Shohei Ohtani Market Entering Regression?; Can Vintage Cards Remain Relevant Well Into The Future?; Wemby's $5.1 Million Sale; PSA Value Service Shutdown; Plus Another DC Show And Tell Segment

You're listening to Cards to the Moon, a podcast about trading cards from both a collector and investor perspective. We hope you'll stick around for the ride as we take a deep dive into the state of the hobby. Share some hot takes, hopefully some useful advice and fun stories along the way. Hey, guys, welcome back to Cards to the Moon. My name is Clark from Five Card Guys, and you could also find me on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and on TikTok, all on the handleive card guys, all one word. This is episode 371 and co hosting with me today is a good friend of the pod, Daryl Chan, AKA dc. He's back to talk cards, of course, and as he usually does, gives us updates on card shows that he's been at recently, and he's been at quite a few over the past month. So I'm excited to hear what's been going on there, but we'll get to all of that in a second. But dc, first of all, good to have you back. Thanks for having me. Love being on the show. Love it. Okay, two things I want to cover off the top briefly. The first is, I'm sure you heard already, Victor Wembanyama, his Black Prism rookie card, one of one, of course, sold recently private sale for $5.1 million. And for people that don't know who I'm, you know which card I'm talking about, it's the curtain card, the one that we all made fun of when it first came out. But yeah, the black prism, one of one, $5.1 million. DC, what's your immediate thought when you heard that number? 5.1. I mean, that's. That's a great time to sell. It's like perfect timing, you know, like they're. They're in almost at the finals. And, you know, his stuff is just been increasing, like even from last round to this round, even from the time that we bought in Montreal to the Montreal end of the show. The percentage gain was ridiculous. So this person timed it perfectly. But you're saying it was a private sale? That's what I read. It's a private sale. Broker through fanatics. Collect. Oh. Because I'm going to say obviously not so private if someone else heard about it. Right? Right. Let alone the whole world. But that's. That's pretty awesome. I mean, good on the person that. That pulled that card. And that's life changing. 5.1 mil. That's a lot of money. I don't know if this sounds crazy, but I feel like that could end up being a Deal. You know what I mean? If. If Wemby does Wimbee things, if, as of this recording, we're just talking off air, they're playing game six. So we don't know what's gonna happen when this episode comes out, but apparently, imagine if the spurs go all the way this season and Wemby stays healthy for the next decade. 5.1. That's. That can be a steal. I mean, better beat inflation, like at 5.1. But definitely, I mean, Wemby has been like, amazing. I mean, less that. Less. So that last game, I don't know if you watched the last game, kind of was a little off, but he must have heard because he's playing lights out right now. Like this game, he's going crazy. But like, just as a, as a player that is so tall and so big to be able to shoot threes. Like he's doing step back threes. Right. I mean, that one from half court, the other game was game, Game four. That was nuts. So that's crazy. I mean, you, you never seen a big man be able to be so agile. So I got a question for you. Speaking of just the crazy things he's been able to do, uniquely, I've heard from other people on social media, Wemby is now being compared to Ohtani. Like when we're talking about the hobby. Right. Someone generational. Not just generational, but almost like a unicorn. Would you think that's a fair comp? Definitely a fair comp. I mean, right now, face the league, I think he's definitely up there, just like Ohtani is in baseball. The difference is in baseball, when you're playing like position player and pitcher, that I. That's another level. I still think Ohtani is. You know, we're not comparing apples to apples. Right. I would say Wemby might be like the quote, unquote, Ohtani of, Of the NBA. But he's still not where Ohtani is. Because what he's doing, I guess you could think of offensive defensive stats. That's what I was thinking. Yeah, but because defensively he's. He's a monster. Oh, yeah. And then, you know, like, if he starts picking up offensively too, not that he hasn't already, but you know, like regular 30, 40 point games, then we're, then we're talking once he starts doing triple doubles of like 30, 15 and 10, and I mean 10 for blocks, then. Then we can talk about. Bingo. I'll be honest. I was at a Raptors game with one of my clients. I. I always Take him to the spurs game. And we witnessed Wemby hit a have like double double, but it was 10 blocks. It might have been a triple double, but the 10 of them were blocks. Yeah, that's insane. It's, it's not something you see every day. No, definitely not. Yeah, well I think we're in agreement that 1B sells pretty crazy, but I just want to bring that up because it's all over social media. Moving on something that's also on social media very recently is of course the whole PSA news. PSA has been in the news a lot lately, but this time it's about stopping submission of all their value level card service to catch up on its 10 million card backlog. Alright, so I'll probably do a more deeper dive on this issue in a separate episode. Probably. I'm gonna save it for my Friday episode where I've been ranting about PSA more lately. But, but I want to get your thoughts because I know you sub to PSA a lot more frequently than I do. But for you, you know, one question I have is what are you gonna do now if you were planning to submit to psa, just say you can't get it in for the next day or two where I know group submitters are trying to squeeze it in but yeah, what's the plan going forward? Because it's. Apparently it's going to be at least four months and probably more for them to start clearing at least half the backlog. So what's the game plan? Lucky for me we got in a couple of our bulk subs before the deadline. We kind of already heard that this was coming. So you know, in preparation we had a couple subs go in. One during Toronto Expo and the last one was just this week in London. So we were able to get a couple things in. But yeah, to be fair, I mean part of the reason why there's this backlog is because people are subbing anything and everything, which is what's actually holding it up if people are actually. This forces people to actually pick and choose what they're going to sub because now it's going to cost them more. Right? Unless it's something like for instance, you don't care about, you just want to have it encased or you know, in some cases like for me the whole thing like I subbed a bunch of like lower end Ohtani rookies in the last group sub. Like you know, like with that thing in Edmonton. I subbed a lot of those. The group, the ones that I didn't sub at, at the Expo. Right. With Beckett on site. So this, like I said, it just kind of forces people to pick and choose what, what they should be subbing and otherwise they're just going to sit there and wait, so, and, and log jam. I think this is what PC is trying to do. They're saying that, hey, we, we have, we're able to handle the higher end stuff that, you know, people are subbing at like, you know, two to five day or express or whatever it is. Yeah. But this is kind of inadvertently, even though I, I feel like there was some sort of, you know, people were thinking about it, they were thinking about it there. How can we do this without, you know, kind of saying this is what we're doing, but doing it and still getting like a little bit of a money grab on the other end because, you know, we'll still pay. Right? Yeah, I think it just forces the consumer to be a little bit pickier about what it is that they're going to sub and I think overall it should be better. Even with their, what, two million dollar infrastructure stuff, it's not going to get implemented. Right. 200 million. 200 million. Yeah. Sorry, that's what I mean. Apparently not enough. Apparently not enough. 200 million. How many graders is that? Thousand by the end of the year. Yeah, but not enough. We, I'm sure, I'm sure you, I know you're a loyal listener, so I'm sure you heard our last episode where. Yeah, we're just saying just not nearly enough. But yes, go ahead. Yeah. I mean getting more staff is one thing. I mean how many more machines are they gonna have to press the slabs? You know, like grading it is one thing. But I mean my last, my last sub that we sent in a while ago, which was supposed to be more of an express sub, has been sitting in assembly for I don't know how many weeks now. So. Yeah, and we don't have the grades. Like, you know, it goes through that, you know, those different, those different stages and stuff. Yeah. And we're like assembly, assembly for like two weeks or three weeks. What was taking so long? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So obviously they don't have enough machines to press all zillion slabs that they had to go do. That's funny, I was laughing at that exact point. People that sub into their quote unquote express service, still waiting. I mean, come on, call it regular. Plus at least don't call it express anymore at this point. But, but I hear you. I do agree that this could be a preventative measure of, you know, getting into this junk slab era, so to speak. You know, you're not just gonna just submit anything anymore. But I wonder if there's going to be an impact at all for. For the next several months where everything's kind of at a standstill for the. For the lower end, lower tier subs. And I wonder if that's going to change behavior. And I thought that out loud until very, very recently. You mentioned that a competitor who could have taken advantage of the situation, called tag, cannot. Because I'm gonna read what it says on their Most recent tweet 7 hours ago as of this recording, and they said on the same day that PSA made it official that they're stopping their value service or pausing it right now. Tag wrote quote, due to incredible Demand, Express is now closed, marked at capacity until further notice. Following Basic and Standard earlier this month, our core tiers 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 reopen those submission tiers. And then they say, thank you for your continued trust and support. It's what drives everything we're building, end quote. So I guess TAG is not even an option at this point. Your thoughts? Well, I don't understand how TAG has this issue, because isn't TAG AI? It's not like they ran out of computers and the computers can't, like, compute whether or not It's a real 10 or not. They need more chips. How do you explain that? Right? It's like, sorry, the. The. The. Our chips. Our AI chips are costing too much because Trump wants to overcharge now. And, you know, our stuff coming from China is not enough. And. And we can't. We, as in the computers cannot grade these. So. I don't know. That's a fair question. That's a fair point. I think these guys literally just jump on the coattails of whatever's happening and goes, oh, don't forget about us. Us too. You know, it's almost like it's sort of like free marketing, but at the same time, it's like, wow, TAG is another. Another news. TAG is. Is also full. I'm like, okay, that. Yeah, that I don't understand now that you bring it up. But it's. It's sad, like, to see that there is no true, viable competitor right now in the grading space other than. Other than, you know, love, Beckett, but, I mean, they're the same company now. Yeah, but. But stc. Oh, they're the same company. I know it's the same company, but I mean. I mean, are we. Are we depending on CGC to pick up the slack? Is that where we are now? Don't get me started on cgc. I mean, again, as a sports car collector. Both of you and I are primarily sports car collectors. I mean, CGC is not really. No. An option. Right. I mean, if you were grading Marvel cards or tcg. Or tcg, then I can see how it sort of makes sense. But any. Any. I've actually owned one CGC sports card, which I quickly got rid of after, like, a couple days. It was a Nolan Ryan. It looked great. It was a Nolan Ryan rookie. But, you know, the only way I could upsell that card is, like, it looks better than what this grade says, and I'm gonna crack it out. Anyway. That was my sale point and was able to, you know, get rid of it because the person saw it goes, oh, it does dc. It does look really good. You're gonna crack it out? Of course I'm gonna crack it out. Okay, then let me buy it before you crack it out. I'm like, okay. Yes. So again, back to our point. Cgc, not really a viable option for sport car collectors right now because the ROI isn't there. But how about Beckett, I guess, you know, like, I know I just said that they're owned by the same company, but do you think people might consider going to Beckett just because they. They'll get it faster at least? Yeah, I think so. I mean, even. Even. Beckett, look. Look at the numbers. They're. They're getting a lot of subs. Like, even at the Toronto Expo. It was crazy. Yeah. They made some adjustments from the last. The last shows where, you know, they actually limited each person to 5.5subs per. Per round you went there. Which I think was pretty good because before what happened was people were bringing, like, people in the beginning were bringing in, like, thousands of. Well, not thousands, but like, many. Many more than five cards. So I think the system worked out better. And they did really, really well too. I think they sold out all their slots by Friday or Saturday. Wow. Which is. I think it was. It was like. I think it was run better. Yeah. This time. But, you know, I. I'm always, always love, love Beckett. I mean, the fact that I get Black Label, like, a Black Label card here and there helps, but you know what I mean, when I get it done on site, you know, that's something I really look forward to whenever I go to a show. Yeah. And they're set up, I'm sure. So, I mean, that's an option, but I, I don't know. I feel like there's going to be a point where during this, you know, backlog, as they're trying to clear it and, you know, you start going to other options. I feel like there's gonna come a point where it's just gonna be another backlog. Do you know? I mean, like, everything's just gonna spill over. Like, even people are stockpiling. Right. Right. Yeah. So, like, I wouldn't be surprised if Beckett announces, hey, guys, we gotta, we gotta pause submissions because, you know, there's a lot more ore the other, other scenario. Is that, okay, value bulk, you know, we can't take any more. So now people are going to submit to the regular level service. And then, you know, I could see a scenario where PSA is like, guys, we got to stop regular submissions too, until we get. It's possible some of these express. It's quite possible, yeah. I mean, right now it's trying to cut, you know, cut some of the fat. I don't know how else you would put it, but basically it's trying to push some of the smaller, lower tier guys that are subbing. I don't know. I wouldn't say, I wouldn't go as far as base cards. I think we're past the base cards. But I mean, anything less than 100 bucks, is it worth subbing? You know, maybe. I mean, listen, I think a lot of it too is tcg, Right? The TCG cards are causing a huge backlog issue. I think most of it, this is true. So I, you know, like, I don't. It's not like sports cards where, you know, the entry point is much lower. It's getting higher, of course, with, with how hot Pokemon is, but still you get decent cards for relatively cheap. And then once you grade, because the Pokemon card market is so hot, it's worth submitting cards that are, you know, if it's a PSA 9, it's worth 5, 10 bucks. If it's a PSA 10, all of a sudden it's worth 500, 600. Like, that's where we're seeing a lot of that in tcg. So I think that's contributing to the backlog. So what if. Let me just throw this out there. What if, say, PSA were to have different divisions for grading? So specifically, if you are doing tcg, you go in this lineup, and if you are in sports, you go in this lineup. This way, sports doesn't get bogged down by what TCG is doing. Love it. And if you really want to grade your tcg, you can go do it, but then you should wait your nine months, and we can wait three months. I love it. And those TCG guys are gonna say, like, wait till the shoe drops on the other foot. And, you know, it's like. You know, it's like this pendulum swing, and then. And then. Well, I. I mean, I don't collect tcg, so it doesn't really affect me at the moment. Yeah, but. But, like, I think there's other solutions. I just. I just think that right now, the way the, like, the grading companies are set up is like, their. Their main goal is to make money. It doesn't really make a difference who is giving it to them. Right. It's like, you want to grade this stuff? We basically offer a service that makes. That increases the value of what you're giving us. So, you know, there you go. I mean, the upcharge thing is another story, right? I mean, like, I don't know if you heard about that. That court case right now. There is someone. There was a lawyer that was. I mean, there were asked two lawyers about whether or not it's legal for PSA to do the upcharges. I haven't caught up with the. The results or whatever yet, but that's an interesting take, because right now, PSA is the only one that does the upcharges. True. So I. I mean, I don't want to throw out the suggestion that now that the other. Those other two companies, SGC and Beckett, are also owned by the same company, whether or not they follow suit, because then it changes everything. Yeah, certainly. Certainly. So a lot of questions. Let me end it with this then, because this is just off the top. It's not even hobby headlines. But I'm definitely gonna, you know, think about it more. And. And like I said, I'll expound on my initial ideas on a future episode, but what do you think it'll take for customer behavior to change around grading, specifically with psa? Like, what will it take? Or is there anything at this point that, you know, I. I think financially there's limits, Right. If they keep. If they keep increasing the price, people are forced to choose, like, say, you only have a hundred dollars, right? You can use it to eat food. You can use it to grade cards. But what I'm saying is, like, say, say, now grading costs $100. You can only. But your budget is $100. You can only choose one and then the consumer is forced to choose. Sure, that's that. Yeah. So that's an obvious one. And it seems like one way that these guys are doing that right now. I know, but you know, they've, they've increased their what I think I read they've increased their price like 4, 5, 6 times now and then. Oh yeah. Busier as ever. And we're still having this backlog. So I, I guess what that number is, I don't know, maybe it's 100 bucks because it's that psychological threshold of paying three digits for one card is kind of insane for a lot of people. The other thing is, and I kind of mentioned on a previous pod, do you think if they said, sorry, you're going to get your cards back in a year, do you think that's a breaking point for some people? I think it would be. Especially people that are trying to do quick flips because in situations like this, and this is what I remember, and I'm sure you guys know with the Luis Roberts situation, you know, like just anything from like the 2020, those 2020 sets and stuff like that were, you know, by the time people got their sub back, the card was less is worth less. Yeah. Than what it went raw in for. Right. Which is crazy. And I think once someone goes through that, then they're kind of forced to make better decisions. The on the flip side, what will happen I feel is that with this lull and then less cards coming to market because the availability not coming back from PSA in time pushes the prices up. There's going to be stuff that's going to be so expensive because now the cost to grade it is more expensive. Yeah. The rate of the gem rate might be, you know, harder to gem too because there's less going in. So the people that have, you know, the nicer copies are going to be able to ask for more money. That's interesting thought because I don't know if PSA would be happy about that ultimately. Well, they're going to get an upcharge. They're going to charge an upcharge anyway. I guess that's how they'll make up the money. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I'm sure. And then the upcharge will magically become something some other percentage. Right. There's always a way from a business standpoint that they can even out the level the playing field. Sure. However they want. And I mean right now no one has been able to stop the whole upcharge thing. Anyway, yeah, but I'm thinking on the secondary market, when there's less supply and the demand increases, then the price increases. That makes sense for sure from an economic standpoint. So let's wrap this up. But I will say on that note, I hope one of the lawyers figures it out, makes up charging illegal, and then we'll be. And then we'll be golden. All right, let's move on to hobby headlines. All right, dc, I'm glad you're here because this article I read on Yahoo. Sports, I think last week it came out, has to do with a couple things that you're familiar with. One is Shoi Ohtani cards and the other is vintage cards. So in a nutshell, the author of the article, he did a poll of about 450 collectors, alright? And he asked which card which was of the same monetary value would they prefer to have. Okay, so on one side he presented the Ohtani 2018 Bowman Chrome base rookie card in a PSA 10. And on the other side was a 1933 Gowdy Lou Gehrig in a SGC 1.5. And as of that writing, I guess both were valued at $4,500 US and overwhelmingly, I don't know if this would surprise you. In that poll of 450 collectors, 95% of them chose the Garrig. So if you read the rest of the article, the main reason why collectors chose the Garrig in the poll seemed to be due to the true scarcity of the vintage card and the historical significance of the vintage card more than the modern hype of the Ohtani card. And I'll end up with this one thing. Just to provide a little more context, a 1933 Gaudi Lou Gehri card has under 3,000 graded copies total across all the major grading companies. So total pop is under 3,000 versus the 2018 Bomin Chromo Tani rookie. The base rookie already has 11,000 graded copies, which includes 5,000 PSA 10s. So again, first question to you, DC, you surprised at the poll results at all that 95 chose Garrig or not really? Oh, I'm not, I'm not surprised, actually. I know when we spoke about it off air, I didn't hear the whole context, but now I hear it. It makes total sense why people would pick the Garrick. What is that just from the population count alone? Okay. Also the fact that Ohtani has so many different rookies now. I mean, Bowman Chrome is definitely one of the, one of the. The most recognized. Yeah, which, which, which I Understand, But I know I've spoke about this in another pod before. In another pod before that. Coming up with the 1933 card in any grade is already more difficult than finding a bowman, like a bowman chrome Ohtani, let alone any Ohtani. Right. And you know, I love Ohtani. I have so much Ohtani stuff because I guess in the grand scheme of things, it, I wouldn't say it's super, super rare, but there's also a lot more collectors now. Right. So if you think about X number of collectors versus X number of cards, you know, it kind of weighs out like, like this now there's more people collecting, so there's, there's more print run, but as a ratio of collectors to the number of that card might actually be less. Right, so you're talking more modern. Yeah, but I mean, if I, if I had to choose between those two cards, I would most likely pick that Garrick. Interesting. Yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm, I get it from the pop population standpoint as well. But a follow up question to that is, and it's kind of what you're alluding to with Ohtani cards, there's so many different types of rookie cards out there, different sets that you can go, do you think we're reaching a point where Ohtani card values in general might start seeing a little bit of a regression soon? And you know, we joke on this pod for the last year or two even. We're like, it's got to come down, keeps going up. Doesn't matter which Ohtani card, you know, especially in this rookie season, doesn't matter. But I asked because, not just because of the poll results that I just kind of outlined here. See, Blez, I think a few days ago I saw him post something during a card show where he was set up as, as a vendor on his IG page. And he mentioned there was a ton of people just coming to his booth trying to offload their Ohtanis, like trying to sell it. And he, I don't think he took any of them. And he gave the impression that other dealers are not really readily accepting just any Ohtanis anymore. So it sounds like, and I think this is what C concluded, that he thinks there might be a correction coming because, you know, if he can't sell them all of a sudden, guess what sellers try to do. They'll try to liquidate as quickly as possible before they're holding the bag. So do you think we're at a point where we might start seeing a regression in some Ohtani cards? I think you might see some regression in the lower end stuff, but the higher end stuff is never going to come down. Like, like if you have like a tops, update us one PSA 10. Yeah. Right. Right now that card is, is, is covering around, I don't know, 450, 500 US. That card last year was like 150, 200 US maybe. Right. I think right now because of what he's been doing, you know, the two World Series, you know, the back to back 50, 50, he's, there's still like people are trying to buy in before he wins the Cy Young and possibly a third World Series where there might be another bump. Sure. Just for overall Ohtani stuff, but as, as we talk about, like, you know, just the sheer number of cards that he has and stuff like that, the most common ones I feel are gonna maybe drop a little bit. I, I can't imagine them doubling now. I mean this, this could look really bad when we play this back and the US ones are $1500 and I'll be like, you know, DC, you just shot yourself in the foot. But I'll still have Ohtani, so it won't matter. Yeah, you know, I, I, I still think the, this, this goes the same with, with almost all cards. When you have something that is lower numbered or more rare in general, whether that is the card itself or the grade of the card is like a very low pop of, of something that's very high, that card will always be in demand. That the reason why these other Ohtani cards are going in is because the market for people buying these cards right now are people that might not even be sports fans. They're just someone that has FOMO is like, oh, I heard about Ohtani. Of course, Ohtani is the best player in the world. I have to have a card of his. What's my cheapest entry point? And now what's the entry point become? You know, the entry point before was, for instance, you know, last year at Expo, I could sell, I don't know, like, like, like a heritage PSA 10 for like 250. Right. And now they're a thousand, like Canadian. Okay. Like, I mean, I'm just in Canadian dollars. Yeah. Right. But how do you 4x a card and it's a, it's a base card. Right. That's crazy. You know, I get it. Yeah. And, but okay, that's a good point that you bring up because it's four X's but this is what I mean. So I, I do think there's going to Be a slight regression on a bunch of his cards. Not every I'm, I'm aligned with you, not his higher end stuff. I think that's a new floor and you know, anyone that could afford it will want it. And, and FOMO even harder for those cards. But the card that you're talking about, the heritage or even this 2018 Bowman Chrome base rookie card that a lot of us don't get, why it's at the price it is at now. I think those cards are the first to just kind of drop and I think it's because of the rising population count and the fact that people that are coming into the hobby looking for these entry point, they're like, what the. It's so much already. They're not going to be interested in going in at that much and therefore just say, I guess I'm just not going to get one. So now what are the sellers going to do? They're going to try to liquidate to whoever will take it. But compare that to something that I get DMs and texts a lot right now. You know who's, you know who people are asking about now saying the exact same thing they were saying about Ohtani three, four years ago. We talked about them off the top Wemby. They're like, hey, give me a Wemby. Like what Wemby card should I get? You know, like people are like, like non sports card collectors are. You know, my friends that don't collect are saying, which Wemby card should I get? Because relatively speaking, you can still get cheap rookie cards like a Topps Base or like the first licensed Topps Base that's still relatively affordable. But that's not a rookie card though, I guess. But okay, so even a Base Prism, right? That's Base prism is like 500 Canadian dollars right now. Okay. PSA 10. So it's on the border. That was $100. It was $100 like last year. Sure, it's on the border, right? For sure. I'm like, Wemby is encroaching the Ohtani territory quickly. But I'm just saying I'd rather if I was like, oh, I love one B. I love Ohtani. Do I want a, you know, a base rookie card, Ohtani for a thousand bucks or do I want. Or 4,000 bucks like this 2018 Bowman Chrome, or do I want a prism base for 500 bucks? I'll just. Okay, fine. I'll just pay the 500 bucks for the 1V base because it's in my budget. You Know, I mean, like, as a non sports card collector. Sure. But I think, that being said, it's. How do you choose which one to pick? Like, you would pick depending which sport you enjoy more. But, you know, how about if I enjoy both or even let's set aside the sport? I'm just talking about, like, money, you know, like, if I'm a non sports car collector, I don't know if I would want to pay a thousand bucks for my first card ever. You know what I mean? And whether it's Ohtani or anyone else, I rather like. Well, I would. I would position it this way, then I would ask the person that's purchasing a card, what is your reason for purchasing it? Is it just that you have one, or are you trying to use it as an investment vehicle? Because if it was an investment vehicle, that's not the card I would tell you to buy. Right, but that's the thing there. A lot of the. The people that ask me are always in for a rude awakening. Right? Because that's. That's. Well, you got to tell them. Of course. That's exactly. I do tell them, like, you know, I would get a numbered Prism 1B card, and then they're like, how much is that? 5,000. That's. I mean, that's like my target, you know, I mean. And they're like, what? No, you know what? I'm gonna get the base prism. I'm okay with that. So some of them, yeah, I think initially they go into it saying, this is gonna be a good investment asset. But then they. They realize the ones you really want to invest in are just way out of their budget. And then at the end of the day, they're like, I just want one. So they're kind of. It's kind of both, I guess, to what you're saying. They're like, I just want one at any. You know, at a certain point. The crazy part about this is, is in this hobby, everyone goes through this same same process. People start buying packs which. The boxes, which leads to cases. Basically, they are ripping because it's fun to rip, because there's like the gambling aspect. And you try to hit a big card, then you get into it and you start doing the math and say, well, why am I ripping to try to hit a car when I can just buy the card for about the same, if not less than what the boxes cost? Right now you have too many cards. It's like, what do you do with all the cards? What do you do with all the commons? And then even if you eliminate all the commons, what do you do with all these extra junk slabs? Basically, what ends up happening is that people will just keep minimizing to a point where they have, you know, whatever a comfortable collection is. To some people, that's 10 cards. To some people, that's a hundred cards. To other people, it's a thousand cards. Right. It just depends how, you know, how deep in the hobby do you want to be and how organized you really are? Because at the end of the day, a lot of people, what they do is when they come trade with me, they're like, okay, you know what? I only want one card from. From each sport. I want a goat from each sport. Sure. But I'm willing to trade all this other stuff that I have to acquire these, which I think is great. I think a lot of people will end up moving towards that. But if you're in the industry where you're a, you know, like a dealer or, like, you know, a little bit more serious trader, you need to have more inventory to satisfy more people's interest to be able to acquire the stuff that you want. Because at the end of the day, like, what I do, I end up for my own collection is I'm just trying to trade lower stuff to get something bigger and to minimize. If I trade five cards to get one card, so be it. That's what I want to do. Yeah, right. At the end of the day, that's what I actually prefer to do. And then you can kind of see from my journey, some of the stuff that I used to own, I used to have, like, I don't know how many cards, something crazy. But now I may be down to three or four showcases, you know, of, like, different stuff, but, like, stuff that I really, really want. Like, if you're talking about stuff that's in the, you know, 10,000 plus range, I don't have, like, millions of those cards. I might have, like, I don't know, 20 or 30 of those cards. But that's the goal is to basically keep upgrading, you know, from smaller stuff to something bigger. Yeah, right. And, like, sometimes I got to give up stuff that I really, really like to get something nicer because at the end of the day, no one wants to take your crap for, you know, something semi decent. Yeah, no, for sure, I agree. But I guess, you know, going back to the idea of these newer collectors and how they get into it, that I could see them taking that process and taking that route to where, you know, they become so deep into the hobby, they're they're, you know, funny enough, or the spouse is going to start questioning like, how come you didn't take our, or you took our kid to a, to a baseball card shop to go buy. Yeah, yeah. Like, you know, whatever. I mean, everyone has a reason for changing it, changing their direction. I just find it's, it's quite, it happens quite often like this because when people ask like, well, how did you get started, Started doing this, started buying boxes, I got boxes. And then now I have, I have all these different commons that I don't want. Like you, you only want like the good stuff in the box. Right? So, yeah, eventually, like I said, eventually, people that rip a lot will end up just buying the cards flat out, perhaps. Or they start grading everything like crazy. And then you get this million dollar backlog. Now you can't do bulk submission. By the time you get it back, it might not be worth anything. Or, you know, vice versa. It could be worth a lot because we used to joke around, you know, I'm so happy that PSA took so long because then I didn't sell my Ohtani's for like half the price that I can getting now. That's true. Yeah. I mean, that's what people are saying about the TCG market. Right? Yeah. Like we, I know you heard in the past episodes with Roy, it's like, Roy, why do you even go to shows? Just hold everything. Because if you didn't sell anything a show ago or two shows ago, guess what? Those all tripled and quadrupled in value. But this, this is true. And we all have stories about slabs that maybe we sold too early or we did something else. But I still remind people that if, if you've made a profit on those cards, regardless of what it was, at what time it was and what you could have sold it later. Yes. As long as you did something else with, with the money or your profit, then it's not really a loss. That's true. I mean, also true. I mean, we do forget that. Yeah, I think people forget it. And like, you know, obviously I would not have liked to have sold those, those Blue Ohtani batting Bowman and, and pitching Bowman pair. Right. But when you 10x on a card, what else could you possibly have wanted? You know, I mean, at the end of the day, if you look at it now, it's like, oh, I could 100x. Right. Right. But I guess the question is, what did I do with that? And then people only tell you the good stuff. What about Kevin my 10? Like, let's just Talk about Kevin, my dad. I'm just saying, if I held on to that forever, which I kind of did. 100 true. Yeah. I mean, for every, for every success story, there are many, many failures. People just don't remember the failures or try to block them out. Yes, the best they can. Yeah, great advice. I love that. All right, I want to pivot back to vintage cards just to close off this segment, but off air, I was mentioning to you that I had a good discussion with a friend from church about the relevance of vintage cards for the next generation. Right. And then you, you said that we talked about this in a previous spot. Maybe I have short term memory, but maybe we can kind of dive a little bit deeper into it. And, and one of the things I was thinking about is as we get older, this next generation, the young hustlers out there now, will they have any interest in vintage cards? Because obviously they're another decade or two decades removed from when these players have played in the league. So they've, you know, Babe Ruth. None of us have seen Babe Ruth play live. But you know, for this next generation, they're even further removed from knowing exactly what Babe Ruth did. So I wonder if you follow that logic. Does vintage cards actually become a good long term investment? Because at a certain point you would think that the people who are really interested in vintage cards that have a certain memory of vintage cards are gonna die off. You have all these young guys that see, oh man, remember when Steph Curry used to play? It's like, you know, they have new guys they look up to and that becomes their vintage card sets. You know what I mean? So I wonder what you think about that in terms of, like, especially for baseball, obviously, because it has a longer history than any of the other sports in terms of sports cards. But do you think vintage will always hold some kind of value, even like 50, 60, 70 years from now? I mean, I'm going to answer this the same way as what, what I said last time is that even just because of the rarity of it alone, people, people buy and sell things that are rare, regardless of what it is. Doesn't matter. It could be a vase, could be, it could be like some antique, something like a, like, like a sick, Like a cigar cutter. Yeah, I don't know why I thought of a cigar cutter, but, but it could be something like really, really crazy that's really, really rare. And at the end of the day, the person that buys it doesn't necessarily have to understand what, like they might realize what the significance is. Just because of what history tells us, but it doesn't mean that they were there. Right. I think there's a lot of people that will look back and say, and this is what happens with. With. I think most things, when people collect things, they start off with something, but as they go get deeper and deeper into the hobby, they start looking, how did this become this? Right. What's the historical value? And then understand, like, for instance, like, if you talk about Jackie Robinson, there's a lot of historical value, not only with him as the player, but the whole reason, like, he was in the. In the major leagues and, like, the whole historical, you know, cultural background. Sure. That's never going to leave. Right. It doesn't matter what generation it is. That's never going to leave. So then when people start, you know, going down the rabbit hole, so to speak, then it's like, oh, Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Clemente, Ruth, man, Koufax, Nolan Ryan, all these people, like, they're. They're gonna look at the stats and go, wow, how is this even possible back in the day? You know, the game is different. Like, we can. We can argue, like, LeBron and Jordan, like, this is. Like, this is stuff that happens all the time. People talk about the game was different. Yeah. But there's no denying that, you know, Jordan's still the goat. Right. Okay, okay. But what I'm saying is. What I'm saying. I get it. Yeah. Some people. A lot of. A lot of people that think that, you know, say LeBron is. Is the. Is better than Jordan, it's only because they never saw Jordan play. They don't analyze the game the same way because the game wasn't the same. It wasn't based off of threes. Right, right. It was a lot more physical play, you know, different. But, like, that. That's. That's. That's another argument. How did we get into the LeBron vs. Jordan goats? Because I think that the thing is. Is what we're saying is you cannot deny what happened historically. And. And when people go back and look at it, they're going to go back in history just to like, figure out, well, how did this game even start? Yeah. And you know what? I love. I love that point. And I actually concur with you. Like, I was kind of, you know, almost want to play devil's advocate, but I agree with you that it'll always have lasting relevance, especially for the goats. And kind of to your LeBron and MJ point, like, you could still think LeBron is the GOAT for whatever Reason. But you still know who MJ is. You know what I mean? People know who Michael Jordan is just because of the impact he made on the game. And that's going to be taught for generations to come. You can't talk about basketball without talking about mj. And I think that's where Babe Ruth is with base baseball and you know, as we get older. And then one thing I did remember as a counter argument to like anyone that thinks vintage might not be as relevant in decades forward from years from now, but I would say look at the art world, right? Like Mona Lisa. Like, I'm not a huge Da Vinci fan. You know, look, as a painter, I'm like, oh, you know, I've read all these books, but you still go see the Mona Lisa because it has some cultural cache, you know, and, and just like you were saying about Jackie Robinson, like, there is this element of like, significance within culture. And, and you know, the art obviously plays a big role in showcasing cultures over time. So I think that's why vintage cards will always be a thing, you know, and, and to your point, I love. I didn't really think about it that much, but scarcity, yeah, just, we're all collectors. We inherently want something that's more rare than common, you know, like the one of ones like. Oh, like just to have one feels amazing. Just because, you know, the rarity of that item or that card. Right. So. So yeah, I just want to kind of reopen that kind of discussion and debate, but I think we're on the same side anyways. No, for sure, for sure, for sure. It's not like, like those Pokemon. Whoa. That, the feather in the hat. What is that? Is that a Da Vinci? No, that's a. What is that? What? Van Gogh. Van Gogh, Sorry. It was another, it was another dead painter. Like, you know, like, like, what's the pop count there? 50k PSA 10s. 50k. I'm just saying. So if we're talking about Otanis, then you got to talk about, talk about the Van Gogh's. But you know, the crazy part is like, even though there's a PSA 10, the PSA 10 sells for X, a BGS 10 sells for more. And why is. Because it's more scarce. And then the black label, even more scarce. That's why people want to have it. Because then it. No one else has it. That's right. Yeah. Fundamentals, folks. Fundamentals. Supply and demand. All right, I love that discussion. Okay, I know every time I talk to you, Will and Roy, I know we're in for a longer episode than usual, so good show. That's a like legit talking. Yes. And, and I know the people who listen to the pod also appreciate it while they're doing household chores. You know, they probably take a little bit longer to do the household chores to say here the end of the episode. So you're welcome, guys. We've. And like I said before, we appreciate you listening. All right, let's move on to our next segment and I'm calling it Show Report. All right, this is when you DC give us an update on some of the card shows you've been to recently and you just report back on what happened at the shows. And I also like to ask you, you know, what you noticed about the hobby in general just by interacting with all the buyers and sellers at, at these shows and the general vibe, you know, of the card show that you've attended. So, you know, I kind of allude off the top. You've been to not just one, but three in the past month or so. So. Yeah. Where do you want to start? I'll leave it to you to kind of choose where to start from which show. Okay. I guess the one that makes the most sense to start with was the one we did like furthest from now. That was the Toronto Expo. Okay. Yeah. And you know, Toronto Expo is great. You know, big show. A lot of people, a lot of, lot of cards, a lot of lot of money in the room. People like, it felt like people were buying did. People didn't really like again, it didn't feel like there's a recession. I'll be honest. Like the amount of money flowing in the room is quite, quite crazy. And even with the new prices and we talk about Ohtani prices, we talk about whatever people bought it all different ranges. Right. You know. Yeah. Ohtani rookies for like $300. You have a Tani rookies for $1,000. You have a ton of rookies for 5,000, 10,000 and people are still. Okay. Yeah, I want to go get it. Right. A lot of the stuff that came by trade, trade was really good too. A lot of people kind of going through the same thing I was talking about like maybe upgrading or downsizing it to. To less number of cards, bigger cards, which is good for. Good for dealers because then we. We take back stuff that we can just move to a different type of collector. So I thought that was really good. Honestly, it was non stop in. In. We were in the main hall, so. And we're always by. By ebay and upper Deck and you know, Slap Stark. So we're busy. I know, I know. I know how you felt. Well, you gotta rub it in our face. You didn't listen to our last week's episode. Well, well, we gotta get dc. We got it. So. Yes. You were in the main hall, we're in the second. He's like, oh, it's so nice here. He came by often. Like, where's Will? A couple times. Yeah. No, for sure. I, I, yeah, the vibes were great in Toronto. I have to agree with you on that. Yeah. I mean, such a large scale show and was bigger. Yeah, yeah, it was really good. I, I think the flow of the rooms were. Well, I mean, again, I, I would, I passed by your room a couple of times because I go to Beckett and then, you know, sometimes that's the only time I actually got to go shopping, so to speak. Or it's either shopping then or like before the show starts. Right. So literally it's a little bit tougher. Otherwise I just rely on people coming to us instead. Which, which is the big advantage of, of being on the other side of the table because, but the, the, the other thing is you missed on some of the hunting. Like, honestly, sometimes you can find some crazy, crazy cards just in someone's case. Like I love finding that one sports card in a non sports card case and then you get a deal. Like those are great. I didn't miss that. Yeah. Walking around. I did miss that part for sure. Yeah. So I mean, show is like really good. Steve puts on a great show, you know, never complaining about that. I think the only damper on that part and it's not really the organizer's fault, but you know, the, the two incidences that happened after the show pack up or you know, like that guy got jacked, that Pokemon van guy jacked. And like, you know, they're, it's still pretty rampant like with the trackers and stuff under the cars and stuff like that. Even it happened in Montreal. There was a scare in the Montreal show too where there were trackers under the cars. Brutal. It's, it's, it's pretty crazy what people are doing because as the hobby expands, the people are finding, you know, different, you know, different reasons to go, like do stuff for whatever the reason. Right. I mean, a lot of it's monetary. Yeah. You know, some people are also in bad situations and some people also look at it and say, well, hey, you know, if, if I have, if, if, if I have these cards, they're, they're pretty liquid. They're like cash. You know, some people think of as opportunity. I mean, just have to do our due diligence also too when, when stuff like that, we report them to like psa, like get those certs deactivated and stuff like that. And you know, as a community, when something goes missing or something got stolen at a show, like all the dealers are helping each other. Everyone's showing on social, social media, hey, look out for this car. Look out for these people that, you know, if you see them, stuff like that, you know, kind of help out. So it's good to see the community coming together and, and helping each other out for sure. Yeah. It's a sad part of the hobby expanding because like any industry expanding, there's always bad apples in it. But yeah, gotta be careful. I'm curious about the other two shows because obviously I was at the Toronto Sport Card Expo, but yeah, how are the other two compared to the Sport Card Expo in Toronto? So the next show we went to was Montreal Sports Card Expo also. Steve runs that show. The venue is smaller, but you know, I would say it was a different kind of crowd. So I don't know the exact number, square footage. It was actually bigger than Edmonton, the venue wise, because he also runs Edmonton. Okay. Yeah. But yeah, like the venue, the venue's been the same for the last couple, like last three or four shows. But I would say that the kind of content in there, like the type of cards in there is predominantly hockey. There was a lot of TCG too. But I'm saying out of the sports stuff, predominantly hockey, there's a couple vendors that do other stuff sort of like the way Martin, Steph and I do. But you know, we like that show, I mean because we have a lot of higher end stuff so that there are higher end collectors there. You just. People just don't know that they exist. Possibly part of the reason why they don't come out is because they hadn't seen stuff that they wanted before. But since we've been going there, you know, we, we exchange contacts and stuff like that and it was pretty good. It's good for trading, buying, selling too to a degree. But it's, it's a different type of, different type of crowd for sure. And I think it's more geared towards the people that don't go to Toronto because there's people that recognize that, that were at the Toronto show or, or you know, came by the booths and stuff like that. But there's a lot of local, more local guys that, that, that show up there. And the clientele is, yeah, like I said, it's a little different. But what are they? I mean, you said there's predominantly hockey, but so is the Sport Card Expo in Toronto. So how is it, other than volume, how's it different? Well, I guess maybe in a smaller space. It just seems like more to me because they're concentrated. Yeah, okay, right. I mean, a lot of people brought me, like, hey, do you, do you want, like, Demidov or do you want, like, Lane Hudson? I'm like, no, I'm not from here. It's, it's not. And I don't really do hockey. But, you know that there was a lot more of that stuff coming to the booth. Whereas, you know, in Toronto, a lot of people will come and say, oh, do you want this kind of stuff? Like, base? Oh, I see. You have baseball, you have vintage, you have this, you have everything. Right. Are you interested in this kind of stuff? And like, yeah, well, we'll, you know, we'll take it. It was great. Actually Did a lot of, did some shopping before arriving at the show. Like, I, like I was telling you with that little mini hack that Martin and I do. Right. But, like, I lined up, like, I bought a bunch of Ohtani stuff before I got there. To the Montreal show. Yeah. On the way into Montreal. So. Interesting. Actually, actually spent a lot of money before I got there. I was actually a little worried that I wouldn't have any more money by the end of the show, but it all worked itself out at the end because, like I said, the entry level for Ohtani stuff, like, I had, like, PSA 9. I bought like a, bought like 10 from this one guy. Yeah. PSA 9 heritage cards and easy sell at 300 bucks, you know, So a lot of those were gone. Like, very, very easy to sell. Like, I mean, our cases always change. That's why a lot of people come back to us, too, because they know that we're going to get something different, whether it's in the next, you know, next half day or next day. So it's always, it's always new adventure for them. So it was great. Yeah, I could definitely see the appeal of, like, if I lived in Montreal, going to the Montreal Sport Card Expo because, you know, you probably can't make it to the Toronto one or you don't want to drive five, six hours. So, yeah, having this bigger show in their locale is definitely, I could see that to be really appealing for them. I, I, when was that Montreal show again? A few weeks ago. That was a Few weeks ago. Okay, so this is before, I guess the Canadians. The. Their. It was during the week that they beat Buffalo because. So the highways. Yeah, it was the Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Yeah. And I'll tell you that Friday was probably the best day for us. Okay. Saturday was the sheer amount of people were more, but it got a lot slower because people were getting ready to go to the game. Yes. And then Sunday came after they lost and the vibe was just very like, boo. I kind of like very, very slow. It's like, it's like what I said about World War Three, you know, when there's something bad happening in the world, like the Montreal Canadians about to lose. You know, you got to buy cards. You just got to get your memory off. But you know, they came back and they won that series. They did. Which is great. But what I would say is, you know, like, it's amazing how it gets so affected by something like that because like hockey, like everyone loves hockey there. Of course. So it was, it was pretty crazy in the street, I'll tell you. Because we went to go dinner and it was like, oh my. Because we had dinner very close to where the, the game was happening. The Bell Center. Yeah. Nice. All right. And the third one, London. So we did a one day show. London, Ontario for listening. Yes. Yeah, so we did the show because actually there was a guy that I met at the last expo and we, you know, he was, he's like downsizing some stuff too. So, you know, we did some deals and he messed. You know, sometimes I keep in contact with the people that I, that I, you know, meet at the shows and I message them asking him, hey, like, what kind of stuff are you, Are you, are you looking to move and whatever. And he's like, oh, you know, I'm just preparing for this show. I go, what show? And he tells me about this London show that he runs. I'm like, okay, tell me more about the show. And he said, yeah, like last year we had like 200 selling tables and this year we have 270. I was like, oh, really? One day show. And the cost of the tables were like, very reasonable. They had it in a very nice venue. It's called a beam. It's like BMO center or something like that. Yeah, but it's, it's like a, it's like a soccer field too, like, very similar to Montreal. And you know, the turnout was really good. Like I would say again, different type of buyers because. So just going back to Toronto Expo when I met our, our fellow listener, Dominican yes, yes, Pablo, apologies. So I did a deal with him before Toronto Expo, right, Which was great. And like, you know, he listens to the pod. I'm sure he's listening to it right now. And he said, yo, dc, I know, I know you like Ohtani and Griffey. So he brought, in addition to, like, Ohtani's labs, which, which I made a big purchase with him, he brought like a 400 count box of all Otani stuff, just like these cards and inserts and an 800 count box of Griffey from the 90s inserts. And I was like, I just think my eyes just like, look like, whoa. Yeah, because like, he he lugged this from the Doctor, right? And you know, we, we ended up making a deal at the end. I, I, I didn't really look in depth what it was. I just kind of averaged out the price per card and you know, like, I'll just go through it after, right? So after Toronto Expo, I had time. I sleeved and penny sleeved and top loaded all the cards and then, you know, I priced them out and whatever and I brought them to Montreal. People look at the box like, ah, you know, Griffey, whatever, whatever, not big deal. But in London, there were tons of people going through this box. Wow, okay, like, oh, let me, you cut me a deal. If I pick up like five or 10 of these, I'm like, yeah, sure, right. And it was crazy, the amount of, of people. So just the types of cards that people were buying in London was very different than Montreal and very different than Toronto. Albeit Ohtani is like, pretty, pretty standard all the way through. But I'm saying the other cards, like in my showcase, it was very different. Interesting. Yeah. So, I mean, like, part of it has to do with price, but there were also bigger buyers too, and there were bigger sellers too. So Martin and I, we, we, we partnered up on a deal to buy a Jordan rookie and a LeBron. LeBron tops chrome. So from one guy. So we bought and then we, we actually almost moved the Jordan at the same show, which we didn't, but we've removed it already. But what I'm saying is there are some bigger cards that came and like these you can see. I'll show you some of the cards that I still have from each of these shows, and you can kind of see what kind of, what kind of cards I would get. I'm interested regardless. At every show there, there was something, something really good, like, worthwhile going, right? No, that's, yeah, that's definitely interesting to Hear, because I'm, I'm curious if it's worthwhile even to go to these smaller shows, but evidently it is. There are a lot of people actually that came from Toronto out to the London show. I mean technically it's only like less than two hours away, so it's not so bad. But I mean for people in London, I think it's a very similar situation with Montreal. It's like if they didn't make it to the big show, this is the next best thing. It's like a big show in their local area, which I guess doesn't happen as often. I mean like Toronto, they probably has small shows every other week, sort of like we do, but not to the level like this. So they, there are some big vendors there that came out, they have some big cards. But again, I mean the feedback that we get is always like, wow, you guys have crazy stuff. So I guess it doesn't show up as often all in one place. Right. So people are always amazed. So we did pretty well. Nice. Before you show some of the big cards that you picked up as you normally do when you're on the pod, does the, I guess the, I talked about this on the previous pods like having set up for the very first time and it happened to be the Sport Card Expo. You realize the tables obviously cost more. So I guess that's like, for me that's really appealing to go. If I was a vendor going to these quote unquote smaller shows. I'm, I'm assuming that the table prices are much cheaper. Is that, am I. Table price is much cheaper. That's also because of the one day show. Okay, right. That's the first thing. It also depends on the venue and it also depends on what the expected attendance is going to be. And that always depends on, well, how much does it cost to get into the show. Whether or not it's a free show. Right. Whether or not it's, it's on a Saturday or Sunday or a weekday. Like all these different things kind of factor in there. Also the venue costs is going to affect, you know, what the table cost is going to be. So like at the Toronto Expo you're going to pay a lot more just because the, the amount of, the amount of people coming in, number one. Number two, the venues, the venue space. I'm sure the venue is expensive to just to have, but the name, that's like us going to like New York and setting up Fanatics Fest, like It was like 3,000 US, right? For tables. Right. That was crazy. And like luckily for us, like we were able to sell a couple, couple big cards and it was worth it for the, for like maybe not, not as much from the, the show aspect, like from selling cards, but like being in that, in that style of experience, that was worth it to me. Right. Yeah. And I, I guess something you allude to it as well if you're going to do these bigger shows. Like, something I really learned is like, is what kind of inventory you have really matters. Oh, for sure. Yeah, this is for sure. I remember when we went to fanatics because we were all kind of allocated two showcases or maybe it was, I think it was two showcases each. The way we had it set up amongst us. So we were deciding what do we bring because we don't know what the, we didn't know what kind of clientele was going to be there. Right. We wanted to have some really high end stuff because we know New York is like a city where, you know, a lot of, you know, a lot of, you know, well off people are probably going to come and, and if you're going to pay, you're gonna pay some crazy amount for getting in, then, you know, well, to do, you should be. Probably have a better chance of buying something higher. Plus there's some celebrities and stuff like that which you wanted to, you know, kind of appeal to because possibly you sell to a celebrity. That's true too. Sure. Right. Like actually, so it was Emma Roberts was there with, with her mom and stuff and they passed by our booth and her mom and her were talking to me about the 33 Gowdy. Right. And I was just like, this lady's got a bodyguard. And then I started realizing who it was and then I was like, okay, let's just talk normally and not be like a bad boy kind of thing. Yeah. But you could see there were other celebrities that were buying cards at like crazy amounts like that Jaden Daniels sale for like, was it 250 or 500,000? I forgot what it was, but it was crazy. 500? Yeah. Yeah. Right. So I mean the fact that something like that can happen. We had some high end stuff and then we also had some lower end stuff too because we weren't sure. Yeah, no, that's, yeah. Something you all you have to really consider and think about for sure. I definitely learned that in my first experience setting up at a show. But yeah, why don't you show any, any cards you really want to show off? Sure. So this stuff I got at the Toronto Expo first. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So this is a Macklin Celebrin Rookie. It's a pop count. 10. So it's acetate card. I. I don't know. Are you familiar with. With this subset, the acetate? It's. It's called population count. Oh, I've heard of it, yes. Yeah. So basically he's got cards out of 1,500, 150, 25. And this is probably, oh, a 10. And then I guess the ones out of one. Okay. This is actually a pretty good car. And especially the way Macklin Celebrini is playing. Good card to have. What's it. What's the slab? So, sorry, it's just in a one time. Oh, oh, it's the top. Oh, I see. That's part of the card. Yeah, it's part of the card. Okay, that's. Yeah. Gotcha. These. Those are randomly inserted in series one. Nice. So can't go wrong with OPG Rookie. This is a tops rookie, actually. Oh, tops rookie. BGS 8. It's an 8. So I took this in partial trade for the TA cob. The green tie cob. I had the green tie cop 1909. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Okay. So I. I traded that and got this in some funds. This one. Oh, I know that card. MJ. Speaking of Michael Jordan, his upper deck baseball card, PSA 10. And this was one I got from Pablo. Okay, nice. Yeah. And funny enough, in the last three weeks I've acquired three of these cards. It's funny, like, I didn't have any and now. And then I had three. I don't have three anymore. How much are they going for now? PSA 10s 16 to 1700 Canadian. Are you serious? Dang. But then a nine is like 400 or 300. Yeah. So it's a huge difference because I don't want to say it's population control, but it's really hard to get tens in those. Those junk wax years. A lot of it has to do with the hologram on the back. They're easily scratchable there. Just. That's why you see like Ken Griffey Jr. 89 upper deck. I mean, PSA 10 is like 7,000. And then top control. Yeah, right. That's. That's the only thing people blame it on when they don't get a 10. Right. This Tom Brady, the expos uniform. Yes. One out of 199 teal. Yeah. Got this in the trade. I traded Matthew Schaefer Silver Outburst. Okay. And some cash for this card. And I thought this was actually going to go in Montreal just because he's in an Expos Jersey. Right, right. Yeah. Inquiries. But yeah, we weren't able to put together a deal. But a nice card to have anyway. I like it. Shohei. There you go. Sapphire. First Year Dodgers Sapphire. Yep. Arena Club slab. Yeah. Also from our friend in the Dominican. Okay. So like I said, I got a lot of Otani stuff from him. The Sapphire numbered or. No, it's not numbered, but it's the first year Dodgers. So that's why that card is pretty expensive in a PSA 10. I'm probably gonna crack that out. To be honest, I. I actually totally forgot to do it because I was gonna sub it with the last bulk sub, but I forgot. So now you gotta wait. Well, I'll just pay. I'll just pay extra. Oh. Because that card is. That card is worth more as a PSA 10. Anyway. Nice. Another one Otani with. Is that Trout? Yeah, Ohtani Trout. This is at a Sapphire. It's out of ten. Wow. What's that? Tops Chrome. Tops Tops Chrome update. Sapphire edition. Okay. And this is also from our friend in the doctor. I got this one plus the orange out of 25, plus the red mini out of five. Those other two are gone now. I mean I, you know, I traded them. Yeah. But you know, all. All part of good deals to get into something bigger. Nice. So this is Ohtani US one gold paper. Yeah. So BGS 95 hard card to gem. This was one of the ones that I got in Edmonton. So I was super happy with. With the fact that this gemmed. Right. Because it's huge. It went from raw to grade. Oh, you got to grade it there. Yeah. Okay. Like this is one of the bigger cars. Like, like I. I bulked a bunch of the lower end stuff, but like the higher end ones I actually graded. So I don't have some of those other ones because I transacted them at the Expo. But I will tell you that BGS chrome batting came back at BGS 10. Wow. Okay. It was gone instantly. And the other Rainbow? The prism one. The prism refractor. Yeah. Like a BGS 10. Okay. Yeah. And pretty crazy. So it did really well on those. I don't know what getting a BGS10 feels like, so maybe one day you got to sub motive. You know what? I have no choice now. So. Yes, BGS all the way. Those new labels are pretty. Pretty Okay. I love the font, the new font. Oh, you like the minimal change? Yeah. What's that one? This is an Ohtani out of the Cosmic Chrome. But it's at a 10. What's the out of 10 refractor for the cosmic chrome. This is cosmic chrome. Blood orange, Lunar eclipse. We talk about crazy parallels and crazy refractor. There you go. That's all you need to say. But this is a. This is a sick card. So like the last gold. Yeah. Which is out of 50, Ross, over 4,000. That's insane. So this is what I was saying about having stuff in your case. When people see the stuff that you have in your case, they already know that you're probably willing to get more of that stuff. So the fact that I had a whole Shohei Ohtani case, this guy came to me and says, hey, my friend told me to come see you because you're probably the guy that'll buy this card. Right. And he was right. I bought this card Instant. That's a great card. Nice. So this one. Okay. Another Otani Luminaries Original Auto. This was one of the cards I, I found actually through Facebook and I got it raw. This is before the show, but I got it graded at the show. So, you know, like I said, I missed it. It was a nine. It's a nine. Okay. Bgs nine. Yeah, but it's out of, it's out of ten, the card. So can never go wrong with Original Auto Ohtani stuff. And I love that play. Like that's what I look for now. Not the PSA 10s or 9s, like lower grades, but if it's numbered 10 or like something like really low, like that doesn't really matter as much. Right? That is true. I mean, the fact that people grade 101s to me sometimes still, I mean, for aesthetic, I get it. But it doesn't matter if you're grading. It's not like you can comp it against something else is you have the only one. Right. This is another debate we can get into. But yes, no, for sure. I know, I know, I know. We talked about this with your wit. Yeah. Right. Hey, PSA 8. Can't complain. It's the only one. Another Ohtani. So this is an Ohtani from tops now 2019. Yep. Out of 25 original on card auto. And it's a 1010. So. Oh, yeah, I like it. Yeah. Such a really nice looking card. Why? Why is it in the Tops Now? I don't know. This was one of the Tops now cards before. Before they. Yeah, before they like marked moments. Right. Like this is just a regular. Yeah, but he had a lot of. He had a lot of Tops Now Auto cards during his rookie year. And, and the year after. So I guess this person was either a tops now member or whatever, but it didn't matter. On card auto. Take it. This card before I had it raw. All. All three go. Yeah, this card is a crazy looking card. I like it. So I got this graded at the show too. BGS9. Yeah. Very, very difficult to jam. I don't think there are. I don't know if There are any PSA 10s or BGS 9.5s for the matter. Like, the, the surfaces are just crazy. The fact that I got a nine, I'm actually quite happy. Shout out to Michael Blazkowicz, who drew that alter ego drawing. Oh, that's right. That's right. It's on the pod. Friend of the pod. But it's not just hard to gem, it's hard to pull, man. I have not seen a lot of people pull the alter ego subset. Well, they're like case hits and then there's different ones in there. Right. But again, I wasn't the one ripping it. Someone else ripped it and then they, they, you know, sold it to me. I bought that in Burbank, I think. Yeah. So I remember this card that I got in. Yeah. The Mahomes out of two Patch Auto. That was in November. I got this in Toronto Expo. Yep. And then you got the other half. I found the other half, which I. It was in a PSA slab, but I wanted them in matching BGS slabs. Right. So it's pretty awesome that. The fact that I. I was able to find it number one and then put together the deal, and then I got both of them. So. So how did you find it? How did, like, how did I find it? Mm. So I was at Burbank and I had the. I had the first half. Yeah. And I was talking to. To this vendor who had a lot of my home stuff, and I go, I got a car you might be interested in. And he's like, oh, what's that? And I show him the card and he's like, oh, that's funny. I'm. I'm thinking about buying the other. The other piece. And I said, you know where the other piece is? And he goes, yeah, I've been talking with this guy. He has it on ebay, but I don't know if I want to make a play on it. And I go, well, if you're not interested, could you pass me that info? I would love to maybe acquire that second piece. So he screenshot it for me and then I, you know, I found the guy on Instagram Actually, and I messaged him, I said, hey, do you happen. Are you the guy that actually has this other. This Mahomes? And he's like, yeah, are you interested? I go, yeah, I'm interested. But you know, like, this is what I want to pay. And then we just negotiated, put together the deal and then that was that. I got that. I didn't tell him I had the other piece would be more, I think. But now I'm just gonna have them as a pair. I'm gonna take it to the national, see if I can trade it for something crazy. Yeah. And if not, it'll probably go to auction. Because I think, like I said, having both pieces, that's like, that's a key. It's more appealing for sure. Oh, definitely. It looks great in the case together. Like I have like stuff. Stuff like this, like that Brock Bowers that have both parts of the shield. Right. Which, which is awesome. It would look st stupid as just half. But stuff like that, like when people come to the case, they're just, whoa, this is like amazing. And then they stay a little longer because the attention span of people sometimes is really bad. But when you capture the attention, they end up staying a little bit, looking at other stuff. And then I can start asking questions about, oh, what is you're looking for? Yeah, oh, maybe I don't have in the case, but I have it. Or I can locate it for you. Then you start building the relationships. And then this is where I might not get a card from you this show. Later on I might get something from you anyway. Whether it's like you remember me from last time or I. We exchange contacts and I keep in contact with you outside of the show. Yeah. Then something comes up and then we get something done. That's definitely true. I mean, I've, you know, I have limited super high end cards, but at the Expo, when I brought out my Bobby Witt without any intention of really selling it, I was throwing out crazy numbers anyway. Yeah. But then I found that one guy, cards Max. He's an influencer in the space. Yeah, he. I learned that he. His friend actually came by my booth first and he told me about him saying that he collects home field advantage super fractures. He already has like seven or eight, you know, and he needs this one. So. So I think. I don't know if I mentioned this on the pod, but like, long story short, he actually came by. He set up at the Sport Card Expo too. He's from. He lives in Florida now, but he set up at the Expo and he came by my booth and then he says, that's the card I was looking for. And he asked and I threw out 15K. And then he's like, at least there's a number. So he didn't buy it, but he just wanted to know that it was possible to purchase down the road if the opportunity came. And then, you know, that's how you, to your point, you make certain connections through the, you know, his friend and then him as well. And you never know down the road what can happen. Right? Yeah, no, for sure. That's a fun story. Yeah. But those, those big cards are really good magnets. Oh, I found. Yeah, for sure. Even. That's why sometimes people don't even put a price on them. They just put them in there just to attract people. Yes. That's why even the way I set up my showcase, I will always have the biggest cards in the middle because your eyes go to the middle right away. And then if you arrange your cards, I. I spend a lot of time setting up my showcase because I want people to be able to follow it. So say the, the middle is Mahomes. Then right underneath it'll be another Momes card. And then maybe to the side it'll be another Momes card, but of different value. Right. So you kind of keep them together like that. And just the same thing with sport. I'll keep all the football together, all the basketball together, all the show Hayes together, all the baseball together, all the, all the vintage together. Like it just. People appreciate it even subliminally. Like it's like, wow, like I was able to follow this. I wouldn't have, I wouldn't even seen somebody's card. Right. So I think that's a, that's a really good compliment. It means I'm doing something right. I really, really like that. Yeah, agree. So the biggest card though, at Toronto Expo. Oh, there it is. Let's save the best for last year. Black Label BGS10. Black Label Shoi Otani. Is that 2018? His rookie, right? 2018. Sepia tops, Chrome Otani Rookie. Wow. It's a beauty. So the crazy part is when I was getting the sub bag, we got five cards, right? Yeah. So I know. Five cards and I'm looking as I go through the box. Gold Label perfect. Nine five. Next one, Gold label. Nine five. Okay. Next one. Gold Label Pristine. I like. Oh, that's really good. I'm really happy there. Right. Next one, Gold Label Pristine. Oh, oh, okay. I'm really happy. There's only one card left. As I start lifting out the card from the box. I see it's black. I like, oh, my God. I almost, I almost dropped the box. I was, I was walking and opening at the same time, like, trying to avoid people and whatever. But I almost dropped the box because I know what the last card was. Right. And it was a Black Label. That's amazing. So I was like, well, shout out, Beckett. Like, honestly, I. Okay, I have, I've. I've been lucky to have more than one black Label. Okay. But let me tell you, every time I get one, I'm ecstatic. I'm ecstatic. Right. Like, and the fact that this is almost like a color match. Yeah. It's crazy. That's. It looks really cool. Yeah. And you know, I'm a big fan of color match type cards and. Oh yeah, for sure. That's awesome, man. As always, appreciate the show and tell and just the stories behind the cards you picked up. You still have time because that was just the Toronto show. I can show you what I got at the other places. Let's save it for the next time. Yes. But I think I just like how. I don't know if you can beat the Black Label Sepia Ohtani. That is a tougher one. I should have done Toronto last. But like I said, the types of cards that we got at the other shows were all still very good. Like, I got a lot of Wemby cards in the Montreal show. Yeah, Montreal. I got Wemby and Otani cards. And, and the, the crazy part is we're talking about just the way playoffs kind of like affect the card market. It's probably the best time to sell Wemby stuff right now. I mean, like, the amount that it's gone up just from the beginning of the Montreal show to the end of the show. Yeah. Was a huge difference just when they won that game. Right? Huge difference. You might be right. As we wrap up this episode, I just took a quick peek at the school. I'm sure you're watching the game. I'm watching it right now. It's a blowout. So it looks like we're having game seven, folks. Game seven, folks. And so we'll see by the time this airs, we'll know who goes on to the finals. But. But yeah, Wemby prices doesn't look like it's going to come down anytime soon, especially if they make it to the NBA finals. But I still think it goes back to like the lower end stuff. Yeah. Probably has a little bit more room to, to come down. So if you're going to sell it. I think now is a good time to sell it because you can buy it again for less. Whether it's an off season, even though it's a small window. Yeah. But what you should do is like trade a bunch of your lower end stuff to get a higher end one. Even if you take a little bit of a, you take a little bit of a hit, the fact that you get like a numbered one that's more rare in the end is going to pay off more. Yes, I can see that happening for sure. All right, dc, thanks for showing us all those cards and in the interest of time, I'm going to do the pick one and I'm just going to put a poll out there for the followers on Instagram @5card guys and artsthemoon. And so I'm pretty sure I know how DC is going to vote, but I'm curious what our listeners are going to do. And it's going to be a full circle thing because I'm going to bring it back to Ohtani versus vintage. So on one side, look for the poll online. 1948 Leaf Jackie Robinson Rookie Card PSA 2 12K US. It's a card I really want bad. Maybe I'll try to somehow figure out a way to get it at the national this year versus Ohtani. 2025 tops transcendent game used patch auto number to 10. So in this Dodgers uniform, that's like a no brainer. No brainer. I know already. What? Okay, you know, you know, I, when I chose, I'm like, oh, this is a no brainer. But how about if I swap that Ohtani card for a 2023 Topps baseball stars dual autograph of Ichiro and otani number to 10 graded PSA 10. Is that harder or no? It's harder, but still a no brainer for me. Okay, so he's going Jackie all the way. Let's see what the listeners, let's see what the listeners have to say. But before we sign off, I have to shout out a couple people. Yeah, go with Martin and Stephen. You know, awesome. Because like I do all the shows with you guys and like, you know, if, if you listen to the last pod, you know, we all agree that there is one special person between all of us and that's Super Mario Pikachu. Super Mario Pikachu. Speaking of insane prices, Super Mario Pikachu is through the roof. Yes. Roy's never going to get it. Roy, just trade some of that stuff. You just got two of those black labels, right? There you go. He has trade bait. All right, thanks to all our listeners. We appreciate you guys and we'll have a brand new episode for you on Friday. Talk to you then. Bye. Hey, thanks for listening to Cards to the Moon. We'd really appreciate you subscribing to our podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts. And you can also connect with each of us on Instagram @5Card Guys. Or you can follow Hyung at Integrity Sportscards or John at Tradeyouces. You can also check us out@5Card Guys.com. thanks again and hope to connect soon.