PSA Pausing Grading | Have we hit the ceiling on GOATS | TOPPS Case Hits

Welcome back to the Hobby Chop Podcast. This is the podcast for the people. I am Big Ken. He is Zip, zip. How you doing, my friend? I'm good. Got some more ink. Freshly. Freshly done. So if you're. If you're listening, I just held my arm up. It's time in the Saran Wrap, so I'm doing good. And then as I was on the tattoo table, I. I saw there was an update at psa. Oh, really? There was something that was updated from PSA today. You know, it might have just been nonsense, but I. I thought there was something there. Yes, sir. It seems like every Thursday, we say, we're not going to talk about psa. We talk about them every single week. That's it. No more psa. And of course, we wake up this morning to, oh, yeah, we're pausing. We're. We're not shutting down, we're just pausing. Regular orders are bigger. That's it. That's all we're accepting. No bulk, no value, Nothing. Nothing on the cheap end. You know, we've got. I have the email here. I think it's, you know, in the millions. They're backed up in the millions. 10 million was the backlog. That's. It's. It's absolutely. And I mean, I can see it. I could see it, but I mean, it's like. So that's like 7.5 million Pokemon cards. You know what? Talking to a few people today and thinking, like, who will this affect? And a lot of people, like, so it says, yeah, it's approaching 10 million. Right. So once they announced that, you know, they were investing all this money, and they said they had a 20 spike in submissions, adding another 1.6 million in cards for our active backlog. That is rapidly approaching 10 million. But it's funny because they said this is all going in place June 2nd, and everybody I know is trying to send cards in now. It's good. It's going to hit 20 million by June 2nd. Right. I mean, you know, they preemptively upped the bulk from. Was it 20 to 50, probably to try to taper that exact thing. Right, Yeah. I mean, that. I think the whole thing they were doing is just trying to slow people down from. If you want to give them credit enough to have foresight of any plan. But that's. You know what's funny? It's almost like PSA acquired Beckett, and we were excited that Beckett would, like, have this leaf turned over, and instead of that, they just, like, took on Beckett's bowl malarkey. I'M working on it. Even though my. My sentiment on psa a week or two ago, whenever I said what I said seems more fitting than ever. Yeah. Well, I. I want to say that I'm so upset that this order that just popped of all these cards that I sent to Beckett, and they all got eights and eight fives, and when I cracked them out, I kept all the labels. Yeah. And I sent them all the psa. So they're. They're on their way back. They're probably going to be here tomorrow or Monday. But all those cards that were eight and eight fives were nine nines and tens. And I knew looking at the cards, I was hoping for nine fives when I sent them. I said, these are. You know, clearly they would get nines at psa, but I don't think they would gem, you know? Yeah. Some of the cards I sent came back tens. And I'm like, this is insane. There you go. Yeah. Oh, could you put up Spike's comment that so much for May boycott. There you go show. Yeah. So Spike says, so much for May boycott. Lol. Yeah. PSA did the UNO reverse and just is like, we're gonna boycott the hobby. They're like, how do you like that? Yeah. You want to boycott us? We'll just boycott all your bulk orders. Yeah, well, we got all fired up in the chat tonight. A lot of people in here. Spike. In here, Ziggy. No. What's up, sir? Bill Oaks. PSA stinks. Ziggy says I subbed 110 cards in May, sending out another 65 plus. Well, we know why the May boycott didn't work. Thanks, Ziggy. Bill. All my grades. PSA 10s are now 25. Higher in comp. I guess that's what he's saying. Ziggy says, over, under card sent this weekend, 2 million. I. I would probably say 3 to 5 million. Ziggy, that's. I'd be over year. 2 million. Howard sent an order to BGS. He also sent one on the train. Not sure where that went to. He's hoping it went to a good home. Probably went to hga. Cardboard Collaborative says just send to tag. Cheapest surface service level. And I just saw a tag. Is. Is pausing too, right? I. I don't know. Was it that would. Didn't I just get that? Honestly, like, I just. I just saw the PSA thing. Like, I. I was at. I was at the clinic all day. I was in sessions. And then I had that appointment and I sat down at 8:30 here. So, and as I was getting tattooed I was updating our listener question sheet. So I am very green on all this, if you will. Yeah, Tag Express, their lower level I think is sold out. So that's, that's great on tag. Yeah, I, I, I, I wish I could find it easily, but yeah, somebody just sent it to me and I don't remember. Well, the super fractor auto I had last week I actually sent to Beckett. I sent that out on my own directly to Beckett, which I haven't sent a card to get graded directly to the grading company since 2022. Yeah, so it's been, it's been a long time. I've sent the card directly to a grading company rather than group submitter. You know, it's just, it, it is what it is and I think you just gotta roll with the punches. We could talk about this a little bit, but when, when they had the update that the, the bulk was gonna get moved to like was 140, 160 days, which comes into, if that's business days, it comes out to like, I, I, like, I, I kind of made a mental note and I was like, okay, I'm only sending like goat type cards at that level because I don't need them back anytime soon and anything else than that has to be worth it for me to send. What is it? Value Max. Let me ask this question. What, what happens if PSA does this and said, you know what, the only submissions we're going to accept here at PC psa, because now everybody whoever wants to get it graded is going to go to the regular, which is a fifteen hundred dollar valuation on the card, right? So what if PSA says the only thing we're accepting now is regular and above? We're not, we're not. No more bulk, no more anything. If you want that, take your cards to Gamestop or go to some of our other, you know, bulk submitters, like just bring your cars to them, don't send them to us anymore. We're, we're only accepting that. What, what happens then? I think people would send through the bulk submitters. I mean I essentially did that without the stipulation it had because it streamlined things and made it easier for me by using PC Sports Card. So like it's for me who's been doing that since 2023, that wouldn't really affect me or deter me, it'd be annoying. And I like, I like how PC has it set up, but I mean it's change. You adapt or die in anything, especially the hobby so one thing I like about PC, P. PC and one thing I liked about sending directly to PSA is they didn't charge me right away. Like, if they wanted to hold my card for three months, four months, six months. Right. Okay. I'm upset. I really want the card back. I. I mean, the value of the card, obviously I'm into, but. But I don't have all this money out where if I'm sending to Beckett, they're taking the money up front. Right. And if they take two months or they take a year to get it back, they've got my money. Right. If you go to GameStop. Right. GameStop, you have to pay them upfront. Right. For the grading. And I don't know about other bulk submitters. I don't know if they ask you to pay up front or not, but the idea of you're holding onto my card, fine. I'm not gonna pay for it until it's graded. That's great. I still have the money in my pocket. But if I've got to start paying up front and they're going to take 90 days or 100 and something days or I. It's just bad for business. For, like, if you're in business doing that, it's bad, bad for business to tie up all that. All that money waiting for cards to come back where you don't have a clear cut. I don't care if it says it's going to be 45 days, 90 days, 125 days. They make up the rules as they go. Yeah. Like, if they either want to say, hey, you know what, we're backed up, it's going to be 250 days. Sorry. Right. There's nothing you can do about that. Absolutely. And. And I think another thing it does is I. I really do think it prices people out because, like, I. I think I've been pretty transparent of I've been able to build capital to buy collections and. And do what I do by starting out by picking cards out of the vet. You remember me? It was before you ever looked at. You used to call it a soup box, before you ever looked in the value box. You're like, oh, what the heck are you doing? Zip Going through these. And I told you, and you know, that's how I created, like, some capital to have a little more buying power to buy better cards. Like, that is what I did. And without the bulk grading, that's really tough to do, at least how I did it. Right. Like, so that's really tough. I mean, but then again, if that is what you're going to do. And here's another thing because I'll try to be a little optimistic if it all streamlines to just the bulk submitters, maybe that makes bulk quicker. I don't know. Yeah, I, I, maybe I, I would think it would take longer because I mean we've all agreed even though PSA has raid the, raised the prices three or four times and they've created, they have extended from like 45 days to over 100 days. And, and, and they're getting inundated with orders. Yeah, okay, but let's, let's talk about this for, let's talk a little supply chain. So a big thing they have, the issue is the receiving of even getting it to research an id. Right. Like they, to even get it there is a big issue. So if you just, and this is going off of what you just said, we have no idea if this is like a thing, but it just made me think if it's only going to be from like select bulk submitters, like they're really gonna like win, like make it smaller like that. There's way less packages incoming for bulk. Way less. And maybe there's way more cards in those packages, but it's processing, I can't even hundreds or thousands of less packages. Right. Like, think about that. If you're having, who are they gonna allow to be the bulk submitters? I mean, because at the end of the day, we're talking in like hypotheticals now. I'm just saying like that I, I get all the negative, I'm not happy about it. But like, if you bring that up, it makes me think of a supply chain efficiency that that would create at least. Like, Right. Like I don't even like logically, like is there, is there something I'm missing there? No, I mean, I think it's wide open and I think, I think there's going to be a lot more room for, for, you know, people to get overcharged for things that at this, up until maybe six months a year ago that they were probably paying fair prices on. And I think we're just at a point now where I think it's going to open, open things, it's going to change things a lot. And I don't even know what does that do to the hobby. I mean, with them just saying, look, we're putting a pause on everything and we want to clean out our, our backlog. I mean, what does that do due to the hobby? Because they're, they're basically saying now is like, look, we're, we're backed up, we're sorry, we're throwing our hands in the air. We're doing the best we can. Right. And you'll get your cards when they're graded and sorry about that. But what does that do to the hobby itself, everybody? That's, that's a lot of cards, you know that over 10 million orders waiting. That's a lot of value sitting in there in their storage rooms over there. What is that? Does that affect the hobby in any way? Do you any opinion on that? I don't know about, about that and what it does with the stuff that's, that's still there, but it makes me think about the 500 and under market. Right. Because that's mainly the, the value bulk and I think like where every time there's a problem, there's always an opportunity. Right. Like I wonder what the prices do to the raw cards on that 500 under like, like for example, if, and you know, our, our hobby with the, the addiction that's rampant in our hobby and, and all of that and the instant gratification that's needed. Like if the, I don't know, would it, it wouldn't really make sense for those sub 500 card dollar cards to go up. Right. Because no one's grading them. Unless, unless there becomes a run and a threshold where people start sending stuff regular that's under 500. Right. But if not, if that lower end stuff like starts just dropping and there's people who have like, who, who have the capital to be able to pick up a bunch of stuff for cheap and then send it all out when it opens up. Like I think Ziggy said way earlier, he's like loading up for when October comes around if that's what they're gonna open up. Like there's truth in that of like if they open that back up and people are sitting on hordes of like clean lower end raw, that's a real opportunity, I think. Right. But also, I don't know what it's going to do, but I'm really interested to see how it affects the lower end raw market because like that's, that's what I'm curious about the stuff already at psa. No clue. No clue. Yeah, I, I know Howard said here nothing's going to happen because PSA shut down a few years ago. I mean they did. That was during COVID right? I think we're talking about during COVID And I mean that's when the market exploded. Do, do we see the market like I don't know. I, the market exploded. The market exploded and then the demand ramped up and then it closed and then the year later then like kind of died out in 23. Right. It kind of. And I was listening to Sports Card CEO podcast and they were talking about what a bubble is and a bubble is just basically like this run up of value and money. It's not really talking about whether a bubble is going to burst or not. It's just, it's just the, the rampant that, that up and it seems that's happened. I mean I don't think shutting down like a huge like economical ecosystems necessarily a good thing, but I don't really know what it's going to do. Yeah. E. Young 88 says collectors universe is also to blame. They purchased SGC and BGS and basically slowed them to a crawl. I, I agree with that. Yep. Absolutely. I, I think there was a method to their madness there to, to do that. Cardboard collaborative is still going to be grading 2 to 2.5 million cards a month. Plenty of supply will be hitting the market. I don't know. I, I, I don't know why I think this, I think that we're going to be looking back at this at some point in the future and saying this was a turning point. Whether good or bad, this, this was a turn, this was a turning point. I just, I just feel that this is, you know, this is bigger than we think it is right now. Okay, so there's been no official statement about GameStop staying open or not changing. There just hasn't been a statement yet, right? No, no, no. Okay. I just want to be clear about that. Yep. Yeah. And I, and I have the thing here for, for tag. So it was due to incredible demand Express is now closed, marked at capacity until further notice. Following basic and standard earlier this month. Our courtiers are full limited priority and walkthrough slots remain for those who want to send. Now we're scaling and expanding as quickly and diligently as possible to address the current backlog and, and reopen those submission tiers. Thank you for your continued trust support. It's what drives everything we're building. Okay, so even TAG is. Yeah, and Ziggy just followed up on that comment. He said, actually I heard GameStop is suspending, so. Okay, you know, and I, I'm happy about that because obviously there's corruption involved in this whole operation, but at least there's not that handshake CEO to CEO deal going on there, the insider, whatever, God knows what. So that, that's nice. At least for now. For now. Yeah. So last thing I'll say about that, for me, something I, you know, I started by. I. I just started trying to buy bigger cards and taking bigger shots of stuff, which comes from a place of just privilege. Granted. I worked myself to be able up to be able to buy those cards, to take the shots. But, like, not everyone can do that. Right? Like, not everyone can go and be like, oh, I'm gonna look at raw cards that are, you know, 300 and above that I can send at higher service levels. And I started doing that when the initial times got expanded out to the eight months. So that's kind of how I'm combating that, if you will. But I also don't love that. Comments. A lot of comments coming in. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I'm doing, I'm doing nothing with grading. I stopped. I'm watching my orders come back in. Now I'm waiting on some orders, hoping hopefully they come back in. I'm not going to do anything until August, until after the national and grading. Can you have a very situational reason, too, that you're not doing that? Because, right. Like, and correct me if I'm wrong, you're going to National. A bunch of your capital is getting. I'm gonna make this big push for inventory and I'm gonna have a huge sale at national that instead of tying money up to grade. Is that correct? Correct. Yep. Okay. 100. Yeah. Yeah. And then I'll worry about. And. And I do have some cards here in the office that I've gotten in. I've recently purchased a couple cards that I would really want graded. I'll just sit on them and I'll wait to see what. Because the. Probably a couple of them coming in are more PC cards that I want graded. So it's not that big of a deal, you know, that, that if I get them back in three months or six months, as long as I get them back at some point or who knows, in July if they open up some national grading special that you could do while you're there, that would just be a slap in the face. Like. Like, I don't think it would be, but I understand where you're coming from. How many cards from. Am I waiting for P. PSA now? I think it's under a hundred cards now. I think it's about 80, 85 cards I have. I have left. There was a time I was up to over 500 cards at PSA, you know, so, yeah, me and Ken were just having Phone calls being like, like compare and order statuses. We would have like hour long phone calls like oh, how about this day? How about this day? Where. Where is it at now? Yeah, it's literally be talking logistics for creating orders. That was literally the phone calls. Yeah. So he says he, he'd be less likely to rip retail with PSA suspended. And, and I, and I'm thinking the opposite. I'm thinking these raw cards, you know, these decent raw cards will probably be, be more available where people. So hear me out on this. So when PSA is there, you know, doing well, I go over to the store and, or I go to the, the LCS and I buy a case of say Don Russ football. All right. And then I rip it all open. I get a couple downtown, I get one downtown. I get a couple really great cards in there or some, you know, whatever and I want to send them off to psa. I'm going to send those cars to PSA as long as they look good. Now with PSA backed up and maybe Don Russ wasn't the best one, but with them backed up right now I'm throwing them in one touches and I'm bringing them to the shows. Right. Because I'm not going to be grading them. There's nowhere to grade them. And, and hey, you know what, it's a brand new product. If I sit on it and I wait six months then that value is going to be down anyways. Right. So I might as well. I, I just think more, we're going to see more raw cards come to market like numbered in autos and case hits and things like that that normally would have been sent to, to psa. Now people are just like, hey, you know what? Yeah, let, let's just throw them out there for sale. So I think there's going to be more better looking raw cards or more sought after raw cards out there. Somebody at some point is going to buy the card and send it to grading. But I don't think through regular. Yes, I think yeah, because it's, it's the same concept of every time there's a new release, the first to market gets a crazy premium. So someone will have the cajones to take whatever new card that comes out that's super low end but a really good player and just send it regular. Just like the perfect. The card I think of this is like didn't the Mac Jones PSA 10 Don Russ base card do like 2500 that first one? 33, 32, 3, 300. Yeah, like there'll Be sales like that. They'll absolutely be sales like that. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Ziggy, that last comment, I, I agree wholeheartedly. I think wisdom and patience help too. Young people want instant cash. I'll wait. That's the. And again, Ziggy, like, to that point, that's also being able to have the bankroll to be able to wait and not overextend yourself. I mean, which people overextend themselves in this hobby all the time. It happens all the time. So. But I agree, if you're able to do that, that's great. Like, I actually, you know, it's funny, one last thing about PC sports cards. They posted that the last day for them as group submitters that the cards have to arrive at their office tomorrow. I sent out a bunch of Kobe Bryant cards. I bought a lot like Monday and I shipped them out Tuesday and they're gonna arrive there tomorrow. Like, and they just posted, they also posted it to. And it's, you know, they posted it today saying tomorrow's the last day to get your card into it. So it's like, you know. But luckily I, I, I, I will hopefully meet that deadline. But yeah. Yep. So, so what I want to jump, I know we're gonna, we're doing listener questions and I want to jump to one question because I think it's talks about exactly what we're talking about right here. And I'm just going to go find it, Talk, say something while I'm looking. I just spaced out. I thought you were gonna pull that up quicker. Yeah, but I, I had it here. But then my question what's. Yeah, so I also started buying cards on ebay. I don't know if you saw me make that story post, but you know how there was that whole thing about PayPal and like they're not covering you anymore and yada yada, yada. Well, I was just like, you know what? They have that, that did that authenticity guarantee thing. And I was like, what the heck? So I bought a few cards on, on ebay and gonna see if those go. Also, I don't know if I announced it, but my air that Aaron Judge auto out of five I have is gonna be going live in like 20 days in the Golden Elite Auction. And I also have not. Here's another update. And that messy card, the messy card I talked about last week of I didn't want it graded. My rep allegedly was on vacation until I after emailing him like four times last week, no response. So then I email him and I email the sellolden.com which goes to all the sales rep. And he got back to me in five minutes. Yeah, I'm sure you're on vacation, buddy. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So I have no idea what's happening with that card. Basically, I asked for an update and nothing. So I'll just have to, you know, do reply all to the freaking. The. All this sales rep at Golden. I mean, oh, you're gonna be that guy. Jordan's gonna be that guy. I don't care. Their job is customer service and to sell our car. Dude, they got the freaking goodwill method, man, of taking in donations for nothing and selling it and making the money off of the donations. Like, what real work are they doing? Yeah, they are not. You should go down there. You should get in your car and drive down there. I mean, they're not that. I'll fly down there my. My private jet like I'm Logan Paul and ask about my sub or my 2500 messy car. Not to completely change the subject, but I was watching this documentary on Netflix about the. The mafia and the five families. And all of a sudden they come up and they start talking about zips. And I'm like, wait, what? Do you know what a zip says it was? It was Sicilian muscle. When they. When they had a problem here, the mafia had a problem here, they'd call some zips up in Sicily to come over and take care of the problem. So. So we might have to just send you down. Listen, man, I am a paisano, so, yeah, I could do it. We gotta do what we gotta do. All right? So. So actually, there's two questions in there. So the first one. This is special one cards. So. And I'm gonna. I want to do this from two different angles, okay? It says if you look at the patterns in the hobby, the tops cases don't seem to do as well as panini. Why do you think that is? Is it creativity or is it printing? And I just want to add to that. That I just want to know. My question at the back end of that is, do we think that those. Those downtowns and those kabooms, at some point, their value is going to jump up because tops case hits were. And. And I think it's my. My answer to this is. I think it's programming. I think our brains were programmed to these downtowns and kabooms that as soon as we saw them, we're like, oh, my God, that's it. That. You know that that is the holy grail right there. Right? And now all of a sudden we go to tops and their case hits don't, aren't as flashy, they don't look as good, they're not as sought after, they're not holding their value. Right. So are we gonna go back and say let's go back to the downtowns and the kaboons? Like are these, are these the ones that are going to just keep climbing because people are, are going after them but now they're not making them anymore? Well, first I agree about the programming because when you talk, when you were using your example of what you would do to send to bulk, you used Don Russ football and you're like, oh Don Russ football sucks. But that's where you went because there's the downtowns. That's where you went, that's where your mind went. So there's truth to that. Also. Huge value in that. Also with that being said, if we're going to follow patterns, Downtowns and kabooms did not immediately take off. They did. I mean they were, they were desired but not like how they were in the last two, three years. Not anywhere close. Right. Like I don't remember downtowns and kabooms being all the rave like they are now back in the COVID boom. Right. I, I, that's not what I remember in the COVID boom was downtowns and kabooms. I mean they were desired but not like now. So what I would say is it's probably going to take some cycles for the new case hits to take count. And also I think the people who are sharp will start looking at what these pop counts on. These case hits end up looking like, like so. And another thing that panini, I feel like panini did really well is with, with their, the case hits I felt like they did a good job making sure that the case hits were in every sport. So there was like some, a good parody. Like there was always kabooms and always downtown, the football and basketball, you know what I mean? And then they had the unlicensed baseball or the baseball. They would have like the team USA which is kind of cool. And then in, in the prism they'd have the color blast for baseball too. I say all of that because one of the coolest case hits for baseball was the, it was in cosmic and it was the constellation. Have you seen those? Yeah. I, I, I, back when I was breaking, I was buying the athletics a lot and I got a Jacob Wilson constellation and they're super rare and they look great. The cards look excellent. It's like all black and then the pl. It's like all starry background and the player's silhouette is made up of stars. There's. It's not actual. It's all like made up of stars. And they're really rare. They're like one out of every, like three or four cases. They're, they're like legitimately a rare, rare card. And they don't have it in basketball. And, And I felt like that was a huge miss. And I, I think they need to get more consistency and parity with the case hits that are gonna thrive forward. So I, I think that matters too. Yeah. This is funny, Ziggy. The basket was a basketball card. You shoot from downtown. You don't pass the football from downtown. There you go. There you go. And yeah, what Jag LMG2003 just said, it's so true. I bring up that logical point, but the demand is going to outweigh that logical podcast. I just think for people who are smart or sharp, if you, if you can find that demand with the pop count, you know, there's opportunity. But absolutely. Come on, come on. Even at the end with Panini, they're, they, they had cases without case hits, right. So you'd rip it open. You rip a whole case and they're like, darn, they got me. All right, buy another case, rip another case. It got to be a downtown in there. It was all programming, kid. Yep. And. And at some point on whatnot, right. I mean, it was like the, the repackers wanted to pay a hundred percent on, on all the case hits, you know, so at some point the repackers and the downtowns and the kabooms and the case hits. I mean, all of a sudden that value just, just blew up. But I don't know from a collector standpoint if anybody really cares, except for like a Tom Brady or, or Pat Tillman. Right. Was probably one of the most sought after downtowns. But beyond that, you know, is people really gonna get. Get excited over a tyree kill downtown or. You know what I'm saying? Like, is it. I don't know. No, fair point, fair point. Yeah. All right. And there was one other question on there that was, oh, here. Matthias said, so what happens? And we were just talking about that. I know we're bouncing back and forth, but what happens if GameStop ever files for bankruptcy? They've been closed before and carry a heavy debt load. They just tried to buy ebay but failed. What if they try to buy collectors PSA, do bigger raw cards, 500 to $1,000 become more sought after because they might be worth sending in. I feel like we kind of touched on the, the card thing a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, I understand GameStop almost went bankrupt and they came back from, from, from being, you know, one foot in the grave. But I give them credit for, like, reinventing themselves as a business. I give them credit for that. I, but I honestly, I, I don't feel like I have the education or, or knowledge to really give a good answer on what would happen and how that would affect things. I, I really, I just, I don't know. That's beyond me. I really, I would love to have an anthropus. Beyond me. Do you have thoughts on that? I, I don't. I really don't. I, I think the position they're in now, I don't, I think it's like a lot of things. I, you know, I, I think certain companies and certain businesses and this hobby, I think we've put our, put, it's put itself. I don't know how I should word this. Put itself in position where even if it dips, it doesn't fail. Right. I, I think it gets to a point where, yeah, we could go through some hard times and we may dip and we may have a market correction or it could whatever, but it's, we're never going to fail. Like, it's never going to fail. Like, I, I, and I know never is a strong word, but I don't think it's like a, you know, a video store. You know what I'm saying? I, I think they, they were, they were, they were going to fail because they weren't adapting right. If we look at, look at them and then they, then they adapted and now look at them. And now I think they're much smarter. They went through this. They're much smarter and they, you know, they know how to earn money and stay in business. It's pretty impressive considering what your entire business model is to be like, hey, guys, it's this or we're done, right? Like, it's. People can buy video games off of their consoles at home and download them. They don't need to come here for. So we got to do something that will make people come to our shops. So I do give credit for that. Yeah. All right, so I'll let you jump onto the list now. Listener questions. You can, you could read some off. Alrighty. Sounds good. From our guy Cyrus, where the market the past few months has absolutely boomed for goats. Do you guys think we are, we are at A ceiling. Do you think there's still room for growth? Do you foresee a future crash in pricing? Let me know your thoughts. Side note, if you have a long road trip ahead of you, what artists are you listening to for the ride? Where do you want me to start? Let's do the music. Get that out of the way quick. If I had to pick just one. Is that what we're doing? We're picking one? That's what, you know, Ken, we, we run the show here. What's, what's the pot? What's, what's the podcast mix for you? What's the podcast mix? Oh, my God. Like, what am I listening to? Yeah, I meant playlist, because I have a playlist that I made. So. Yeah. Well, here's a funny story, and I don't want to get off, get, get off the, the rail here, but yeah, I'm, I have my family teaching me how to create a, you know, a playlist for, for Spotify. I've just started using it in my car. I've never used Spotify before, but if I was going to pick an artist on a road trip, probably Counting Crows would be a go to for me. If I had to pick one, it'd be Red Hot Chili Peppers. That, that'd be my one. I'd pick the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Yeah, we're, we're pretty close there. Yeah. Now, now that we've done all that, I have to remember what the question was. Where the market? The past few. Oh, the goats. Goats. Do you think we're at a ceiling? Do you think there's growth, Room for growth? Will there be a crash? What do you think? I think goats is the, is the term here that we need to focus on. I don't think all the players, but I think if we really look at the goats, I think their market. I don't, I don't think we're at the ceiling yet on, on some of these goats, you know, the, the Michael Jordan and Tom Brady and you know, I, I think, I think there's still room to grow. Is the, is the future crash? No, like I, when I. And here, look, just my opinion, but when I see Mr. Wonderful, Kevin, whatever his name is, running around with cards and buying up cards and, oh, Larry and everything he's doing. I talked about this, we talked about this last week. I think, I think this, this hobby has become more mainstream and there's, you know, when, when, when rich people get involved in things, it doesn't. Those things don't crash. Yeah. No matter no matter what you do to it, they're not putting, they're not, they know better, know enough not to put their money into, into a falling market. So if they're, these people are out putting their money into the market, then now they're looking, they're not looking at this as a hobby, they're looking at this as investments. They're looking at this as like art and, and lots of other things. Yeah, I think. Is he laughing at me? I don't know. I think, I think there could be a little bit of another bull run, a surge in the short term with the all the grading stuff kind of subsiding because people will want to put, to put money into something in, in the cards. And so instead of grading, there's just going to be more capital to put into already established guys, you know, goats or just established guys even. I think there, that, that could be, but with that being said with, with that short run up, like if they're, if, if that kind of affects it to the point that like those funds get allocated to that and make that kind of like short surge, I think there then could be like, I don't want to call it a crash, but maybe like, like a slight slowdown or a little readjustment afterwards. You know what I mean? I could see that, but not a crash. Just, I, I think, you know, that's the way it could run up. Yeah. I think the hobbyist position positioned itself well, not to repeat. Yeah, yeah. When I say, I don't mean like a, like a detrimental crash, but I mean like the, the extra money people would be using to buy raw and grade and that maybe that just gets pushed into the, into that lane and then when that comes back, people then sell off to the, you know what I mean? Like that sort of thing. Yeah. TOM G. With a summer full of huge shows ahead, will the best deals be found at small local shows instead? Can I answer that first? Absolutely. Best deals are not found at card shows, small or large. They are found in the depths of Facebook Marketplace buying out collections. That's all I'll say about that. I, I, I, I agree with you. Because the percentage, the percentages are correct when you're buying outside of a collection card show. You know, another way for me to look at it is if you're buying off bar, you know, out of, out of season, and you're buying for, you know, three to six months down the road. Some of those values are exactly just like buying off a Facebook marketplace, but they're not the quick flips like, you're able to do so for. For someone like you that I know that's able to get it at a very good percentages. Like, you can move that stuff quickly because you're like, oh, you know, and I'm just making up numbers. Oh, 82 versus 85. Sure, whatever. Because I'm already made my money, so I don't get. I don't care where at a card show, you're like, yeah, that 82 to 85 or 84, that may mean more to. To people, especially people that are out there and spending the day and going out to the show and investing to be there and paying for a table and. And all the other stuff versus somebody that's, you know, I get out of work at 4. What time do you want to meet me? Like, I made no investment at that point. I'm just happy to cash out. So. Yeah. Yeah. And I. I think it's another part of that too is like the setting is the competition in the room at a card show. Yeah. When you're. When you're buying, you know, one to one, like off of. Out of that setting, it really comes down to, like, I want to say kind of like who wants. Whether the. Whether the seller wants to get rid of it more than you want to buy is kind of where the. Where the price can end up. Right. Like, how much do you want to get rid of all this crap for? It's not all crap, but, like, you know, some of it is. I don't think that's a censored word, Ken. I think that's okay. But we're teetering. Yeah, yeah. No, you can use that word. All right, I'll give. I'll give it approval. FM radio rules. I'll have to. I'll have to look it up. Alrighty. Basketball said. He's never set up as a dealer. I'd love to see him as a dealer at his show. Oh, that'd be funny. I think he'd set up just to troll people. Not even a sell card. I think he just set up the troll people and I think he'd enjoy it. Basketball card guy. Any set builders out there? Howard. Howard's a set builder. Yeah, Howard is a set builder. Other than. Other than Howard, I. I don't know anyone under 65, 70 who's a set builder. Set builder's like a lost art. It's a generational thing kind of, I feel like. Right. No, I. You know what, it's funny. I know you don't get out to show as much But I don't get out of the house much. Yeah, yeah. I. It shows a lot of people, a lot of younger generation people, you know, collecting, you know, baseball sets from, you know, 50s and 60s, okay. Things like that and, and basketball sets. A lot of, well, obviously a lot of people try to collect that 86 FLIR set. But yeah, I mean, I don't think there's a lot because I think most people at card shows, it's a quick flip type of thing. You know, it's interesting that, you know, when you set up as a dealer as much as I do, you know, when a collector comes by, right, they come by with a sheet. Do you have any of these? This is what I'm looking for, right? Or, or verbally say, do you have this, this or that? I mean, you know what they're looking for. Most people just come up, they pull the phone out, right? And they're saying, hey, if I buy this at this, I could sell it here at that and I can make a few bucks. I mean that's, that's really what, you know, 90% of the people at a card show are doing. So and let's say this too. If you're at a card show and you're buying a card and flipping it for 20 bucks in five minutes, you know, that's, that's a rate of 240 an hour. And that's nothing to sneeze at either. If that's, if that's the business model, that quick turnover like that, you know what I mean? Like there's, there's a reason so many people do it too. It's like that, that is a model. But yeah, okay, here's that. Michael V. I'm gonna go through this as best I can. Michael. As you may know, I collect pre rookie and rookie cards with autos in high grade. I, I did not know that. Some of my PC cards like this include 79 tops, Gretzky, 80 tops, Henderson, 85 tops, Tiffany Clemens and a boatload of Griffeys. My question since on card autos of the ultra modern low number cards of popular in some fetch 5, 6, 7 figures. How long will it take for these cards to fetch five, six or even seven figures? So Michael, that seems to be coming from a place of bias a little bit there. I don't know because truthfully, I don't know that market at all. I don't think you would know it better than we would. What, what that would look like. We'd have to bring you on to answer that question. But I don't think you're going to see it in your lifetime. I don't, I don't know if there's, if there's that, that many people trying to collect those cards. Even though the values. For sure. Yeah, makes sense. Yeah. Because I think if you take them and you put them in your case at a card show, I don't know how many people are going to be like, oh, I really want that, that's the card I'm looking for type of thing. So, yeah, it's, it's hard to say. I mean, I think sooner or later it could get there, but I don't, I don't think we're gonna see that. The Gretzkies. Yes. I mean the Gretzky's are all the values always going up on that. And the Griffeys for sure. Yeah. And Pro and probably the Henderson too, because Henderson has passed away like so. I mean it makes sense that they would go up, but I don't think Canon or I have enough knowledge to really give you a timeline of what, of what that would look like. But I don't think it's a bad, I think there's way worse purchases in, in the hobby, that's for sure. But Jeff B. What is your opinion on collects? You had something to say about that first, so go for it. Yeah, so I saw that question and I'm in two different groups, you know, with a number of, you know, hobbyists in there that we were chatting all the time. And in both groups I said, hey, does anybody in this group use this Collects and crickets. Nobody in either of the group used it. So I went, I looked it up online, I looked what the, what the prices were on it, how people, you know, what people felt about it. I mean, I, I know there are people out there that use this and, and I was hoping that I would be able to find somebody to say, yeah, I like this, I don't like it. But I really didn't. So I think the sediment was most people, you know, will use ALT, eBay, card ladder and the sports card investor. I don't, I, I, I really. And I think just telling you that oh says something that's interesting. So you view Collects for the, the data that it pulls. That's what you think of, you think of this is going to price my card. Correct. That's what it is. It's an app that. Well, I know what it is and I think you don't know fully what it is. Collects is a huge marketplace. Collects is to my knowledge is powered by car dealer pro former. Yeah former guest of the the pod Carrie American Arbitrage sells a ton of collects. So when you do that image it will pre price your card for you and you can set up like a lot of people send a ton of low end and you can actually set minimums. Like if it's like you have to buy at least four cards for my. My shop or like $10 worth of cards, you can set those minimums. Like it's a little more work but kind of how Com C is like something that you that would you know, sell all that low end but it's, you can, it's. You're doing it on your own. So it's more similar to alt then so all where I'll use to get the value gets a value and pop counts and stuff on cards but also they have their own marketplace that they're selling cards as well in a way. But all like when I think of all auctions I think of the height, you know, like high end stuff that is selling on all and, and like collects is. Is mainly like low end raw cards. So like I, I haven't used it. I've. I've gone around and looked at some stuff there and I, I considered the idea back when bulk was a thing it would be a way in my opinion to do like virtual value boxing because a lot of the people who are going to be doing that may not be people submitting the PSA where you know, they're kind of doing what Carrie does where he, he buys low end and flips low end. It just, it's just something like that. That's what I understand it to be. So that's interesting though. You, you didn't even know that was. No, I, I looked the whole thing up today. Talked about the app, download the app, how much the app was talked about using your phone, take the picture, get the value of your card. I mean this is, this is the sales pitch on online. Yeah. It said nothing and it said look, if you buy the $10 a month a lower end one that will give you a $10 credit to shop on our site. So you know, that's probably that. And if you buy the $21, we'll give you a 20 or a 29, we'll give you a $20 credit. Yeah but I honestly I haven't made a transaction on there but I just, I, you know, I think it's another marketplace where there's probably deals to be had and yeah, what Ziggy said I've heard of collects and know people that love it. So basically what I've heard is that people that use it, like kind of swear by it and love it. I just haven't, haven't used it myself. Okay, from Spike, has the FOMO run out for Topps? Chrome Football? Has the FOMO run out on tops? Chrome Football? Well, I, I can say the last couple weekends it shows. That's all I see is just cases full of, of this stuff and I don't see anybody buying it. So I think the FOMO is probably already, you know, already ran out and I think people are trying to get their money back on it. Right. But I just think they're as much as, they're great looking cards. I don't think there's much value to it. I mean, I think you can attest to that. You, you ended up with a couple of those cards you sold and by the time you got home and we did a thing a couple days later, you saw how, you know how much it's dropped. So I, I, I, I, and you can't get them graded right? I mean, where are you sending them? You're not, you're not sending them at, at a, on a regular order. So they're all, they're all being sold raw. Yep. I, I would say the FOMO has died out. And on top of that, I feel that the, the grading shutdown kind of takes, takes the FOMO out of. Oh, I need to get all these refractors or Bass Jackson darts to, to grade because, you know, that's the 79A card versus 25A card. It's a huge difference on, on a card like that. Yeah. Okay. And then Spike's next card was who could see the biggest spike for which American players have the most potential for increased value following their World cup performance. Do you have an answer for that? I, I do because I, I utilized, I utilized my resources and wouldn't you know, within the last minute I got my, I got my answer. I have, I have two probably the same ones. I, I don't know, how do you say the first? Baligun. Yeah, Baligan, Baligun and Pulisic are the two. But the USA will be fortunate to get to the, the knockout round. I have Baligan and. Oh, I just had him up. Thank you. Special one for the. I have Malik Tillman. I have Malik Tillman and Baligan. So that's, that's why I think I couldn't really give you too much more. But when I was only doing soccer, Malik Tillman was huge up and coming and now he's playing on buyer Leverkusen, which is a really good team in the Bundesliga. So the reason I didn't say Pulisic, because people already know him, but obviously if he, if he does something, he could. And I feel like that's a really good chalk answer. So I think Baligun has the highest boom potential just from scoring goals. And then I think Tillman could be one of the younger players to kind of take off because I think Tillman's like 24. I still, I still have special ones in. Balgon is the guy. Yeah, I still have that PSA 10. Remember you helped me. You pulled that card out. Yeah, yeah. You should rate this card. I graded it. It came back at 10. That was like three years ago. And it was, it was, it was expensive when it first came back and you're like, I'm holding this and then it's. It's dropped, I think, right? Yeah. Yeah. But hey, if. If he has a great time soon, it'll be your time soon. Absolutely. And what a ride it's been. All right, from Homer. Too long for the question box on ig, but took a stab here. A seller, let's say on whatnot, is pumping up Bacardi's auctioning but misinterpreting facts. Hard to find, never on ebay etc. And a buyer purchases but quickly notices many sales on ebay for one fifth of the price and one currently on ebay for one fifth of the whatnot auction price. Is it wrong to ask for a refund given the misinterpretation of facts? And is the seller wrong for giving the refund but blocking them for their shows, even though he's a weekly participant of the streams and has bought cards in the past with no issues. I'll tell you what, this doesn't sound too, like too much of a hypothetical. Sounds very. Some very in depth sounds like it happened two days ago. And hypothetically, what if I had. What if I had screenshots and. I got receipts? So what I'll say is it. See, it sounds scummy on. On the seller to be doing that. Then I think there's two sides of the refund. Yes, you. It was misinterpretation. Yes. The person also bought into it, so there's some accountability to be had there. I. I don't like the world that we're getting into that like everyone's a victim. There are definitely times when people are victims, but it's also like, be aware, you know, like if the prince. If it was it, was it the prince of whatever was asking. You know, it was like an African country that there's a prince that was asking for money. It was like an email scam. I mean, I almost feel like that's, that's, that's what it is now in the hobby, right? It's like, or it's like I need, I need you to go buy me a thousand dollars in, in Amazon gift cards right now. Like, like it's what not sellers upselling cards. That's kind of where we're at in the schemes. So I think, I think asking for a refund isn't wrong. I think giving the refund is, is fine and blocking from their shows is, is, that's a choice on, on the whatnot seller and every situation. I think, I think that's a case by case thing. Yeah. You know what, first of all, when I read this, I, we know it happens all the time and I think what happens most people, and I think even if it was me, right, that if I did this and I got this card, I'd be, I'd have been annoyed. I probably would never buy from them again, but probably would never say anything, right? And I'm sure if there have been, if this has been, this particular seller has been doing this, most probably doesn't hear back from most people. So when somebody does respond and say, hey, I think you screwed me, right? I mean, I think they, they first of all, they probably get upset. Like, how dare you? I mean, you bid on it, you know, you, you, you were the one that hit the button. I didn't do it for you. And now all of a sudden you want your money back and you gotta send the card, you know, or, or whatever it is. So I, I could see he was being a little petty by blocking and doing whatever he's doing to that. But at the end of the day, if this is what happened to you, do you care? Are you happy to move on to some, to, to go somewhere else? 1. And the other thing is for, for like he said, they create content. I create content, right? And a lot of times if somebody, if I do something, somebody reaches out and says, hey Ken, like I don't agree with this or I don't agree with that or this or something like that. Like, I'm not going to like turn them away and be like, fine, I'll give me your money back and I'm blocking you and I don't want to, want to talk to you. I mean, what kind of content creator does that, like, what kind of person does. If you're in here, you should be in here to have fun and you're doing things. First of all, don't screw people, right? Because they're going to come back and call you, call you on it. Right. And if, and if something didn't go the way it was supposed to go, for the most part, I'd be like, hey, I'm sorry. And, you know, let's, let's figure this out. And I'm happy you're still listening to my content because at the end of the day, this is about, you know, me doing this and you guys watching to be a listener. So to have that reaction or such a strong reaction to somebody asking from a listener of your content, even though he bought from you, but it was listed on the content. I, I don't know. I, I don't, I don't think the reaction should have been that harsh. I think it could have been a conversation like, yeah, man, I can do that. But, you know, try, try, try to bid responsibly next time. Like, if you wanted to, that would have been the, like, the, the harshest thing I probably would have said to him when I gave him his money back. So. But there's people in this, in this hobby that are just like, you know, on to the next person. Like, I, if you feel that way, you're probably never going to buy from me again, so I might as well block you anyways. Yeah. Yeah. Either way, not a great situation. No, I mean, you want to retain viewership, right? That's not a way to retain people that, you know, I don't know. And he probably, and, and if somebody's buying from him consistently too, he should probably know the name and say, oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, sorry about that. Sorry. Sorry that happened that way. Let me, yeah, let me. I'll say that too. If someone, if someone spent a weekly with you as someone who did whatnot. And, and I had some people, like, when I was doing that for that little stint, it was fun. And like, I had some regular supporters. Like, I, I would definitely just like, if that, if something like that happened where, like, I misrepresented the card grand with me, it wouldn't really necessarily be on purpose if I, if I had done that and they said and they asked for, I, I would, I'd probably give them a refund. Just, especially if they're, you know, regular. A regular buyer. Like, yeah, it's, it's stupid. Why would you want to bite the hand that feeds you if they're going to keep supporting you. You know, it's. But. Or, or hear something on the other side say, hey, I'm sorry, who, who was that? Oh, it was Tom Brady. I mean I can send you a refund or maybe I could just put a package together of a handful of Tom Brady's and get them out to you and make it right. You let me know. Right. And then, and then either way, they're happy with it. Yep. And we, we got a little. A softball question to end it from tact underscore collector. Will the big fella attend the west coast card show? Would like to meet him. Yeah, I will not be there this year, but I, I want to go, I want to go back out there. If you, if you remember me talking about going out there, my son lives like 15 minutes away. Hopefully, hopefully by the time I go back out there, those tanks are going to blow and it's going to be safe to go back out there or they're going to figure out a way to fix. I don't know if you know about this. There's like four, four NASA from NASA, like whatever. There's four huge tanks and one of them's leaking and it's intimate. It's going to explode and if it blood, it's got this chemical in it that. So it's like, you know, they keep sending these warnings out to my son saying, you know, get. Make sure you have tape and if the tank blows, tape up your windows and your doors and shelter in place. And what is going on out there sounds like they're on top of it just like PSAs on top of theirs. And apparently it's like five miles from Disneyland, so. Well, that's great. But this. So just to get back to it. So it won't be this year but I def. I'm definitely going to get it getting back out there. I love that show and I enjoyed going out to that show and I enjoyed extending the vacation to spend time with my son and, and just to be on the, on the west coast. It's, it's always a, a treat to be out there on the West Coast. Awesome. Cool. Well, as always, it's always good to. This is all, this is all we really get to talk anymore. Me and you aren't. Aren't talking much. I'm just too busy, man. Well, you're so big. I'm always available. You're. You're just too busy, kid. Too much too, too much going on for, for the big guy. This is, this is the last Year I'll be super busy. So hopefully I can, I can join a, let's say, older gentleman's golf league and, and team up with you maybe next year. That's kind of the goal for me is I want to join a golf league next year. I'm working at the golf course. I haven't even got the golf at the, at the golf course I work at yet because. Yeah, I'm waiting for the invite, dude. I haven't gone myself. So you're not, you're not missing out on anything yet. Real quick, I'll just tell you, this is how busy this golf course is, okay? On a given day, there are 240 available slots to golf from 7am to 5pm that's the last tee time on a Wednesday. Okay, Wednesday we had 223 spots full. Yeah, Wild Wednesday. I, I used to golf up there. I used to have a good time golfing up there. And they're good, they're always good about moving people along. And if somebody slowed down, all of a sudden a guy with the flag would come driving right up to him and tell him, the ranger on Saturdays, tell him, pull over, let them all go by. Spike. No, I'm not a greenskeeper. I don't, I don't have that much. I'm not that. I'm not that legit. I'm, I'm a ranger and I, I get tipped at the bag drop off pretty much. And, and they'll put me in the shop sometime. I'm a utility guy. I'm a utility guy right now. So it's fun, though. Good. All right, so look, this weekend, tomorrow, Friday, I'm driving to the Westchester. I'm going to be an early bird. So Michael, if you're still there and you're going there tomorrow, let me know. I'll be in. I'm going down with Bill. Half a billion. Billy gonna go down for the early bird for one o' clock to check that show out. Saturday, it's the big show at the, the Doubletree in Bristol. I'll be at that show set up on Saturday and Sunday Bill's. The Danbury Show. Bill and Billy's Danbury Show. So, yeah, it's a three day, three days of, of hobbying this weekend. So I should have some, a lot, a ton of great content come Sunday. Awesome. I'll, I'll definitely tune in when I'm driving back and forth from work. Worker internship. I'll. I'll be listening. Nice. All right, look, I want to thank everyone for tuning in. Tonight. A lot of great, a lot of great questions. A lot of good chat in the chat tonight. Just, just you guys just keep this thing going as well as we do. So I appreciate everybody and all your participation. I want to thank everyone for watching, everyone for listening. Please, like, please subscribe. If you haven't subscribed yet, hit that subscribe button and we'll be back next Thursday with a brand new episode. Zip. Have a good.