Interview With Raf Who's Travalled The World As A Pokemon Judge And How He's Been Able To Collect Rare Pokemon Cards; Plus Clark's Thoughts On The $200M PSA Announcement

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 edition of Cards to the Moon. My name is Clark from 5CardGuys.com. You can also find me at 5Card Guys, all one word on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and on TikTok. I'll make sure to include all the links in the show notes below. So today I've got another great interview for you guys. His name is Raf and I first met him at the Sport Card Expo here in Toronto where I had set up for the first time as a vendor. You'll hear in the interview why he came up to us, but what I'll say now is that it was a real pleasure getting to know him as a collector and he has a really cool and interesting Pokemon card collection. All right, now some of you might not be into Pokemon or Pokemon cards and are more into sports cards like I am, but I couldn't help but be fascinated by his story on how he got into collecting Pokemon cards and how his story is a lot different than many other Pokemon card collectors. So please stay tuned for that interview. But off the top, I just wanted to quickly put in my 2 cents over the whole PSA announcement recently, and you know what everyone seems to be talking about. First, whenever I read news releases from companies, I remember my time as a journalist. You always know that the positive spin is always on top and any questionable or even negatively perceived news is buried at the bottom. Alright, so first, it's obvious the positive spin and the headline PSA wants you to focus on is the $200 million investment into its grading infrastructure over the next 18 months. They say it's the largest investment in grading industry history, which honestly I believe, but I imagine PSA is also making tons of cash right now, so the investment is frankly warranted. PSA, they also mentioned that they've already invested over $100 million since 2021. Now obviously that's not a small number, but at the same time I think it's fair to question with all that money invested to date, it doesn't seem to be hardly enough. With all the issues we're having with grading, that is turnaround times and the cost of grading in general going up now, the demand for grading services is through the roof, which is why they'll say we have all These issues. In fact, according to their numbers, they said they graded 2 million cards in 2020 and that jumped to more than 19 million cards five years later in 2025. In 2026, it seems like it's already tracking even higher with grading numbers up almost 40% year over year for the first four months of of this year. So yes, the demand is huge. But as we said on the POD before, all the problems at PSA due to the high demand can't just be blamed on the company. Now I believe there's a certain amount of responsibility we have to take as collectors when we continually submit to psa, even as the service arguably gets worse. Now I get it, The ROI on PSA 10 cards is very attractive. But that ROI I think is very dependent on getting your cards back at a reasonable time. And I'll get back to that issue in just a second. But one way to address this issue is, I know a lot of people say it to take your cards elsewhere. Like back at 08, the same company owns them or SGC, right. Also under the Collectors Inc. Umbrella. So how about TAG or cgc? If we're honest, the ROI isn't that great for sports cards right now. So many of us are just going to stick with psa. And this is my main point, we have to shoulder some of the blame. It's not to say we can't demand better from PSA since we are loyal paying customers, but we do have a major role in the unprecedented demand that we're seeing right now at psa. Now we can talk about monopoly and the fear of services getting even worse by Collectors Inc. If they just continue to gobble up market share. But I feel that's best for another standalone episode. So I'm going to move on to what PSA says they'll be spending the 200 million dollar investment on. And it seems like they're focused on three major areas. First is infrastructure, which means for them doubling their physical footprint to be able to process all the increasing cards. Two is technology to improve the logistics, tracking and grading systems for for assumably better speed and accuracy in grading. And three is hiring with about a thousand new employees and graders they're committed to bringing on board by the end of 2026, which to be honest, doesn't seem like that much to me anyway. So if you're looking at this with a glass half full perspective, the hobby boom hasn't slowed down. An increase in grading demand is a healthy bullish sign for the trading card industry overall. But it's not all roses. Like I said before, here's the news they kind of buried in the release. So for one, while they're investing all this money, the turnaround times for many of the service levels are increasing. All right, so this is what it says on the release. New estimated turnaround ranges are for value bulk service. It's going to take 150 to 170 business days. For value service is 110 to 130 business days value plus 70 to 90 business days regular, 40 to 50 business days. Then you got your express 30 to 40 business days. And then Super Express will take about 20 to 25 business days. So if you do the math, if you do the calculations, that means bulk submissions, the value bulk are now approaching seven to eight months until you get your cards back. And I'm sorry, I think that's insane if you're getting cards graded at the value bulk level because of the lower price point. Honestly, for me, I'd only consider this now if the cards were for my PC. But if you're looking to flip and reinvest possibly into new cards, I think the volatility of modern card prices just makes this tier level way too risky for me. And I'm going to say another thing. I think that a service that takes 20 to 40 business days and then calling it Express, or even worse, 20 to 25 days, calling that tier quote unquote, Super Express, is kind of laughable. I say just call it regular or regular plus, at least that would be more accurate. Well, speaking of Super Express, that tier has increased in price also. And another noticeable change is that the minimum requirement for value bulk submissions is increasing to 50 card minimums starting May 18th. So what that means is that can make bulk grading less accessible for smaller submitters. But to tell you the truth, I think increasing the minimums to a 50 card minimum won't really do much to slow down the amount of submissions. Smaller submitters will try to probably get even more cards to submit just to hit that minimum threshold, whether it's their own cards or whether it's just finding other collectors to submit more cards at the same time. And if that's the case, I can see a scenario where there's even more demand created for PSA grading services. So again, you can see this as a positive. I'm sure PSA does more business means a healthy hobby. And I think some collectors even feel that these changes will help the hobby in the long term by reducing the junk slab submissions. Since it won't be worthwhile to just grade anything anymore. On the other hand, no one likes longer turnaround times and higher grading costs. And again, I have to ask, at what point will collectors just say they've had enough? If we ever hit a one year turnaround, is that enough to say, you know what, I'm going to go to another grading company because at least I'll get the cards back in a month and I can sell them quicker to buy more cards I like? Or, I don't know, will collectors wait it out and hope the card values after a whole year haven't gone down much? Or worst case scenario, tanked in value? All right, that's my rant for the day. Let me know where you guys stand with where we are right now with psa. You can always DM me at five card guys on Instagram or message me. I've card guys on Facebook. Alright, as I mentioned, we do have an interview for this episode. So here's my conversation with Raph, whose Pokemon card collection is definitely unique. Enjoy. All right, we got another special guest interview on the POD today, and I actually met him at the recent Sport Card Expo here in Toronto when he came up to our booth and said he was a fan of the pod. So I'm grateful we were able to connect. His name is Raph. You could find him on Instagram. Gymleader Raph. And the reason why he's on the pod today is because in our brief conversation we had at the Expo, he was showing me how he collected some very unique Pokemon cards. And there's such a thing as truly scarce and rare Pokemon cards. He definitely has them. So I'll let him explain over the course of today's conversation. But without further ado, Raf, welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much, man. An absolute pleasure. I'm glad I, I reached out and I got over my, you know, kind of shame of, you know, hey, I'm a fan and just got there and, you know, sparked the conversation. So, yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for having me. No, the pleasure is all mine and I'm grateful for all our listeners. Like I was sharing in a previous episode when I was shouting out everyone that came up to our booth during the Expo. But before we get into what you collect, Raf, tell us about your hobby journey. You know, when did you start collecting? What did you collect? I'm, I'm really interested to hear where it all began for you. I am first and foremost a player, so I started with cards. So I'm Brazilian and so we don't have a sports card Scene in Brazil, what we do have is a gaming scene. So I started playing magic. And I played magic and Pokemon starting the, like, 99, 98. And then I. I truly never stopped. And I, you know, I traveled a bunch for magic inside Brazil and outside, and I made a ton of friends, and I just, you know, through playing magic, that was kind of a. My way of. Kind of escape right from. From. From reality. And most of my really, really good friends up to today, until today, are magic players or people that I met through magic. Wow. And then when we moved to Canada in 2019, pandemic hit three months after. And then after we were over that hump, I was like, oh, my God, I'm. I'm missing this social component of my life, which is the card games. Yes. And funny enough, most of my magic friends, in a way, had migrated to Pokemon, but not as players, but as judges. Interesting. So they were like, hey, you should really try Pokemon. It's a very, you know, it's a great game. It's the cheapest game to play, hands down. So being a new immigrant in the country, it was like, yeah, that sounds. That sounds awesome, chief. Yes. Okay. So I started playing, and at some point, I started judging. And I realized quickly that I enjoyed judging more than playing. And nowadays I basically only judge Pokemon. I play other card games, but for Pokemon, I only judge. Interesting. And side by side with that. I had sold most of my magic collection before we. We moved to Canada. I like it was a down payment of our. My wife and I apartment in Brazil. Had I waited post Covid, it would have been the full apartment because everything exploded in price. And so I was depleted of collection. And then once I started judging and I started going to events, I started slowly building a collection back up again. Okay, you said a lot of interesting things. First, just curious, why do you think a lot of your friends, you were saying that were playing magic and then kind of went over to the Pokemon side? Why do you think the interest was more with judging rather than playing? So most of, like, what ended up happening is most of them became magic judges. And then at some point, Pokemon started recruiting magic judges because the program for magic was a very robust. Back in the 2000s and 2010s, it was a very robust training program for judges. So magic had the best judges of any card game. And Pokemon started pulling, you know, recruiting people to. And that specifically in Brazil, happened quite a bit. It took in. In North America wasn't quite like that. Pokemon had a very core of people that were their judges. But in Brazil, a lot of magic judges migrated to Pokemon and some of my good friends did that. And it was a, you know, Pokemon paid quite well as well back in Brazil. So it was like it was a natural monetary transition. Okay, that makes more sense. So, you know, I'm not familiar and I'm sure a lot of people aren't as familiar as playing the TCG games. A lot of us are just kind of collectors. So kind of in a nutshell, like high level, how would you explain what is involved with Pokemon card judging? Game judging as, as an official, as a judge, I like to say that Pokemon as a card game is think of a mixture of poker and chess. Okay. Because there's a luck component to it because you're drawing cards. Right? So that's. But. And chess in the sense that. Imagine that at every three months we're releasing new chess pieces, which are the new cards. Right? So there's always new pieces. Oh, do you have a hook now? You have a space hook. Space hook moves, you know, in a different way instead of moving the way that normal hook does. So you're, you're refreshing kind of your pieces all the time. And while there is a luck component to it and RNG component to it, the really, really good players, they always do well because they play. It's just like poker. Like, you play to your outs and you understand the odds, so you play to them. Right? So there's a lot less luck than most people think there is. Okay, So I like that analogy. It helps me understand it a little bit more. But with. If we're sticking with that analogy, when you play poker, when you play chess, you don't necessarily need officiating. So where does this judge come in? Like what, what does the judge do during these games? So, for instance, I make a play with my hook, right. Or with my. And then you say, oh, you, you can't make that play because I have a card that blocks your hook movement. But you've already made the play. Now we need to call a judge to correct the situation. And sometimes it's as simple as, okay, let's retrace it back one step. But sometimes the actions are only foresee or noticed, like two, three turns after it has happened. Now the board state is fully broken. It's. It's un. Irreparable. So we need to. Okay, so what are we going to do? Who made the mistake? Is it going to be a game loss? Is it going to be a double price penalty? Like there's different levels of infractions and for each infraction, there is an associated penalty with it. So depending on how, how, how damaging the mistake was. And it's usually mistakes, there's also, you know, the occasional cheaters. But it's, it's always like how, how damaging to the game state was that mistake? And then we corrected based on that. Okay, okay, that's fascinating. And, and in terms of, I guess that's a judge. You got to know all the rules and you got to be on top of things. What, what is that? Is there training to be a judge? Like how. What's involved with that? For every game is a little bit different. For Pokemon specific, you have Profu, which is a professor at university, because we're not judges. Judges is a role you take. You are. I am actually a Pokemon professor. Like me and Oak, we go side by side. You know, we're buddies. So Pokemon professors, you have the. You can specialize as a tournament organizer, you can specialize as a TCG judge or a video game judge or a Pokemon Go judge. And there are all different certifications you can have. So they have a training program. But the best way to learn is doing events and learning from someone that's been doing. It's kind of a tribal knowledge kind of thing. The documentation is there, but there's a lot of little intricacies that you only learn when you start doing kind of the higher level events. Okay, so when we're at the Expo, you're mentioning how, and you kind of, even in the intro, you mentioned how you moved to Toronto in 2019. And, and, and then because of these Pokemon events that we're talking about right now, it's enabled you to go around the world, travel to different places around the world for these events first. How long have you been doing it and where have you traveled to? Name some cities. Okay, so I started in 2022 and I, I did mostly local events. And then I started once I've done enough local events. Like I said, I have a lot of friends that help me, so I was always asking them questions and getting very curious about it. So whenever I got my first opportunity to do a regional event, which was Pittsburgh, I, I went all in. I was like, I'm gonna be the best first time judge these people have ever seen. Okay. It's, it's the, it's the immigrant mentality. I'm gonna make this happen, you know, so, so, so I did that. And then after that I got invited to Toronto. And then I, after that, you know, I got invited to do Milwaukee and then I did Indianapolis, and then it just started rolling. And for instance, tomorrow I'm leaving for Amsterdam because there's a regional in Utrecht, so I'm doing Amsterdam. Three months ago, I did the International, which is the continental event. So I did the European international in London. I've done the Sao Paulo or the Latin American international a couple of times in Brazil. I've done Worlds two times. One in Honolulu, which was fantastic. Anaheim took the kids as well. We went to Disney World like the two mice, Pikachu and Nikki side by side. Perfect. Fantastic weekend. The kids loved it. So amazing. So, yeah, I traveled a bunch. I'm doing a few. I. I did New Orleans a few other times. Okay. I'm waiting for an invitation for Italy as well, which is coming up. I don't know if I'm gonna get it, but hopefully I'll get it. So there's, you know, traveling. Man, it's fun. Yeah, sounds like fun. And how frequent are these events? It sounds like a lot, but how frequently do you go and attend these events? So I'm a professor in real life. That's what I do. So during the. The school year is kind of hard, but my year ended. My. My semester ended a couple weeks ago. So I have like a. A string of four events basically back to back for Pokemon. There's basically events, if not every week. Every other week there's a regional somewhere in the world. So for instance, in youth next week, when I'll be doing yout Ratch U Track, there is going to be a regional incampinas in Brazil at the same time. Then I stay one week at home, and then I go to Indy. And then from. From there, hopefully I'll go to Turing, and from there, hopefully I go to New Orleans. So there's New Orleans. So there's. It's. It's a ton. It's a lot of events. It's a lot of traveling, But I try. I tend to concentrate them to either the beginning of the semester, when things are not crazy, or after the semester is done. Gotcha. Gotcha. You know what? It kind of sounds like card shows. There seems to be one every weekend or somewhere around the world there's something. There's a cartoon. So, yeah, pretty much similar that way. Okay. When you go to these. Is it. First of all, how do they select the judges? Is there like a pool and then the Pokemon center? Like, who decides where? Who gets to go where? So it's usually what happens is you apply for the event and then the tournament organizer. There are Def. Different tournament organizers depending on where you are. So Europe has two, Latin America has three, North America has one, and they select from this pool. Right. And they communicate. They try to communicate one with another, especially if you're applying to an event that's out of region. Yeah. But TPCI always has a say on it. Like, you know. Oh, we, you know, these guys, like the Pokemon company International, which is different from the Pokemon company. The Pokemon Company International deals with everything in the Western world. World. And, and the Pokemon company itself is Asia based. Right. So Japan. So it's a. It's a different systems. Okay, got you. Yeah, no, I'm, I'm learning a lot already. And this is great. When you go traveling, I guess, how do they treat you? Do they. Do they fly out or. You got to like. So depends on. Depend. It depends on the event. Right. So if you're in leadership positions, usually it means that you either get your. And for a regional, for instance, you might get your flight covered. Hotel is covered for everyone, but the flight gets covered. If you're. Or if they're not covering, you get an additional booster box for. I see. Flying over. Right. So it, it all depends on the event itself, the event and determining the organizer and the country and the legislation of the country. So everything's kind of different. Okay. Okay, understood. Well, you kind of. It's a good segue to what I want to ask next, which is when you go and this is kind of our meat of our conversation at the Expo. You're showing me your card, so. Yeah. How's that work? Like, do you get awarded a card? Can you just start for our podcast listeners what you were showing me that day and, and how you get those cards? Yeah. So for instance, if you. Usually players, when they go to an event, they will receive a promo card that's attached to that event. Right. So, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna show you. So this is an trainer and it has the regional staff. Regional symbol here. So players will get this promo card that you can only get by playing the event. But for us, it has this little staff stamp over here. Yeah. Right. So that's part of our, Our thank you from the. The Pokemon company. You get these promotional cards. Right. So this is a regional. So it has a regional staff. This would be an international card. So it has the international stamp. Yeah. And you know, when you do. I've done worlds a couple of times, so I have the world's promo that have staff underneath here. Right. I seen those. Is a different paradise resort With Pikachu and friends. So it's a. It's a very cool perk because you, for instance, you kind of know how many there are out there. Right. So, like, if. If, let's say we did two regionals with this particular promo card, and I know there were, I don't know, 250 staff on each one of those regionals, I can assume there's only 500 of those out there in the world. Right, Right. So it's. It. And people that. And these cards historically haven't been really that expensive, but since the advent of 151, I feel like the collectors started master setting a ton. So now if you want to master set, like our grandmaster set, what I say, a particular collection. These are cars that interest people because they can only truly master set it if they had all of the cars of that language. Yeah. That includes the staff promos. That's cool. And I've certainly seen some listings like. So I know people list some of them because the value has gone up with the rest of all the Pokemon card market, but. Yeah, yeah. Is there. Is there? Well, just. What do you think about just how the Pokemon card market has been the last couple years? Has that surprised you? Yeah, it's been crazy. Right? So it's like, oh, it's a bubble. It's a bubble. Is it a bubble if never. If it never pops, like, is it a bubble or is it just real life? You know? Great question. Yeah. Is it real life or is it just fantasy, as the great Fred Mercury would say? So, yeah, I think it's absolutely crazy what the prices are, if you look at it from kind of an objective, non hobby perspective. But as you guys always say, hobby logic does not apply to reality. Right. That's why it's called hobby Logic. That's right. That's right. Yeah. No. Well, how about you contrast for us what it was like when you first got into Pokemon? Like there. I'm sure you. There was a before and after, maybe 151. Is that marker? But yeah. What was the scene like before and then? Now I'm gonna. I'm gonna give you a. A very kind of. This is the Professor Voltorb. Yeah. One from 151, right? Yep. So if you see there's a little stamp here, there's two versions of this card. This is the Reverse Hollow and there's the Cosmos Hollow. Right. Okay. I, I've. I've had the privilege of receiving two of these in separate instances. And the first one I got, like, I sold for 700. And I was like, yeah, yeah, payday baby. You know, it's just like. And then it's 4K now. That's crazy. That's. That's a two year difference. Because people realize that if they want a grand master set, the, yeah, the. They. They need it. Right. And it's, it's one of those things like you like it. For me, doing the judging is a hobby, but it's also a way I provide for my family. So it makes sense. Like, oh, wow, 700 for a card that I got for doing a good job. Basically. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, I'll take that. And. Yeah. And. But then like two months, two weeks later, the card exploded. It became 1500. I'm like, oh my God, then now. And it just kept on going. Kept on going. Sure. Because the reality is most. For most cards that are either staff or professor programmen, like, we don't know how many of these are out there. Like you. We can guesstimate, but you don't really know. Right. And just like this, they can stop giving them out. Yeah. So. So there's. You can't think just because it's been happening for. In a certain way that it's gonna keep happening that way. Right? Sure. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's good. Good point for sure. And you know, like, speaking of the, the different cars that are available out there and you know, kind of what you're talking about, there's international event and, and some of these cards, it's hard to keep track of. To tell you the truth. For me, I'm lucky. I'm like, oh, this looks cool. But then you realize, oh, why is this, you know, significantly cheaper? It's because maybe it's in Portuguese or it's like, it's just a different. It looks exactly the same. But what do you think about the different variations that are out there? Obviously, English, Japanese get the most attention, but how about the other countries? Yeah, what do you think? So funny enough, for instance, some countries in Asia that play with English cards, I believe it's Indonesia. They have a ultra ball league. Great league. So the cards are in English, but they have a stamp that says ultra ball or great ball or whatever the, the, the tournament is. Okay. And for instance, there is a meal ex from 151 Baz Art. Nothing different from what you get on the booster pack, but it has the ultra ball stamp. That's a 7, 500 Canadian card. Wow. Okay. Because it's so difficult to get. But if you want to Mess Grand Master Set 151 in English, you need that card. Yeah, so it's, it's. It's. Yeah. Bonkers. I think the only, the only word to describe it is bonkers. But it's also very niche. Right. It's not everyone that's really interested in it in these kind of cards. It's also kind of a very closed market. It's not like. Because also, most of them are trainers. They're not actually Pokemon. So not a lot of people collect trainers. They want to have the actual Pokemon. Right. Which is one of the big differences, for instance, from staff cards in one piece or judge cards in one piece. They are always a character. Right. Or they're commonly a character. So there's a higher desire attached to characters and Pokemon than to trainers. No, that's. That's another great point. But I could also see, you know, as the Pokemon card community grows and people are coming into it as collectors and, and as players, as it grows, I can see more demand for trainers. Maybe they're like, there's a. More affinity. And then all of a sudden, because there's so few of these cards, those spike up in value. So I could see a scenario where that plays out in the near future, 100%. Like, there was a. A moment in time, I want to say, about a year and a half, two years ago, where all full art trainers absolutely exploded in value. And then it, it just. They exploded and then they plateaued and they're super plateaued since then. Full art trainers. I believe that at some point they're going to explode again and it's just going to be. They're not going back. They're never dropping. They're just, they're just at the new low. Right, but the new low is too high. Yes, it's a, it's a new, brand new floor, that's for sure. Correct. Can you explain. You were mentioning that one of the cards that you get is only Voltorbs. Why is that? And, and yeah, so can you explain that? So the Voltorbs are part of the. So in. In the bigger events, internationals, and sometimes at regionals, you have professors that are more experienced that assume the role of a mentor. So a mentor is a person that has done plenty of events and, you know, is able to help coach the younger professors or the professors that are in their first big international event, you know, or that went through a very difficult judge call, had a, you know, stressful interaction with a parent, perhaps. So the mentors are there to play support. Okay, so the mentors are the ones that do the Voltorb drill, which is a drill where, you know, you receive a Voltorb because the Voltorb self explodes. So I'm guessing that's where it comes from. Okay. So it's a. It's kind of a test of your skills. So you're going to run through a scenario of what would you do if this happened? What would you do if this happened? How would you react? What do you think is the right ruling? How would you contact the leads or how would you talk to the parent? So at the end of the Voltorb drill, if you succeeded on the Voltorb drill, you get gifted the Voltorb. Right. So that's. For instance, this is a. The 151 voltorb. And there's the. This is the Paldea evolved Voltor, which was the Voltorb previous to this one. Okay. So depending on the event and you know, what's the newest Volt or you're gonna get a different car. So perhaps in. As soon as they print a new voter, the vote or from 151 will be gone and we'll never see it again. That's cool. I like that you sound. It sounds like you've done a lot of events. Do you know yourself how many you've received over the time you've been judged in terms of those special cards? I've. I've. So this one, I actually I've. I bought it. I've never gotten the Paul Dea Evolved one, but I wanted to have it, so I bought it. I had. I received two of these, one at Worlds in Hawaii and one in Sao Paulo just last year at the international event. The 151. The 151. Yeah. And there's still so. And there's one more difference is that there's so the reverse Holland. There's the Cosmos Hollow. Now the Cosmos Hollow from. And once again, from my understanding, from what I've seen, the mentors are gifted one. Okay. So in every event there's maybe like six or seven or eight, because that's the amount of mentors there are. So there's not really that many of those because, you know, only the mentors get them and then the people that they do. The voter drew with get the. The regular one. Okay. The Cosmos hollow is like 12k right now. Canadian. So it's a. That's a. Yeah, it's a. It's a big boy. Yeah. No, and rightfully so because of the rarity. So for people that don't know the difference between a Regular hollow and a Cosmo Hall. Like, what is the, the physical sparkle? It's almost like a refractor in an extractor. Right. So one has a pattern and the other one doesn't. Okay. I've been, I've been learning from the guys at Minto all the sports stuff. Like it's, to me, it's so much more confusing. So much more confusing. There's like so many variations. It's a blue, it's a pink, is a purple. 299. 199. What are we doing? Dude? You know what's so funny? You saying that I'm working on a real IG reel that I'm gonna put out shortly of like asking the question, do we have too many parallels? I think 20, 25, 26 tops. Chrome basketball. There's about 60 different parallels out there. So to your point, sports card is. I see how it could be more confusing. Just give me cooler inserts. Just, that's it. Just give me cooler ins. Be happy. Just take all of these things away. I think, I think a lot of other sports car collectors will agree with you. No, this has been great, Raph. You know, I appreciate your time just educating me and I'm sure a lot of our listeners about this. And you know, when I saw the, the different cards, the binders that you, that you're showing me, I'm like this, I could already sense this is the, it's so cool to just kind of be able to see it. I'm curious, from your collection, I've been asking all our guests this last, really, this last question, but from your collection, do you have one that's your favorite, a card that you would never sell and, and why if you do. I, I don't know. I, I, I, I love the card, but I also love the freedom and the, the liberty they give me to do other things. So I have a for instance. One card that I hope my son never sells is a car. The first sir we opened together, which was a Mega Kangaskan. Graded it, it came back at 10. I put it in a beautiful slap protection and he has it in his room. So that's, that's a car that, it's not mine, it's his. So I hope he never sells it. But other than that, like, I, I, I feel like finally I learned what I like. I like small sets of collections or, or interconnected cards. So let's say I have the, these are the three legendary dogs. So the Raging Boat Walking Wake and Gouging Fire. So it's the Raikou, the Suicune, and the Entei in the prehistoric versions. So I like to complete these small sets. Okay. I have the three. Beautiful. I'm done. So now I'm, I'm looking. So I have now the Galerian Moltres and the Galerian Zapdos. I just need the Galerian Articuno and then I'll have the three. Yeah. Like. Okay, cool. So I like to build those, those mini sets because it's also. I feel like it's a little bit more. It gives me a clear direction to go. So one of which I'm working on right now. And this is kind of crazy, this is, this is a judge card. So this is the friends in Paul there. It's given out on professor cups, which are exclusive to professor judges. And so there's a top eight, there's a top four, there's a staff, and there's a champion version. There's also a finalist version, which I don't have. So I need to get that one to, to close the, the loop on these because then I would have all of them. Yes, but that's a, that's a very difficult card to have right now because they, I think they only did 10 of these events and they stopped the professor cup season. So I'm. And they only give out three of the champion or the finalists per event. So there's like 30 of them. Right. So it's hard to track down. And I'm. I'm still kind of taking a deep breath and thinking of, you know, am I willing to make this commitment, the financial commitment to this? Sure, sure. Because I'm so close. I have four out of five. You know, you got to do it. You gotta, you gotta go. Yeah, 100%. Where do you look for? I'm curious just to ask your question. Where do you look for these cards? Is on eBay or TCG player. Like where do. Or shows card shows? Like where do you go usually if it's this specific and that has to be ebay because it's the, the what ebay does is that it turns a niche market into a non niche market because you're selling for the whole world. Right, Right. So for specific cars like these, ebay is the best spot. The other way is to go after the professors because. Because it's a community that we know. Oh, this guy got second. He was a finalist. Hey, here, you really need to sell your card. Right. So we chased them down. Like I heard you got second. What are you doing with that card? That's so interesting. Well, from the professors from that community, I don't know if you would know, but how many of them would you say are collectors and how many of them are like, oh, this is kind of cool, but if I could get money for it, I'll sell it right away? Well, I think, I think the largest part of the Pokemon professors are very devoted to the brand. So. They are. It's very hard to get people to sell these things. Right. Unless, you know, for instance, it's easier for, for you to get a Brazilian judge to sell it just because they sell it. And the money, that card becomes 5x because the, because of the currency exchange. Right. The exchange rate. So it's, it's so attractive. But some judges just hold everything they have. So it's, it's case to case. But even when they sell it, it's always like, oh man, I'm selling this. It's never like I'm getting rid of this. It's always there's, it's always bittersweet. Yes, I got 10k, but now I don't have my card, you know, that I worked so hard to get. So. Right. No, there's certainly attachment to it for sure. 100%. 100%. No. That's amazing. Again, Raph. Yeah. Thanks for just taking the time to teach us about these cards and, and that, you know, I'm always looking to get one staff card because I know I've been going down the rabbit hole. Like I've, I'm primarily a sports card collector. Yeah, I like the, like a lot of the guys from Minting that you're the head of. But of course with the Pokemon card market, you just, I just couldn't ignore it any longer. And then. No, it's, it's too good to pass up and it's so much fun. And you know, I have a nine year old son and a five year old, so they're into Pokemon naturally. And so it's fun to do it together. And, and I love your, you know, you know, a great point in terms of like collecting Pokemon because there's so many out there, it could become a little bit overwhelming, especially if you're just getting into it. I love your idea of like just collecting small sets and that's how kind of how I started. I just like learned about starters, you know, the original starters. Squirtle, Bulbasaur, Charmander. I'm like, you know what, I'm just going to focus on these cards and you know, wherever I can collect those three together. I think that looks nice together. So yeah, that's a way of collecting that. That works out for me at least. Yeah, I think it makes it simple. It's attainable and like, you have this clear goal. Like, and then you're like, you can really focus your collection dollars and put them into. Okay, I have this thing that I want to do. So for instance, I have a long term goal which is to get all tag teams in a tent, right? And I'm, I'm, I only got four. I'm not rushing. And that's, that's one of the things. Like I'll be okay to sell some of my cards if, if they're going to this particular fund or they're gonna turn into something else. Right? You can't have them all. As, as great as it would be to be ash catching and catch them all. I think that's very unattainable with the current market prices. Not, not, not in. Yeah, not in this card market currently as we are in right now. No, not at all. But, but it's, it's, it's fun to be collecting right now with a lot of other Pokemon. I mean, you were there at the Sport Card Expo. The TCG card market is just taking over so many different booths now. And it's kind of cool to see that as well. But yeah. Raph, thanks again for your time. I really appreciate it. And, and we'll definitely keep in touch because you're in the Toronto area, so just let us know there for sure. Yes. 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 Tradeview at recess. You can also check us out@fivecartguys.com. thanks again and hope to connect soon.