Is It Time to Buy, Sell, or Hold Wemby Cards?

Before we jump into today's episode, quick shout out to our sponsor, ebay Live. If you think ebay is just a marketplace, you're missing a whole side of it. Ebay Live is where real time excitement means rare, exclusive, hard to find cards and collectibles. You can watch live auctions, catch exclusive drops and buy directly from trusted and quite frankly the best sellers like myself. Well, it's all happening. It feels like a show. Not just shopping with great hosts, the aforementioned me creators and streamers. Plus everything's backed by ebay's protections and authenticity guarantees. To to check it out, download the ebay app. Tap the ebay live button right under the search bar. Make sure you follow obviously sportscards nonsense. Let's get back to your show. You survived the Miami weekend, nailed the speech and maxed out your credit card in the name of friendship. Now you've got one hangover, four pastel dresses and zero reasons to wear them again. Sell them on Depop. Just snap a few photos and we'll take care of the rest and you at least get six some of your dignity money back. Someone on Depop wants what you've got. Start selling now, Depop, where taste recognizes taste. We haven't seen anything like this as far as the skill set of Victor Wembanyama to have the defensive presence, the inside presence, the size, the athleticism, the shooting ability at 7 foot 4 if they get by the defending champion Thunder if they win the NBA championship, where does his hobby market go? Everybody, welcome back here on the Hobby Handbook. Doug Plagan's here with you once again in for Alex and Trent this week. So gonna do my best to fill the big shoes once again. I thank you for having me along just like I thank you for all being here with us on the Hobby handbook here folks. And we've got a lot to dive into this week by the way. If you haven't checked out nonsense on ice presented by Upper deck also here on the SCN Media network. That's where you can usually find me. New episodes dropping every Tuesday. But again with you here today on the Hobby Handbook talking. Well, we've got a lot of different things to get to. We're going to talk about a lot of different things here over the next little bit on the Hobby Handbook. Everybody's talking about Victor Wembanyama coming off that huge game one in the Western Conference final, the fourth 40 and 20 game, that big three from the logo to in overtime. Just a performance for the ages for the 22 year old and we're going to talk more about him here in a few moments because we'd never seen anything like him when he came into the league. And now after a performance like that, we've never seen anything like Victor Wembanyama. And we'll talk more about that here shortly. We've got a huge Wayne Gretzky sale incoming. At the time this episode drops, we will be under a day away. We'll be inside a day from the auction on Fanatics Collect coming to a close for a 7980 Opici Wayne Gretzky rookie card PSA9 with an autograph grade 10, an in person autograph on it. It's the best graded example of a card like that and we'll tell you about the significance of it. Coming up here in just a moment we'll reminisce a little bit about what might be my favorite card of all time, the 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. Rookie card. And I'm sure a lot of you out there in the viewing and listening audiences, whether you watched Ken Griffey Jr play or if you didn't, you're a younger collector, a younger sports fan. I'm sure that card might means a lot to a lot of folks out there. So that's a subject we certainly don't get tired about. We'll get to that here shortly. Grading, it's huge. What do we do? Cards are getting graded in massive numbers. We'll talk about that as well. And as I mentioned, I'm not going to throw full shows of hockey material at you. If you want that, you can find us over on Nonsense on Ice where again we hope that every week we're throwing together shows that can well appeal to the die hard hockey collector, but also to somebody who maybe hasn't sampled the hockey segment of the hobby before. We're going to do a Quick Hockey collecting 101 a little bit later on here in the show. Just rip through some of the key products, some of the names to know some of the releases that are upcoming. Just some things to keep an eye on. And speaking of that, we're going to do a little pack rip at the end. And I know that here on the Hobby Handbook we have a wide variety of folks tuned and a wide variety of collectors tuned in. But if you collected in the 90s like I did, even if you don't collect hockey, if you didn't then, if you don't now, if you're maybe just keeping a casual eye on it, I wanted to get some Packs that might, might strike a nostalgic chord with some of you out there. That's why I chose these. Got a couple of hobby packs of Metal Universe, recent release from Upper Deck, Some good nostalgia there and some Fleer Ultra Hockey. Few packs of that. You rip this Fleer Ultra, it's got everything that you remember from Fleer Ultra back in the 90s. You get a rookie in every pack, you get an insert in every pack. You got the medallion in. You got all these different things to look for, all the different components with great clear photography. So we'll get to that coming up in just a little bit. Again, Doug Plagan's here with you, our producer Brendan D. On the other side. We're going to get some thoughts from him as we cruise through the show because we have, as I said, a myriad of topics to get to here today on the Hobby Handbook. But first and foremost, the talk of the sports world, the talk of the hobby world, Victor Wembanyama of the San Antonio spurs and well, game one of the Western Conference final, one of his signature performances to date. And as far as the cards go, well, it's a healthy card market for Wemby, to say the least. Here at this point in time, we're going to get to a buy, sell hold. I know that's what everybody's talking about. I think there are a lot of different answers to those propositions. The buy, sell, hold as far as Wemby is concerned. But as you know, I don't even need to tell you this, but we haven't seen anything like this as far as the skill set of Victor Wembanyama. To have the defensive presence, the inside presence, the size, the athleticism, the shooting ability at 7 foot 4, we just haven't seen something quite like this. And if they get by the defending champion Thunder, if they win the NBA championship, where does his hobby market go? I'm not totally sure, but just looking at some of the numbers out there, there are a lot of different options and maybe that's something that could hold him back. As far as the cards go, I think the top end Victor Wyama stuff is certainly something that could hit Shohei Otani type of pricing. No question about that. The top end stuff, the rare stuff, the rarest of the rare. But if we're looking at some of the entry level cards now, this is great because there's a lot out there that's attainable. As far as Wemby is concerned, it's 23, 24 prism rookie card, PSA at last check yesterday, they've graded 46672 or 762 of those cards, 27,000 PSA 10 of that card, 17,000 PSA 9s of that card. Just for comparison sake, S.H. otani's tops paper rookie card. Not a rare card, this one. You may remember it. Card number 700 from 2018 tops PSA's graded 24,112 of those. So far fewer than the wembanyama prism. The 2018 Topps Chrome Shohei Ohtani PSA is graded 18,367 of those. What does that mean? That means there are more Wembanyama Prism Base rookie cards graded by PSA than Ohtani Topps Paper and Chrome rookie cards combined. So could that hold the Wembanyama cards back from reaching Ohtani prices? Absolutely it could. But I think the top end stuff, the rarest of the rare, I don't think there's any question that that stuff could hit a different stratosphere. As far as buy, sell hold and this is where I want to bring Brendan in out of the bullpen here. As far as buy sell hold on Victor Wembanyama the the ultra modern basketball arena that I play in, I really am a casual ultra modern basketball collector. Here is my collection of Victor Wemanyama rookie cards. They are all from retail products that I buy at Target. That's how I consume full disclosure. That's how I consume ultra modern basketball. Usually it's retail stuff from Target when I just want to rip some packs, have some fun. And that's why I've got a stack here of cards out of flagship Don Russ Paper Don Russ, contenders, hoops, things like that. Now we're getting to a point where I think even those could be worth grading. Wemby's already the sixth most graded athlete of all time behind Jordan Ohtani, Griffey, LeBron and Kobe. In some order there, I think I might have gotten Lebron and Kobe flip flop. But either way, no shortage of Wemby cards graded. As far as the buy sell hold idea on these, I think if you want to add a Wemby card to your collection and you're looking for something that's maybe middle or lower end, you just want to have the card. I don't think there's a bad time to buy that. At the same time, I think if you have cards like this, I don't really know if there's a rush to sell these because I've got 10 cards here and I or eight cards here. I don't know if any of them are worth more. Worth more than 10 bucks. Maybe a risky time to dive in and buy that super, super high end. On that note, if you possess the crazy high end Wemby cards, maybe this is where you take a win. That's kind of where I stand on it. Brendan, your thoughts on a buy sell, hold idea for Victor Wembanyama right here at this point, at the time of our recording, looking ahead at Game 2 of the Western Conference. Fine. So I kind of take the opposite view of you. I think if you have the lower end, the base card, the insert that's not numbered, anything along those lines, those are the type of cards that I think I would be trying to move now because you're going to see a bigger win percentage wise on it now than you would have months ago. Whereas the high end stuff, you're in a lot and like, yes, a lot of those cards are going to go up. I believe the super fracture one of one tops Chrome WEMBY sold for $500,000. And like the card ladder estimate was only like 600, 620. So like, yes, that is a lot more money. But percentage wise, you're going to be up a lot more on those lower end cards. So if you need the money, sure, take the win. But I would be looking more at the lower end stuff as sell now just because I don't know if we're ever. And it's tough to say this because projecting Wemby is a lot like projecting Ohtani, except with Ohtani you're getting the regular season success and then now getting the postseason success with the Dodgers, whereas we haven't seen the postseason success yet for Wemby. But he's had more success in the postseason than he has the regular season. He's defensive player of the year, all that stuff, but he's never been an mvp. All of that stuff is kind of coming right. So I would hold the higher end stuff and keep that. I take wins where I could. Now, like you, I don't have any of the higher end stuff. I have all base cards and refractors. I sold my only higher end one and I wish I hadn't looking back on things. But yeah, I mean, I don't think there's a wrong way to go about it, if that makes sense. I think you're right. And we're not trying to dance around the question here. What we're telling you, I think is that there really isn't a wrong answer. As to how you can handle Victor Wembanyama right now. Now, the concerns are legitimate. Guys at that size sometimes are prone to taking more hits over the years. They're prone to certain injuries piling up over time. So we'll see how that goes. He has missed a little bit of time in his brief NBA career, but that's a concern with any young player that you might be investing. And the other thing, if we're going to compare it to Ohtani, and I think that's kind of the comparison that gets thrown around fair or unfair, just because we've been blessed west in the last decade with a couple of these never before seen type of talents in the sports world and we haven't seen anything like these two. You could have made the case going back a couple of years, things like Otani Bowman base paper rookie cards and bass tops rookie cards, you could have looked at those and thought how are these going to get any higher in price? And what do you know they have. Which is kind of hard to fathom considering these aren't rare cards that we're dealing with. So I think that just lends itself even more to the idea that there isn't a wrong answer with this stuff. Yeah, the more we talk about this, the more I'm realizing like the debate really isn't buy seller hold, it's do you think he has the Ohtani trajectory? Because if he does, then you're going to want to hold everything. But if he's not going to be that, then you could easily make the case for selling. I, I kind of think he's on the Ohtani trajectory and I don't think it's nearly as crazy as I thought it was, you know, two weeks ago. And you and I texted about a little bit too, but I think there might be a little bit more of a ceiling on some of his base cards than Ohtani just because like I just just illustrated sheer pop numbers of some of these cards. 2023 and 2018, not that far apart, but a little bit different eras as far as print runs in the hobby were concerned and things like that. So it's all worth monitoring. But if you have Victor Women Yama cards, I'd imagine you're feeling pretty good about yourself right now. Want to transition into a huge sale that's incoming here. And Wayne Gretzky, folks, no question the best player in the history of the National Hockey League right now at the time of our recording on fanatics, collect an auction for an autographed Wayne Gretzky opici rookie card. PSA 9 on the card. Gem mint 10 grade on the autograph. The highest graded example of an autograph Gretzky Opici rookie card. This is a pop one, none higher. the time of our recording right now there are 71 bids on this card. The card's at $400,000. And unofficially, from what we're gathering, this would be as it stands at this very moment, Tom, the third highest selling hockey card of all time and the highest selling autographed hockey card of all time. That's if the auction ended right now at $400,000. We'll wait and see how things play out, but this is going to be a massive sale come the recording of nonsense on ice at the time of this recording. Two days from now, we will have the final number in. We will have the final sale completed. We'll be able to see what it went for. We'll have the post game recap if you will on this auction. But it, like I said, brings about a number of a number of different thoughts. First of all, has a chance to be one of the top selling. Already will be one of the top selling hockey cards of all time. Also brings in the idea of in person autographs on trading cards. Where do you stand on them? I think this is a prime example. The hobby is becoming more accepting of aftermarket autographed cards. When Gretzky was a rookie 79, 80 obici, you weren't pulling rookie autos out of that product if you were ripping it. So it's a way to add a uniqueness to a card that I guess, for lack of a better way to put it, there weren't autographed versions of that card when it came out. In the case of cards, maybe more from the junk wax era, it's a way to add some scarcity and rarity to an otherwise pretty well overprinted card. That's not the case with the Gretzky though. These are around, they're, they're not terribly rare car very rare in that condition. No doubt about it. But this is going to be a landmark hockey card sale. There's no doubt about it. I on the other end, like I said, this brought up the idea, the conversation where are we with in person signed or in person autographs on trading cards? Aftermarket signed cards, if you will. Full disclosure. I love them. I always have. From setting up at shows, from being around the hobby, from going to shows. It seems like we've seen a resurgence in this in recent years, especially with getting rookie cards signed. There seems to be more of an acceptance on this. There are still people who are opposed to it, but like I said, I think it's a way to take cards from previous eras and either add some scarcity to them, add some uniqueness to them. Add an autograph to a rookie card when there weren't rookie autographs to pull out of the product. Here's a, a random assortment that I just grabbed out of a box. Hall of Fame quarterback. Here's A Sunny Jurgenson 58 tops with the autograph and the it's got a slab from Beckett here. So it's got the autograph grade 10. Got the hall of Fame inscription on that. There weren't autographs in 58 tops that you could pull. So it's a way to, like I said, add some uniqueness to the card. Here's a 66 tops Jim Palmer. I bought this as a BGS 2.5 for about 30 bucks. Cracked it out, got it signed through the mail and then got it authenticated and slabbed. You weren't pulling autographs out of 66 tops. The other thing, if it's not going to be a rookie card, I like cards that kind of illustrate either a time in history or that illustrate an achievement. Here's a, here's a Tony Dorsett. This is from. That would be 83 tops football. Yep, 83 tops football. Tony Dorsett, the longest run from scrimmage. Got that autographed with the hall of Fame year on it and got it authenticated here in the PSA DNA slab. A Gem Mint 10 autograph on. That came out really nice, but Tom, I love stuff like that. Brendan, call it on you again, whether you have your hand raised or not over there. Your thoughts on aftermarket signed cards, because as I've said, I love them. I know maybe there are some cards that probably should be left unsigned, maybe due to rarity, something like that. We talked about this a little bit, but by and large I am one who's always going to say I'll take the autograph over. No autograph. So first of all, I just want to say how much I love that Sonny Jurgensen. I'm a Washington fan, grew up listening to Sonny on the radio. Got to know him a little bit. That's incredible. I love that so, so much. I am with you on the older cards getting autographed in person. I think the scarcity that it can provide to one of those cards is just kind of incredible. You were talking about the Gretzky. There are 847 PSA eights. There are seven autographed. Like, that's incredible. That's amazing. Like, that's, that's what we're talking about here, that those are the type of cards that should be autographed. Your modern cards with the million base cards, the 100 ones, anything like that. We have autos of almost all of those players on those cards. So to me, there's no reason to get a card autographed if there's an autographed version out there somewhere. I could kind of see wanting to get a kaboom autographed or a downtown something like that. They do look nice. But even then, like, I feel like that might hurt the value of the kaboom more. I don't know. That's. That's maybe Hobby Handbook 201. I don't know about that one. Maybe this is a conversation or a, a roundtable of sorts for down the road. Maybe we get. Get some of our quote unquote experts and talking heads all together and we just go at it on this topic and, and see what we can come up with. But I do think it's, as we've said, it's a way to add some scarcity to a card. Now, the obstacle you encounter, especially if you're getting these cards signed in any kind of quantity, we're at a point in history where if you don't get them authenticated, there's not a whole lot unless it's just being held in your personal collection, there's not a whole lot you can do with it. If you don't get the third party authentication, if you don't get it to Beckett, psa, jsa, one of these places, and, and they've all continued to evolve the way they do it, make it as easy as possible on collectors to get that authentication. But again, that is another step that then you have to take. If you go to the length to get the card autographed, you do need to get that authentication here in this day and age especially. So we will be monitoring that sale. The Gretzky at $400,000. Full disclosure, I am not the high bidder at 400 grand. I am not bid number 71 on that. As much as I would like to be, I'm not that Brendan hasn't told me, but I don't think he is either. So we will monitor that as we get closer to the end of the auction. At the time we're recording a day and five hours rem. So by the time this episode drops, we will be well inside less than a day remaining on the card and we will be watching that and on Nonsense on Ice we'll have the full recap of what it all means. 89 Upper Deck Griffey and this isn't anything earth shattering, but I thought it was really cool on Facebook. Grand Slam Collectibles and that's in Tennessee. I think Gio and Jesse know the shop well, but Knights need an Upper Griffey. They had a couple of 100 card lots sell and I just thought that the Pictures of the 100 card Lots of 89 upper deck Griffeys were so awesome. I think in the last week they even sold another lot. Wasn't quite 100, but another pretty sizable lot. It's one of those things. You see that card, whether it's one of them, whether it's a hundred of them, it just represents such a great time in the hobby, a landmark moment in the hobby. Card number one in the first upper deck release and it was Ken Griffey Jr who really was the favorite athlete of an entire generation. And we've seen his cards just continue to pick up steam as we are well into 2026. And hey, you never get tired of it. Here's my SGC9. Picked this out at the 97 National RAW and as a would have been a a 12 year old I guess I I had a decent eye for centering in corners and the whole shot back then and graded this I'd say six years ago or so. Sent it off to sgc. Got the nine on that and here's another one that I have an 8 and I do in another undisclosed location. Couldn't get it for today's show, but I do have an autographed version of that card. Speaking of aftermarket, signed autographs do have one of those laying around as well. But safe to say wishing you could be there live for the big game, soaking up the atmosphere, the crowd. But too often life gets busy or the price holds you back. Priceline is here to help you make it happen. With millions of deals on flights, hotels and rental cars, you can go see the game live. Don't just dream about the trip. Book it with Priceline. Download the Priceline app or visit priceline.com Actual prices may vary. Limited time Offer sign A lift is finally the sign you can smile. The road to the NBA Finals ends here, with star guard setting the tone. The Cavs eye another upset while the Knicks carry the dreams of all of New York. The Eastern Conference finals continue on ESPN and abc. No matter what twists and turns and what kind of evolution and growth the hobby undergoes over time. That card always has a firm place in the sports card world. And like I said, it's still an attainable card. It's gone up a lot in recent years, relatively speaking. But it's a card that, like I said, it just is. It's one of the coolest cards of all time. It's one of the most recognizable cards of all time and not one of the most valuable cards of all time by any means. But. But I would tell you if you were to make a Mount Rushmore, because I know that's always a topic that we like to get to of sports cards, not just modern baseball cards, a Mount Rushmore of sports cards. I believe that card's on it because people who aren't even in the hobby, who aren't even anywhere close to the hobby, have probably seen that card and could pick it out or say something about it. It's that important, it's that memorable, it's that iconic. And like I said, even though the value isn' the same, I think it goes right there with the 86 Fleer, Jordan and the 79 Gretzky, the tops, Neopichi. They're the same image, they look very similar to the same at a quick glance. You know, if you know the uniquenesses, you can differentiate them, but it goes right there with cards like that. As far as what's iconic, the 89 score, Barry Sanders, the 86 tops, Jerry Rice, things like that. But I think that Griffey goes right at the top or very near the top of the list, and certainly is on some form of a Mount Rushmore. And I thought it was really cool just to see the big picture, the big lots of those grippy cards selling. And it's one of those things, no matter how many of them are out there, and we know there are a lot, doesn't make us love that card any less, folks. Grading. Grading numbers are just continuing to surge. We've seen all the PSA news that's come out recently. On Monday, Gem rate posted their May 11th to the 17th weekly grading numbers. PSA graded 545, 500 cards in that week. That was up 15% from the previous week. CGC firmly planting itself as a number two option. And I'm going to be full disclosure, dropped some cards off to get graded with CGC at the time of our recording, I believe tomorrow. But 174,200 cards graded by CGC, that's up 23% from the previous week. Yesterday at the time of our recording, PSA graded another 88,900 cards total and CGC graded 27,600 cards. So I know that maybe your turnaround times aren't where you'd like them to be, but those numbers prove it. They're churning through it as fast as they can and they are getting those cards back into the marketplace into collector's hands as fast as they can. If you're looking for an alternative for psa, I know I've used CGC before. I use psa, I use cgc. I've got some cards at PSA right now. I actually don't have any Macklin Celebrini rookies in my possession. They're all at grading, split between the two graders I just mentioned PSA and cgc. So I can't show you any of those when we get to our hockey conversation coming up here in just a little bit. But I am going to be dropping off some cards to get graded with cgc. And you know, I don't want to bore you here. I'm going to rip through a stack of cards that I'm going to drop off for grading. And when I say drop off, I live here in Fort Lauderdale or just outside Fort Lauderdale. And jsa, James Spence Authentication, one of the great autograph authenticators. They have an office in Fort Lauderdale. They have the partnership with cgc. So one of the nice perks is I can drive my cards over and drop them off to submit for grading with CGC. And it's about 15 minutes or so from my front door, so I'm going to be doing that tomorrow. But I'm going to rip through this stack here. And whether you like hockey cards or not, that's not what this is about. Just ripping through here. And I think I always like when I get other collectors perspectives on grading, whether it's why you're grading a card, what you're thinking about when you're grading a card, if you're sending a card off for grading, if you think it's a, a certain gem in your mind or if you think there could be something that could hold it back, what are you looking for? What's standing out with the cards that you're dropping off? So I just got 10 here, 10 cards. Most of them are ultra modern hockey cards, but we're going to get through them here shortly. There is a baseball card, there is an old Gretzky in here. Here's a Michael Misa, Young Gun year's upper deck, Series two, second pick in the draft last year, so I'd like to get this card back. Had a nice finish to the season. The Sharks are a team on the rise. On the front looks pretty well, perfect. There's a tiny bit of whiteness on one of the top corners on the back, but I'm hoping it doesn't hold it back. You notice the labels on these. Kudos to you if you can recognize these. These card savers I have, I'm. Hey, I'm recycling the card savers I get. If you ever buy cards from Greg Morris cards on ebay, one of the great places to buy vintage cards, you usually, or at least you used to get them in these card savers, maybe you still do. And there would be this fancy number on the back and I just reuse the card savers for when I send stuff off for grading. So Amisa there. Here's a 91 Bowman Wayne Gretzky that I'm sending off to grade. Centering looks perfect. Color looks great. It's the hat tricks card again, it's not a rare card, but I think it looks pretty darn well perfect here. And if you could get a gem on that, a gem Gretzky is never a bad thing. Here is a Shohei Ohtani Diamond Kings rookie and Diamond Kings again, not the most desirable Shohei Ohtani rookie but I found this raw at Dave and Adams Card World in Manhattan back in March. My day job, radio broadcaster for the Florida Panthers. I travel everywhere with the team and we were in New York. I popped over to the shop, found that if I didn't think it had a shot to Jim, I wouldn't send it along. I think it. I think it does. Cole Caulfield, 51 goals this season for Montreal. Pulled this recently, actually, and it looks pretty clean. A little bit maybe top right corner here. Sometimes these young guns can be a little bit tricky, but I think it looks really clean again. 51 goals, Montreal still alive in the playoffs, and it's a card that I think has a chance to grow. First of a few Matthew Schaefer cards. This is the 94.95 die cut version. It was in the bonus pack in the Walmart Mega Boxes from Series two Upper Deck this year, which you can find, by the way, on shelves at retailers still, if. If you're lucky, it's still out there. But for a die cut, there's one uncertainty and it's on the back right here at this little curvature right here. And still not totally certain if it even. Even is a defect. But these are tough to gem and I just like the idea of taking a shot at it. Gavin McKenna likely the top pick in the NHL Draft. This came out of 2024 Team Canada Juniors out of a blaster box the rose gold foil parallel this one looks pretty well clean across the board and again expected to be the top pick in the draft. Doesn't have, you know, many cards out right now so chance to maybe gem one of those something that could be good to have as we get closer to what will be his rookie season. The NHL Couple of Matthew Schaefer insert cards out of Series two upper deck not the Young Guns rookie card but here's the slaps insert again everywhere card looks pretty clean if I can gem a couple of Shaffers doesn't have to be the young gun. I think there's some value there. When I was set up at card shows recently he was asked about specifically so had an unbelievable 18 year old season. Here's the UD portraits Matthew Schaefer insert so a chance to like I said, chance to maybe gem some rookie year Matthew Schaefer stuff. Down to the last two cards in the stack. Couple of Montreal Canadiens Here is a credentials out of 199 debut ticket access lane Hudson rookie card that is number 75 of 199 looks really good. I had to examine all the foil. When you have cards with this much foil on them, you have to really look at the edges. But I think it looks very clean. The corners look really sharp. I don't think there's anything wrong with the back of the card. So again, that's guy that I think is going to have a really, really bright future already. One of the top players, one of the top defensemen in the National Hockey League and one of the top rookies from this year's hockey products. Yvonne Demidov of the Montreal Canadiens out of Flare. These cards are thick. Sometimes thick cards are a little bit tougher to get that perfect 10 grade on, but I can't really find anything wrong with this Ivon Demidov rookie out of flare so we are going to throw that one in the stack. That's the stack that I'm setting off for grading. Like I said at the time of our recording. Hoping to get that dropped off tomorrow. Folks. A quick mention here. Haystack. We're welcoming a new sponsor to the hobby handbook Haystack. Haystack is unanimous among all the creators and live sellers we work with for imaging and listing cards on ebay. And like I said, it doesn't have to just be to help your sales on ebay. It could help you up your social media card game, help you get better pictures on Twitter and Instagram. It's something that could be a real resource to a collector and to a seller. So Haystack, check it out. Great partner here of the hobby handbook. So getting through some of the grading chatter there. Wanted to get to A hockey collecting 101 and opening the floor once again to our man Brendan back there in the studio in the event that he has any questions along the way. I don't want to spend full episodes talking hockey cards or pushing hockey cards. Maybe if you're, if you're just a casual hockey observer, we have a separate show that we do that we talk hockey and nothing but. But Quick Hockey collecting 101. Hey, the hobby is booming. Sometimes product can be tough to find. The NHL is having more than just a moment. Popularity surging. TV ratings are in a great place. Great rookie class in this year's products. Big time rookies the last few years, maybe more impact players under 23 years old than we've seen at any other time in the history of the league. Teams in 32 different locations. So again, it's, it's an exciting time to be collecting hockey, to be following the National Hockey League. But if you're not sure where to start or what things are, then we're going to run through here for just a few moments and maybe give you a little bit of a preliminary roadmap for how to pursue some hockey cards. Now right out of the gate, some upcoming releases and one of them's not even upcoming anymore because at the time of our recording, Opici Platinum is out. Now if you're coming over from another segment or if you primarily collect one of the other sports, Opici Platinum, if you love Top Strone, if you love Prism, this would be a good place to go. Autograph in every Hobby Hobby Box, 36 Marquee Rookies cards in every hobby box. There is a Blaster format as well where you get six rookies per blaster and you'll get, I believe, three of the neon yellow surge parallels. But tons of color, tons of parallels, lots of rookies in the product. You've got the presence, the component of the autographs. So Opici Platinum is a great place to go if you're a collector coming over from one of the other segments. If you like Topps, Chrome, if you like Prism Upper Deck extended Series, the third leg of the flagship Upper Deck releases of the year that comes out on June 3rd. Now what makes this year's extended series interesting? Not only do you have another crop of young guns to chase, part of what makes Upper Deck flagship such a great product is that you get the six young guns per hobby box and you can usually get into a hobby box for under 150 bucks or so upon release. Now we'll see how things go. This is going to be a big release when extended series comes out because you have in this, this year the NHL debut jersey cards. There are going to be jersey cards with a piece of the jersey from the player's NHL debut. I know this sounds familiar. We've seen it in baseball, for example, with the tops rookie debut patches. And those have been some of the most sought after cards in the hobby. The difference here with what Upper Deck's doing on the rookie debut or the NHL debut jersey cards and extended series, they're using much more than just a patch. There's going to be three tiers. There's going to be a black one of one autograph, a black one of one rpa. You're going to have an autograph version numbered to the player's jersey number and then you're going to have a non auto version on top of that. So it's not a scenario where the one big card gets pulled and that's it, that's it for the product. There are going to be a lot of card, they're going to use a lot of the jersey and you're going to be able to pull a lot more than just one card. It's a chase that's going to be ongoing. I can't wait to get to the national in around two months time and be able to see some of these circulating the room. To see some of these in showcases, to see some of these getting pulled, that's going to be really exciting. As I mentioned, in my day job I work with the Florida Panthers and one of the great, great resources we have and one of the great perks and something that thankful for every day, we have a head coach like Paul Maurice who articulates the game so well that we get to talk to as much as we do. And when he talks about a player making his NHL debut, he always says you can win 10 heart trophies, you can win 10 Stanley Cups, but you only get one first game. And you apply that kind of idea to these cards. If you have a player who's a 27 year old undrafted rookie who's been toiling in the minor leagues for a long time finally makes that NHL debut, that was his only NHL debut. If you have a player who's a first overall pick and 20 years from now finishes up a Hall of Fame career, he only had one NHL debut. There is a true uniqueness to these cards and I can't wait to see the way the hobby receives them. And hey, if you are one who likes to rip, wax and chase the big hits, but you don't usually sample hockey, maybe this is where you take a different look, that you take a different approach. Maybe this is where you try checking out some hockey cards when extended series comes out on June 3rd. Other sets to know. Mention Upper Deck flagship for the young guns. You've got the future. Watch autographs that come out of SP authentic. So that's always a great product. The highest end product is the Cup. If you're somebody who likes to take big swings, things like National Treasures and Dynasty and things like that, the cup is your highest end premium hockey product. Beautiful, beautiful set. Beautiful patch cards, autographs, everything like that. Usually every player's most sought after rookie cards coming out of that. Opichi for player selection for a set builder standard. Opichi that is the product for you. Mention Opici Platinum. The autographs, the rainbows credentials. Great mid level product with on card autographs. Love Upper Deck Allure. The parallels, all the different color in that, the player selection, all the rookies that you pull out of Allure. The autograph in every hobby box autograph or a doubloon insert. Those are really fun to look for. Too tough to pull, but fun to look for. Big fan of allure. And like I said, you also have some cool nostalgic sets as well. And we're going to check out a couple of these. Fleer Ultra Metal Universe coming up in just a few moments. Big names to know. You've probably heard of these guys. In my mind, the best players in the history of the National Hockey League. Wayne Gretzky, Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr, Mariel Lemieux. Sidney Crosby to me is number five on that list at this point in time. I think he's done enough to put himself fifth on the all time list in terms of the best players to ever do it in the National Hockey League. Some names that drove the hobby this year. Zootopia 2 has come home to Disney Plus. Let's go get ready for a new case. We're gonna crack this and prove we're victorious. Partners of all time. New friends. You are Gary the Snake and your last name Desnake. Dream Team Habitats Zootopia has a secret reptile population you can watch the record breaking phenomenon at home. You're clearly barking at Zootopia 2 now available on Disney. Rated PG Macklin Celebrini, folks. Just finished his 19 year old season for San Jose. He was the top Pick in the 25 draft at 19. He broke Joe Thornton's team record in San Jose for points in a season. He factored into 46.2% of San Jose's goals. This past season he was 56 points ahead of the second leading point getter on the Sharks and was a finalist for the Ted Lindsay Award at 19. That is the award that goes annually, annually to the MVP as voted on by the players in the National Hockey League. So he's getting the respect from his peers right now over at the World Championships, the IIHF World Championships overseas. He is the captain of team Canada at 19. In my mind the closest thing to Sidney Crosby's skill set since Sidney Crosby came into the league. His key card. Well, one of his key cards, the upper deck young guns rookie card, the PSA 10, which we often use as a baseline because most guys have a young gun and they transact quite a bit. It's about 1700 bucks on card ladder. The recent sales of that PSA 10 young gun from last year. So that card has certainly had a huge surge this season. Seems to be leveling off around 1700 bucks. That's the card number 451. His young gun from 2425. There are a lot of lower price options available. You want to get an entry level Macklin Celebrini card, you can get a lot of different ones. 40 bucks or less or so for certain base rookies, things like that. Matthew Schaefer, the rookie of the year this year in the National Hockey League. As a true 18 year old, he doesn't turn 19 until September 5th. Won the rookie of the year, played all 82 games. Average over 24 minutes 40 seconds time on ice per night. Scored 23 goals. That tied Brian Leach's all time record for most goals in a season by a Rookie defenseman. Youngest NHL defenseman to score 20 goals and was the first teenage defenseman to score 8 goals in his first 25 games. Previously Mr. Robert Gordon Orr. Bobby Orr had 7 in his first 25 games in the National Hockey League. So some elite company there for Matthew Schaefer. Key cards for him. You may have seen us pull one on nonsense on ice not too long ago out of a blaster card number 451. This year's upper deck, about 200 bucks on a raw copy of the Matthew Schaefer Young Gun. The wax is out there in the wild, folks, if you're looking for something to rip this weekend. I was at my local Barnes and Noble a few days ago and they still had a handful of the mega boxes out there. And I love the mega boxes. I not ashamed to admit it. I am a retail guy. I like ripping some retail. And the mega boxes of Upper Deck flagship, you usually get two to three young guns in one of those and you get a rookie bonus pack in there as well. The Walmart ones, for example, that's where a card like this Matthew Schaefer would have come out of. So again, you can find that stuff out there in the wild. Nick Suzuki of the Montreal Canadiens is on the box. And if you want to rip something, go hunting for one of those Matthew Schaefer young guns in what is a pretty deep crop of young guns in Series two. You could do a heck of a lot worse out there. There's some fun stuff that you can pull out of Series two Upper Deck. And speaking of fun stuff to pull, we're gonna rip some packs shortly, but pull some fun stuff on Arena Club as well, folks. Hobby Handbook is sponsored by Arena Club right now. Check out the Arena Club Goat elite packs. At 500 bucks a pack, you have a chance at Mahomes, rookie autographs, 86 FLIR Jordans and more. So check out everything they've got going on at Arena Club. Again, there are products there for all different budgets, all different price tiers, and you can look and see what kind of things are in the product, what you can pull. It's all on there. So go check out Arena Club. You get the app. They're a partner of ours here on the Hobby Handbook. So again, check that out. Everything Arena Club has to offer, including the Arena Club Goat Elite packs available now. Speaking of packs, we are going to get into ripping some right now. I am going to get my little tripod here set up and we will. Like I said, I chose this for this show. I chose to rip some Metal Universe and some FLIR Ultra because I figure we have a wide variety of collectors out there in the audience. But I figure with a wide variety of collectors out there in the audience, even if you aren't into hockey, FLIR Ultra and metal might be a couple of things that strike a nostalgic chord with you. So that's why I chose these. I'm going to get set up. We're going to rip some packs. All right, we are ready to rip Some packs here, something I forgot to show earlier in the show. If you grade any quantity of cards, doesn't hurt to have one of these. I just bought it off Amazon. It's a little, little magnifier. I think there are a lot of different ones that they make, but I bought this little, little magnifier. And it's a little tiny magnifying glass, a loop. And you can go through it and you can go through your cards and you can look at the edges, look at the corners. And I find that, you know, you pick it up for like 10 bucks. And I think it does help you as you're putting together your cards to get graded. All right, we're going to get into this FLIR Ultra 25, 26 metal universe 2526. So we've got Alex Ovechkin, cover athlete here on FLIR Ultra. Matthew Knives, the Maple Leafs on the Metal Universe packs Ultra. You got the rookie in every pack. There are autographs in the product, but you got the rookie in every pack. You got great photography. You got cool inserts coming in every pack. You got really nice foil and everything like that. Timo Meyer leading off the pack. Tim Stutzla. Again, if you collected back in the day, this probably looks like how you left FLIR Ultra. Connor McMichael, Cole Perfetti on the Ultra team insert. Nice one there. We've got the rainbow foil. Dylan Holloway here. Jordan Bennington and our rookie. They're always on the back, Jimmy Snuggerud from the Blues. Nice one there. First round pick a few years back. Had a really nice finish to the season. Jimmy Snug Rood. We will take that one. Here is pack number two of FLIR Ultra. Darcy Kemper. Again, you gotta like the photography. Geeky. Eric Sinek, Jack Quinn. Oh, there's an Yvonne Demidov blue. What do we have here? The blue. That's the ice. Ice parallel out of a hundred. That's a big poll here. This might be going into the. Into the grading stack. Yvonne Demidoff out of a hundred. That's a rookie out of FLIR Ultra. The ice parallel. Pretty nice hit here. My goodness, look at that. Yvonne Demidov 19 of 100. One of the top rookies to chase in 25, 26 hockey products. That is a. That's a nice pull. That is a nice pull right here out of this pack of FLIR Ultra. Now we have to regroup and see what else we have in the pack. Gonna be tough to beat. Here is an Ultra Powers insert. Braden Point inserts in every pack. That was always a Hallmark thing out of flir Ultra. And cool looking one there. Miko ran in our rookie. Matthew Wood, first round pick a couple of years back of the Nashville Predators. So a couple of good rookies in our packs. That Demidoff card, that's a, that's a good card, folks. You're new to hockey cards. That's one of the guys to chase this year. He's still in the playoffs for Montreal. Jeremy Swayman, Marty Naches. We've got, we've got something something gold coming up here. Near Niels Hoglander, Uri Slavkovsky. We have a saber Rasmus. Darlene. That is the medallions gold to 200. A Rasmus Darling medallions gold to 200. Look at that 75 of 200. Nice looking card, Flir Ultra. I tell you what, this product really excited me. And getting to rip it. I love it as much as I thought that I would. Parker Ford, rainbow foil. Rookie Jack Hughes, remember him? The big gold, the Olympics. And Ryan Green, our rookie on the back. Well, a couple of nice numbered cards gonna be tough to beat. What we just got out of flir Ultra. In our two packs of Metal Universe. Matthew Nyes, the Leafs on the pack. Metal Universe. Leon Dry Seidel leads us off. Cutter Gaultier. That's our premium prospects. Villi Koivanin, insert. Carter Mazur, rookie from Detroit. And we've got Sebastian ajo and Connor McMichael to close it out. And our last pack of the rip today, Simon Holmstrom of the Islanders. And again, this has all that Metal universe feel that you remember from years past. Igor, Sharon Govich, Zane Parek, premium prospects. Pretty high on Zane Parek. Like that one defenseman from Calgary in the major junior ranks. The OHL/OHA up there in Canada. Here's Ethan Frank, rookie from Washington. I think our producer Brendan probably likes that one too. Ethan Frank, Bo Horvat, Shane Pinto. Oh, fun factoid in the OHL OHA, only two defensemen have ever had back to back 30 goal seasons. Robert Gordon, or you know him as Bobby Orr and this guy right here, Zane Parek. So Flames have high hopes for him. Getting back to it, folks. Look at this. The Yvonne Demidov ice out of FLIR Ultra. Number to 100. Great poll. Tough one to hit and one of the best cards that I think I've pulled live on camera. That's, that's a fun one. No doubt about it. I am really high on Yvonne Demidov and excited about that poll Right there, folks. This has been the hobby Handbook. And thanks very much for being here with us today. Hopefully you enjoyed the conversation. I'll be back with you for one more of these next week. And we'll have friend of mine, Aaron Emerett from AA Mint Cards down here in South Florida, one of the good guys in the hobby. We're going to talk to him next week at length about how they built AA Mint carts. It's a really cool story. Good conversation. You'll want to stop by for that. Coming up on next week's edition of the Hobby Handbook. We covered a lot today. Hope you enjoyed the Hockey 101. Hopefully you enjoyed but going through some of the grading thoughts. Just the way I process cards that I want to grade. Especially now, you have to think ahead. If you're sending cards bulk, you have to kind of game plan for, you know, stuff taking time. And if you think you might want something, say, well ahead of next hockey season or you just want to get the, get the cards back, no reason to wait. May as well just get them out there, get them out there, get them graded, get them back in hand. You know, there are alternatives out there. Like I said, there's a lot of different places you can send your cards. And I've had some good experiences with cgc. I've got cards at PSA right now. I've got cards at CGC right now. So again, lots of different options out there. And just make sure you, you look over your cards. We're always going to make mistakes, but make sure you look over your stuff before you send it off. Wemby. We'll see where it all goes. Like I said, Brandon and I talked about it. I could see why you might want to sell some of the stuff. I can see why you might want to hold. I could see why you might want to be up there shopping more Victor Weminyama cards. Not really a wrong answer at this point in time. As Brendan remarked, if you, if you believe in the continued progression, then not really a wrong answer. And not a bad time to jump on that moving train. That is the Victor Wembanyama Hobby market. Love the 89 upper deck Griffey. Love aftermarket signed cards. We'll be watching that Gretzky auction. Thanks again for being here with us. Thanks for having me along on the hobby handbook. Thanks to Alex and Trent. Hope I can keep the seat warm here, keep the train on the tracks. And thanks, Brendan, on the other side for the great production work. As always, folks, I'm Doug Plagans you can find me every week over on Nonsense on Ice, presented by Upper Deck, where we talk hockey in the hobby. Thank you for having me along here on the Hobby Handbook. We will talk to you next week, Sam.