February Hobby Numbers Are Insane!; Ohtani/Judge Dual Gold Logoman Autograph Card To The Moon?; Another Fun Round Of Quiz Show; Plus A Hockey Pick 1!

You're listening to Cards to the Moon, a podcast about trading cards from both a collector and investor perspective. We hope you'll stick around for the ride as we take a deep dive into the state of the hobby, share some hot takes, hopefully some useful advice and fun stories along the way. Hey guys, welcome back to Cards to the Moon. This is episode 355, and my name is Clark from 5cardguys.com. You can also find me at 5cardguys on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, I'm also on TikTok. Co-hosting with me is John. He's back and he is at TradeU at recess. And this time, Hyung's away, but I'm sure he'll be back soon. And one day, we'll have all three of us again back at the same time. But John, welcome back to the pod. Thanks man, good to be back. I know, it's been a long time. I know you're busy, but that's all good. As one of the original podcast members, you have special privileges of coming in and out whenever you want and can. So there you go. I appreciate it, Clark. All right, let's get right into it. Off the top, we got to talk about the big card that's currently up for auction at Fanatics Collect. It's the Shohei Otani and Aaron Judge Dual Gold Logo Man Autograph 1 of 1 card. And as of this recording, I just checked before we started recording, the bidding is at $1 million and it's got about a week left in the auction. Now, for people who don't know, what makes this Dual Logo Man even more unique is that these Gold Logo Man patches, they came from both their respective jerseys that they wore in the 2025 season. And the reason they received those patches in particular is because they were the reigning MLB MVP winners in 2024. So I always like to ask this question when a big auction like this comes up, because it's just really a wild guess and we've been known to be way off. But what do you think it ultimately sells for when the auction is over? And I got one more quick follow-up question after we answer that. So it's at $1 million right now. John, what do you think it's going to go for? Man, this is, yeah, again, this is not a great question for us because we have absolutely no idea. I have to think it's not going to go over $2 million. But because I said that, I'm sure it will go over $2 million. But my guess would be like $1.85 million. Okay. I think it's going to go over $2 million. I think it's going to go over $2 million because just the way the hobby is going these days, we just recently saw the Pikachu Illustrator go for $16.5 million. That's crazy. Good point. Yeah, good point. So yeah, I think there's something in the air that people are going crazy over these big cards. Not people, like high-end investor types, high-end collectors that just need that next big card. It's almost like a drug for them, right? A little bit of clout. So I think it's going to go over $2 million, but we'll see. The follow-up question that I had is, I think I read this in an article, but some are thinking that this could be the baseball equivalent of a card like the one we see more often in basketball cards. For example, the MJ Kobe dual Logo Man autograph card that we talked about on the pod before because Kevin O'Leary just paid just under $13 million for it. So John, do you think this card and Logo Man's in general for baseball might catch on? What are your thoughts? Yeah, I mean, I think it could. This is, it is an auto, right? Is it dual? Yes. Dual auto as well. Right. On card, I would thankfully assume. And this is like the first of its kind, right? Of the gold logo. Like this is the first inaugural. Yeah. I mean. I think so, yes. I think it should be pretty big because I think everyone is now getting pretty comfortable and confident of who Aaron Judge is and will be. I think there were some question marks before, especially from me. But these dual Logo Man's, yes, it has. I clearly, I mean, I get this is the inaugural and there's so much hype. So there's that, that you kind of have to caution with. But the longterm, yeah, I mean, this is what big collectors want. These like super rare, top of the top echelon cards in each of the sports categories. So if there's a, you know, there's the basketball, original basketball ones, and, you know, if they made new basketball, I mean, you know, with flawless and with baseball, I think it, I think it'll be, I think it'll be big. And really, I think Shohei is obviously, this guy's carrying, this guy's like controlling the market right now. It's, it's unbelievable. But it really depends on the partner and the dual, right? Because you got, you go back in the day, you got Kobe Bryant and, and Gary Payton. And I know Gary Payton's a legend, those cards obviously don't sell as much as like a Kobe Michael Jordan. So obviously the, the partner to Shohei has to be pretty big. And if Aaron Judge ends up finishing his career, as big as it's seemingly going right now, I think it'll be a pretty big card. But yeah, you know, Otani, X, whoever else, the other person has to be pretty big. And yeah, it's got some pretty good legs for sure. It's, I, you know, come on, is it going to hit like Jordan, LeBron, Jordan, Kobe levels? Probably not. Cause that's just a little bit too legendary, but who knows? Yeah, no, I get your point, especially I'm with you too. Like I was a judge doubter, but now I'm fully on board and I think this is probably as safe as you can get in terms of dual logo man with Otani and Judge both on the card. So in terms of players that are on it, I think that's safe, knock on wood. But I think there's still a question of whether logo man cards in general will fully catch on for baseball card collectors, like it has for basketball card collectors. You know, the basketball card, the logo is iconic and this idea of logo man cards and baseball is still relatively new or not done well in the past. So I think, I think it's got a chance, but to your point, because there's that question mark, I don't know if I'll ever get eventually to like the 10, $15 million range, like we're seeing right now for basketball logo man cards. Right. So we'll see. I will say, I think because of the idea that it's a gold logo man from their MVP season, it's like very specific. In a perfect world, if there was like a Shohei Aaron Judge, you know, like record breaking home run duel, kind of like the Sammy Sosa, Mark McGuire era. And it's from that specific season when they were like battling it out and they both got MVPs. I think if there's a special circumstance and because these logo mans aren't, you know, like the original flawless and exquisite, it's not, it doesn't necessarily define what year that game use logo man came from, but these logo, these logo mans are gold. They're from the MVP season, a specific season. So if all the stars lined up and there is some sort of like Sammy Sosa, Mark McGuire kind of a season, I think that kind of scenario could make these, you know, baseball, like the baseball gold logo man go higher than anything we've seen before. I think that would be the scenario to kind of cause it. Excellent point. Yeah. That's, that's very insightful. Yeah. I think, I think you're right. Yeah. The, the, the only other concern would be then for other logo man cards, like the regular ones, not the gold ones. I wonder if that could be overdone, you know, and kind of dilute logo man cards in general. So hopefully that's not the case. Hopefully they, you know, cause I, I'm, I feel like I'm beginning to see it with basketball cards, you know, like the more recent, the more modern logo man cards are, you know, you see the breakers going crazy over it, but at the same time, it's not worth the same as the old logo man cards when there wasn't, you know, what, when it was actually rare, you know, and, and like one of ones and now it's like, Oh, you know, it's the same thing we talked about before. How many one of one logo man cards are out there now, you know, and, and just in different kind of formats or different image variations. So I guess that's my only concern, but, but yeah, I think you're right. The gold logo man, just what it represents and what's, you know, the season it comes from. I'd love to see how it plays out in the next five, 10 years, even. I think that's something worth watching. I do. One last thing. I do love the fact that this, you know, this little latest iteration of tops, like the logo man or MLB debut patch, whichever one, the fact that it's very accessible, like it's from like a pretty normal product. It's not from a $10,000 flawless box that you can only dream of buying. And even if, even if us, you know, lowly peons ever even bought that box, I don't think we'd have the guts to even open it. So yeah. Yeah. The fact that this is kind of like the Willy Wonka gold ticket that you could win from, like it's very accessible, like the, the chance of winning is there. So yes. I think that's pretty cool too. Yeah. I'm not, I don't want to play Debbie downer, but I think though more of these like really awesome cards are the chase on these sets. You start to see that creep of how much boxes go for, you know what I mean? So right now it is, I think the first year, like for case in point, the first year's tops Chrome update where they have the MLB debut patch introduced. I think those boxes are crazy now on resale. Or it might be, I guess it depends on the rookie class, of course, right. But like, I think what Yamamoto's MLB debut patch, I think that was 24 the year after, but that hasn't been pulled yet. Or we don't know publicly where it's been, if it's been found yet. But yeah, I think if you could get it off directly off the tops website, that's, I guess your play right now. But just like, just like the Pokemon card market, good luck trying to get these high demand boxes. You got to be in the queue and just be a little bit lucky, but yes. Don't get it off resale because you probably can't afford it, but if you can get it directly from tops, that's probably your play. Or I know you don't like this, but breakers, I think they're here to stay, you know, that might be the only way to have a chance to hit these big cards, right? Okay, I'll, I'll change my opinion to slightly more accessible than always. This is a hobby we live in right now, but all right, let's move on to hobby headlines. Okay, I know we're halfway through March already, which is crazy to me because you know, time is flying very quickly, but I thought we could spend this time digging a little deeper into February stats that I got online about the hobby in general. And let's just comment on what we think these stats might mean for the hobby moving forward, if anything. All right. So I picked up three interesting stats to me anyway. First one, to date in 2026, we've already seen seven cards sell for more than $1 million. All right. And there's going to be three more this month in March, including the dual logo man we were just talking about off the top. So that's going to make 10 sales of at least $1 million cards or more in the first three months. You do the math. If that rate continues, we're looking at about 40 cards or so that will sell for a million bucks or more by the end of 2026. That makes it on pace for the same as the record breaking years we've had during COVID in 2021 when there were 43 such sales and 2022 when there was 41. And then of course we saw a correction in 2023 with 11 sales, went all the way down to 11, down to seven in 2024, that was probably the bottom. And then you know what happened in 2025, everything kind of jumped up again with 28 $1 million sales or more. And here we are in 2026 projected to go for 40 again. So John, your thoughts on this stat in particular, do you think this hobby boom period that we're in right now feels different than the one we were in during COVID? Man, that's a loaded question. I think, well, obviously it feels different. I think the COVID era, it was just, it was so crazy. Like everyone was getting back into it and it was pretty exciting. And at that time, I don't think we were all even aware of the magnitude of how much people were getting into it. We just kind of continually saw prices of cards going up. So you just knew like if you bought something, you're making money and then card shows finally opened up. You can kind of experience it and it was all kind of brand new and all going up. So you were like making money and trades and wheeling and dealing was super easy. It was a wild, wild time. Now it does feel, because everyone from that period experienced the downturn and a lot of people left, a lot of sneakerheads and people that are kind of in it for the quick flip, they kind of left and now it's going back up. And obviously for those sort of, I'll call them sneakerheads, but obviously not, but you know what I'm talking about, right? Like quick flippers, people looking to make some quick money. They're kind of back in it. Same with the Pokemon market. So in some ways it's similar, but it does feel a lot more stable than before. Like before it was unknown and it was all exciting and it was going up and we just didn't, I don't think we thought of the consequence of the longterm in terms of what we were spending our money on. But I think now a lot more people are into it. A lot more people are knowledgeable. We do see it more like an asset class than we did before as a collectible. So I think the money that's being spent is a little wiser, you know, maybe not in the million dollar sector. Like I don't know, it's like, I can't speak for them because I have no idea what's going on there. Why there's continually these psychotic million dollar sales. Um, it does feel, it does feel similar and different and different at the same time. It's hard to kind of articulate it, but you got, you get what I mean. No, totally. And I agree with you a hundred percent. Um, and it was slightly a leading question. I, I, I fully admit, but, um, uh, it does feel different in the sense that like exactly as you say that, and I've mentioned this in previous podcast episodes, that the hobby now is in, um, uh, in a healthier place because we have more savvy buyers and sellers, uh, people who, like you said, who are more educated in the hobby. Um, but we do have, you know, newer collectors, newer speculators, newer flippers coming into the space too, cause they're seeing the money in it. So that's kind of like, um, adding a bit of a premium to some of these cards. So we're seeing a bit of it, but not to the extent of what it was in 2022 and 2023, you know, during the COVID era where everyone was flipping, like, I think the percentage of flippers to actual collectors, you know, was much higher back then than it is now. Um, my point is that flippers still exist in the hobby and, you know, uh, speculators do exist in the hobby right now as well. Uh, but the million dollar, those ultra high end cards, I think a lot of it can be attributed to institutional money and, and actually, uh, people that are coming into it and recognizing it as an asset class, like you were saying. So I think it's smarter money that's coming into the hobby as well. Um, and it's creating this divide and that's another episode altogether in terms of like, uh, what you would say the, the us peons or, um, that, uh, want to collect these higher end cards. What's, what's in it for us moving forward. I don't know. We'll see. Um, but, um, but yeah, I think, I think it's different and same, um, at the same time and the same part for me, it's like the excitement of the hobby, you know, I think in our, uh, last episode, 2025, when we're interviewing all our co-hosts, we were all in agreement that it was kind of really fun again in 2025, just because it seems like a lot more action was taking place. Uh, you know, card shows were vibrant again and you know, we're, we can't help but like want to buy more just because it's, it's in a certain state right now. Right. Um, which could be good or bad, but, um, I had fun in 2025. I'm continuing to have fun in the hobby in 2026, um, to the same degree. So, so yeah, I think, um, we'll see 40, uh, over under 40. What, what do you think by the end of 2026 in terms of $1 million card sales? Oh man. Um, I don't know because it's, you know, because it's kind of defined, it's getting close to being defined as like an asset class or like treated as such, I mean, it has to, it has to follow like real world economics. It has to follow real money. And if like the, the economies in North America, like if we're not doing so well, I think the, the smart answer is I think they should, should be a little bit of a slowdown this year. So I, I, my, if I were to have to bet money on it, I would think it would be under, but I mean, the trajectory has still been going up, so I like, yeah, I could be very wrong on that, but yeah. You know why I think you're wrong? Cause you're not using hobby logic. I think it's going to be over. It's just not going to make sense. The economy is going to tank and yet we're going to still pay big money for cards. It's so true. Yeah. Listen, we always say this, the hobby is recession proof. Okay. You know, if you, if you have lots of money, if you have a lot of crypto money, you're going to buy cards to diversify your asset portfolio. If the economy tanks, you know what? I'm depressed. I need to rip more cards. It's recession proof. So true. All right. Let's talk about baseball cards, specifically market movers, which is sports card investors app. They tracked or the tool tracked nearly 12,000 sales for Otani cards in February, which I think is an increase of 14% over last month. So yeah, crazy. The Otani market is crazy. Um, as we know, and, uh, we've discussed on the pod, it's still very hot. Uh, and honestly, I don't know if I'll ever get a nice Otani auto card at this point, just the, just the way things are going, it's kind of like the Mario Pikachu for Roy just keeps going up. Um, but if you look at the next two highest baseball card sales in February, it's not even close to Otani. You got Paul skeins and Nick Kurtz, uh, who sold just under 5,000 baseball cards each, um, according to again, market movers, and you do the math combined is still less than the number of Otani cards sold. So what I want to talk about is the Otani hype again on this podcast. Do you think it's ever going to end? Or if you had the money right now, would you just buy now and FOMO in? I can't believe I'm saying this, but I, I really think there is like a, a big correction coming in Otani cards. Oh, the first time. Yeah. You know, we always talked about like seasonal corrections. Yeah. You know, buying the off season, there's going to be a little bit of a dip. You can probably get Otani cards for like 20, 10, 20% discount on the dollar. Yeah. I think, you know, when, when you and I, and sort of like the average, uh, I'm not going to say smart collector, but we'll say educated, fairly educated collector starts looking at the Otani market, you know, in previous years we're like, man, I missed out, man. Like Otani is so hot. Like, oh, he just hit 50, 50 homers or 55 homers or whatever. And, you know, stole this many, 30, 40 bags. I can't remember what the stats were, but man, you saw it. I should have been into it. And there's a lot of FOMO and whatnot, but we're kind of at a stage where some of the prices are just not making sense anymore, right? Like Otani base Bowman batting is like, you know, $1,500 or whatever it is right now, 2,500. Like when base cards start to get into money that you're just like, that doesn't make any sense. Like based on the pop count and like, what is going on? I think when fairly educated collectors, you know, wholeheartedly agree, like this is, this is a little bit too crazy. That would mean that these collectors wouldn't spend their money on it. So who is spending the money on it? Right. So at some point I think there has to be a correction when the minds collectively are like, this is a little bit too crazy now, like what is going on? Right. Yeah. And if everybody kind of stops their tracks and is like not spending money on Otani, then it's due for a correction. I think it just got a little, it's a little too crazy. Like I I'm understanding if the big cards are in the millions of dollars and the, the gold logo, man, totally understand. But when base cards are like topping thousand, $2,000, $3,000, like that doesn't make any more sense to me. Yeah, that doesn't make sense to me either. I don't think it makes sense to Hyung, but I think Hyung, if he was here, he would argue that some of the autograph cards are still worth it. I might be putting words into his mouth and, and, but while you're talking, I'm like, this is why I need John on the podcast more often to back me off the ledge of making a stupid mistake and buying a $10,000 card and it's, it's a, it's a good teaser for my pick one later on in the show, but, um, you know, it's like I got John on one shoulder saying like, you know what, it's going to correct. You just be patient. And then Hyung's like, how, how many times have we said that? You know, like it's time to, time to pull the trigger. So it's like, oh man, but the attorney market, like you can't help, but feel FOMO. Right. It's, it's, it's bonkers, bonkers. And, um, and the numbers show it right now. Like it's, it doesn't seem to be slowing down, but I hope, I hope you're right, John, because I really want to buy one. But again, at these prices, like I, I just, I'm not there yet. You know, I can't, I can't justify a purchase like that unless, you know, it's, it's something I love and I will hold on to. And, you know, it's not, you know, I'm not in for Tanya at least. It's not about flipping. It's too dangerous right now, you know, to get into like a base refractor for a thousand bucks or 2000 bucks and thinking that I'll continue to go up. I agree with you there. All right. Um, one more for the segment. We got to check in on the latest grading numbers. Um, and I'm going to just read out the data that I have in front of me. And then you tell me what sticks out to you if anything. Okay. So PSA number one, not a surprise. 1.86 million cards graded. Total for February 626,000 of those are sports cards. So still a million plus in the TCG realm. CGC number two, 451,000 total cards, 80,000 of those are sports cards. So again, fairly, uh, TCG heavy BGS number three, 88,000 cards, 24,000 of those 88 is sports cards. Tag number four at 44,000 total cards. 4,000 are sports cards out of the 44,000 and SGC coming, um, in the rear of the top five 41,000 total cards. And this is interesting. 38,000 of those 41,000 are sports cards for SGC. So anything that sticks out to you right away from those, from those numbers? Yeah. Well, I, I know, I, I think, you know, Clark, you and, um, a lot of the, the hardcore listeners, they know I've been away for quite a while. I think it's been probably a couple of months and admittedly, I haven't even been able to listen to the pod, our own pod, um, sorry, Clark. So I don't know if you guys have talked about grading, but since the last time I was on. I think we did talk about grading. So I will speak from my perspective, right? Cause I haven't seen these numbers since like two months ago or whatever. I think there's a bunch of things that pop out to me. I'm going to leave PSA, PSA and CGC aside. Like that is, it is what it is. Yeah. Um, the, the, the, the Delta or the difference between BGS and SGC, I don't know, there's, there's a big gap since the last time we talked, I think it was a lot closer together and I'm, you know, SGC might've been slightly over BGS. I don't remember the order, but the fact that BGS is doubling SGC now it's. I don't know if it's BGS is doing better or SGC is just continually tanking. And I, I would think it's probably SGC continually tanking. So that's the first thing that kind of popped up to me. Number two, great to see tag on here. I personally love tag. I haven't graded with them and I, I, I plan on at some point having some of my, uh, PC collection because I do like the way tag looks, but the fact that they're really creeping up there and, and really making noise means that their slabs at some point are going to start to gain. Um, you know, be worth it in terms of actually using them to flip the cards or whatever you want to do. So when it gets to that point, I think we're going to really start using tag. So good to see tag there. I think that's the second thing that I'm really seeing. And the fact that 44,000 total cards graded by tag and only 4,000 is sports cards, so they're really making a big run in, um, TCG, which is, which is like, Whoa, you know, cause I think when tag first came out, they were kind of really positioned for sports cards and to see the TCG community really, um, liking them. Um, I don't know how much, if you guys watch like deep pocket monster or short pocket monster, he's a really popular, um, YouTuber slash like, uh, Instagrammer that he opens up packs daily, but perhaps he has a big influence. He's got like a million, couple of million followers and he uses tag a lot. And he features them a lot. Yeah. Sorry, go ahead. He's a Pokemon card collector. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. Yeah. He opens packs daily. It's really catchy. He's got like the, I'm not going to sing the themes, the theme song, but if you know, you know, um, and he does a lot of grading. So once he rips open the packs, if he gets good cards, he'll grade it. And a lot of times, obviously they're really big cards. He'll go with PSA, but he's been using tag a lot lately and he features them like how you can use the barcode and, and he's not, I don't, I'm pretty sure he's not sponsored. He's just out of his own, the goodness of his own heart. He's kind of showing what and why he likes it. I'm wondering if he's got a big influence on some of these TCG numbers. So. Yeah, no. And, and I'll just add to that point. There's a lot of other, um, TCG quote unquote influencers that are, you know, cracking some cards and going right to tag. So I think there's some kind of like movement building for tag and, you know, don't get me wrong, PSA still dominant as number one because of the resale value, but I think there's a play. I agree with you. And I think there's a play for sports cards. I'm interested to see, like, if I searched on eBay after this podcast tag, 10 RC auto comes up and if the value, you know, I'm wondering if the, if there's a PSA 10 equivalent and the Delta is huge, I don't know, I think that might be a good play and, and, uh, I, you know, who knows there's only 4,000 of the 44,000 that were sports cards. So there might not be a lot of inventory out there yet, but, um, I love the look of tag as well. I have a couple of myself and the process seemed pretty seamless. They do seem, and I could be wrong, but they do seem, um, to be, uh, to have a little bit of a backlog too, just because everyone's grading these days and tag is no exception in terms of the volume that they're getting. Right. But, uh, yeah, uh, I agree that BGS was the one stat that kind of stuck out to me and, um, to add to what you said about BGS numbers, there's the speculation that maybe PSA being the new parent company of BGS of Beckett might, uh, play a role in, in the boost in numbers. I don't know if they think PSA or collectors Inc will start to really revamp it and, and, uh, you know, people are more confident in the BGS brand all of a sudden that could be a play. Interestingly enough, they also own SGC and, um, the way they're marketing SGC these days is, uh, as a boutique brand. And it's kind of like what we suggested, but it doesn't seem to be working. Uh, well, our, I guess it depends on how you deem it successful. A boutique brand by nature will be smaller and cater to a very niche audience. So maybe that's the way they want to go. Um, and we said like boutique in the. of like just hyper-focused on vintage in particular, right? I think that was our suggestion. But yeah, STC is going by the wayside now. But it is, and I think it's prime to just do vintage or just by looking at the numbers, it's 95% sports cards that STC is grading, right? So I wouldn't even focus too much on TCG at that point. But for everyone else, that's the other thing I recognize. TCG market's still super hot in terms of grading cards. For all the top four graders, the majority of their cards being graded right now is TCG. So that seems to be ongoing over the last year or so, I think. And I know Roy, our friend Roy, fellow co-host of the pod was disappointed that I think there's no bulk anymore for TCG, that that era is over. You know, it's come full circle into like being part of the regular grading submission prices for TCG, just because the volume is crazy. But yeah, I think that's, I don't know if there's anything else for you. BGS, TCG influence, and TAG were my top three as well. Do you think STC makes a, are they done really? Or do you think this is kind of- Yeah, like hot take or not hot take maybe? I really think STC is done. I think it's too little, too late. Like if they, I think the specializing in vintage from the beginning, I mean, crystal ball, obviously hindsight is 20, 20. Like they're wanting to make money. They're really like, they were making money and they're quick, quick, you know, and they changed their branding and they're trying to like compete against PSA. So I get it. But at some point there, if they really maneuvered and tried to either have a vintage department or something or keep that alive, who would have, they wouldn't have known they would have tanked like this. So it's easy to sit here as like an object quarterback and say something like that. But I really think at this point, if they were to make like a vintage department, I just think it's too little, too late. Like when you look at the HTC brand now, like the, you know, like I studied brand, like branding in school. Like, I mean, for marketing and branding, like they've really kind of positioned themselves as the discount brand, you know? And when you look at them and you look at slabs that are like a lot of common cards in there and like nobody's using them for big cars, like they're really looked at it kind of like a discount brand. So at this point, even for vintage, because you kind of look at them as discount, like you probably wouldn't even use them. Even if you had like a sick old Mickey Mantle car, you're going to go to PSA, right? So I really think it's, they're done. I think they're done. Wow. Well, see, that might be a, yeah, that could be a hot take because, but it makes sense, right? If they are truly considered discount brand by a lot of collectors, then you need the volume to sustain yourself and they don't have it right now. So it's kind of a double whammy in that sense. And I think we mentioned, and I don't know if this is a great idea or not, but we mentioned this before. Like if SGC becomes like the BGS, what's the BGS like quick rating? What was that called again? BCCG. Yeah, the BCCG, you know when they like quick rate it at a show with a little like. Oh yeah, like the rock or the GCR grading card review. Thank you. Yeah. So like if SGC becomes something like that, where you can quick rate it for 25 bucks without paying the like upgrade charges and you can get it back quickly. And if it becomes an SGC 10, you can then pay the upcharge for the upgrade. You can pay the upcharge to get it into a PSA 10 slab. So the grading is the same, but you use it as like a stepping stone to, like, I just want to know what it is, right? I don't want to pay $10,000 in upcharge. I think if they use SGC as kind of like a, one of those like BCG grading, like quick rating, stepping stone to like a real PSA 10 slab and you have to pay extra money there. I think we would do that, you and I. Yeah. That's something that can work. And I don't know. I don't know if that's going to save the brand, but yeah, maybe something like that could help. Yeah, no, that's another great idea. I swear, if that happens, I know someone from PSA is listening to this podcast. Cause that's a, yeah. I don't think I've heard that idea before, but yeah, that might, you know, if I'm SGC or if I'm in that department, I'm trying anything at this point, you know? Like you got to take big risks, you know, where they are now to just survive almost. So I agree with you there. All right. You know what? Let's move on to our next segment cause we're going to go over some other stats as well, but it's going to be under quiz show. All right. Like I said, a lot more interesting data from the February numbers that I didn't go over, but I can ask them now. Here's quiz questions. So first question, we did talk about the Otani card sales. They're up about 14%, but it's only number two on the list. All right. For February. And I should mention the cards on the top five list have a minimum 5,000 sales. So anything under it didn't make the list, but of the cars that sold for at least 5,000 in number, number one is, which NBA rookie that saw 39% growth over the last month? Could only be two really. Right. I mean, I think it's gotta be Khan, no? Oh, not Cooper? Not Cooper. I'm going to guess Khan. You got it. Khan Kanupal. I thought that was a trick question, but you saw right through it. 39% growth. Was that surprising to you? I know I mentioned something you said in our chat that I brought up in our recent podcast episode with Hyung, but you said something like Khan Kanupal is lucky to be in this era of basketball. Do you want to explain what you meant by that in terms of- Yeah. Did I mention that? I think it is in our chat. Yeah. Oh, in our chat. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this era is different, right? Like I think the young, you know, all the players and young kids who are watching, they love, like Steph Curry has really, when they say change the game, he's changed the game. Like a three point shot. Anytime I go to the, you know, if I watch kids at the playground when I pick up my kids, like these kids don't even know how to dribble and they're shooting. They don't even know how to shoot. They don't even know how to do layups. And all of these kids are just jacking like long range bombs like that's how they play basketball. It's like, what are you kids doing? You don't even know how to do a layup. So the game has really changed. So he's in an era where the three point shot and especially long ball three point shots is super entertaining. That's why Caitlin Clarke is in the mix, right? So like for me, Khan, I'm not trying to knock him, but he's like a modern day Mark Price. And this is like to highlight how great Mark Price was. Like that guy was a three point assassin. It just happens to be Khan is in an era where the three point shot is like the gold standard of entertainment in basketball, right? Like dunking is kind of like in the rear view mirror. So I think he's like Mark Price in this new era and that's why there's so much crazy hype on him, right? So yeah, I think the hype, perhaps a lot of it is, I mean, a lot of it is justified. He's obviously like really showing out as a rookie and he's like breaking all sorts of like three point records. But I mean- Take away that part of the game. Do you see him as like a Luka? Do you see him as like a Wemby? Like his prices are like on those levels. And I don't know, I don't see that. So the hype is a little bit too crazy. I'm glad you went in depth in that. And yeah, that's, well, if someone could tell me what the value of Mark Price cards are, you might want to try carefully with Khan Knipple. That's the comp John is using. So rounding out the top five though is Wemby at number three, 5% growth. And this is interesting. Number four and five are Jaden Daniels and Caleb Williams, both at 5% growth. So I guess people are starting to speculate a little bit more as the NFL season quickly approaches. All right, question number two. Also with a minimum of 5,000 sales, according to Market Movers, which has seen the biggest decline in volume of sales in February. So we're going the other way, at minus 21%. All right, I'm going to give you a multiple choice. Is it Shadur Sanders, Drake May, Jackson Dart, or Dylan Harper? Ooh. Man, the football question's tough. I haven't been following outside of some of the playoffs. I think I recall seeing Jackson Dart not playing so well. And I think I remember seeing posts about him really struggling and the hype kind of dying down. So my guess is going to be Jackson Dart. It's a good guess, but it is Drake May, minus 21%. And I think that's more of that he was so high and obviously the Super Bowl run, that probably inflated the number of sales during that period. And then unfortunately for New England Patriots fans, he had a dud of a game in the Super Bowl. And now we see the repercussions, so to speak. So, Drake May. You know, on the flip side, might be a good time to buy now. You know, you're not buying at the peak. So if you're a believer, yeah, go search on eBay. All right, one more question for you. The top sports card sales in February, we talked about seven of them selling over for more than $1 million. But the top five, three of them are vintage cards, not surprisingly. And two are more modern, relatively speaking, basketball cards, all right? So you don't need to guess the specific card which sold for over a million in the top five during February. But can you guess the players whose cards sold for over a million? So three vintage and two basketball. And I'm gonna say this, two of the three vintage is the same card. That's a clue. Oh, okay. Is one of them, I think I remember seeing a Babe Ruth. Babe Ruth is one of them. The 1933 Gaudi autographed PSA 4.5 with the auto eight sold for 1.46 million, number four, yeah. My next guess, I think I remember seeing Honus Wagner, but I don't recall if I saw hearing news about two of them selling, or maybe they did. I mean, it has to be Wagner or it's gotta be Mickey Mantle 52, so. Your first guess was right on, Honus Wagner, number one. I think it's the golden auction. You guessed for me, thank you. I'm being generous today. The PSA 1 Shields from the Shields family that Golden heavily marketed. I saw that episode, yeah, that was great. Yeah, 5.1 million it sold for. Wow. And actually Ken Golden, I think I shared with you guys on the chat. He, when I put up a reel, Ken Golden commented on that reel saying he'd be disappointed if it's under 5 million or something, 4 million. So there you go, 5.1 million, he got his wish. And there was another Honus Wagner SGC, another Honus Wagner SGC authentic that sold for 3.6 million. So you got the vintage. Now there's two basketball players remaining. Right. You know, what's crazy is like, maybe I'm gonna get too conspiracy theory about this. Cause I know some people talk about it, right? Like cards that are so publicly, especially Golden, right? Like that are so publicly marketed or featured, the Shields Honus Wagner that was a part of the TV show. And then you got like a Logan Paul's Illustrator. Like those are, they're like in pop culture, like that's how big, it's not even marketing. It's like now beyond sports cards. Like there is so much room for manipulation. Like there's like, Golden could buy it themselves just to make it look like Golden is awesome and they sell everything above comps at millions of dollars. Like, I don't know. There's just something about it that seems a little like, I don't know, but I'll leave it at that. I'm not gonna like, yeah, but it's just so ripe for manipulation. Yeah, true. And we don't know that high end market enough to say, oh, this is like, that's proper pricing or that's what it should have gone for or whatever, right? So anyways, I'll leave it at that. You think Scaramucci, the guy who ended up buying the Pikachu Illustrator who was there in attendance, was just a plant? Or it could be. Like, it's just like, all of it seems so wild to me, you know? Like, I don't know. I don't know. Anyways. All right. There should be like a documentary. You should make a documentary. It's like, what's behind the curtains of the high end market? What's really going on there? All right. So you got one, two, and four out of the top five. So you're missing three and five. I think, I feel like- These are the modern. More modern basketball cards. I think if you make an educated guess, you could go for the sweep here. Which players? Oh man, this is tough. What the heck sold for a million dollars? Was there a Kobe Jordan dual auto that sold? No. I'm in trouble. But you know what? I'm gonna give it to you. Because the number three was Jordan. There's a 1997 Ultra Masterpiece, one of one. PSA eight, that sold for 2.1 million. Right. And number five was Kobe. So you kind of got it. It's 2014, 15 Panini National Treasures Logo Man, number two, BGS 9.5 Auto 10 sold for 1.1 million. Wow, okay. That's your top five for February. Good job on the quiz show, with an assist from me. But we're a team, so it's all good. But yeah, it's just crazy where the hobby is now. I think I feel like I'm saying this every week these days. But yeah, let's finish off the episode with our regular weekly segment we call Pick One. All right, it's been a while since you did Pick One. Do you have one for us this week? I do. So I mean, since I've been away, I'm gonna assume you guys didn't really talk about hockey too much. So I will give hockey some love. Not Celebrini, that's it, yeah. But go ahead. So I will give hockey some love. Obviously, Celebrini is, you know, like it's on fire. So I'm gonna say, and the question's kind of loaded. It's not as, you know, like pick this card or that. It's not really about the card. It's more about the hype, right? So I'm gonna go Celebrini Young Guns. I know the pop is low because it's all getting submitted right now and all of that stuff. But the last one sold for like, I think they go for like 1,800. And we can imagine that's gonna come down off of the high. Versus Nathan McKinnon. These Young Guns is kind of floating between like 1,200 to 1,400. And I think actually this one of you one was featured on Instagram by Card Ladder or something like that. I've seen it and it caught my attention. So I wanted to kind of bring it to our listeners. Yeah. So I'm gonna go with those two. Maybe not focus, you know, like my thought process, just like a little teaser is more on like the hype of Celebrini versus somebody who's like established like Nathan McKinnon. That's a good one. Yeah, if it's more general, like I would imagine too the pop counts would be higher for Celebrini versus McKinnon. For sure. So that's kind of a consideration for me. But McKinnon, like, is he, do I put him in the category of like a, you know, Hall of Famer was, you know, for hockey, but just no hobby love. Do I put him in that category? Is he the Mookie Betts of hockey? You know, it's like, you know, he's got the accolades, you know, championships, right? Scores goals, but like, you look at his price, you're like, this should be double the price. So is it stuck there? And if I'm collecting it, am I doing it as a PC or if I'm looking as an investor, like is that, and you know, on the other hand, Celebrini, like you were saying, hype, you know, really hot right now, had a great run in the Olympics, but he is smaller. I don't know, like, you know, I don't know if that size will mean that he can play for over a long period of time. We've seen what happened to Conor Bedard. I'm not giving up on Bedard yet, but we've seen his market go sky high and then drop back down. I wonder if that's kind of similar to Celebrini as well. And if I'm factoring in my Canadian bias, right? So like Team Canada, I know McKinnon is Canadian as well, but you know, everyone's like rooting hard for Celebrini, just what he was doing at 18, 19 years old. So all that said, I'm just talking to myself out loud. I think I'm just gonna go with McKinnon. I think I'm gonna play it safe in this case, you know? Yeah, I think at some point, and maybe I'm dreaming the same way I'm dreaming about Mookie Betts getting more respect in the hobby. Nathan McKinnon one day will get the respect he properly deserves. So I'm going with McKinnon. Good choice. I do think that's like the, when you just add face value, right? Obviously Celebrini, this is like early, super stupid hype almost, right? So like, I think the smart answer, if you're like investing money right now, present day, like it's probably McKinnon. He is like an A++ superstar, like a notch below Generational. So if you think of like for some of us old heads, like Generational is like Gretzky, Lemieux, you know, going back like Bobby or Sidney Crosby. Then you got like Steve Eisenman, you know? That's like McKinnon. He's on that superstar becoming a legend, but he just will never kind of like push up to that sort of McDavid category. So for me in this question, I start to think about like really, really big picture. And like Mookie Betts was like a name that popped up. So I agree that you mentioned it. I think hobby logic, there's a thing that is like the hobby darling. We talk about that all the time. Hobby darling. And I think Celebrini is, he's coming in at a time where people were a little bit starved for hockey, but dart kind of really blew up because people were just looking for, especially future watch autos kind of making coming back finally. And they were just dying for some kind of superstar. But dart was it, and he didn't explode as much as people thought he would. And then you got Celebrini who didn't come out like but dart did in terms of crazy hype, but he's really developing into like, he's to me, he's, I mean, for hockey players, for hockey guys, I don't think this is like a hot take, but like Celebrini has a chance to win a Stanley Cup before McDavid. Like it's in the realm of possibility because the reason why Celebrini, when you watch him play hockey, why people like him so much is he's not necessarily the most, he's got a pretty good shot actually, but it's like the most amazing shot. He doesn't have like the craziest dekes. He's not like the fastest skater. He's not like McDavid. But when you watch him play, he just knows how to win games. He's like a 35-year-old vet in a 19-year-old body. Like he just knows that. And that's, I mean, that's the exact reason why he got picked for Team Canada. That's the exact reason why he is playing big minutes with two minutes left in the game. Like he's on the ice. Like this 19-year-old kid, because he knows how to like, he just knows how to play the game the right way. And that's why coaches in NHL love him. So I think he's here to stay, man. I think he's gonna be like knocking on the roof of like generational, like he's on that kind of stratosphere. Like he really is, man. When I watch him play, now obviously injuries and stuff will play a factor. You said he's kind of small. It's possible. But I think because he is kind of quickly developing into a hobby darling, not just in the hockey world, like in the hobby, right? And hobby darlings always have a place. They can go on a lull, which they will. But in the future, if he continues, he can have spikes, ebbs and flows, like real good ebbs and flows. Kind of like Acuna, right? Like Acuna has ebbs and flows because he was such a hobby darling back in 2018, right? Yeah. Whereas Mookie Betts, he wasn't a part of that like COVID rush. He's like from back in the day. And he just, he's gonna be, I think, sad to say, but because he's not really a hobby darling, he's just gonna have like a really solid career. And I don't think there's gonna be like crazy ebbs and flows with him, right? Mike Trout, I think he has way better chance of having crazy ebbs and flows than Mookie Betts, even though they're on the same sort of like Hall of Fame trajectory. Right. Because Trout was a hobby darling at the rise of COVID. Yes, yeah, yeah. I put Celebrini, I'm not telling people to go buy the Young Guns now. It's a little bit too crazy of a hype. But long-term Celebrini or Nathan McKinnon, I think Celebrini's in that hobby darling conversation. And he's got a chance to really go up and down throughout his career in terms of the hobby. So yeah, Celebrini's the pick for me. Wow. High praise from John. And John doesn't dish out high praise often. You know, he put a tamper on my Bedard hype back in the day. I'm like, yeah, I bought Bedard. He's like, yeah, I don't know. You know, it's like, so you know what? I changed my answer to Celebrini all the way. I'm all in. So that was a well said, very convincing. So yeah, Celebrini, wow. Okay. Now that you talk about Celebrini, I feel like, remember when Hyung won that prize at the expo? I feel like Celebrini's auto was on it. I can't remember if it was. It was. Yeah, the Celebrini auto was there. I know. Hyung, you should have kept it, dude. I know. I think you sold it. So now that Celebrini auto was on it, it's probably doubled in value. That's a good one. I like it. I'm gonna look on eBay now. Nice Celebrini cards. Don't do it, man. Young guys, I bought one already. What don't you buy? Just kidding. I did it. Going up all the way. All right, well, speaking of going up, can't help but talk about Otani again. Oh my gosh, yeah. So I'm doing this to make a kind of a point. For under 10K, what kind of like around 10K, just under 10K, what kind of Otani cards can you get for a PSA 10 graded, okay? I filtered it out for this past month. I know we're halfway through. Only two cards popped up, okay, for PSA 10 for under 10,000 Otani cards, and this is what you can get, and I wanted to see which one you would rather have, okay? First one is the 2019 Bowman's Best, and it's an auto franchise favorites card, so it's kind of a subset, but it is on-card auto, PSA 10, like I said, and it's not numbered, but it is 2019 Bowman's Best in this franchise favorites subset, all right? That's what you can get for- Not auto, I mean- No, it is, it is auto. Not numbered, not numbered, sorry. Not numbered, yes, not numbered. Yeah, yeah, okay, okay. Or you can get this rookie card, actually, 2018, but it's a Donruss Optic rated rookie, so non-licensed PSA 10, and also not numbered. That's sold for 9,540, so you're looking at both around the 9,500 mark. Right now- Wait, Donruss is autoed, sorry? Yes, it's autographed, yeah, on-card as well. Oh, man, this is ugly. But if you had 10K, this is what you're looking at if you want a PSA 10 Otani card right now. And the Bowman's Best is 2019, not rookie, second year. Yeah. Holy cow. So licensed, non-rookie, subset, or rookie, non-licensed, auto. I'm gonna pick option number three, which is non-rookie year, real one autos, Otani, PSA 10. I don't know if that's under 10 grand, but just joking aside. Man, between these two, man. It's, oh, man, it's crazy. I think there's such a great argument for the rookie card, even if it is non-licensed. You know, I talked to, I was in Whistler a couple weeks ago on vacation, and I met my wife's coworker, and he was just getting into sports cards. And I was talking about, yeah, I'm on this, like, I once in a while co-host this podcast. He's like, what are you talking about? And it's obviously, you know, figuring out that we both like cards. And he's pretty new to it. And he actually might be listening, but he's pretty new to it. And I remember, like, getting his thoughts on the hobby and stuff like that. And he's really collecting McDavid. And I mean, his thoughts was, like, rookie card all the way. Don't even talk to me about second year. Don't talk to me about, you know, like this awesome looking, the cup, patch, auto, McDavid. Like, I'm going rookie cards, right? So I'm wondering if a lot of the sort of newer ish collectors that are in the hobby right now are like the same thing. And clearly they are, because the Dawn Wars Optic, you know, on license, the hobby really turned on those non-licensed, and obviously it's selling for 10,000. So there is something there. But me personally, I can't, ah, man, I used to have some love for the license, but even if it's a rookie card, man, I think, I think I, and I'm going to have to assume that the Bowman's Best card looks pretty decent. Yeah, he's a follow through bat swing. Yeah, looking at the theater. Probably like a refractor-ish kind of color, right? Cause it's like a subset. Yep. And it's the older auto, right? The squiggly line, not the one that looks like a C. Yep, they're both the older autos, the rookie auto. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah, I'm going to go with the Bowman's Best. I, I, I. Oh. I like the fact that it's rookie, and I agree that rookie a lot of times trumps, but I, I'm, I don't trust the, the hobby. I think the Otani market is including everybody right now, including newbies that are collecting. Like it's just, everybody's in on it, and they're just, there's a lot of people, you know, like my wife's coworker, that are just like, oh, rookie card's out the way. And I think once everybody kind of catches up on their knowledge and education, may not be as much into it, unlicensed. So I, I'm going to safely go with the Bowman's Best. That's my pick. Okay, wow. You kind of said everything out loud that I was thinking in my head, the going back and forth for all those reasons, right? And I think if you actually saw the image of the car, I know you can't see it now, but yeah, there's something about, like, I like the rated rookie brand, you know, that's iconic for us that grew up in the junk wax era. Love it. So there's that, but when you look at the card, you know, it looks like he's waiting for the pitch. He's in the batting box, but then it's, it's so glaring, the helmet is just red. There's nothing on it. It's like the Jersey is so red with nothing on it. It's like, it's just like, I can't ignore it. It's, it's a personal preference, I guess, at this point. And the fact that the 2019 still has the original autograph that he used when he came into the league, that's a plus. So I think just for those two factors alone, it edges the rookie, but I'm like your wife's coworker's friend. Rookie is my number one, but yes, once you're more educated, the nuances of like which rookie cards you actually want to keep, those factors do come in play. So it is a 2019 sweep. Yeah, like I like I think the clear Like when you look at Bowman's Bowman's first rookie autos Like if Bowman's first didn't have the license and they were just like grayed-out jerseys. I Don't think they would be grails man. Like that's that's right Yeah, Bowman's first is only a thing to me it caught on and it's a thing because they have the licensing So it looks like they're in the MLB jerseys. That's that's a big part of it. It helps Alright, another great show Good to see you John and and we need more hockey. We need you back. So we can get more hockey in Exactly for the reason because I need more hockey in my collection too, and I can't believe I don't have that many living in Canada But it's true. Anyway, I'll have a brand new episode for you guys next week Actually, I'm going a little vacation. So there'll be some special episodes coming up. You can look forward to In the next couple weeks. Talk to you then. Bye Hey, thanks for listening to Cards to the Moon We'd really appreciate you subscribing to our podcast wherever you listen to your podcast And you can also connect with each of us on instagram at five card guys Or you can follow young at integrity sports cards or John at trade you at recess You can also check us out at five card guys calm Thanks again, and hope to connect soon You