn more. I love that. I really like the idea of the museum too. I think somebody likes top should just go and create that. How cool would that be to have like now they have all the whatever sports. Yeah. With all the licenses. Yeah, that would be so. Other than hockey. Yeah, that'd be so cool. So maybe they'll give you credit if they do that. Yeah, yeah. What changes do you think are coming to the hobby that people are not ready for, if you had a guess? Well, I mean we look back just in the last couple of years, I think what has concerned collectors the most is the. We used to have all these different companies. I mean just think of the graded industry. We had psa, bgs, sgc, CGC as competitors. There's been this huge consolidation in the industry and same with Fanatics. Now Fanatics owns the licenses to the three biggest sports. So I think that's been, I think that's. As an. I'm not an outsider but for outsiders looking in, they go, wow, there's been a lot of consolidation. And then they start talking about the M word. Like does that mean consolidation? Does that mean monopolization? And that's what a lot of people are concerned about. But the more the industry grows, I think you'll see more of that because more big money buys up smaller startups, smaller companies. And I think you will see more of that and it remains to be seen what of that is positive because there will be positive thing. There's a. I mean you think about with grading. One thing I tell. Of course we represent all those companies and we did before they were consolidated. But the one. There's some really good positives that come out of that. And part of that is the synergy of information flow. You know, when there's a new counterfeit card on the market. All three of those companies are talking now because they're owned by the same parent company. So a counterfeit submitted to bgs, they alert their partner companies. And I know some of that went on anyway. I know. I mean I was friends with a lot of the guys who used to be at some of these companies and still am. But I'm saying there's always been pretty good flow of communication, but now they, they should anyway really be looking out for each other even more because it's one parent company, they share the same profits. And so like, you know, BGS doesn't want the sister companies shouldn't want the other company to mistakenly grade some counterfeits or something like that or to know about, oh, hey, this particular guy or this particular company sends in a ton of trimmed and altered cards. Y' all need to look out. This is, you know, we're really concerned about what's happening here, you know, because they're always new technology, sadly, it's, it's wonderful, but it's dangerous. There's always new things, you know, and the counterfeiters are always coming up with. I mean, we see it all the time coming in the store, getting submissions in the mail. And we're like, and some of them test us. We're like, we need to, we need to really drill down and verify is this authentic or not. And we got in a fake 61 FLIR Chamberlain just the other day and, and the color was really good. And we try to protect the submitter before it's ever sent in. And we're like, if we can verify it's counterfeit, we're gonna catch on the front end. And so we, you know, the visual test, it looked really good. The field test, the paper stock was not consistent. It was close, but it was so. But there are always new counterfeits coming out. So I think some of that consolidation has some benefits, but I think that's certainly probably the biggest concern right now, that a lot of people are looking at it like, oh, our industry's becoming controlled by a few big corporate entities and that's the concern. But it's too early to really tell how that's going to play out. So you think that maybe they'll be surprised at the level of investment that still comes in and doesn't make that concern. I think there are billions of dollars that are going to be poured in the industry. You know, we. Sports cards, non sport cards, just, let's just say collectible trading cards. They are an asset class on the same level as gold and silver and all this things that have been asset classes forever. And sports cards are super liquid. There's incredible demand. There's global demand. This is not just in the United States. There's, there's global demand for these items. New records are being set monthly, weekly on sales. I mean, a Luke Skywalker card from my childhood just sold for nearly $700,000. It's insane. Yeah, that's insane. So there's a lot more money. I started seeing this prior to the pandemic boom. I was seeing investors coming into the industry. And you're seeing more and more now. Yeah. What part of the hobby do you think will grow the most over the next 35 years? I know that's a long way. We could say decade, like I guess we could say, is it the breaking? Is it the live streaming? Is it the actual product? Is it the. Yeah. What do you think? What part of the hobby will grow the most? Probably live selling. Not just breaking, but just literal live selling. I remember I was at a conference in Hawaii, used to be the old Hawaii trade show in 2002. And I remember my friend Rob Veres from Burbank was presenting and he was talking about the importance of selling online, which was really new back then. And he was educating others about the importance of either having a website or selling on a third party site or whatever that like this is gonna be the thing, people are gonna wanna shop. Was ebay even a thing yet or is he just saying it was? Yeah, he was selling primarily on the Beckett Marketplace then. And I remember some other store owners literally saying, I remember this one lady, she said, I am never gonna sell online. I'm just gonna sell in my store and I want you. And she was really rude to Rob. He might remember this, but. But I remember her just saying, I want you to tell me what you're going to do for me because I'm not going to ever sell online. I want to figure out how to get more people in my store. I bet she orders five times from Amazon today now. Yeah. It reminds me of if you've ever studied the case study of Blockbuster stores and Netflix and when originally Netflix was, you could go up and you'd rent the videotapes and deliver it to your house. Yeah. And then it developed to online and so forth. And I remember Blockbuster had a change of president and he announced, we're going to reinvest in our store. We're not getting into this online stuff. We are going to make our stores great and that's what we're going to do. We're going to be the king of walking in and doing video rental in your store. And of course now look at them. Yeah. And so you got to change with the times. And so we've been slow to adapt that. I mean. But you know, we're getting there. But I think lives like shops who are listening. If you're. If you're only selling in your store and you're only Maybe selling a little bit online. I think that's the next thing you need. You don't just need a website. You don't just need a Facebook page where you post twice a week. You need to literally be out there talking to the public, telling them, hey, come to our store. And while you're here on our livestream, you want to buy some product. You know, I think live selling is going to. I mean, everyone's watching their phones, everyone's watching screens, everyone's. You know, I mean, I just, I think that's a huge growth area. No, I'm with you. Yeah. And if you want to exist for 35 more years, like you're talking about, you're gonna have to not be blockbuster and adjust. New ideas come. Do you think physical cards will always matter or will digital collectibles eventually take over? If you had to guess, I mean, talking about crypto instead of actual currency, do you think eventually we get to the digital collectible? I think it's gonna be a while. Yeah. I mean, your typical. I know there's growth there. Growth potential there for sure. But, you know, I'm old school. Those who listen in, you know, they know I'm old school, I think. I mean, I love old cards. I love holding a Hank Aaron rookie in my hand. I love holding a Babe Ruth Gowdy in my hands. Nothing digital is gonna. I mean, comic book industry, same thing. They're fighting that, you know, they're like, we're going more digital. Like old school people. They want to hold that comic in their hand, you know, so there's that given there's a tension there, I guess. Yeah. But I believe if I have any influence, it's going to be buy those packs of cards, rip those packs of cards, enjoy those cards in your hand. Yep. Yeah. I mean, even when you talk about silver and gold, whatever, like, if you own an EFT or whatever of silver, you can't take that to a store and buy anything they want. They'd rather have real silver. Correct. So having the physical card, that'd be interesting. What's one current trend happening in the hobby now that you think will age well, that's like. That's a new idea. That's gonna be. You talk about live selling anything else, that's been a good idea recently. You're like, that's a good idea forever. Well, I mean, I think I've discussed this. Just the whole sector of entertainment cards have not gotten the love. And whether it be movie cards or cartoon character cards, I think there's so much growth there. I mean, I mean, I've done episodes on this. But, you know, Mickey Mouse, his first cards are so undervalued. You know, these characters are loved, treasured. Millions, sometimes hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on toys and games and all this stuff on these characters every year. But then you ask somebody, hey, you know what Scooby Doo's first card is? Huh? Never thought about that. I think there's this light bulb moment coming where. And we're working on it internally already because we love that kind of stuff. But I think there's this, I call it a light bulb where people go, oh, yeah, that does make sense. I mean, buying Snoopy's very first card probably is a pretty good buy. Buying Scooby Doo, I mean, that's two that I love. But I'm saying your typical collector, they'll buy brand new Disney Topps Chrome or new Marvel Chrome or stuff like that, and they enjoy it and they chase the one on ones and chase the autos or whatever. But you tell them like, well, you know, Spider Man's rookie cards in 66 Marvel, it's 66 Dondros. And they're like, huh, wow. You know, and there's not that many of some of these cards out there. There's certainly not that many of some of them graded. So I think as entertainment cards continue to blow up in demand the modern stuff, sooner or later others are going to go, you know, I'm probably gonna go back in time because some of these characters had stuff 30 years ago, 40 years ago, and stuff tied to movie franchise. I mean, we looked at what just happened with the Luke Skywalker card And the whole 77 Star wars set is trending now because of that. So movie related cards, characters, personalities, stuff like that over the decades, I think you're going to see a lot of movement there. I just watched a video on a huge explosion old presidential cards is happening right now. And I think that's a trend that's kind of below the surface right now, but that's going to become much more commonplace. And I can attest that you are putting your money behind that already because you believe that's really true. What's one trend happening right now that you think people will laugh In 10 years? I don't know. They'll laugh at it. One of the trends that concerns me the most, and I've shared this, is new releases with unnumbered inserts that are overhyped and overvalued while the product's still being released. And I had a phone call just yesterday, maybe it was two days ago, been a busy week. And a local collector, he's like, have you seen how much? And I'm not going to disparage this particular product because it's a good product, but he's like, have you seen how much those inserts have gone down? And he named a particular insert. He goes, that was $1,500 release week, and now three weeks later, they're a third of that. And I was like. And I wasn't for that. For me, I said, so it's not numbered, right? Well, no, I'm like, well, they're still releasing more of that product, right? Well, yeah, there you go. They've been three times more introduced to the. And so I always. That concerns me because I don't want collectors to get burned, and I don't want them to get upset because they feel like I overpaid for this. And they've got to take some responsibility. Because when a card is not. Now, if it's a numbered insert, you know how many are out there. If a manufacturer announces the print run or they say, all right, there's one of these in every X number of packs. You can gauge it a little bit. But sometimes when an insert's in every version of a product or it's in three different SKUs, and there is perceived rarity, but not actual rarity. I mean, for instance, you go back in time, some kabooms are incredibly rare. But as the products have been, as the print runs have gone up on some of those products, the volume of the inserts, the number made and so unnumbered inserts, non autographs, some of them that bring crazy money right now, that's a trend that concerns me, especially on new things. Like last year, stuff is done printing. But you're talking about. Especially in the current year, because people are like, I want to get the latest XYZ insert of Mahomes or of whoever. And like, well, the market's not really established yet. It's like buying a stock before you know how many shares are actually out there. And you're like, oh, it's an ipo. Well, how many shares are they releasing? I don't know. But I mean, that's a good company. Let's buy them up. You have no clue. And so that concerns me because I think a lot of collectors are getting burned. And the thing is, I lived through this. I saw this in the 90s when inserts finally became a thing. There were numbered inserts, there were unnumbered inserts. I mean, the old elite inserts. And 92 Donrus, there were 10,000 at least. You knew how many there were. But 92 Fleer rookie sensations the same year, the Frank Thomas card, which was not a rookie, but they were called rookie sensations, that card was so hot. And people were buying up 92 flirce cellos left and right to chase that card because, oh, you can only get them in a cello. What a rare insert, you know. And then there was the team leader inserts. Now the Jordans. If you bought those, you did good. But like the team leader inserts, like, I think they only came in the rack packs or something like in the basketball back then. And. And they were so in demand. They were, quote, so rare. But a lot of that stuff is in $5 boxes now and stuff. So that's one of the biggest concerns I have is that unnumbered unknown meaning you just don't know how many are out there. That's a scary trend to me. Yeah, that's a good one. Okay. Talking about our shop specifically now in the future, before we get to our rapid fire segment, and then the last question. What's something that you want got baseball cards to become better at over the next five, 10 years? I think we need to lean into more using technology more wisely. We've discussed this, like getting away from any paper forms. We take in so many submissions in store. And a lot of our collectors still want to use a paper form and put their info and digitizing all of that where it's immediately in our database and doing that at shows and just creating systems for our clients where they can like our consignors. We're already in process and all this. But like where consignors can quickly log in their account, see their consignment balance, know what every card sold for instantly, you know, and there's ways to do that. So improving our technological foundation to better serve clients have more information at their fingertips instead of having to call or email to get that information. Yep, I'm with you. And we are working on that. Yeah. Even having your grading customers be able to look 10 years back and see what they've submitted even to the card, what it was coming soon, hopefully. Okay, what's one thing you still dream about adding to this specific business? You've talked a little bit about retail space, but that's my biggest thing. Yeah, I mean, we have nearly 11,000ft here, but it's not enough. And the way for those who visit our store, the Way our building is structured, we have three floors and it's great in some ways because we can segment certain processes, but it's difficult because so much happens on the main floor because we have our retail there and we have shipping there and you need a lot of space for both and receiving. So stuff comes in, it goes back out and retails there. So that's my biggest thing is like, and I still pray for the right opportunity in the area to do something else, but I don't want to. Literally for a year this has been on my mind, but I don't want to force something. I don't want to do it just for the sake of getting more space. I want to have complete peace about this is the right move for us to quadruple our retail store, whatever that is, 10x whatever it is, you know, I want it to be the right location, the right space to make sense financially, but also to make sense for our customer base in this region. Our collectors who come in and we have people, we have clients come in from all over the country. But I'm saying we want to. We love our local metro Atlanta clients and we don't want to. I mean, I had an opportunity the other week, didn't even tell you, I don't think you know where. Someone called and said, hey, I've got a 20,000 foot space for you. You know, I'm going to give you a sweetheart of a deal. And I was like, man, this sounds great. He told me where it was and I'm like, dude, that's two hours away. I was like, that's not going to happen. I have to reestablish a whole new market. Yeah, exactly. I was like, space sounds great. Location, not so much, you know, that's crazy. Yeah, that'd be nice. Okay, what's one thing you think separates the card shops that start and then last and the ones that come last for a few years and then dwindle down? What's a separator? I think one of the biggest things is what is their motivation for being there. I literally just talked. We had a client in the shop the other day and he told me about a metro Atlanta store he had visited and he said, and this is a small store. So I'm not attacking. I don't want anybody to read into this. Oh, he's attacking this store. Like, no, I'm close. All of your major metro Atlanta stores I'm good friends with. This was a fairly new startup and small store. And he said, man, I talked to the owner and he's like. And I asked him, said, so are you passionate about cards? And he goes, no, I'm just passionate about making money. And I'm probably paraphrasing, but he said, that's basically the context. And he goes, this is a good way to make some money. And that was his whole, that was his motivation. And so I'm like, yeah, that's not. I was like, because there's, we're in a good place in the hobby right now. There's plenty of demand. But the days could come ahead when it's a 2011 again, when like those, you know, that's why I have such a great relationship with peers in the industry who've been around forever because I know they went through those horrible times, they stuck it out and it wasn't because they were making money. A lot of us were losing money hand over fist, year over year losing. But we were hanging on because we loved what we were doing. We loved, we believed in the future of the hobby. And so I think the motivation behind why you're there is incredibly important. You know, are you there to serve collectors, which is part of our mission statement? Or is your mission is owning a card shop a means to an end for you, of what you want to achieve financially? So that's the two opposite ends of the spectrum. To me, you have to be profitable enough to pay the bills, but I think that's critical. But also beyond that, I think great shops have to lean into learning to technology, to building relationships not just with their clients, but with their peers, with the manufacturers. So there's many layers involved. And so maybe I could create a course on Card Shop 101. At least my perspective, I need to involve others because I'd want to get input. Yes, guest professors. Yeah, exactly. But I think foundationally it's. What's your reason for doing it? When I opened the store I turned down in 1991. I know this is a future episode, but when I started, I turned down an opportunity to get a full time job in the sports apparel, you know, like a shoe store, you know, finish line Sporting goods. I had an opportunity to get in their management program and I'm like, I really love sports cards. I want to do sports cards. So I'm going to try it. Yeah. So yeah, I mean if you, if your motivation in the 90s and 2000s had been to only make money, oh, I would have closed ages ago. So it's that 1991 dream that you had of like, I want to be a card shop owner. Yeah, that keeps you going. I want to be that guy who talked to me in the early 80s and helped me, and I want my team to be those kind of people that's good. Educate. And that's probably, for you, a helpful, like, recentering thought on, like, a bad day here is like, why am I doing this? And then it's. I want to be that guy. Yeah, I want to be him. All right, you ready for rapid fire? And then we'll close it out. We will try. Okay. It'll be. Have a future twist to it. All right. I'm not gonna hold you to any of these answers. All right. The next athlete whose cards are going to explode. Wow. People are going to say he's already hot. I love Cooper Flagg. I think there's a whole nother. I mean, he's 18 years old, marketing, you know, I mean, he's in demand because. Because he had a great rookie season, but he hasn't crossed that threshold of being the guy marketing all these products. And, you know, his personality, his character, I just. I think the sky's the limit for him. Are you buying Cooper Flag? I have definitely, but y' all can look on our ebay. Yes, I've been buying a. I like him personally. I love him as an athlete, but I love. I think he's a good character guy, and I think nice. Okay. I guess this could be a similar question. One current player you'd invest heavily in long term, same answer. Is he a different guy? I still think he's still current for now. As I've shared. I think there's a lot of. There's so many LeBron haters out there that I think that has suppressed the value on some of his stuff. I think it's going to take LeBron retiring, and I'm not talking about the super rare stuff or the chrome black rookie refractors. Those are in the stratosphere. But I'm saying a lot of his more affordable rookie stuff, the base levels, I think there's room there. I think it may take him retiring for people to look back and truly grasp what he accomplished. Once his documentary comes out, like Jordan, people will be like, oh, yeah, he was great. They'll go, oh, yeah, he was great. He played how long? And he set Hemi records. That's crazy. Everybody always just focuses on the titles. I'm like, well, the bottom line is he did go there, like, nine years in a row. It's pretty insane. He was, like, the only guy on the team. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, I think Even though he's well established, I think there is definite potential there, you know, and I think you can look at your. I think there's some NFL quarterbacks who, you know, they're just like, Josh Allen. He's right on the verge. If he could ever get that, just get a ring, you know, like, they're always pushing the envelope. They're always getting close. You know, there's. There's some out there, but I think, you know, look at the teams who are. Who are so close, and I think there's opportunities there because if some of us could ever break through, you know, get. Get that one super bowl, you know, get the recognition, finally celebrate, I think there's some opportunities for some of the quarterbacks. All right, these got to be more rapid fire. You ready? Yep. Vintage or ultra modern in the future, like, 20 years from now, what's more valuable? I hope vintage. Okay. Will grading become more important or less important in 20 years? More important. One hobby company you think is headed in the right direction? Other than us, obviously. One hobby. It could be a shop nearby or it could be a big fanatics. Whatever. Well, I'm going to brag on one of my friends, Dennis at Triple Play Sports cards in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and his team, Mike and Jared, the other leaders there, they do retail as well as anybody I know. I've learned so many things from them. I've still got to get up there. But I hear so many stories of things they're doing, and we've shared so many ideas, and if anybody's watching, listening, if you're in that, you need to go visit because they do retail so well, and they do so many really cool things. Like he tells me once a month, we got to restock our blasters. We have, like, 250 different blasters in stock. Crazy. So good job, Dennis. Yeah. One hobby trend you hope disappears. It's a hard question, but one hobby trend, The over fractionalization in breaks. Because I think so many. I hate seeing. You know, it's like so many people are getting burned on breaks when it's like, all right, we got 400 spots and 250 of those spots, nobody gets anything, and you're literally just gambling on the big hit. And I think over time, that's gonna burn a lot of people out, both financially and interest wise, because, you know, you get tired of losing over and over. And so I think, you know, we're, you know, I think some breakers have taken it to the extreme, and I think that can hurt. That can hurt collectors Next question. Are breakers good or bad for the hobby? Yes. Okay. It just depends on who you're talking about. I think there's some that are really good and provide a good experience and have fun with collectors, but I think there are also some who, like I said, I don't like hype machines and that's not me. I just don't think that's the way to be a professional and I think being professional in this industry matters. So we have a different approach here. So yeah, I think that's an open ended question. You can approach different ways. That'll be a whole other episode sometime. One thing that collectors care way too much about right now, Chasing the latest, greatest, overhyped, unproven athlete. Yep. Okay. Projecting the future. Is it going to be more community driven or more investment driven? My hope and prayer is it's more community driven and we're seeing that. I know it's supposed to be rapid. This isn't going to be super rapid. Look at the growth of shows right now. Look at the growth of good shops and all of us wanting more space. Why do we need more space? So that more people can come in and have room and to do more things with them. So yeah, I think community matters a lot and I hope it will continue to be. And people want to be part of like the more separated we all get and social media or whatever, we want to be part of something together, which hopefully that's the future. What current sealed product would you most likely lock away the next 20 years? I think WNBA products are undervalued. I think that's going to continue to grow WNBA products and so it's got to be like new releases. Yeah, something that'll last a year that you would lock away for 20 years. Maybe some of the, some of the entertainment products that have widespread appeal. I think some of the Disney products, the spongebob product I think is still gonna. There's no ceiling on it for the first Chrome release. So yeah, I think you'll see more growth in the entertainment. Do you think there's any specific value in just having the first Chrome football that came back or something or the first Chrome basketball? Or is it all just going to be not just for the sake of it being the first one in a while? I think that's more because of the player selection, the insert, the hits, the autographs. There's certainly a reason to put it up for that. If you believe in Jackson dawn, you believe in, you know, the, the huge names that you might pull an autograph out of, you know, and I will say this. Breakers are still ripping through that stuff. Yeah. You know, more and more of that is drying up. It's going to take a while, but, you know, that is a huge release. Most underrated current player. You love the NBA. So, I mean, is there anybody that you. It could be card wise too, that you're buying cards that are undervalued right now? I think Austin Reaves. Yeah. I mean, he's a budding superstar. I heard Luka was just saying, like, hey, we need to trade for more big. Another big name. But he's a. But I heard a report he said, like, but don't get rid of Austin Reaves. Like, I need him. And so I love him. He just, he plays the right way. And when you're on a team with LeBron and Luka, it's easy to get overlooked. But he's a. He's an exciting play. He's a throwback kind of player. But I like him a lot. Yeah. Okay. Three more. The hobby in 2060. Bigger or smaller than today? Much bigger. Yep. Okay. If you had to bet on one sport growing the most in cards over the next 20, 35 years, what would it be? That's a tough one, man. I think basketball has some of the most worldwide appeal. I think you're seeing the growth in all the international teams, like when you see the Olympics, how hyper competitive all the other countries are now, which shows the development of that sport in their country, which we didn't see during the Dream Team. Dream Team dominated everybody. Now we were thankful to get away with a victory against France, you know, in the last Olympics. So if I had, maybe it's just because I'm such a huge basketball fan. If I had to pick one, I'd say basketball. But I think they're all going to grow. Yeah. And even NFL is starting to. Yeah, NFL's going as international as they can. Basketball has such a long season, you know, it's like the long. When you add in the playoffs, my wife Jane's always like, it's still going. Like, really? Because it's a very long season. So there's plenty of airtime, plenty of visual, you know. Yeah, that's a good one. What future technology will change collecting the most? That's your last rapid fire question. That's a hard rapid fire question. But. I mean, you're already seeing card identification tools. I wish, you know, there were more tools to help people with counterfeits. You know, if you could, you know, if you can scan and actually if photo could grasp the card stock. I mean, we still do the field test, you know, but, like, anything to help collectors avoid getting burned and identifying a real Mantle rookie from a counterfeit. A real Jordan rookie from a counterfeit Jordan rookie. So any things that can detect, I think that would be huge. And just, you know, like, we're trying to do better. Better ways to communicate with collectors, Better flow of information across the hobby. You know, like, wouldn't it be. Wouldn't it be great if there's this central reservoir of information where grading companies announce, oh, there's a new Jordan counterfeit that we just detected. Ping on your phone, look out for this. There's a new type of alteration we're detecting that's happening. People are using blank to alter cards to make the. Whatever. I don't know what the thing is. And you get a text on your phone, counterfeit alert or alteration alert, and suddenly millions of collectors are all aware of that instantly. I'm just dreaming. That's a good dream, communicating. All right, rapid fire's over. That's our last question. Good job. Thank you. If somebody listens to this video or podcast 35 years from now, so what year would that be? 2050. 35 years from now. If they listen to this 35 years from now, what do you hope? 2061. Okay, 2061. They're watching you and me. What do you hope still exists about the hobby and also this shop for the hobby? I hope that collectors. That there are millions, hundreds of millions of collectors who are passionate about owning cards regardless of the resale value. You know, true collectors. True collectors. I hope that we haven't shifted so far into just investment mentality and resale mentality. I hope there are millions and millions of collectors who still buy cards, whether it's ripping a box, whether it's buying a slab, whether it's buying, you know, their favorite player, whatever, they're buying it for the pure joy of collecting. I have people, customers, clients, collectors. They come in here. What do you collect, Joe? What do you have? And often they. What's your most expensive card? Yeah, hi, Braylon. And it's like, well, I can tell you. But it's not about that because it's not my favorite card. It's about, you know, my 71 set of Italian Peanuts cards is my favorite set because I love the Peanuts gang, you know, and some of them are. I've graded the whole set, but some of them are still only 50 bucks a card or whatever. They're not crazy money, But I'm Passionate about that set because I'm passionate about the characters in it. And so my hope is that there are plenty of collectors who just still collect for the pure joy of collecting. Not worrying about what, can I resell this for later? It's just, I love this player or I love this character from a cartoon or whatever it is. I hope there's just that hardcore passion for the hobby and for collecting that I still have. That's good. What about the shop? If this were still around, we'll assume it is. 35 years, you've trained somebody up to take it on. What do you hope is still true when people watch this? I hope that we still honor that whoever's here running it still honors our core mission that, you know, to honor God as we serve collectors both locally and globally. Because if we lose that, if we miss out on that, the rest doesn't matter. But you know, that we grow in our ability to serve clients better, to communicate better, to, you know, to just be a resource. You know, I hope we're still a great resource to help people, whether that's grading, whether it's information, whether it's helping them sell their cards, whether it's helping them fill the 88don reset with 3 commons or whatever, to continue to be a place that collectors know they can come here and get served very well, regardless of who owns what license, regardless of who's printing cards, whether stuff's $100,000 a box, then regardless of any of those things, just that we continue to serve people in this industry. Well, good. Good job. Well, happy 35th anniversary. Thank you so much. Yeah, so we've done the past. We'll look into the future. Maybe we'll do it again in 35 years. Yeah, sounds good. Yeah, I might need a hearing aid for that one, but that'll be okay. But thanks so much for hosting, and thank you so much for the good questions. Yeah, good job. So well. Hope you all have enjoyed this episode. We'll be back with more content for you soon. Remember, you can check out all of our episodes on sports cards and a Cup of Joe podcasts, as well as on the got baseball cards? YouTube channel. So, again, we appreciate each of you joining us today. Remember, most importantly today, Jesus loves you. He wants a relationship with you, and we think you are awesome, too. Thanks so much, everyone, and we'll catch you next time. I am your child in me, but I need you.