Snype, PSA, Fanatics & More — Major Shifts In The Card Market

All these marketplaces, like, it's free. It's 1%. I'm like, no one gives a shit about 1% commission. There's a reason why I haven't even dabbled in a Marketplace. We have 3 million people, 325 million cards, and I'm still not confident that a marketplace would work. It just takes time. And actually last month there was 2.7 million cards rated, which is the all time high. And PSA just keeps getting more and more of that in any of these little industry spots. It's super important for them to figure out how they're going to do it. Whatnot, eBay, fanatics, PSA. You need competitors because they help raise the category overall. It creates more business and more marketing and more dollars into elevating and creating demand of the category. And so we need some those other players to come along. Welcome to the trading cards and collectibles podcast on the Radcast Network. From chasing grails to calling bluffs, going inside the hobby. Are you ready to collect? Let's get at it. Here is your host, Ryan Alford. Hello and welcome. Trading cards and collectibles here on the Radcast Network. Ryan and Ryan, coming to you as always here on our Friday episode, the Friday before Thanksgiving week. I'm feeling thankful because my good friend Brian Ludden's here. What's up, Brian? My favorite holiday, by the way. Thank you. Yes. I love. I love Thanksgiving. I like the. You know what? It might be a sign of us getting older, Brian. I don't know, but I think I might like Thanksgiving better than any other holiday and better than Christmas maybe. I don't know. Yeah. First of all, you don't have to buy gifts. There's so there's no pressure. Y. You get the family over, eat good food, and it's like by the time you buy your wife, Christmas, anniversary, sweetest day, Valentine's Day, every other day, something, you know, it's a lot of pressure. You run out of things to buy. But Thanksgiving, you watch football and you eat and it's my birthday weekend. That's right. Is your birthday next weekend? November 30th. Oh. You know why? I like every reason you said. And I. It shouldn't be this way, but I feel like it is Thanksgiving. I actually feel like you kind of get almost the whole week. Like when, at least for most people, you know, it's like Wednesday to Sunday. It feels like the Thanksgiving and. And for whatever reason, Christmas kind of comes and goes. You have Christmas Eve and you have Christmas Day. And if that falls on like a Tuesday, Wednesday or something, I know a lot of people take off and I get it, like. But they're fortunate enough to do that. But like it just sort of comes and goes really quick. Thanksgiving I feel like is like a five day holiday. You got Wednesday. Even if you work some on Wednesday, Wednesday afternoon, Wednesday night, Thursday, all day. And then most people are definitely off because Thanksgiving's on Thursday every year. So most people take that Friday off. So Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, you. It's like a four day true turkey fest. Football, sports, family, everything. Right? That's it. Like, yeah, I think you nailed it. I mean when Christmas is on a Monday or Tuesday, it's like you're going back to work that week. Yes. So yeah, I, I'm looking forward to it. It's been a busy few weeks here opening the store. Get it well really getting the studio set up and then did get the retail license here. And we do have a name so we're gonna, we're trying to also. Brian, I know you're doing. Look, you're in the freaking Ranger stadium. We gotta go a little smaller here in South Carolina, you know. And I'm trying to, I'm not trying to compete with the Ludx trading card store at freaking Ranger Stadium. However, for us Smallings collectible station here. I do, I did, you know, had a couple calls today and I was like, I do want this to be a national destination store. Like you know, if you come through South Carolina and you're a collectible trading car guy or girl, whatever, you don't want it to be something you, hey, on your bucket. Not maybe not bucket list, but on your collectibles list or something. Yeah. So. And I think we can do that here. So I'm kind of pumped up about that. That'd be pretty cool if they did like, you know, like when kids go to major league baseball parks, they give them like a sticker for every park. And yeah, if there was like the, like a shop in each state that if you into you get a sticker from cops or something and then if you get them all, you get like a. There's an idea for tops. We'll, we'll share that if we get mayhem on here. We're still working on those details and we'll go like that's it. The you know, tops, best Americana, you know, tops baseball, football, trading card Americana store list or something and come out with a. Hey, we all get our own cards. We'll have the Ludo card shop on their Most innovative, like, badass store. Then mine's more of like a tech meets studio meets small town, you know, train feel. Because every time that train goes by, we're gonna do discounts. If you're in the store and the train goes by, 10 off for everybody. That's amazing. We're by the L tracks in Chicago, so I would go broke if I did that. Yeah, but I like it. But no, I love that idea. That's a good idea. Hey, write that one down. Another thing to write down, but that's a be killer. Like a bucket list. Or just. It's not that you're saying you're the best card. It's not best like trading card shops. It's just like, can't miss, like destination. Like, here's the word I was looking for. Destination trading card store. There are some amazing shops even in upstate South Carolina that I would call great places and great owners to go get your fix in. You know, go, you know, get some cards, make some trades. Absolutely. But I'd stop short, and I love all of them, but I'd stop short of going. They're not destination stores, though. They're just great transactional, good selection. You know, they check a lot of boxes, but it's not a destination. And that's what I want this to be. Yeah, I mean, that's. That's. You know what? Actually, it would be really cool to go to Alaska and Hawaii. Yeah, start there. Exactly. No, hey. All states included. And Puerto Rico. In Puerto Rico, equal opportunity, you know, either, you know, land or not. Geography doesn't set this. You know, it's all. If you're part of the United States in some way shape or form, that's. Yeah, we. That we should just. We should just set it up. But you have to give like, you have to legitly give like a really good prize away. Like if we did the RadCast LX, you know, partnership and someone does gets through there, then I mean, we got to give them something good. Exactly. Make a map and have, you know, points on it. If they get to each one, you fill it up. Or you. You do like your. Your Monopoly board or your bingo board or whatever. Like, you put a sticker like you said, and you fill it up. You fill up the thing. Get like one of those calendars that absolute. Does like those absolute football calendars. It's like the Advent calendar or whatever. Yeah, we just. We bought one last week. Yeah, those things are cool. The. But do one of those but with a sticker for each store and so then when you. You complete it, you win, I don't know, two shares of Ludic stock. Who knows what that'll be worth by the time that happens? It might be worth. Yeah, if we can pull this off, that'd be great. That's gonna help. I know. Collectibles show is where you'll find all of the channels and learn more about what we're doing. And ultimately, hey, we want to hear from you. You do? Case hitsollectibles show wants you to send in your favorite pulls of the week. And here's the difference. This isn't about just value. Hey, we want to see some $10,000 hits. Had a couple of those myself a few months back. But it's not just about the value. It's about what you're collecting, what means something to you. Share a story. Share a video of you holding up the card that you hit last week. That was your favorite player and you nailed it. So Case hitsollectables show, send in those videos, videos. I want to know the stories. We're going to bring them to life here on the show. We're going to do a segment each week once we get rolling and get some videos in where we share that on the show with us. We want to feature you on Collectibles Show. How about your Bears, man? They are the worst 7 and 3 team I've ever seen. Are they worse than the. The Broncos? Hate. And two like. And I like, they're both kind of the same. It's weird. They know how to win that. Look, the difference is they have coaches that know how to win, right? Yeah. I mean, you got to take a win as a win in the NFL, like you and I talk about. But at the same point, like, there's a realistic. You know, you gotta be realistic here. And when you're beating really crappy teams because you have to get the last drive three weeks in a row. I mean, those. You know how seasons go. There's seasons where every single one of those are losses, and there's seasons when they're all wins. And the Bears have had bad luck, and now they're having good luck this year. But they could easily be 3 and 7. Yeah. So Jaguars beat the snot out of the Chargers. I was happy. That was crazy. Like, I looked at Herbert's. Herbert's line, I didn't see the game, but I'm like, I've never seen numbers like that from him. Jacksonville's defense, they got a new coordinator in there, and he's. He's been the bright spot. And Trevor's been uneven, but had a good game. And they put it all together. Yeah. Finally they got. I mean, they're six and four. They're quiet six and four. And then the Buffalo. Buffalo at Tampa Bay. I watched more of that game. That was a great game. Back and forth. Yeah, it's a good weekend. You know, my. My direct favorite team, my quasi. You know, I don't. I don't want any hate. Don't even DM me and say, oh, you can't have word one team. Yes, you can. Got my nostalgia, all my Clemson guys, ETN and Trevor at Jacksonville. I got Buffalo, who's my true favorite team with Josh Allen. And then my. I grew up watching Sweetness and all the Bears and all the Chicago Cubs and Greg Maddox and everybody else way before he was a. Way before he was a Brave, by the way. And so don't tell me or ask why. I had two stations, and one of them was wgn, so suck it. But three teams, my Bears, my Bills, and the Jaguars, won. It was a good weekend. Well, we'll get you. We'll get you to a Bears game one of these days. I can't wait. I'm gonna hold you to that. That was. They were the original favorite, just by the way, for a kid growing up way before the Carolina Panthers existed. Yeah. You know, and. And they're in Charlotte. They're in North Carolina, not in South Carolina. Look, this is what the Carolinians have to deal with. Oh, look, South Carolina gets to be told that we're not big enough or important enough to have a team in South Carolina. Everything's just Carolina. But it's in North Carolina. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no. You can't want that. You don't want that. So I've kind of rooted against the Panthers because of it. Like, you're not us. You're not South Carolina. You're North Carolina. It's like there's a. There's two twins, and one's really hot, and the other's not. Yeah. Like, I don't want that. No, I'm good. They're not identical. You're like, are you all identical? You can't help but hide that expression on your face, like, why? You don't think we look alike? That wasn't what I was saying. That's North Carolina. Yeah, that's North Carolina. And look, the people are very different, too, let me tell you. Go spend some time in North Carolina. Come to South Carolina. A lot of things are different. It's like the north side of Chicago and South side. If you're in the north side, you're. That's where you want to be. That's the attractive female in this case. And then the south side is not. Yeah. Greenville and Charleston are in South Carolina, two of the hottest. But both temperature and growth and cool factor cities in America and fastest growing, and they're in South Carolina, so I digress. And Charlotte's cool. I like Charlotte as a city. It's not bad. But anyway, we're not there. We're not the little step cousin here. Hey, what's happening with. Any news on the trading car store for you? No, man. You know, y' all were just in build phase, right? I mean, it's just. Yeah, were just building it. We're getting stuff delivered, you know, like, it's just, like, it's a mess. It's a mess. Just like our office here in Chicago. We're moving in the month. Is a mess. Like, I feel like everywhere I go is a mess. That's how I felt for, you know, how I've been the last. I'm. You. You sense the difference in me. You sense how I'm coming back to life. Like the Ryan that you know and love. Like, it's because I was living. I called it in a. I got. I get in my car every morning, I go, I'm just disheveled. Every part of my life is disheveled. I don't like being disheveled. Like, that's how it feels. Yeah. And that's how now you're. You're on. You're up. And I'm on my own. Moving offices and building a store. Yeah. Yeah. Amongst other things. Yeah. Yeah. You got nothing else going on. You got to tell people. I think it'd be cool because it was cool for me. I was like a little kid, like, listening. You went into the storage unit. Is it yesterday or today? Today. Yeah. Tell the story, Brian. So I have a picture. I'll show you. I'll show you a picture of. And it's basically 20 of. Of the shop. But I looked on the top of the. And I've gone through 10 in these boxes. So I look and also I see it looks like 1991 tops, full set. And I'm like, whatever. I mean, obviously, he's got a thousand. I have a thousand of those. I pull it down, it's the whole 1971 set, top loaded. All the greats are in there. I'm like. And. Well, I was looking at them, and, like, I think they're between sixes and sevens and which I think those that just by itself raw is like a fifteen hundred dollar nugget I found. But it's fun going in there. I mean I have a couple guys from the. The company like on their off days go there and. And probably steal, you know. Yeah. Half a. Grab a Pete Rose or two. That's what I. He's not going to notice. Yeah. There. One million car is it. How many stores using units is it or tractor trailers, whatever the hell they are. It's three. It's three units. It's five million cards. So again if you're just listening for the first time, we've talked about this a bunch But Brian bought three storage units, 5 million cards and it's still kind of going through them finding treasures every day. Not 91 but 71 tops intact, full sets. Big difference. Big difference. Junk wax. Not junk. Junk wax. Like couldn't be a bigger 100x value difference probably. And rarity. Yeah, exactly. It makes up for my 1961 set that got ruined by the water damage. So. Yeah, you know, you win some, you lose some. Yeah. Take the good with the bad. Speaking of the good, we've got some weekly movers with our Lodex data of the week. Got some cards. Who's popping Brian? We have a new. A couple new guys this week. And then we have one that's been on top of the charts for a while. But number one is Bryce Young. He's up 141%. He was unranked in our top 100 and now he's ranked 64. The next one is Bo Nix. He's up 68%. Interesting. He went from 62 to 21. And the third week in a row, I'll let you guess, quarterback. New England. New New England. Yeah. Again, third week in a row. Number one. Number one. He's up 21% again. And I think his panini prisms, silver PSA 10. I think when we started looking at this was like 600 bucks. Now it's maybe 600. I think it's more than doubled. I think it was like four something. You think it was that it was in that Bo Nick's territory and okay, yeah, that baby's like quadrupled. I want to say like, I want to say, I want to say even like six months ago it was like three something like. That's crazy. And let me just say for. I think I've reiterated this a few times. I'm okay with all these quarterbacks from last year. When the offers got back. We have treasure trove of these guys. If they all turn into all pros, the offers will retire. Well, yeah, the boys could actually go to college because we have a lot of them and yes. So I'm okay with these guys just rocking and rolling. And Caleb is doing all right too, so. Hey, it's good. None of them are tanking. I mean, I'll say that I thought some of them would tank. I mean, Jaden. Some of the. Some of them aren't increasing in values because Jaden's been hurt. So he's dropped. But he's not. He's not done bad. He's hadn't played because he's been injured, which is kind of my worry with him from the start. I told people that last year. I'm like, this kid's pretty thin, very athletic, but I hope he can stay healthy. And then JJ McCarthy still coming around to be seen, but not a nightmare, you know, not a complete train wreck. He's just been a little injured and a little uneven and panic's kind of a little bit of the same, but he's not been terrible. So these guys are all been pretty decent. So I'm. I'm good with that Was a. The city of Chicago. Someone probably got shot. So we hear a siren. So saying hello. Insane. Exactly. You know, on the opposite side, we did something we looked into this week is the fallers or the people, you know, who actually have been, you know. Okay, who's been tanking? That'd be Jaden. Well, Jamar Chase. Oh, the spit incident. He's down 11% and he went from 38 to 129. Interesting. Jaden Jordan Addison Downtown, which is interesting, decreased 7%, but he dropped from 78 to 218. And Calvin Ridley is down 20% and went from 200 down to unranked. So I guess I don't know what our ranking goes to. I thought it was out of 100, but obviously these guys are well below 100, well below that. You get like. Even Calvin really is getting scanned 10,000 times a week probably, you know, like, or whatever it is a month. And so they drop. But the last two doesn't surprise me because both those guys are kind of. You're not hearing anything. The spitting with look, that just goes to show you that people just don't tolerate that, you know, like, it's just. There's just no place for it. And I mean, look, everybody loses their head. I'm not like gonna like completely hate the guy forever or something. Like that. You know, things happen in the he. The moment, but you just can't do that. No, I mean, it's. It's really load respect, like people do. Yeah. Don't like getting spit on. It's kind of like the. The throwing stones of just the disrespect. The worst you could do is to spit on someone. You know, like, not cool, not fun. Not fun. Hopefully that was just a. But I've never seen that. I don't. I. I haven't known that to be his character, at least from what I've seen. So who knows? Frustration, I mean, he's. He's had a good quarterback. His good quarterback gets hurt, you know, and. And these receivers, they're prima donnas to begin with. And then, you know, he's frustrated and. Yeah, that's fine. But like, coach it up together. No, no, go there. You're too good for that. Don't. Don't lower yourself to. To that because it's actually you that gets lowered. Yeah. You think you're spitting on someone and that's like, you know, it all puts out of disrespect to them, but really it's. You're disrespecting yourself. Yeah. Now he's on our low. Now he's. He's on the. Now he's on the shit list of. On the shit list at L. Not going into Christmas too. Oh, we're also up for an award on Mantle. They're doing collectibles awards and it goes from like, best hobby shop to podcast, and we're nominated for innovation, so that's cool. We're doing some things around that. And if you're listening, go vote on Mantle for the Innovation Awards or ludx. Yeah. And every number. It matters. All right, Brian, other news, and I'm going to let you tee this one up as well. So Snipe, which. I think I had heard of them, like, which, interestingly enough, I think I'd heard of them because of. They do like, ebay sniping auctions, like, where you can drop in and get a value in, but obviously they have a much bigger play than that. What's going on with these guys, man? I love Rick Probstein. He's a. He's a funny guy. He's a friend. He's always interesting to talk to. He's run incredible business over there. I was lucky enough to visit it. And Ryan there's. What they are, is a massive logistics company, and they're really good at it. So, you know, he took on he took on a marketplace and you know he's. I love, I know how humbling tech is and yeah, you might think, you know, I got this a month, let's go, let's. No, it's always something, always something. It's never nothing when you're dealing with tech. But Rick will figure it out. I love the idea, I love what he's doing. You know he, he has a following. I think he was the biggest lister on ebay when he left ebay. So yeah, I mean he'll figure it out and I do like the concept though. What do you think? Yeah, I like the concept. I just hate that. I hate it. No matter how he's handled or whatever, I don't know him, you know him and you know I love you so I, I go with you, you know. So like your boys are my boys. So obviously he's got something good. But I also know the tech industry and have been humbled by it myself and or seen clients at the highest level humbled but at what it takes to launch these things. The complexity that gets sort of ignored and slipped under the rug. The server band loads the like it's just a lot and so I hate that he had to go through that and there had some bumps in the road and you know there's always going to be people that are going to hate on things and I, I don't want to do that with this show. I want to call out real. There's a difference between being like raw and real and being hate. I'm not going to hate on anybody. You and I, I think we're just going to. But we're going to, we're going to not going to sugarcoat anything if somebody, you know, there's a difference and I think more than you probably. Yeah, you got, you got to look navigate a few things with you know, multi 8, 9, 10 figure evaluation eventually with LX hopefully we know you will not be friends with everyone. You gotta be friends with everyone. I can be the not so Switzerland but, but I want to be friends with everyone. I don't want because I don't want to be the loudmouth hater and it's business is hard, you know I, and it's not easy no matter what it is. So I don't ever want to be the judge on that. But there's a reason these things take time and energy and you know the reason I've even slow played myself coming into the hobby of like okay, you know, trying to be humble and like okay. I may have Done something over here, but I ain't done here. Like, I'm gonna kind of, you know, learn from everyone else while sort of absorbing. Well, but also recognizing that stuff is not easy. No. And, and there's a reason why I haven't even dabbled in a marketplace. I mean, yeah, we have 3 million people, 325 million cards, and I'm still not confident that a marketplace would work. It just takes time. And, you know, it's about velocity, volume, and trust. And like, when you swing and miss on it, you swing and miss on it. No one's cracked the code yet. My slabs, you know, whatever name anyone like Snipes so far, they'll figure it out. But them, yeah, um, there's got baseball cards. There's like all these marketplaces. Like, it's free, it's 1%. I'm like, no one gives a. About 1% commission because that card will not trade ever. You know, and so marketplaces are so hard, man. So hard. They are. And it's all about having volume. Like you said, like, you don't have the buyers and all the sellers. Like, it doesn't matter what the benefits are, you know, like. Yeah, it's like, it's like chicken or the egg. And same thing I say in marketing, sometimes it's like, well, I mean, we could sell it for as cheap as you want, but if, if we aren't building a brand and building awareness at a large scale, it doesn't matter how big our sale is, you know, like, we gotta have a awareness of people that want to buy the stuff at the sale price. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's all tied together. But we'll, we'll. But look, I think we would agree with this. Innovation and new and different is good for the hobby. And so if we get there, that's, that's, that's a positive. It's, you know, it shows a maturing industry also. Yeah. So what I've seen in business is like, you know, you have this industry that hasn't changed. Some tech, then tech comes into it, then it starts growing and then you get the VCs in, then you get the private equity, then you got M and A deals and then you get, you know, and that's, that's maturing of an industry. And we're, we're predominantly VC right now in the, in the industry, but moving towards pen and I will make a prediction in the next year to 16 months, you'll start seeing M and A activity where if a Walmart wants to really take a bite out of ebay, they're going to have to do something. Fanatics, same thing, ccg. To compete with PSA and Beckett, like, these guys have to make moves, right? Like, else they're just going to keep gobbling up. And actually last month there was 2.7 million cards graded, which is the all time high. So. And PSA just keeps getting more and more of that. So these, these second guys up in any of these, in any of these little industry spots is, is super important for them to really figure out how they're going to do it. Whatnot, eBay, fanatics, PSA. Yep, exactly. And you know, it's funny, I don't know if you, you know, I've worked with large companies. I mean, really, like Apple, Verizon, Samsung, Audi, Lexus, like they all got competitors. Some of them are leaders, some of them are challengers. You got leaders? Challengers. Like in, in business, you need the competition. Number one. We're in a country where there's not supposed to be monopolies. Notice how I frame that. There's not any. I'm just saying they're not supposed to be. Yeah, you want all the pie, but you need competitors because they help raise the category overall. Because in marketing and branding, you've got BDI and cdi. You got category development and brand development. You're working on your brand, but you need the category to grow. Well, when you have competitors, it brings the category, the crates, more business and more marketing and more dollars into elevating and creating demand of the category. And so you need those competitors on some level to kind of raise the bigger pie with which then you can kind of battle for. But so we need some, those, those other players to kind of come along. Yeah, that's, that's a really interesting way to look at it. I agree 100%. Like, we need that. Yeah. I mean, that's what makes it all work. And hey, you got to have somebody that you can go into the boardroom and get your people fired up. Hey, we're going to battle them today. If you don't have somebody to wrestle, you ain't got. You need a bad man, you know, you need a boogeyman. You know, Coke's got to have Pepsi to beat on and Verizon and you know, they go in the boardroom and beat up on AT&T and T Mobile and Sprint. And it was next to like, you know, you got to have. It helps lead the charge. If you're not, if you're not going against something yeah, it's great, but everybody needs their foil as we close out today. Chicago Trading Card Show. Today's a Friday where this releases. If you're listening, what do people need to do? I know you're at this weekend, Brian. Yeah. So there's a Chicago Sports spectacular. It's in Rosemont, same building as the National. They. It's the upstairs, probably 607, 600 tables. Let's say Ludx is there. We're doing the VIP experience, running the trade night. If you're in Chicago, in the Chicago area, it's Friday through Sunday. Come by, say hi, get some swag, and yeah, it's. It's a great show. I mean, obviously, it's a home. A home game for us. Yep. And that's important. So, yeah, you know, building our brand and just touching people out there is great. Exactly. They. They always put on a good thing. The VIP lounge was a blast at the National. So go by, say hello to them, get Ryan's autograph, whatever it might be. He'll sign that hat for you. Oh. All right, dude. Next week's How Halloween Thanksgiving edition, and Turkey Day, the day after Turkey Day. So good luck at the show this weekend and look forward to all the updates. Yeah, thanks, buddy. It's always a pleasure. Yeah. Hey, guys, you know where to find us. Collectibles Show. It's all you got to put in www.collectibles.show. go to all the highlight clips, the full episodes, links to LudX, links to the Rad Collective, anything and everything to do with the show and what we're doing to help push along the hobby and to teach you the business, the ins and outs, the news. And of course, go to the App Store, download lx, get your. Get your whole collection into your digital collection there within the ludx app. Check values, go through ebay, really slick integrations. We'll talk more about that as the weeks come along, and we appreciate you for listening. And we'll see you next time on Trading Cards and Collectibles. Thanks for tuning in to the show. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast platform, and don't miss the full video version on YouTube. You can find us at www.collectibles.show or follow Ryan on Instagram at Ryan Ulford. Now get out there and collect yours.