Grading The Beckett Takeover By Collectors Inc.; How Hard Is Prospecting In Baseball/Hobby; Ranking Messi's Graded Rookie Card

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 377 and my name is Clark from Five Card Guys dot com. You can also find me at Five Card Guys all spelled out all one word on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and on TikTok. Co hosting with me as usual is Hyung, who is at cho Hyang on IG and YouTube as well. All right, off the top, I don't know if you saw, but I just did an IG reel and YouTube short on Benny Montgomery, who was the eighth overall MLB draft pick by the Colorado Rockies in 2021. And the reason I made a video on him was two reasons, really. One is that at the age of 23, he just announced his retirement from professional baseball. And two, although his career was cut short, we talked about Benny on this pod before because if you remember, he inscribed and autographed two very memorable Bowman Chrome cards, including one in which he signed Borat as his name. So check out the reel on my page at five Card Guys to see what the other one said. But Hyung, I thought we could take this opportunity, you know, just to ask you in particular, because I know you're heavily into baseball. How hard is prospecting in baseball and you know, by extension in the hobby, and do you have guys, you know, if you could think back that you were high on in the past, but you know, it didn't turn out, or vice versa, when the player just became a stud almost out of nowhere with little hype coming up in the system. Yeah, I mean, prospecting is always a different game on its own. It's something that I think people new coming into the hobby will never understand until they actually, I guess, experience kind of like how prospecting works. It's like a totally different game than your typical sports card collecting. Right. Because you're relying heavily on, you know, fundamentals, which is the actual minor league baseball and, you know, high school baseball, college baseball. So if you won, if you follow that as just, you know, a fan, I think that's massive in terms of helping, identifying prospects, you know, just knowing things earlier than, you know, the market, when the general market kind of catches on, or when sports publications catch on. Because I think that's why a lot of people like it, because there's so much high upside. But obviously with that, you know, if you break down statistically, how many people actually make it, and not only make it, they become the superstar. Right. Is you can't produce multiple, multiple superstars. I mean, in general, I think, you know, sports in general have done a great job of multiple or providing amazing draft classes year in, year out. You see that with basketball, you see that with football, you see that with baseball, where talent pool at least you don't have that next Frank Thomas. And it's like two, three years down the road, right. Where you're seeing, you know, Wemby, you're seeing Cooper Flag, you know, you're seeing, you know, Connor Griffin, whoever it is, it's every year there's, there's a new prospect. Right. So I think that keeps the prospecting very healthy. And that's, that's, that's the fundamental of it is that's the potential. That is why people enter that space is because if you knew Connor Griffin before he was Connor Griffin, if you knew, you know, Cooper Flag before he was Cooper, well, Cooper Flag's a little different because the hype comes with it. And then cards are the first access. But this is where pros Bowman prospecting specifically becomes more advantageous. Is you could you have that time period to buy in early. Right. Of these prospects. Right. So that's the whole point. You buy in early hoping that, you know, they're gonna have a successful minor league career to boost them up to that MLB level. And then there's that second level of when they make the majors. It doesn't mean their card is gonna guarantee hold. There's gonna be another crash essentially before they establish their careers and become even a superstar. Right. Even if you're a young superstar, you probably won't make your money if you're holding. Right? Yeah. So there's life cycles where you need to stay away from or you need to participate. That's a good way of putting it because to your point, there's always that sell marker. As a friend of the pod, Paul Hickey would say, when, if you pick up someone before they enter the draft or as they're being drafted is usually the best time right before they're called up to sell in most cases. Because like you said, there's always a crash that happens afterwards because it's hard to adjust to Major League Baseball at that level. Right. So, yeah, that's kind of what we are seeing a lot. And I like what you said too. If you look at the numbers, if you kind of step back, just a super small percentage that become actual superstars. Like that's the reality playing pro ball and how hard it is to make it. And of course it's kind of, you know, you only see the successful stories and it kind of warps what the reality actually is until you kind of see stories like Benny Montgomery retiring at the age of 23, which is, you know, sad, unfortunate, but I'm sure happens more often than we, than we think for sure. And I think it's important too, like if, if you look at the context of like ripping, I think there's a lot of like value in it too where it's, it, it's not necessarily. We, we talk a lot about how ripping is worthless, which from like that day, maybe it's true. But I'm saying this is where Bowman prospecting kind of gives you some leeway too because if you're ripping Bowman, you, you have cards that you think is worthless at the time, which they are, but. Right. There's so many times I could go through a stack of and find Tariq Skubal first Bowman chromes. Right. You know what I mean? That sell for whatever they sell. Maybe 100 bucks in a PSA 10, 150, whatever it is. But at one point they were worth like Tarik Skuba wasn't even a guy. Like when you're prospecting. So there's, there's stuff like that that keeps people in that prospecting game because there's other ways that you could still win. And for people to say that ripping is a net zero or you know, pure like negative roi, you're right for the most part. But there are plays that end up giving you that advantage down the road. Right. Where you know, at least you're collecting some of that back where you're not accounting for. Right. So I don't mind ripping prospecting because of that. Or even like breaks, for instance, if you're, you know, pay a little more. Yeah, you might be taking a gamble, but at least you're getting, you know, the first chrome base cards. Right. And enough of them where it's like 20 of a future superstar that ends up, you know, selling for 200 bucks each eventually. There's stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. It's always a possibility. And that reminds me of my two buddies that I started five car guys with back then. You've heard that story on the pod before. Juan Soto, 16 year old kid, who's that guy? You know, and then years later you're actually with that image like this guy's not a baseball guy. This guy weighs. Exactly. Why is he wearing an oversized helmet, double ear flap? Is it? No. Yeah. Oh, man, that's hilarious. But then, you know, on the other side, on the flip side, you know, because there's a lot of hype with these younger guys. You know, the top 10 prospects, usually the price or the value is baked in. So you got to be careful there too, because as there's more information out there on the Internet, more scouting reports, you know, you're paying a premium for the top 10 guys. So, yeah, there's that side of the game too. And the thing is, what I've learned from it is there's people that play in the. Really, like, oh, this guy is true. Like, they follow minor league baseball and this guy's truly a good baseball player. But I'm saying you stay away from that because you got to look at it in the context of major league baseball, what they want. So if let's just. And this is the biggest argument. Me, I was a baseball player. I was the scrappy one. I was the guy that was taking you out at second base, breaking a double play. I was the guy trying to run the catcher. If I had to get the momentum, none of that matters. So it's like, even though that's your. Your favorite type of archetype, knowing that that minor league baseball player is like, kind of like you like him and he's good, right? Is that card going to reflect MLB market prices of what they want to market as kind of like their play? Right, so, because. And that's where, you know, it goes back to top 10 prospecting. It gets really expensive because, you know, sometimes overpay, you have to overpay for these type of prospects. But I would say that's safer than kind of like that. You're finding that needle in the haystack prospect, you know, and usually what happens is, I'm telling you, you only have it because you ripped and that prospect was a nobody and you had it, you know, tucked away somewhere, and then you find it three, four years down the road that he became somebody, right? That's usually the case. It's like you're not gonna sit here and buy two dollar prospect autos hoping that, you know, in, you know, three, four years, they're gonna be thousands of dollars. Because realistically to me, that's tougher that you're gonna have a lot of base cards or base autos that are kind of like worthless or even color autos that I have so many color autos. That are worthless. It's the 98% that don't make it. Right. So that's why it's better to focus on the top 10 prospects. Yes, for sure. But I, you know, my sweet spot is the top from 10 to 20. That's the one I like to. Yes. Because there's usually this on those players. They could go up right into that topic. PCA. Yeah. Just saying 10 to 20. And look at him now. Right. Like he, he jumped another level. But yes, top 10 is usually safer. You're paying a premium. But you are paying a premium. That's the thing. And kind of what you're saying, going for like the outside of the top 50, that's kind of like penny stocks. Yeah. If you're into that, you know, it's not bad. Yeah. A couple players, I'm down with that. You get, get a couple of reds or oranges in those players. Sure. Tom Brady, you know, Tom Brady, you just never know. Right. But going back when we're talking about Benny Montgomery and you know, the whole thing about, you know, how prospects could, you know, end early, you know, I know. How much did that Borac card sell for? Premium. Yeah, yeah. Had to be a big premium, like 10k. I mean, I would love to still. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's important to discuss too, is just saying guys like baseball is such a difficult game. Like it, especially for someone that's entering adulthood, because there are so many adult things that come with being a major league baseball player, a prospect. When you're 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, you're still growing up, you're still not there. So it's very difficult and to have these expectations. Yeah. You know, Benny Montgomery had all the talent. Right. Like, you know that. But it's not as easy as. Just because you have the talent means that you're gonna have long career either. Right. So, you know, I, I understand how difficult the game is in general. And yeah, talent becomes secondary. So there's a lot of, I guess, risk in that, that a lot of people don't look at that side of what actually happens. So you got to make sure you're in a right environment as a player. You got to make sure the organization cares about you and is nurturing you for your mental well being. You know, you're a kid not to spend your big signing bonuses. You know, there's all these little things that we don't even take into consideration. But we're dumping thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars into something that, hey, man, it's bigger than just baseball. Like, baseball's a small portion. These kids still have to develop. They have to learn hard lessons, and that's part of the process. Right? So, yeah, buyer beware. You know, when you're into prospecting, it's a tough game. Let's end off this segment with five names that have been drafted recently, and you tell me which ones you're still high on. Okay. And you're, like, hopeful with, because these guys, speaking of young guys, still very young, but there's a couple obvious ones that I'm sure you still believe in. But starting from 2025, Eli Willits got drafted. Number one, 2024, Travis Bazzana. I remember the hype around Bazana when he was first coming up. 2023, guy named Paul Skeens, 2022 Jackson Holiday, and 2021 Henry Davis. Those are. Those are. Those are very random. I'm just Henry Davis, like, first pick overall, right? Yeah. Back in 2020. Remember, you were pretty high on Henry Davis back in the day. I was. I was, you know, what number one pick. You know, you can't really go wrong. But, you know, he's. I don't think he's had, you know, the type of career that everybody was expecting him to be, you know, to have, especially being the first pick overall. But, yeah, we could, we could. Where do you want to start? Just any of those names where you're like, you know, you thought it would turn out better and it's still possibility. Right? But yeah, yeah, Henry Davis would fall into that. I mean, Henry Davis already expired in terms of that. That process. That was the thing. It was, you know, you have a college guy, you know, your window of frame is, like, really tight. Right? So that's the difference between a high school prospect and a college prospect where, you know, the organization might have three, four years, you know, with a high school prospect and he's 21, 22, and four years in with the organization rather than a college guy who spends, you know, three, four years in a college program and then completely has to adapt to, you know, minor league and major league baseball. And you're in the show and you're expected to perform because, you know, you're at that age. Right? So I think Henry Davis, it was one of those things where, you know, he had a tight timeline and, you know, and like I said, he could. He's still maturing as a player. You don't know what type of player you're going to get. And that's the realities of baseball. It's not like, hey, Acuna or Soto, you know, he's 18, 19 years old in the big leagues hitting.300. That's the standard. That's not the standard. I'm telling you right now, that is not the standard. And that never happens. Rarely happens. And I think everybody expects that from everyone. But reality, you get one a year, if that. And Kevin McGonagall would be that guy this year, right, who's really fulfilling that role, right? But Eli Willis, like, those are guys that are still young. Like, he's 18 years old and he's hitting.300. You know, those are the guys you want to follow. And they're gonna carry more hype, right? Where it goes back to the scenario of, you know, the Cards have, you know, eli when he's 18 years old, as opposed to 21, you know, coming from a college program, you know, and that's where development occurs, right? It's like they get comfortable with life. They understand how it is. So for me, before, even high school prospects were like, I don't know, there's so much that can go wrong. But there's a lot of things that, you know, align with organizations when you have them for, you know, the three, four or five years, right? So, yeah, yeah, like, there's. There's a lot of opportunity there with. With Eli, I think he's going to be a great player. He's going to be, you know, a big leaguer. So it's just a matter of time. So it's buying, right? For sure. And, you know, I know our. Our buddy DC listens to the podcast. You know, he had to choose between Acuna and Kevin. My 10. He chose Mai 10. I'm just saying, you know, not everyone back 1000, but he has the black label. But, yeah, he'll appreciate that. Shout out. And I looked at Travis Bazzana. Decent stats, 261, seven homers. But, you know, again, the. The perfect time to sell was when he was first called up, like it usually is. And then you got Jackson Holiday batting.198 this year. The Orioles not having the greatest season, but he's still a young guy, too. So baseball's tough. And that's why it's like Travis Bazana, like, he's. He's going to hit, right? But it's like. It's like that might not happen till he's 25, 26, 27 years old, right? And that. That's the realities of it. It's like you have superstars in the making, but it's like well, at what price point are you going to buy at peak? Because he might have a bigger, bigger dip in the next two, three years before, you know, it goes up again. So it's like, that's why prospecting so hard is like, you have to understand the timelines of baseball in general. Right. And when to sell. And we mentioned it earlier how, you know, the right selling period would be, you know, Right. When they get called up. Right. Because now there's a new expectation that he has to fulfill that at a really younger age to be a superstar in the big leagues. And that really doesn't happen, guys. Right. Yep. Yep. And I'll end off with this. Prospecting is hard in baseball, but in hot in the hobby as well. Because out of the five names I gave you, the person I definitely would have bought is a pitcher. And, you know, Paul Skeens happens to be the one exception here. Yeah. That just is lights out. His values keeps going up. So super hard to predict. But that's the game. And it's. I think the game is changing, you know, like, I think Paul Skeens totally changed the game. Like he. Sure. He proved that there was a market, a pitcher's market. Right. And it helped Kershaw prices, It hurt. Helped Verlander prices. It helped every single price. So like I said, we're in a whole different marketplace. Like, we don't know. We just don't know how this market is gonna all unfold. And we could speculate like we're doing, but realities is it could change. It has changed. Now are catchers gonna get the love they deserve? Right. Do they go on different standards? Right. And I think as the hobby evolves, I think it's changing, I think because we're valuing it properly. Meaning the really high end cards. You know, of, you know how there was a. There was a, I guess unequal distribution of why did one card sell for 1.5 million but another of the same card of a same caliber player sell for 50,000. There was way too much of a gap of speculative value. But what you're seeing is even the, the goats of every sport, you're seeing their cards like climbing. Climbing, climbing, Climbing. Sure. Properly valued. Properly valued. Right. Whether it was deflated or inflated at the time. Right. The market's correcting regardless. And those are. That's where you have to play. Yep. Everything's changing. And you know, the old adage is true, change is the only constant. So love it. As long as you keep that in mind. Yeah. That's always a wise Move. All right, let's move on to hobby headlines. Okay, Just kind of switching gears a little bit now that we're halfway into the year. It's about that amount of time, like six months since PSA's parent company, Collectors, acquired Beckett. We've seen some changes in Beckett's grading process already and as well as a redesign and some info that I read from a recent article explained, you know, what further changes could be coming. Okay, so I want to take this opportunity during this segment to evaluate how we feel about Beckett now and whether Beckett can become at least number two again in relevance when it comes to grading. Alright, so shout out to sportscollectorsdigest.com which is where I read the interview. And they actually talked with Beckett's new gm, Colin Hudson, who was pretty much hired by collectors to help revitalize the Beckett brand. Okay, so before we begin, just a bit of history first, for people that are new to the space. Beckett launched its BGS grading service in the late 1990s. Right. Dr. James Beckett actually started Beckett about 15 years earlier, but they started the Beckett grading service in the late 90s. That's about eight years after PSA opened for business. And throughout the 2000s and early 2010s, you know, we're very familiar with that era, PSA and BGS were battling each other for submissions. You know, they're top two by far in regards with grading companies competing for the space. But then we all know how BGS has declined since then, slipping to number four behind CGC and SGC as well. And by the end of 2025, Beckett graded 842,000 cards versus 19.26 million cards by PSA. Okay, so there's the context. First quote by Colin Hudson, he says, quote, they want to make Beckett great again. So he, he continues that quote, they kind of got out competed. Beckett kind of got out competed by more than number of companies, but the brand has still remained awesome. So let's start there. Do you agree with that statement or disagree? 100%. And that's why we, we've talked about it. We should have bought it all the time. Brand, brand was low. Like the brand was. There is an operational issue. Right. So that's why if you had, you know, whatever it sold for, it would have been a good investment. So 100% the brand is. Are they utilizing the brand, you know, the way, you know, I would do it? Probably not, because I think there's a lot more brand value they could squeeze out of it, especially specifically their black label they are playing their black label a little bit, which we. We said that we agreed that, you know, Beckett. Beckett magazine back in the day. And black labels are probably one of Beckett's biggest assets. So I'm. I'm 100% agree with that quote. Nice. And that's a good segue to the next question I had. I don't have much to add to that because we've said it many times on this pod before. We. We believe in the brand. The brand has staying power, and that's what Beckett has got going for them. But, yes, I agree with you on that. But the segue to that is, I think they took this idea from us because we talked about this on the pod before, and that's that. That's the fact that they're exploring the idea of bringing back a version of the Beckett print magazine. Amazing. Which you just mentioned. So obvious. Obviously, it won't have the price guide. Right. That we're nostalgic about. But he says, quote, I do think that this hobby lends itself to a physical medium. Okay. And then he says, so a magazine where you can just decompress, take a break from the screens and read about the hobby. I think that's something we're exploring. So Beckett magazine making a comeback. Possibly. I like it. I like the idea. I think it will be, why wouldn't they put the price guide? I think that that should be a must. Like that would be. But it changes so frequently now. You could just go online. But you could. Yeah, you could go online, but I think you could have AI figure that out really quick. So it wouldn't be an issue of being able to replicate, you know, a monthly or. What if they do annual publication or monthly or maybe quarterly would make more sense. Four publications a year, right. Yeah. Market changes. So it's like this was spring quarter 1, 20, 26. These were the prices. And then you look at the quarter two prices, and it's like, holy. I want to see the up arrow. I want to see the down arrow. You know, sure. You can play into nostalgia factor, for sure. Maybe. Maybe not. For, like, obviously there's millions and millions of cards now that are being printed. Yeah. Maybe you do it for the iconic cards. Yeah. Or the main sets. Yeah, Iconic cards. And then you have the full. I think you still need somewhat of a price guide, because what was the price guide before it was. It was not necessarily market data that they're going off of. They're just going off of their pricing system. But now that you have an actual market, you have live data that it's all about, you know, being able to implement that into. And those are the future things that we need to implement, you know, the technology to make the experience better for collectors and users. Right. So. And that's going to evolve and change constantly whether that concept stays in the form of print media or it evolves into, you know, like online. You have it on your tablet, you have it. Have instant access to price. I don't have to 130 point everything. I don't have to ebay, comp everything. I have it right there, you know, so, yeah, I think there's something there you're making. You're convincing me otherwise because I thought like, why would you want this? But I think maybe, or just off the top of my head right now, you know, you predict what the next, you know, whether it'll go up by a certain amount or down. Kind of like this prediction game. Yeah. And then. And it gets, I don't know. I think there's something there, but. Yes, but you look at 1:30 point. Like, aren't, like to me, it's great. I love 130 point. But if I had an app that I want the live price easy. Yeah. You know, Beckett, boom. You know, I don't have to go to any other brand. I get the live price right there. And it could be live on. Not on the print publication, but, you know, on their, you know, on their actual app or digital version. I would want a live, live pricing. Okay, well, I mean, you're making this segment really easy because that's another question I had for later on. But I'll bring it up now since you brought the app and in terms of what's coming, Hudson notes that, you know, they've already revamped the website, but they do have plans to come out with a new app in July. And with it, Hudson says, quote, the new web experience will also include a vault functionality such that you can send Beckett orders to the PSA vault and unlock instant offers and eventually sell on ebay. Basically all the functionality once you're within the PSA vault. End quote. So there you go. An app really taking a page out of the PSA playbook. They've had experience with it. Is that a no brainer for you? No brainer. It's ecosystem. We're talking ecosystem. There's a reason why they bought Beckett. You know, like I said to a company that doesn't have PSA's infrastructure, Beckett will not be worth what it's worth to someone like psa. Who has the infrastructure that could take Beckett and implement their infrastructure into a company like Beckett? There's enormous value and that's, that's a business 101 that, you know, I think is so valuable in even, you know, day to day transactions with, you know, people. It's like, why would someone want a partner or buy a company and how do they perceive value? Because, you know, I think a lot of people just see value one way. Oh, Beckett's not worth that much. They did X amount of cards, their fourth place in grading, in the grading race. But it's like, well, that's not why Beckett's valuable. It's like in the hands of the right beholder. How valuable can Beckett be? That's the question. And to me, that's exactly how PSA sees it. So to me, it's an ecosystem play 100%. They know what they're doing. It makes logical sense to me to do it like that. Yeah, I think that's what will make Beckett unique in that sense. Right. Because the brand itself is much bigger than just grading, just slabs. Right. But it's a big part of it for sure. But yes, like if we talked about the magazine, for example, that's part of it. That, that would be part of the brand. It wouldn't be how much ROI is this magazine giving me? It's, it's all about where does Beckett sit with the end user in this whole hobby and ecosystem. And that's it. When you're, when you're not doing anything and you're in, and then you're on the, you're on the crapper and then, you know, take a dump. You friggin reading material. Right. So it's just like, it's always top of mind in terms of branding, you know. So to me, it would be that type of play of the value of the magazine. You know what I mean? Yeah. I'll say this because I used to be in print. Print business as a journalist, like print is tough industry to break through in. PSA has their own magazines too. I don't think that's doing. I mean, I don't hear much about PSA magazine. Anyone saying, oh yeah, I can't wait for the next PSA magazine edition. But what Beckett has for them, again, brand, the whole nostalgia factor of Beckett magazines, they have to really play heavily into that to even stand a chance to be successful. All right, let's talk numbers now. Apparently there were roughly grading 4,000 cards on a daily basis at the beginning of this year, 2026 today. They are now grading 7,000 cards a day. And in May alone, they said Beckett hit 145,000 graded items, which is 49% month over month increase. And he attributes, cuts and attributes part of that uptick in hiring almost 100 new roles across the operation. Are you impressed with those numbers at all, or is that a little underwhelming? No, I think. I think you have to be happy with the direction they're going. Like, it doesn't surprise me, though, because I've already identified it was operational, you know, and we've already talked many times that it wasn't. Had nothing to do with the brand. The brand is strong. So what do you address if you purchase Beckett? You address the issues, right? Which is operational. And they did exactly that. And what that does is now they can handle 7,000 cards a day they weren't able to handle. They're able to handle 4000. So to me, it's like PSA understands how to run the system in terms of scaling. And I think that's a very important factor and value that PSA brings that a lot of people aren't looking at. It's like PSA is not only valuable because they're selling a bunch of slabs, and they're valuable is because their ecosystem works and they could take a brand like Beckett and scale it to the moon. And like I said, they have the opportunity to make PSA and Beckett 1 and 2, Coke and Pepsi, and they own both. So that's crazy thought. Yeah, for sure. One thing I will add, though, when I saw this is that, you know, just a few weeks ago, you know, Will and Roy, we talked more in depth about what PSA is doing. And I don't know if you heard the last episode, Will came out with his own grading company called sec, C, S, E, C, C. Surface Edge Corners. What was the other C stand for? What am I missing out of the subgrades? Surface Edge Corners. And my goodness, our listeners. Surface Edge. Centering. Centering. Centering. Come on. Centering. Yes. Oh, my goodness. People are yelling Centering. It's centering. You need to talk about Beckett. It's centering. Sorry, guys, it's. It's early still. We're recording this on a morning. Thursday morning. But anyway, and this is the episode. Will laid it out. It was amazing. But why am I bringing this up, man? I lost my train of thought. It was. Will had this idea of grading company. Yes, but what was I saying before? This episode is going off the rails right now. Okay, you know what? Actually, this is Kind of what I was thinking about because I asked Will and Roy about it, and I don't think I asked you yet, but the new Beckett slaps. I don't know if you like it. It's very subtle to me, but are you a fan? The big, big change really is the Auto grade is much smaller and on the front side of the slab and the grade of the actual card is a little bit bigger. Yeah. Different font. Slightly different font. Like it. I. I always believe that you adapt to like it because over time, no matter how much I like or dislike the design, I'm indifferent with the design, to be honest. But no matter what I believe now, I know in the future I will prefer the newer version over the old one because the old one will just look outdated. Like the auto 10 people realize. Do you know how inconsistent the color of. And the font size. You know what I mean? It's just so much inconsistency with Beckett slabs. Like the old slabs. That true. And it's funny because you. You do this with cars too. A lot of people are like, oh, the new BMWs or the new Audis, whatever it is. Oh, they're ugly. And then over time, you're like, man, the last generation was way outdated. It's like, I prefer this one now. Right. So it's one of those things where I think I'm. I'm learning to adapt like a. More, I guess, over time, you know, and it looks more updated. So I'm for it, I guess. Yeah. And it's very subjective, so I agree with that for sure. But the thing is, they did bring back the. The logo, the bee with the laurels around it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they're bringing something I like that I like. You have to have some element of the classic Beckett that people resound with, because if you. If you totally change the brain. Like, I remember seeing the design, the other design that they were looking at, and it looked like a totally different company. Like, I remember, like a few years ago, I don't know if it was like April Fool's Day or it was like, they're launching new Beckett design. It's like, nah, man, this isn't it. But I'm glad they. I'm glad they kept the. The. The old Beckett logo. Yeah. It's homage to the heritage of Beckett. So I like that too. I want to take a step back because now I remember what I wanted to say before. Before I lost my train of thought when it's when they talked about a hundred new roles being, you know, Hiring a hundred new roles across the operation. That reminds me of PSA saying they want to hire a lot more. I think a hundred more. So it makes me wonder if that's enough to scale like psa, which is already in the millions of cards. Yeah. You know what I mean? And if they're. If they've done that for Beckett and it can only go from 4,000 to 7,000. Yeah, no, I don't know if those numbers work out. I. I think. I think it's a proof of concept first. So it's like, you know, you. You don't want to be number two right away. I think you have to see the market that Beckett brings in. It's different clientele. Who knows? Like, there's going to be an influx of new Beckett users. So this is all market data. This is all proof of concept that they're building. And even then, by the time they have that proof of concept with Beckett now, I think technology becomes a factor of what's available at the time. And how can they start implementing? Because I know for a fact that PSA cannot keep on scaling vertically the way they're scaling because, you know, operational overhead costs on things that you could eliminate a lot of the problems within that kind of influx of operations with. I know people don't want to hear it, but AI, for instance, there's a lot of things that. And maybe they're doing this in the meantime, and I guarantee you they have a plan of something with technology. It's just they can't rely on it right now because it's too new. So it's a process. We're going to start seeing implementation of technology, whether it's within the process, they're using more AI and technology, whether it's actually your cards are going through an AI process of grading, where it takes out the human error, but humans are still involved in assembly or whatever it is or part of the process. They're going to figure it out, and then they're going to apply that same system to something like Beckett once they get the proper market data. Yeah, fair point, fair point. And we'll see how it plays out ultimately as time goes on. All right, I got one last quote from the article. And they also, they did manage to talk with Nat Turner, CEO of Collectors, and he quoted or he pretty much said, the subgrades that Beckett is known for isn't going anywhere. And Hudson, the gm, also tried to calm any fears of Beckett being consolidated into PSA anytime in the future. He says, quote, to me, it's the best of both worlds where we have the autonomy to pursue what we think is right for Beckett. And there's always notes that we can compare. I don't feel pressured in any way to, like, okay, here's the way that you have to do things. It's really thinking through the lens of what's best for the customer, what's best for the hobby, and then execute. Yeah. End quote. So if you're a fan of Beckett, if you're a fan of Beckett's labs, does that make you feel better, or do you still have concerns that maybe in the future there might be things that get consolidated by psa? You know, upcharges is number one up there probably. Maybe they push more collectors to grade with PSA by making crossover from PSA to or from Beckett to PSA easier just because the ROI of PSA slabs are still significantly higher. Any of those concerns cross your mind or no? Yeah, I think there are a lot of concerns that can be potentials, and we won't know that. But you know what? We really don't have control over that. So, like, for me, I rather have the leader, you know, coming from his own mouth that, you know, that's what this is, what they're planning to do. And for me, it's the right thing to say and do. That's who I want as a leader to say that. Like, we don't. He's basically saying we don't know what's gonna happen, but our job is to make sure that we bring value towards the end consumer, you know, and we don't. The thing is, we don't know how that looks. So it's like, he's not gonna say anything is for certain, such as upcharges. We don't know. We just don't know. So it's like, what more can, you know, you ask for, I guess from someone who's strategically, you know, doing all this, I think it's kind of like reassuring from my end saying, okay, he got it. Like, as long as his mindset is in that frame, I'm happy with the direction of where the leadership. If the leader couldn't say that, for instance, yeah, I would be more worried. Sure, I'd be okay. What's the intention? Is it money? Is it, like, what. What's the goal here with Beckett? And if they're, like, not addressing that, you know, the number one value is to address the concerns of whatever the market dictates. Really. That's. Sure. You got kind of have to go with that. Yeah. I agree in large part. I guess the last question I really had was, is there anything you want to see from Beckett, like in terms of their process or, or their operations or just, you know, the grading in general that you haven't seen yet? I think. I think it's one experience, you know, make making it an experience like PSA somewhat does it, like, whether it's card reveal, you know, you get your car, you're excited with that, you're emotionally attached to PSA and the process. Right. So it'd be like, you know, creating the experience, the user experience really well, so that people want to submit to Beckett. And I think it's a matter of time before us people, everyday buyers of Sports Card, realize how undervalued BGS labs are. And there will be a market correction which will go hand in hand with submissions, more people submitting. But with that said, I think there's tremendous value in buying opportunities. And BGS 9, 5 slabs, you know, if I'll take a BGS 95 slab any day at 50% of a PSA 10, you know, and I think it's just a matter of time before I wouldn't say that it would ever be equal, but I think, you know, when you're looking at a true gem or true Netgem plus, it should be closer to a PSA10 side than anything. And, you know, I do believe that if the POP report still, you know, values of BGS 10, you know, slightly higher than a PSA 10, so. And then you got your black label, which is a different beast. You know, I think the market if. If the market could get to that point again where, you know, I think that would be very healthy for Beckett. Agree. And the one thing I would add is I think there's so much more they can do with the BGS10 black label. Right. Just make it. Just keep it rare. Don't, don't. Yeah, you know, don't give it away. Don't get pressured into like, oh, we need to give more of these away, because this is what people want. But if you keep it rare, anyone that gets a BGS10 black label, they get access to something like just create some kind of experience. You know what I mean? It's like something more that. That makes the BGS10 black label even more special. Anyway, just throwing that idea out there, Hudson, you know, for what it's worth. And yeah, I think there's something there you could play with. But anyway, lots to do with bgs. And I, like what Will mentioned in our last episode He's, I think he's pretty convinced that fanatics is going to come up with their own grading system or, or buy out another grading company. And you know, if that happens, certainly the game changes as well because then there's another viable competitor which could, you know, have Collectors Inc. Change their plans. Right. So I don't see it. Anything happen. I don't. You don't see it? I don't see it. I don't see it. I don't, I don't see the need to. Because if, if, if, if it's. If I, if, if PSA smart, it would be more partnership value. And how do you work together to make more money in the whole ecosystem rather than trying to compete in every piece? You see what I'm saying? If one partner could push the volume and do the grading aspect really well, they could be very valuable for the other side and they focus on what they're good at. And that expansion would be more valuable than trying to create marketplace tension. Right. Where the partnership doesn't, doesn't gain as much as what the competition would create. Perhaps. If that makes sense. Perhaps. But we'll see. Anything can happen. You're right. Anything can happen. You thought this was your Run Club era. Turns out it was more of a thinking about Run Club era. The good news, someone's marathon training is about to start. Sell your workout gear on Depop. Just snap a few photos and we'll take care of the rest. They get their race day fit and you get a payout for trying. Someone on Depop wants what you've got. Start selling now, Depop. Where taste recognizes taste. Alright, let's go on to our next segment and it's called Rank Them. Okay, so we haven't done this ranking segment in a while. The theme of this segment is Lionel Messi, who just broke the World cup record this year for most goals in the tournament with 18, I believe. And counting. Because Argentina is still in the tourney as we record. So we know the rookie card for any messy collector, that is number one is the 2004 Panini Megacracks 71 Bis. Right? And so tie that with what we just talked about. Grading. I'm gonna give you four or, sorry, I'm gonna give you five grades of the same card. And I want you to rank them in order from lowest value to highest value. Okay? So that card again is the 71 bis. The iconic Lionel Messi rookie. All right, so the five grades are BGS 7.5, BGS 8.5, BGS 9 and PSA 7. PSA 8. So which one do you think has the lowest value? All the way to the highest value. So what's the BGS again? 7.5, 8.5, and 9. So 7.5 is the lowest? Yes, 7.5 is the lowest. And then it goes 8.5. BGS. Yep. Then it goes. I want to say, man, where you slot the PSAs. That's where the. Yeah, yeah. I would say PSA 7 next. BGS 85. PSA 8. And then what was last one? BGS 9. And then BGS 9. Yeah. Okay, so say that order again. BGS 7.5 is 7.5 lowest. PSA 7, BGS 85, PSA 8, BGS 9. But I would not with this card in particular. I don't know. There's such a big fluctuation between each PSA grade. I wouldn't be surprised if the PSA 8 outsold the. The. The BGS 9. But. Yes, 9. Yeah, I'm gonna. I'm gonna keep it as. As that. That's what it should be. Okay, locked in so close. You got two incorrect. And it's not the one you think. Really? You got BGS 7.5, right. That was the easy one. Yeah. You got BGS 9. Correct. That is the highest price. Okay, so recently, 34,000. The BGS 7.5 sold for 13. 5. Okay, so those are the two extremes in the middle. This is where you got wrong. It's not PSA 7. It's BGS 8.5. That's sold for under second. Yeah. 16 5. Yeah. The PSA 7 sold for just over 20. That's crazy. And then you got PSA 8 at 31, 200. Which goes to your point again. 31, 200 for PSA 8 versus 34,000 for BGS 9. That's close enough where it could kind of flip each other. Right, every once in a while. Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. I mean, but that just shows you in a bullish market, this is what you're dealing with. It's like, people don't know what the real value is. So it's a guessing game of, you know, I'm buying it at this cost. And the guy who bought the BGS E5 did really well, you know, if you really think about it. Because that PSA 7 comp helped them big time. Right. So for sure. So it's not saying that that's what he has to sell it for. Right, right. You know what I mean? Because that could be closer to the BGS9 value. Right, that's true. Eventually. And these five sales are the most recent. So, yeah, if I gave you this question, a month from now, the order can change. It will change. Because like I said, it's not population 20,000 cards where like you have everyday sales either. Right. So it's like you, you would have sporadic sales of these in terms of data. And you know, days and weeks can mean a lot in our marketplace. Right. Whereas, you know, if you have 10,000 or 20,000 Ohtani selling every day, you have every day, the data of this is what the value is as opposed to, you know, the big gaps that we're seeing. So. Good point, good point. Okay, let's finish off this episode with a regular weekly segment we call Pick one. All right, Chung, you got one for us to start? Yes, I do. So I'm actually going soccer and you know. I know, I know. But go ahead. You know, soccer is big right now. Our, you know, especially World cup and you know, very disappointing match yesterday with. With Korea. Korea, yeah. Just embarrassing. But we won't talk about that. We're going to talk about Messi and the, the 04 panini, you know. Yeah, the mega cracks number 71. Yeah. So PSA 10 last sold for. Well, it says 960,000, but I thought there was a recent 1.5 million dollar sale, but card letter has it at 9,960k. So we'll use the 960k. Okay. Which is, which is huge. Like that's, that's been, you know, the highest it's ever been. So I'm pairing that up. All right. With just recently the Lamina Mall. Topps chrome, super fractor auto. Right. Yeah. This guy's 18 years old. He's on the opposite spectrum of Messi. But he might be the next Messi type. I would say hype player. Right. Obviously there's a lot that sold for $396,000. Okay. Which was a record sale too. So are you taking the chance and spending 400k on the Super Fractor auto of it's 2023, 2024 Topps Chrome. The Super Fractor auto. It's graded a PSA 8 auto 10 versus the 2004 mega cracks number 71 Messi PSA 10 that sold for $960,000. I mean, you know, it's funny because lately I've been talking about my super fracture strategy because, you know, you only need one buyer that really evaluates or evaluates the card super high to make a nice tidy profit. High risk, high reward, classic high risk. High reward. Right. And you know, Yamal showing what he can do already in this World cup tournament. A lot of hype around him still. But I'm not, you know, I'm, you know me, I'm not that much of a risk taker. And then. And Lionel Messi and that 1.5 million cell that was PSA 10, but it had the NBA certification on it. It was the rare one. Yeah. Gold NBA. Yes. The other one's a pop 20. Pop 20 for the regular. I looked at that pop 20 and that kind of convinced me and like that's super low. I'm gonna, I'm gonna buy it and keep it in the bank because that's as safe as you can be. So I'm going with Messi. You're not going for your Mel. Come on. I think I am. I think I am. Wow. I think the Super Fracture has so much more room. Yeah. For definitely. No, but it has a chance. But I also believe the. There's enough buyers in, in the mega cracks. But for 400k for less than half of the price. I'm taking my chances. If it was equal dollar to dollar, then yeah, for sure. I think I would go right. You know, the messy. But the Yamal is like, I mean that's a super fracture. Auto of tops, chrome. Like that's, that's, that's his card. That's his card. I think, I think what he's doing at his age, you know, he's, he's incredible, man. And you know, soccer needed this too. Like it's same thing as all the sports. I know we talk about main like football, basketball and baseball, but you know, what we've seen with soccer cards over the last few years is pretty crazy too. And it's the same thing. It's the goats. It's the same story happening. The goats of the goats. The prices are absurd now in terms of super rare cards. So I'm gonna take my chance on the Yamal just because, you know, the price point at 400k versus a million, you know, I think there's a lot of room to grow. Okay. I mean, I can't argue with you there. But yes, that's, that's a crazy risk at that six figure number. But like I said, I'm a believer in the super fracture strategy. And. But you know, maybe one thing that swayed me to go to the Messi side is our initial discussion off the top with young prospects and then young rookies and young guys in general. A lot can happen, you know, as they get Older. That's true. So that's another risk factor with your mom being so, so young. Right. So maybe that's what convinced me otherwise. But. But yeah, good one. Okay. It's funny you brought Messi because that's part of my 1v1. I just put in our chat. So you can look at the cards. It's The Lionel Messi 2015 Flawless. Okay. Signatures, gold proof autograph card. I believe it's a PSA ATS Auto 10. It's numbered to 2, so it's 2 of 2. Okay. It's a nice looking card. In his Argentina uniform. He has, he's pointing to the air like he just scored a goal or he won a game. And then that sold for 102,000. Okay. On June 19th, last week. And on the other side also sold for 102,000 exactly last week as well. The 2018 Impeccable Jalen Brunson Rookie Patch Auto Platinum, which is a PSA 10 and it's also a one of one. Yeah. That's two guys in the news right now. The hypes there, the, the Messi is a. It's two of two. Yes. That's crazy. There's only, there's only two of those. That specific card. Yeah, man. So I think Brunson's a dog. He's. What he's done in New York is unbelievable and Huge fan. Yeah. Just amazing. But, but I think, hey, that hundred $2,000 price could be actually, you know, cheap. But like in the, in the future, relatively. But man, I don't know, man. I think there's like, you're. I think it's a definite sell period for Jalen Brunson right now. So I don't think I would be buying Jalen Brunson right now. I'm okay with buying Messi right now, even though both are, you know, hyped up because Messi, I think his upper end cards still have room where like Jalen Brunson, you never know because he's still playing, you know, he still has, you know, his career to, you know, cement. He's doing a great job right now. A lot of things can happen and that road's gonna be a long time. So for me, it's. In this case, it's like I know that Messi's cards are gonna keep going up. He doesn't really have to do much. I mean, he's, he's already did what he had to do. Cemented his legacy already. Yeah. And. And the card market's crazy right now, so Messi is correcting. So I think Jalen Brunson will correct too, but not in the same way as Messi. So that's why. No, it's good. Good reasoning, good logic. I'm gonna play the hobby logic card. Okay. Probably doesn't make sense, but I'm going out on a limb. I'm gonna. I'm gonna go Brunson. Really? It's a one of one. It's a rookie hatch auto. Okay. It's not like a 2015 non rookie year. Right. That has it going for it. And if Jalen Brunson won a championship in any other city, it will be Messi. Right, but we know New York Knicks, the Mecca of basketball. Okay? There's going to be buyers. Look at this. Look at the front. You know what's that? The courtside seats. Just look at all those guys there. They could afford six figure cart any day of the week. We even got his teammate Cat who's into collecting. Maybe he's interested in buying, you know, his teammates. One of one rookie patch auto. Right. I'm just saying there are some limited buyers. Yes, but Spike Lee, maybe Ben Stiller, maybe. Yeah. Jerry Seinfeld, maybe Larry David, maybe any New York legend is in. So for those reasons. So you would basically have a $1.1 million package with the MegaCracks, PSA 10 and Jalen Brunson 101. I rather have for half a million dollars the. The Messy two of two and the. The Yamal auto. The super fractor auto for 500. Interesting. All right. That. That's how you're spending your money. Okay, nice. All right, another great episode. Appreciate all the listeners out there and we'll have a brand new episode for you guys on Friday. Talk to you then. Hey, thanks for listening to Cards to the Moon. We'd really appreciate you subscribing to our podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts. And you can also connect with each of us on Instagram @5Card Guys. Or you can follow Hyung at Integrity Sportscards or John at TradeYou at recess. You can also check us out@fivecardguys.com thanks again and hope to connect soon.