Interview With Josh @InspiredSportsCards On His Unique Way Of Interviewing Collectors, Hosting Weekly Hobby Trivia On IG, And Pick 1 (Judge Vs. Ohtani); Plus Who's Going To The National This Year?

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 another Friday edition of the podcast. It's Clark from 5cardguys.com and you can also find me at 5cardguys on Instagram, YouTube and on Facebook. Just a quick solo intro from me today because we've got a special guest interview for this episode. His name is Josh at Inspired Sports Cards on Instagram and you'll see why we asked him to be on the pod in just a second other than being one of our earliest supporters of Cards to the Moon. But quickly, off the top, if you hear this episode on Friday, July 25th when it comes out, that means we are a week away from the National and yes, I will be there in Chicago to attend for the very first time. If you're a loyal listener like Josh and you're also planning to be at the National, DM us at 5cardguys or at Cards to the Moon and maybe we can meet up and record a little something for the pod while we're there at the biggest card show in the world. Also, if you're DMing us and you've already been to the National in previous years, I would love to hear some of your top tips for having a good time at the show. Alright, like I said, short and sweet. Now here's the interview with Josh at Inspired Sports Cards. Enjoy! So we got another special guest on the pod today and I'd like to also add right off the bat that he's been one of our early listeners and supporters of our podcast so it's definitely my pleasure to have Josh on the show today. He's also started producing some interviews on his Instagram account with other hobbyists in a fairly unique format which we'll definitely discuss today as well. But before we do, you can find him at Inspired Sports Cards and if you check out his bio on his IG page, you'll find out that he's also an avid baseball card collector. So that's one reason why I'm sure this conversation will go really well because we're all baseball card collectors on this pod first and foremost. But then again, he's also a Yankees fan which if you see our promo clip for this podcast, he's wearing a Yankees hat and we're Blue Jays fans. I'm wearing a Jays hat right now and we're battling it out for first in the AL East Division so we'll see how this conversation goes. All kidding aside, we were just talking off air how the AL East Division is always the most competitive, always the most difficult and we're just saying how we like it that way. It's always fun to see the competitive side of things and come close to playoff time. Man, it's exciting. It is. Without further ado, you just heard him. Josh, welcome to the podcast. Awesome to have you on. Thanks, Clark. I'm Chris Clark, a longtime fan of the pod. With you and Hyung and everybody, it was one of the first hobby-focused podcasts that I found and came across. I could tell immediately just from the way that you conducted each pod on the Tuesdays and Fridays where you do it. Immediately, I think you're very knowledgeable about the hobby, both you and Hyung and John and the other guys who joined too. Immediately, I was just gravitated towards it because it just sounded really knowledgeable and I think the mix of the education about the hobby, taking a good stance of it and not being too biased one way or the other, and the entertainment value, it's just a great listen. It's not easy to captivate somebody's attention for 30 minutes, let alone 60 minutes like a lot of your episodes are. I appreciate that. Thank you for everything that you do. I know it's a lot of work putting in these. As you mentioned, I've started doing some on my Instagram stories. Even just those ones, they're five to seven minutes long each, but it probably takes me about a half hour to an hour just to put those together. I can only imagine longer formats and also ones that are more consistent being weekly or twice a week. I appreciate all that positive feedback and those comments. We appreciate you, of course, and all our listeners just tuning in week after week. That makes things a lot easier for us to do it consistently because we know that there are people listening. Yeah, exactly. It's always welcome. Thank you for those kind words. I just want to shift the focus back to you, our guest. Usually, I like to start from the beginning of our guest's hobby journey. When did you first start collecting cards? Do you always stay in the hobby or did you get back into it fairly recently like many of us did around COVID times? Yeah, I got back into it recently. It actually wasn't during COVID. It was right after it. I'm going to take it back a little bit. I'll be 46 here in a couple of weeks. My birthday is on July 24th, so coming up here pretty soon. I was right around that 88 to 92 range of prime collecting. Right over here in my closet to my office, I have the old binder. The Jose Cansanco, Nolan Ryan, Will Clark, Don Mattingly, all those guys. The old cards that I thought, like we all think, would have made us rich by now. First, that wasn't the case. 88 to 92, maybe 93-ish. Big, like I said, Will Clark fan was one of my top PC players at the time and with the other guys that I mentioned there too, like a lot of us. Then, right around middle school, just stopped. Standard story with that, stopped collecting around 93 and took a break all the way until 2022. I grew up in New York. I live out in Colorado now, so I'll go back and visit my folks and everything. They're in the same house that we grew up in, and there's still the same childhood home that we grew up in and my bedroom there. Whenever I go home, sometimes I'll go up there and be like, hey, just what's in there? Anything maybe like our kids would want from when I was a kid. Most of the case, not. Right? Would want. One day, I looked into the closets of the room where I grew up in, and it was like a time capsule. It was like nothing moved. The long boxes of cards, the old school way of collecting with the big, I have a big baseball plastic case thing that divided it up by teams. It was all there. Actually, you know what's funny is one of the boxes was labeled investment cards. Out of all the cards, these are going to be the ones that I'm going to be able to retire when I'm 30. The most one now with the highest value made was like $10. Okay. But it's the nostalgia, and I think it was a great reminder now as I've gotten back into it over the last three years. Value has a lot of different meanings to it. There's value from a nostalgia and just loving that card for maybe the history of it. For example, I have a Bernie Williams minor league card that's still in really good condition. That was one of the cards that was in my closet growing up as a kid because I went to a baseball camp, and it's signed in ballpoint pen. But the Albany Colony AA Yankees were in Albany where I grew up, and we went to this baseball camp. They would bring some of those players there during the baseball camps over the summer to meet with us. They'd throw us balls that we could hit and play catch with us and everything. Bernie was one of those and right around 88, 89 timeframe. I still have that card. I'll never get rid of that. I'll never get rid of it. I'll never sell that. That value is really priceless to me. I'll pass that down to my son one day as well as the other cards and whatnot too. It's that kind of thing. Then there's value about just the straight financial value on it based on the market and what's going on. I took a break. End of 2022 is when I got all those cards. My dad was super nice at the time to take all those cards and ship them back here to Colorado because if I tried to bring those on the plane, somebody would have thought I was crazy. Those boxes of cards and everything. Hundreds of them, thousands probably. He was nice enough to ship them back. I just started rifling through them, and nostalgia was just waving over me. I was just like, this is amazing. Then I started taking it a step further. I started looking up. I'm like, what is grading? I've never heard of this before. I was looking at a card. One of the cards I pulled out is 87 Tops, Bo Jackson, for example. I was like, okay, here's grading. If it's a six or a five or below, it's probably not worth too much. But if it's a PSA 10, there could be some value here. I never got to the point of really shipping cards off for grading. Actually, in my three years, I've only graded five cards. Most of the slabs I have are just ones that I've bought. The ones that I did grade, I took a little bit of a dip my toe into the water of prospecting. Realized real quickly, it's not for me. But actually, I got pretty lucky with it. It was Spencer Jones with the Yankees. I got redemption cards that I bought off eBay. All that time to get those redemptions redeemed. Actually got the cards in the mail. Then I went to my LCS. I'm like, hey, what do you think I should do with these? Let's send them off to SGC. We got them graded. Then last year, when he was starting in spring training and he had a good start, I decided I want to move these and then move into a bigger card. I ended up selling those five and moved into a Derek Jeter 96 Top Scrum Refractor. It was a great move. Everybody had a clean win all around. Amazing. I appreciate you telling the whole backstory. That was an amazing Bernie Williams story that you shared. That's pretty cool. It's those kind of things where I hope with collectors nowadays, there's a million different ways to collect. I was chatting with somebody on Instagram the other day. It's just a good reminder. There's no right or wrong way to collect. Good point. There's people's opinions. Then there's different people's ways that's going to make you happy. But at the end of the day, it needs to be fun. Yeah. I realize some folks, I think this is your full-time job, right? Yeah. I fully understand that. That's awesome. Maybe one day as a second career, I would probably be interested in doing something like that. That would be related to the hobby. I think at that point, it's like a mix of the fun collecting side of things and then how do you run it as a business too. Right. The balance. Yeah. Absolutely. You know what? I'm still learning that balance. Oh, yeah. Because some days it seems like more work, and the other days it seems more fun. It depends on how you balance things out. But that's a great point. As long as you have fun, that's I think even with creating content, like hobby content. For me, what we're doing now, just connecting with people I would never connect with otherwise outside of the hobby. This is such a great experience just to get to know people in the hobby space. I know we've mentioned that a million times in our podcast, but it really is one of the best parts of the hobby. It really is. That was one of the biggest pleasant surprises about getting back into this. I got back into it for the cards, just the pure enjoyment of the cardboard. Finding a way to show my fandom through collecting the cards. I'm a player collector with the 11 players that are listed on my Instagram profile. That is the way to do it. You got to have fun with it. You got to have fun. For sure. Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's a good segue into my next question because I didn't mention that on your bio, you also have written down who you PC. You said you're a player collector. Do you want to go through that list quickly and why you decided to... Some of them are obvious because they're Yankees, but why you decided to collect those players specifically? Yeah, definitely. It's going to be Judge, Jeter, Mattingly, Volpe, Mantle, Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron, Otani, Trout, and Griffey. Yeah. I guess that helps you simplify in terms of what cards you... Because right now there's so many cards out there and sometimes you could get easily overwhelmed, especially if you're a new collector coming into the space. You're like, how many sets are out there? And I think player collecting is one of the best ways to just have that focus in terms of what you want to collect, right? Yeah. I mean, for me, again, too, there's a million different ways to collect. But for me, that brings me the most enjoyment. And with those 11, it spans a lot of different generations. So therefore it brings in a lot of different card brands and card sets and everything. And I have everything from a 1910 D.O.T. to 2006 to 2025. So just that full... I mean, that kind of blows my mind, just 115 years of cards right there. Right. And how many... And I realized quickly at the end of 22 when I got back into it, I picked up some Peyton Manning cards and this and that. I was like, you know, I really need to hone this in because it's just a wide area going in a million different directions. So I still have that. I like Peyton Manning, but I only have two of his cards. And I didn't go much outside of football really, but Peyton Manning because we're in Colorado and the Broncos. One of the best quarterbacks we've had in a while. So, yeah, you know, I think it's just looking at the player aspect of it. That actually, that 11, that list of 11 is slimmed down from about 30. And I created a spreadsheet. There's different criteria. Like who do I want to collect and why? you know, and yeah, I'm a big Yankees fan. So Yankees made the most sense. So that is going to be the vast majority of the PC players. Right? When I was like, Who are other players that I respect a bunch. So you look at the Jackie Robinson's the Hank Aaron's Mickey Mantle, I have a connection with my uncle, you know, he grew up and he actually collected I have he was gracious enough to give me some of his one of his manual cards or a couple of his manual cards. Oh, wow. Yeah, 66 tops and everything. And again, to another card that I'll never ever get rid of herself. Because it came from him. And I remember, he let me kind of go through his binders like, Hey, why don't you pick out a couple a couple years ago? And I was like, How about this? Like, Are you sure? And he's like, Oh, that's my third manual. And yeah, I want I want you to I want you to have it. I want you to have that, which is what I hope to do with, you know, with my kids and grandkids in the future, as well. That's awesome. metal. It meant a lot to me. And I think it probably meant a lot to him to pass around along that legacy of a pack pulled 90 or 66 Mickey Mantle apps from the original owner. It's pretty neat. And to have that within the family still so yeah, no, definitely. That's pretty, that's pretty cool. And yeah, even my two young boys, that's what I hope to do in the future. One, my youngest one's four. He still doesn't know the concept of keeping cards in good condition. Like he drops it all the time. So I'm like, Okay, he's not ready for it. But my older one, who's eight, definitely. I can see he's appreciating cards, you know, Pokemon cards as well, of course, but baseball cards, he's into as well. So yeah, like, it's, it's amazing that this, something like this, what we like to call a hobby can be passed down from generation to generation, just like you're definitely saying. Yeah, but out of curiosity, I want to ask you, because one of the things I did notice, even in your PC list was the wide variety, you know, some people like to just collect modern, or even just hone in on prospects, like we were talking about, which is a difficult game to play, right. But yeah, or their favorite teams, but you have this wider variety, what would you say is your percentage in terms of vintage versus modern in your collection? Or? Yeah, like, yeah, is it? Yeah, it's probably it's close to about 20 to 25% vintage. And then the rest would be modern, all depending on what you consider modern. I mean, 80s all the way up through through current, I don't really have much 70s. So be more like 60s and 50s. And then I have like a 29 churchman Ruth, and then six and the other 56 tops. I really, really love that set. Right? A whole bunch. And but yeah, not probably about 20 to 25% vintage, and then the rest. Okay. Yeah, which I think I really would love for you and young to talk about this, I think at some point where what is considered vintage and I know I've seen the debate back and forth. Yeah, is it 79? Is it 80? But what do we do 100 years from now? Are we still going to call 1979 vintage? Yeah, I don't see that happening. So when does it shift? When does it right? And is it just a personal opinion? Or is it a hobby standard? You know? Yeah, no, that's a good question. Maybe I'll bring it up. But you know, off the top of my head, I would think that at some point, we would have a different name for, you know, the, the junk wax era, maybe you just call it the junk wax, the first junk wax era, ultra ultra vintage. Yeah, something like that. There's modifiers to the categories. Now, it might be that way. That's kind of my hunch or my leaning at this moment. But no, that's a good, good thing to ponder about. Well, speaking of vintage cards, because I've been more curious about vintage cards myself, I don't really own any vintage, I've been primarily, like you said, you know, I'm 47. So everything you're sharing about how growing up in the hobby, that just, you might, that's kind of my experience with the junk wax era. And you know, just getting back into it. But yeah, lately, I've been more curious about vintage. So I've been doing more research on them, you know, before I really take the plunge into buying a few Jackie Robbins is always on the top of my list because of how iconic he is, not just to cards, but to the game of baseball. So that was an easy one. But even in my preliminary research, I'm learning, you know, things about I appeal and, and which particular sets are iconic in terms of like, you know, you're seeing 1956 tops, which looks beautiful, right? So is there anything you look for specifically when it comes to collecting vintage cards? Or is it really strictly on players? Like you mentioned? Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, the the IPL is one of the first things and right, I appeal can be subjective, as we know. And, you know, I think it's for me, I appeal. centering is a big piece. Yes, I've been learning. I think the registration is well, I think I fall in the camp of I'm okay, if the corners are a little beat up, or the edges are a little beat up. Nice centered, the picture looks nice. Yeah, you know, I'm okay with a little bit of a little bit of creasing. You know, okay, I think with some of the creasing, most of the time, you can't see it unless you hold it at a specific light. But I mean, who's been around holding their cards looking at trying to look at it? Yeah, unless you're trying to grade it or, right, or whatnot. But if you're just looking at it, like direct on, you can't really see a crease. I think that's okay. And you know, the other major difference too, is going to be from a grading aspect, you know, like this, this d 206. It's a two. I'm thrilled. I love it. Yeah. You know, and corners around it, but it's a nice centered. You know, it's a nice centered picture with a great registration, good picture. And it's 100. Yeah, beautiful. You know, even on the back work. So yeah, it's a sovereign type. So they're all actually polar bear sovereign, old mill, et cetera. This one is considered one of the more rarer backs. It's not the rarest back, but it's a more rare back. It actually even has some tobacco staining on it. If you could see, yeah, it gives a character. I think it's great. I think it's awesome. Now, do you want tobacco standing on this judge relic? But tobacco standing on a card that came in a pack of cigarettes. Yeah, that's kind of cool. I think that's kind of cool. I like that too. Yeah. So it's, you know, I'm sure you've seen it just with the grading, like you talked about, it's, this is a two where that's, you know, it's a good looking card for a two with the eye appeal, where with the modern and ultra modern, as we all know, the grading with that stuff. So right. Different category with it. Yes. That's why I'm definitely learning a lot about that. And you know, like some, some PSA threes are, are better than some PSA fours. And then you could get those threes at a discount. You know, you're kind of learning all, all about that in vintage. You mentioned something really quickly. Registration. What do you mean by that in terms of in context of vintage cards? Yeah. Yeah. I think with, with registration is a blurry or not blurry. Oh, I see. Okay. Which again, too, we don't really deal with too much in the modern ultra modern stuff with vintage. You know, I think a good example would be like the 48 or 49 leaf cards, the way they were printed and everything you'll see sometimes like with Jackie Robinson's card, it just kind of looks like there was a picture of like two different printing plates or whatnot. And they just didn't match up. Yeah. It's like 3d almost, you need 3d glasses for her. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To me that's registration. It's something I'm not, you know, an expert with, by any means with it, but I feel like that is my understanding of it is just, it just doesn't not match up. Did the coloring not fall all within the borders? Right. You know? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. No, thanks for clarifying that. Well another question, the follow up question with that. And it's a good segue into something else I wanted to talk about, which is the fact that I just did one of your weekly baseball card trivia on your IG stories. And the questions were all vintage related. And I'm going to, I'm going to be honest with you. I got one out of six correct. So I'm, I obviously I got more research to do on vintage cards, but yeah, go ahead. The funny thing about that, and I appreciate you participating and taking that to you and playing it. The funny thing with those is that for a lot of the, so I do it every Friday morning with those trivias, I'll post in my IG story. And you know, a lot of the times I'm learning that exact fact for the first time. So I'm looking at it like a way for me to learn more about baseball and more about cards. Cause I'm forced to do the research to, you know, to put the trivia out there. And I've gotten a really good response on it. I mean, typically I have about 50 to 75 people that take it each Friday morning. Nice. Yeah. That's pretty good. It's fun. Yeah. It creates some good conversation too, but like, oh, I didn't know this. And then we start talking about it through DMs or whatnot, you know? But I try to mix it up. So I'll do like three card focused questions, three history focused questions. So we're getting some baseball history knowledge and learning about that. Then also learning about, you know, some things with the cards that we didn't know, you know, from, or that we didn't know. Well, some people do nail it. Some people get the six out of six. I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. It's fun. Just, just, just not me, but yeah. Yeah. But I agree with you. It is a lot of fun just to do these trivia questions. And, and I like how you use the IG format cause it's so interactive. That's one of the best parts of, about it. So I know, before we started the interview off air, you wanted to actually have a trivia question or kind of, you have some for me, so I'm ready if you want to do that before you do it. I was just thinking, I'm like, I'm beginning to know how, you know, Sean and John feel whenever I do the quiz show segment, because they get a little nervous and, you know, sometimes it's really hard and, and I'm, I'm beginning to relate. So, but I'm ready. Yes. Let's do it. All right. So I got five questions for you, Clark and multiple choice, just like I do in the Friday morning trivias. And I'll get kicked off and I split it up, you know, between some card and history ones. So first one is, and this is actually from the, the one this morning, but I know people aren't going to listen to this until a little bit later, but it was the one that I posted this morning and I'll have to give a shout out to a 1956 Topps guy, Matthew. I tried something new this time and asked him to, Hey, would you be interested in kind of collaborating on this? And would you provide some questions and I'll put it into the format? And he gladly did. It got me questions. I think within 10 minutes or so, you know, thank you, Matthew for doing this. This is one of his questions. The only set to include Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams, Jackie Robinson, and Hank Aaron. Is it 1953 tops, 1954 tops, 1955 tops, or 1956 tops. So I did the quiz, like I mentioned, so I know the answer, but I'll tell you what I said, which I got wrong. I, I narrowed it down to tops, right? I just felt like it was a top set. So that eliminated the Bowman. But I said 1956 tops, but obviously that was, Oh, sorry. I said 1954 tops. The correct answer is 1956, right? Yeah, exactly. So that was a hard one. Yep. That was a hard one. Like that era, for those that haven't really researched that, that timeframe, that is a really interesting era of baseball. And as we know, it's when tops kicked off and yes, Bowman and everything too, but you know, before 1950, but just what went on there between those two companies and then Bowman eventually being acquired by tops and then contractual disputes. So Jackie not being in some of those cards and Mickey and everything, it's really interesting. Yep. Yeah. Well, speaking before you go to the next question, I was just reorganizing the studio space in my basement. I have some books and I don't know if you've ever read Main Condition by Dave, Dave Adamson or yeah, but it goes into the history of that. And it's pretty interesting read. I think recently and I saved it on eBay. So I haven't, I haven't bought it quite yet, but I, that's one of the two or three I have in queue. Interesting. Yeah. There you go. Okay. I'm ready for the next one. What position did Ty Cobb mainly play? And I won't do a multiple choice because it's just the position. Yeah. Yeah. Cause Ty Cobb, I obviously know primarily as a hitter. So it's like, what position did he play? I want to say my gut is saying outfield, but I feel like he was, or I'm going to say pitcher, but my gut's saying outfield. Outfield. Yeah. Center field. Okay. There you go. I should go with my gut more often. There you go. There you go. Next one is who is the other player on the Aaron Judge 2017 Rookie Stars Heritage card? Is it Glaber Torres, Tyler Austin, Garrett Cole, or Brett Gardner? I'm sorry, on which card was it? The... It's the 2017 Rookie Stars Heritage card. So if you can picture it, it's him and this other guy and it's kind of like burlap bag heritage throwback. I think that was 67 maybe. It was the heritage throwback to it. Yeah. I gotcha. So, sorry. The multiple choice is Glaber Torres. Glaber Torres, Garrett Cole, Tyler Austin, or Brett Gardner. I'm going to go with Tyler Austin. You're right. That's him. Yes. I remember Glaber... You know what? Glaber Torres, I was, you know, when he was with the Cubs as a Cubs prospect, I was going to pick him up. I believe he was earlier. So I knew Glaber Torres was out of it. Definitely Brett Gardner's a lot older. And so process of elimination. And yeah, I think Tyler Austin was like, I don't remember that card, but it seemed like he would be in that rookie class too. Yeah. Yeah. You know what? It's kind of interesting too. It's another reminder on I think kind of the risks of prospecting. I mean, you're the two guys on that card. You have Aaron Judge, who he is now. And Tyler Austin, I honestly don't know where he is right now. So, right. It's interesting. Yeah. No, we talked about that in a recent pod, Hyung and I, about dual autograph cards. It might have been today, actually. We released it today with Bobby Wood and Jack Caglione and 10 years down the line. You don't know. Like, they're great players now, but if one of them doesn't do well, it just tanks the value of that specific card, right? Right. Is that the one where they're kind of chatting back and forth with each other? Yes. The inscriptions. Yeah. We talked about that. All right. Number four. How long was the shortest Major League Baseball game ever? How long? Okay. I'll give you some multiple choice on that. Sure. We'll say 31 minutes, 41 minutes, an hour and 21 minutes, or 51 minutes. Oh, okay. That's interesting. I want to say it's either 31 or 41, so I'm going to go with, I feel like, 31. 51 minutes, Clark. No way. 51 minutes. Yep. Yep. Okay. 1919, it was the Giants versus the Phillies. 1919. Interesting. Yep. Yeah. I wonder if there's like a, even now, there's got to be, I guess it's more about innings played before they call it off or replay the game or something like that, right? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. All right. And we'll bring it up with number five, the last one. What is the card number of the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle? Oh man, I should know this. I'll give you a hint, it's on my wall behind me. Okay. I don't know if I could see that, but you know what? It's coming back to me. I didn't even look at your wall, but 311. Yeah. Yep. Yes. So just for everybody listening, I do not have a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle on my wall. What do you have? My favorite band is 311. Has been since 1996. Oh, I see. So I have a 311 poster from when they were here in Colorado. Yeah. Nice. Nice. Honestly, that was a pure guess, like not a guess. I knew it was the 300s, but it's one of those things like I've seen it somewhere and I just recall it. Yep. I like it. Yep. There you go. That was it? Okay. That's it. You did pretty good. I passed with myself. You passed. Just barely. Yeah. So there you go. And you say you do that every Friday mornings on your IG stories, right? Yeah. You have been doing that? Yep. Okay, cool. Yep. Every Friday morning. I think one of the things I've learned from you guys and then from like, you know, Iowa Dave and Stacking Slabs and those guys, like the consistency with content is key. Yes. And I think, you know, it's okay if there's going to be breaks and, you know, life happens, right? Sure. Absolutely. A lot more things way more important than- Absolutely. You know, life happens and, you know, sometimes if you go on vacation or other stuff comes up with your family or friends or whatnot. But I try to be consistent with that and I think we'll talk about the other thing I've been putting in my IG stories here in a little bit too, but trying to be consistent with it and also to kind of have it be like a quick hit in a way. So take somebody like a minute to do the trivia. It's fun. It gets feedback on it and creates engagement and collaboration and it's fun, you know? I love it. Yep. Definitely. I agree with you. It's the most important, but it's also the most difficult to be consistent like that too. But, you know, I guess that's what, you know, even in our previous podcast episodes, we always talk about the key or what really helps to being consistent is as long as you continue to enjoy the hobby for what it is, you know, that it makes it easier to want to do things like that. Right. Yeah. I know you just probably heard our 300th episode recently. Yeah. Congratulations. Thank you. And it's just, yeah, it's like you just do it consistently, but you don't think about like how many you're doing. You just kind of do it. And then, then you all of a sudden realize, oh wow, we hit the 300 number and how it's still fun. And we're like, yeah, we could probably do this for another hundred, at least another two. Yeah. We'll just keep going until things change. Yeah. Absolutely. I really, yeah. You guys do such a great job. You know, kind of a neat thing would be, Hey, on episode three 11, what if you do something about the Mantle 52, that'd be kind of a great idea. Yeah. Great idea. I didn't even think about that, but yeah, we'll do a Mickey Mantle special for 311. Yep. All right. And actually I really only have one more question. And you kind of alluded to it. The other thing you do on your IG story is to publish interviews with guests about their collection. Just wondering how that came about, like that just doing it in that format. And the followup to that is, you know, I believe you've only primarily had Yankees fans or collectors on the pod. Will you be opening that up to other card collectors in the future? Yes. So yeah. Okay. 100%. 100%. Yeah. And the way it came up is again, to you, I was kind of piggybacking off of doing the trivia through IG stories. It's like, you know, this is a really, like Instagram does a really good job of giving the right tools to us to make it pretty simple to do those things. And the graphics and the texting and the way you could, you know, put the different filters on it and everything too. It's really pretty slick and pretty easy for the most part. I initially started looking at YouTube and I was like, ah, maybe at some point, but not right now. I just, it's more than what I want to do at the moment. So I was like, what's a way where I can highlight collectors, create again, collaboration and engagement and some really good conversations and make it all about the cards, you know? And so I was like, I think I could do this through the stories, you know, like I do with the trivia. So I started reaching out to some folks and got some good response and I'd be like, that sounds like a lot of fun. Let's do it. So I would, I'll send them five to seven questions, you know, through Instagram for them to send me a video response back to, they'll send me the video clips back through direct messaging and Instagram, and then I'll create the format like you see in the episode. And the first five, and I want to shout out just the five that have been so awesome to collaborate and do this with me. But you know, the first five is all about Yankees. And I think I'll do one, one or two more that are Yankees focused, and then I'm going to branch out. And I posted a poll, but like, Hey, what would other, what would you like to see as far as other focuses from collectors in a second to, yeah, making it all about, about Yankees. And there's, you know, the questions that you can see in one slide, and then there's the video, which I've learned with Instagram stories too, they have to be less than 60 seconds or else post it. So I've had to give that heads up, you know, to interviewees as well. And it's been a lot of fun. It's been a lot of fun and really great response, response from it. And you know, it's, it's very kind of the watcher or listener can be very a la carte with it. So one of the cool things about it, and is that if you go back to them on my page, which I put them in the highlight section of my page, that was one of the things I was thinking about was like, okay, these stories expire in 24 hours, why, how can people go back and watch them? And so on my main Instagram page, I made a highlight out of them. And it's just that specific episode. So you can go right. But you can flip, you can flip through it just like you can with stories, regular stories and Instagram, just flip through it. I want to go back to that question real quick, or watch that video, watch them talking about that card. And it's really quick. It's pretty slick versus like, again, YouTube's great and everything, but you got to scroll and try to find exactly where you want to go. So I really like the fact that people can go back and or if somebody says, Hey, you should go back and check out what this guy talked about with this specific card, it's really easy to go back to it. Totally agree. Yeah, no, I love that feature of it for sure. And yeah, like you said, some of the questions are just kind of jump out at you for whatever reason for, you know, because you're a certain type of collector or you like that player. So yeah, that's it. And then, you know, like when you first gave me a heads up about it, I just assumed that it would be like podcast form. So I'm like, looking on Apple Podcasts, I'm looking on Spotify, I'm like, Inspired Sports Cards, Josh at Inspired Sports Cards, you're going to find it. And then I asked you, I'm like, where is it? And then you mentioned it was on IG Stories, which I'm like, Oh, okay, that's interesting. I remember like, just kind of like, yeah, just thinking that, oh, that's a cool format to try something like that with. So and you know, to your point, whether it was if it was on YouTube, or even if it was on podcast form, it's more of a time investment, which a lot of people don't have, right? I know with podcasts, like a lot of people do listen to it on their commute, you know, because you know, they got that time or, or while they're mowing their lawn. I've heard that people listen to podcasts while mowing their lawn. But you know, when you're on social media, like even myself, most of the time, you're just like on it really quickly, just kind of scrolling. And this is a great way to just get some information, valuable information to the people that are looking at your social media. So yeah, it's pretty cool. Thanks, Clark. I really appreciate it. You know, I know I realize it's gonna be tricky for those folks that maybe want to listen to it in their car. So maybe in the future, I'll figure out a way to get them uploaded and the other formats or whatnot. But that's why I saved them and save them first and foremost for people to go back and watch them. But maybe I can take those stories and somehow turn it into a maybe YouTube eventually or Apple podcast or Yeah, just just we've all we've all those answers into one clip, you could do that later on, right? And once you have the time, yeah. But if I can, too, I do want to shout out the five that Yeah, go ahead. I've done the interviews with. So it'll be Short Print A Day, The Judge Collection, The underscore New York underscore Card Collector, Magalie 23 Vintage, and then Greg Jeterfan from France, which is nice. All of them were just amazing. Really great content. They were just very awesome to partner with. And yeah, it's been a pleasure. That's cool. That's a funny story about Greg Jeterfan, who you just named last. I was in France with my family for a family vacation a couple was a month ago now. Yeah. And and I went to the Paris card show. It just happened to be happening there. I I promised my wife it wasn't because I chose that weekend or that week to go to Paris, but happened to be there. And I my wife was so yeah, I just spent a you know, I had a few hours to to go by myself. And then I was mentioning, of course, you know, like you see a lot of soccer cards, you see a lot of F1 and you do have a few baseball. And then Greg Jeterfan messaged me saying like, oh, I wish you knew, I wish I knew that I wasn't, you know, I was at this card show because he was there apparently. And yeah, you know, there are baseball fans here and and the fact that he's from France and he's a diehard Yankees collector, that was pretty interesting. And when I saw your IG story, that was like, that was cool. Yeah, yeah, just yeah. This Jeter collection is is incredible. And just like the other collectors I mentioned that have done the interviews to just their collections are really awesome, you know, and just really great advice on those interviews. So yeah, go back to my page and go to the highlights section of my main profile page on Instagram. And you can go back and watch those episodes. Cool. Yeah, I'll definitely include a link to your IG account on the show notes when this comes out. But yeah, you know, we usually end off our show with our regular weekly segment we call pick one. I think this is going to be for a Friday edition where we don't do our pick one. But you know, for you, I know you have a pick one prepared for for myself and the listeners. So yeah, why don't you take it away? And that's that'll be the perfect way to end this episode. Okay, great. And let's see. Hopefully I'll make young, you know, you know, they'll appreciate this one too. So young Nesbitt on Instagram with your thoughts on this one as well. Yeah. Well, Clark, here we go. So we've got two cards, two of the biggest stars in the MLB as we know right now Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani. So we have Ohtani's 2018 foam and chrome auto, the batting, we all know, PSP 10, recently went on July 3rd for $23,500 by now, base or base base on one 30 point. Now again, to who knows all that crazy, but based on one 30 point, yeah, went for $23,500. And quite the negotiation skills to get it to $23,500. Wow. Okay. So would you like one of those? Or would you like five Aaron Judge, 2013 Bowman chrome autos, PSA 10 sold on June 29th, one of them for $4,650. Would you like five of those or one Ohtani? That's a good one. Yeah. And here's the thing. And I'll preface it too, because I know it's not just apples to apples on this. I realize the Judge is his first Bowman, even though it doesn't have the first Bowman logo on it. It's his first Bowman. Yeah. The Ohtani I realize is his rookie card, but there's all the different parameters around it too. And I looked at pop reports and everything, and I know Judge has the refractor. So I was curious about that too, because Ohtani does not have a batting, pure base refractor. Right. 2018, he's got the blue and everything else. Orange. Yeah. Refractor on June 8th went for 12K, buy it now, PSA 10. So even with that, you could get two of those refractor, base refractor, or one base non-refractor auto of Ohtani. Wow. Okay. When you told me the PSA 10, I was bracing myself because loyal listeners of the pod knows that I had the BGS 9.5 refractor, 2013 Bowman Chromato, which I sold way too early, of course, but that's lessons learned in the hobby always when you sell too early. But and I also have a, obviously a Ohtani story where I sold the Topps Chrome way too early. 500 bucks. Right. Yes. 500. And now it's going for, yeah, five figures at least. So it's, it's one of those things, like I've had, you know, um, both those experiences. So I'm kind of like, you know, like with Ohtani. and judge if it was one or the other i'm like i don't want to get burned again by this player so it's an easy choice so it for me personally it's harder but i think otani is uh he's going to be iconic he's going to be special even if something happened now like he will be in the the history books for major league baseball i think his cards will have a certain baseline in value so otani's at that status at the same time i can't shake off the feeling that it's so hyper inflated because there's such hyper demand for it uh understandably so and i'm always waiting for it to you know to to correct us out even ever so slightly and and uh you know the running joke on our pot is uh you know there's there's not going to be that time it's like it just continues to go up um as crazy as right now yeah right and even now like you're i i was had to kind of double check was that the base price at 23 000 and that's incredible to know that that's what it's going for now but um at the same time i've doubted judge uh too many times and uh you know in terms of like him staying healthy and you know like just uh i'm i'm fully on board with judge and i think he's at that status too or very very close to it where um you know if his career ended now like he would be he'll go down certainly in the yankees history books but um you know even so with major league baseball so i so i'm really comparing about the value like would i rather have five of the base judge cards um and or one of the uh otani i'm going with i'm going with the judge yeah i think it just got each base has uh room to grow i think you know um if you listen to our last maybe two months of our podcast shang always use erin judge as his pick one because he just feels like he's still undervalued for some of his cards at least and there's still plays to make for erin judge rookie cards maybe not the bowman chrome like you mentioned that's obviously the top one to get for any diehard baseball card collector but even then i think uh what'd you say 4k i mean compared to otani's yeah base right it's it's you know um if otani continues to do or sorry if judge continues to do judge like things um i think that has room to grow still as as um incredible as that might sound so for me give me the five judge i'm i'm i'm stacking up no but you know it's yeah i mean you know you gotta think about liquidity i think too because you know it's one card versus having five and if you sell four of them you still have one you know yes um but yeah it's really interesting and again too that 23.5 number it was on 130 point you know verified and everything but like who knows the backstory yeah seems like that's kind of high pretty high really high for the days he's wondering blues went for you know i think a blue eight five nine i don't even think necessarily went for that not too long ago but i can't see we all know his market is just like nothing we've ever seen before yeah and i don't know it's been a roller coaster over certain points but then also it just seems like it's a moonshot too um at some points so i don't know it's it's really interesting it's which one are you going with you know if you could eliminate your yankee buys which one are you going with yeah you know so i collect both of them right yes that's right right uh man i i do have the 23 or the sorry not 23 the 13 judge refractor auto in a nine five okay i'm very happy with it yeah i just i don't know if i would pay 23.5 for base auto i just have a hard time stomaching that in a way um but shoot i mean who knows it could it could just continue to go up too right so yeah who knows man that's a tough one i don't have the otani bowman chrome if i had that kind of money to spend on a card which i don't um i would say i'd probably go with the otani otani wow okay okay that's interesting i think since i have the judge and i'm looking at it from a collector standpoint but then that way i would have since i have the refractor of judge then i would have the otani too you know yeah that's good i'd probably make a move to consolidate other cards you know into that to make it yeah yeah for sure um the other thing i was thinking about while you're talking it was like the psa 10 play you know like i for that much money i think personally i would want to get like a lesser even a bgs grade but a color parallel if it's comparable in terms of price you know what i mean like a bgs8 blue if it was 23 i'm just making numbers up but if it was close to 23 24 i'd probably rather have that than pay that psa 10 premium for a base auto so that's kind of my thinking as well you know and i know it's the same applies for aaron judge with the four or five but it's at a lower price point so i could stomach that more than a twenty three thousand dollar based on the otani yeah you've talked about the pot before we're having like a colored parallel version versus having the base or refractor yeah you'll take the eight five or the nine or the eight or whatever it's going to be color parallel over a base 10 you know because right the rarity but yeah good one yeah i mean i mean like uh you know kind of tying it all together you know there's so many different ways to collect people just like collecting psa 10s that's the way they do it you know they don't like i love psa nines psa nines that's a good play too yeah for sure collectors grade as you'd say right but uh it's there's a lot of times i look at a nine but like i can't tell i i don't know and i'm collecting it i'm not looking to you know um flip or whatnot i've sold some cards but i'm not looking to buy it thinking that i'm gonna flip it you know it's like i'll sell it later on down the line if i'm looking to need more have more money to put into other cards you know yeah but um i love psa nines i have i feel like i have some really great psa nines that you could not tell yeah no certainly not yeah and like you said it's it's it's uh you have more of a collector mindset or do you have more of a collector mindset versus investor or flipper mindset and that that determines what you want as well right so you can save a bunch of money a bunch yeah absolutely yeah anyway josh this was a really fun like you know you always know when you have a good time when time flies you know we're almost at the we just passed the 50 minute mark but it didn't feel like it but um it was a long time coming appreciate all the support and love that you've given our podcast and it was a really uh pleasant conversation that we just had i had a lot of fun today thank you so much clark i really appreciate you hey thanks for listening to cards to the moon we 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 hyung at integrity sports cards or john at trade you at recess you can also check us out at five card guys.com thanks again and hope to connect soon