Is SHAQ The Next Hobby Breakout?

Welcome to the Sports Card Lessons Podcast with your host, Big Ken. A retired teacher bringing you lessons each week. He's learned in the hobby by taking you behind the table and inside the mind of a dealer and a collector. Sit back and relax. There one-of-one be a test. The only thing being graded here is the cards. Welcome to the Sports Card Lessons Podcast. I'm your host, Big Ken. Whether you're watching on YouTube or listening on a streaming service, please, like, subscribe and hit that notification bell so you'll be notified whenever I drop any new content. What is going on? Happy Monday. Yes, I said Monday. I cannot remember the last time I did a Monday episode, but it was a very busy weekend. Saturday, I spent the day up in Saratoga, New York at the, the racetrack watching horse racing. First time for me and I have to say I was excited to go, but I had no idea what a great time it was going to be. That will definitely be on my calendar to go back again next year and probably every year after. And if you've never done it in person, I highly recommend it. Yesterday, Sunday, I set up with my good friend Howard at the Norwalk Card show here in Connecticut. And I just ran out of time yesterday to get up, get an episode to you. I, I apologize. Coming home from the show, I had to prepare for the Hobby Chop Fantasy League draft last night. So we, we, we, we got that out of the way last night. So here it is Monday. You're getting, getting a Monday late afternoon, early evening episode. So, so let's jump right in. Thinking about what my table and cases are going to look like at shows moving forward. I've been talking about this knowing that I'm not going to be heavily invested in the ultra modern stuff anymore and, and trying to like, I'd like to put goats in there, right. But I think concentrating on just hall of Famers, maybe some vintage cards, maybe some, you know, you know, 80s, 80s and 90s football cards into the 2000s, things like that, you know, modern, but not ultra modern. Been talking about just staying away from chasing all the, all the new rookies. Doesn't mean I'm not gonna dabble in it. But not, I'm not going to be as heavily invested as I've been in it. So, you know, thinking about what are my case is going to look like moving forward. I got a whole year now right. Of shows to be doing. So I took a little deep dive into basketball to see what, what looked like the best opportunity if I was just going to have a small percentage of basketball, what would make the most, most sense? And I've talked about during the first six months of this year, actually the first seven months of the year, I was buying a lot of raw Jordan and Kobe and LeBron cards. And it almost seemed like easy money. Whatever I bought them for, I could sell them for double a few weeks or a month later. It was almost a no brainer. And all those, all those raw singles were all under, they were all under a hundred dollars graded cards, 200 to $400 of them. Not doubling up, but really good margins on them. I talked about those players, I talked about Otani doing very well with it them. But right now it's just gotten so much harder and harder to find any of those anymore. I was, I was down at the east coast national last week. I was at a local show this week. I've been online looking and it's, it's insane how high those prices have gone up even on the single cards now, even on cards that I was doubling up on have doubled up again. So that's where the deep dive came in. Is there anybody else I should be buying now? Is there the next guy up? If there was, who would it be? Right. And in my research, I started to see a little bit of a pattern happening over the last two months really since, since the beginning of July. So today's episode is Shaq, the next hobby breakout. You know, Jordan and Kobe and even LeBron. Those cards have just gotten so expensive. And I know we talked about this with, I, I talked about this with Otani is like, you know, back in December and January, I'm like, Yu-Gi-Oh you got to sell these cars. I can't imagine them going higher. And they actually went higher even with the, you know, with, with the Jordan and Kobe and LeBron cards, like they've gotten to a point where they're so high it's, it's really priced pricing people right out of the market. Right? So what does the data say? All the data says, you know, Shaq is the next guy up. You know, here we've got an established, established legend, right? Hall of Famer, cross generational recognition, which I think is important. You know, even people who aren't serious basketball collectors, they didn't watch basketball or follow it at all. Know who Shaq is, right? Affordable entry point into it. I think at the Beat Rat we're seeing the beginning of the run up on him. You can still buy, you know, a lot of the cards relatively cheap. I don't know, you know, how, how high that market is going to go, I guess, you know, just sitting back and watching it go, you know, I don't know if we could get to, to, to where LeBron is or where Kobe is, but it could, right? We could see that. So I started to look into some cards to buy, right? And I wanted to go back and, and look to see, you know, using card ladder, just look to see where, where his market has gone. And, and, but before I, you know, talk about seven or eight cards here, I just want to say when I do the research I do for the, you know, what I'm looking for. So a lot of this stuff, when I start on this, I say to myself, you know what, let me go out and let me find you know, some of the best cards at under 500. You know, try to find them from 100 to 500 in, in that price range because that's what I'm looking to do. And a lot of people I know, you know, there's a good amount of people who like to be in that 100 to 500. A lot of people that say you know what, I want to so big I one-of-one I one-of-one be in the thousands. I want to be, you know, higher than that data I'm going to give you today. When I started out I said let me find everything up to 500 and I'm gonna say this ended up being 525, right? Just slightly over, over, over the 500, right. So, so the first car, the 1992 Skybox number 382 in a PSA 10. So, so back in and, and all these, right, I'm going to give you the what, what it's currently selling for now and what it sold for honor about July 15th. So we're talking about a little over a week, you know, maybe I guess two weeks before the national, right. Mid July. So right now that card according to card ladder, the car, the value on that card, 525 mid July selling for 220 right? And we're going to see a lot of these cards have doubled up in such a short amount of time. So mid July that Card's selling at 220 right? Now current, that current price according to car letter 525. The 1992 tops number 362 in a PSA 10 right now 416 mid July that card was selling at $200 right? Again over double in in in a real short amount of time. 1992 Stadium Club number 247 in a PSA 10 right. Current value 350 Mid July 192 Again you know, almost a double up on that card. 1992 ultra number 328 and a PSA 10 current value 346 mid July 160. Right. So, and these are, these cards I'm giving you are probably some of the most recognizable cards that, that you know, we see. It shows, you know, some po, some are low pop, some are you know, a little bit, a little bit higher pop count. This card here. I actually went out in a PSA 9, the 1992 Upper Deck number one. So in a PSA 9 and, and I did the 9 because the 10 has just become too expensive for me, for me to get into. I mean not for men, you know, again for what I do, for what my lane is in the hobby. This, this is where, where I like to be, especially if I'm jumping into, to a new lane in the market. So the upper, the 92 Upper Deck number one in the PSA nine current value 325 mid July. That card was selling it $85. $85. Last card I had on here, 1992 FLIR number 401 in a PSA nine, $52 current $30. So, so here's a card, right? And, and you know what, for whatever reason this, this my mindset is and since I've been doing this and it's worked for me in the hobby like everything I do, you know what I, you jump into any cards that are under a hundred dollars if they're graded on a player that has the opportunity to go up. I mean you really can't get hurt on a card like that. I mean there's just, it's just impossible to get hurt on a card like that. If you're out spending 30 to $50 on a graded card and it doesn't go anywhere and it stays the same even if it goes down 10 or 20, it's like okay, you know, swinging a mission, you just move on, right? But if you're jumping into seven eight hundred thousand dollar cards and they don't move or you know, worst case scenario, they start to drop right now, you know, you have two choices. You get out of the car, you take the money and roll it into something new and say okay, you know, bad decision or you say look, I really believe in this guy and I'm gonna hold it and I think maybe it didn't happen right now, but I, I, all the research I've done, I really think it's going to happen maybe I should buy some more. The cards down. Maybe I should load up on, on these cards, right? And I'm sure, you know, I'm giving you this information that I've come across. I'm sure there's people out there, probably even you, listening, Some of you are probably saying, I saw this coming. I loaded up on these things and, and, you know, absolutely awesome, right? Not in, in, in. In. The NBA is not, you know, a sport that I've done. I, I don't watch the games, right? I haven't, I really don't know the history of it. I don't know a lot of the players, right? So this, this to me is, you know, it's research. It's. It's deep dive research. And it's funny because I, you, I used to listen to a lot of fantasy football, you know, content and, and a lot of times, you know, going back, you know, like, you know, late, late, you know, probably around 2009, 10, 11, 12, like when people were really starting to get into it going back, you know, 16, 18 years ago, and people were winning, were winning championships that don't even watch football, right? That they were just studying the players. They were gonna, they were going out, they were getting as much information, they were listening to as much content as they, they could and they listened what all the other people said and that's, that's how they built their, their fantasy teams without ever watching the games, right? And I almost feel like I'm that guy here, right? I always said I didn't get into NBA cards because I felt I Goldin talk about it. And going to a lot of these shows, there's a lot of rapport that happens in the conversation at the tables, right? Between, you know, the, a dealer and somebody walking the show. And especially if they. Something happened with something in a game. And a lot of times I would be there and somebody would be like, oh, I would hear them talking about a certain player or a game or something that happened. And if I didn't follow that game, I didn't have that, you know, I, I wouldn't have been able to have that rapport or talk to people about those cars. So I kind of stayed away from it. Like I watch every football game every weekend, right? I don't miss a game. So I could go and I could put football cards in and I could talk to, you know, anybody about any game because, you know, red zone is beautiful thing, right? You get to see every play of every game. But now it's a little different now. It's a little different for me. I, I don't plan on watching the games, but I'm trying to, you know, get into this, get into this lane a little bit that I did pretty well with on a very small, with a very small sample size over the last eight months. So, Yu-Gi-Oh jumping into it and then, you know, I come across this guy like Shaq and being like, oh, Yu-Gi-Oh like this guy is on the move. Is it too late now? Have I discovered this too late or is it still time to buy? I mean, are we just at the beginning of this run up on him and what happens to, what happens if we see a run up on him? What happens next? Are, are these, are these 90s hall of Famers? You know, are we just going to keep going down the line? You know, if Shaq runs up too expensive, are we going to go right to the next guy? You know, I did an episode about, you know, flight to quality. Are we going to see that in these 90s basketball players in the market. Because the price point on Kobe and Jordan are out of reach for most people right now or it just doesn't make sense as far as, you know, people like me to try to buy and, you know, sell at shows. Are we on to Shaq? Right. And then we're on to. So in my deep dive, I could, you know, I asked for players. Who should I be looking at? Duncan, Iverson, Garnett, Robinson, Elijah, Juan? I could not tell you, right. Any of these players, anything they've done. I probably only know who Iverson played for in the NBA. Right, but not. Goldin tell you much about any of these other players. Right, but these are the, these are the players that, you know, could potentially trend much higher if, if Shack cards become, you know, blow up the market and become more than they. And then what, like what we're seeing with, you know, Jordan and Kobe right now, who would be next? Who would be next after? Those are the cards we should be buying now. And I mentioned cross generational recognition. How important is that? Because if you're not a fan of basketball, like I'm not, you may not know any of these other players, but I know Shaq, right? I mean, is his pr, he has such a presence in mainstream media, does that boost his market? Does that put him above the rest of everybody else? He's been, you know, highly visible with television commercials, business ventures, you know, entertainment, social media. I mean, we see him on the tv, we see him, you know, the commentary, you know, sports commentary, all kinds of stuff like it, it's not like. We see any of these other guys, which I don't think we do because I don't know the other guys, but I don't think we're seeing Duncan or Iverson or Garnett, Robinson, any of these other guys. We're not. I don't think we're seeing them in commercials. I don't see. I think we're seeing them in stream. So is this helping Shaq's market too? Is this ma. Making him more visible? I mean, he's been described, and I'm gonna, you know, take a quote here, described as arguably the NBA's most visible brand 14 years after retirement. That can't, that can't hurt his market at all, can it? Will his market be like Jordan and Kobe? Will it continue to, to run up? Can we jump in now? Is there still time? Is there still time to jump in now? Because I was Zebra late over these last eight months and I was still doing well on these cards, right, with, with Jordan and Kobe and LeBron. So can we still jump in? Is it still early enough that we jump in and buy shack cards and do well with them? Let me know what you think. It's amazing the information that's available now. Especially, especially now compared to six years ago when I came in. The hobby. When you start researching and looking, looking for things, there's just so much more information now than ever before. So much more through, through Yu-Gi-Oh and through, you know, like card ladder and markets and things like that. It's, it just makes researching, you know, so much easier. But it, it's almost like you're going down rabbit holes all the time. Tell me what you think, Tell me what you think about Shaq. Let me know if you think it's too late because the run up has started or we could still get in on that. And how long do you think the run up will go? The Norwalk card show, Shout out to my guy, Howie. You know, I talked about picking up that lot of, you know, 70s baseball cards and I spent a couple weeks organizing them, separating by the teams, penny sleeving. Thousands and thousands of cards. Another market. I don't know that much about baseball. You probably say, how's this guy even get into collecting? But you know what? I, I came across a lot. I, I Beckett it up and, you know, going through it and I knew, I knew that there's a lot of value in it, right? So Howard helped me. He, he knew, you know, he knew a lot of the players from the, from the 70s and why we were at that show. He helped me go through the box, identify, you know, all the players that I should be pulling out and. And looking deeper into. So shout out to him and. And Yu-Gi-Oh it's just another market in the baseball market that, you know, these. These 70s baseball cards, which we talked, you know, last week on the Hobby Chop about that. That 70s baseball market, that. That's starting to really pick up that, that the value of those cards have. Have. Have. Have, you know, doubled or gone higher than that. So happy to jump into something like that. And Yu-Gi-Oh I'll get that. Those will Beckett get those out soon at. At a future show. Funny story from that show. I had three pickups. I'm going to share them all with you. Kid came up to the table, wanted to sell some cards, and he pulled out an Ashton Jante rookie card, Rookie Whatnot, you know, I looked at the prices, and there was, you know, one low price on this card. I think the card was like 110, 120. Then there was one like 77 or 78 card. And. And from my experience with dealing with everybody there yesterday, making offers on cars, no matter what you said, like, I'd say, hey, this is where I need to be, and I give the percentage or whatever. And I would say, why? And most people be like, Yu-Gi-Oh that's fair. And some people would be like, oh, I need more. But yesterday, no matter what, I. I could have said, I'll give you $5. They'd say, I need 15, right? It was. They were adding $10 to everything. So it got to a point where. Where I'm gonna throw. Throw an offer out there. I was just dropping down 10 bucks. I probably would have been at 60 on the card, right? So I said to the kid, $50. He said, oh, Yu-Gi-Oh it's a deal. He put his hand out to shake my hand. I was like, oh, Yu-Gi-Oh that was easy. Never even came back. Never asked for anything. So I ended up buying the card and the car. I looked at the card. Card's a beautiful Kindle. I can hold it up for you if you are on YouTube. I'll hold it up there. You can see nice little card, nice little pickup. It'll look refined in the case for my upcoming shows. So, I mean, the deal happened so fast. I'm like, oh, my God, there must have been. I must have missed something on the card after the kid walked away. I'm. I'm looking at the card everywhere. Said howard says, what's wrong? I said, I don't know that the deal was just too easy. I said, I want to check this card. It wasn't until I was on my way home, I heard on the fantasy radio that this guy got injured in practice. I think he tore his acl. I'm like, oh, oh, my God. This kid got me, right? Got me, sold me a card. He, he probably had the. Got the news on the way over there and he had this card and he just wanted out as fast as he could. I'm like, all right, that, you know, I might have to sit on this one. And then last night, you know whether something has changed, right? Last night and this morning they said it was just a sprained ankle. Now I'm like, all right, I got him, right? So, so now, now, now I think the value is back up on the card. So I'm happy to have it. And you know, you know what? Just like I was talking about earlier, if, if you put out 50 bucks or 60 bucks and it doesn't work out, it's like, all right, swinging a miss, move on, right? Throw it in a discount box. Get, you know, you're not getting hurt on it, right? If I went out and I spent, you know, five or 600 on like an art. Whatever, whatever, his better card would be, right? And then I heard that I'd been like, oh, man, what an idiot, right? But no problem. Happy to have that card. The other two card pickups I had, I Beckett up another Tyler shook RPA. This is the ascension to 49. All that. I was probably the third one that I've. That I've end up pick, picking up. And I think over the next few weeks, those cars are going to sell just fine. The ones that I Beckett up. And I'm talking about getting out of the ultra modern when the price is right. I don't mind taking them because at the end of the day, people still want to buy football, right? The third card I Beckett up was this Sophie Cunningham. This card was. Was like the national. It was in the national packs. It's this red to 199 Sophie Cunningham. Hold that up. Knowing I have the Mohegan show coming up and there's a lot of lot. You know what? That's probably the best WNBA show. I bring all my WNBA to that show because I know a lot of WNBA fans will be there. So knowing that's coming up, happy to buy this card and, you know, put it out there for sale. Let's see, next week, Thursday, Zip will be back and we still have another week right this week. Although coming up will only be the third week of preseason, so we're still good for Thursday episode with zip on the Hobby chop. And next Sunday will be. I have a show next Sunday. I have Rich Zwittle, Bugs Hamden card show. So you get you an episode Saturday or Sunday afternoon slash evening. But that's all I have for you today, a short episode. Again, apologies it came late, but at least it came. Until next time, take care of yourselves and everyone around you.