The Luxury Upgrade Cards Have Been Missing | Brian Pirrip & M1nt

Once people hold them and see them, it's really hard to go back to plastic. There's nothing quite like handing an athlete, like a Hall of Fame athlete, a card, their card in a G1 case with grade by Mike Baker. Those kind of moments are just priceless to me. >> Welcome to the Collector Nation podcast here on the Collector Nation Network. >> [music] >> Whether you're chasing grails or calling bluffs, we take you inside the hobby. >> [music] >> Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Today, Brian Gray up is back with us, and this one's a little different. We talked about the Mint before. His company, Mint. Now, the G1 is out, and he's actually launching it across the nation in a way you wouldn't expect. He's going out, talking with people, putting in the hands of celebrities and athletes, and really organically growing the brand. Today, we're getting into what their process has been like, all the feedback he's getting from collectors, how it fits in the hobby, and hey, just remind everybody how nice a guy he is. What's it like, man? I mean, you know, it's the clearly the case speaks for itself, but what what's the process been like for you? >> Well, yeah, it's uh it really does speak for itself. Um every time I show the case in pictures or videos or on social media, um people go, "Oh, that's uh What is that? A glorified one-touch? Is that a uh some sort of an iPhone?" You know, these kinds of things. And then, and people never really understand it while they're uh seeing it on on camera. But as soon as I show people the case in person, uh and instantly everybody understands. It's just an instant impact every single time. And so, it's been really fun to travel the country, and then just in the last 3 weeks I've been in Atlanta, Toronto, Dallas, San Francisco. And everywhere I go, I put the I That's one of the reasons I wrote show so much is I want people to hold them. You really have to hold them and see them in person to understand. And the second that somebody puts it in their hand and holds it, they go, "Okay, now I get it." And then the next question is, "Brian, can you hook me up? How do I get one?" You know. So, it's [laughter] It's been It's been really fun because that's what I'm trying to do is I'm changing hearts and minds here. I'm I'm putting them out there in the world, getting people to hold them and see them. And once people hold them and see them, it's really hard to go back to plastic. You know, I always see people with their uh they have their PSA slab and then they've got it inside of a slab mag. And it's so it's like plastic inside of plastic inside of plastic. And And it's just holding a G1 in person versus holding like a slab mag with a PSA. It's just not even comparable. It's It really is the difference between holding like a a Nokia flip phone from the, you know, late '90s uh and an iPhone 16 Pro. >> Yeah, I mean, it's funny you bring the iPhone. You know, I'm sure you hear it. It reminds me of that sort of I one of the the original uh iPhone bezel. And, you know, my good friend, your good friend, Mike Baker authentication here that just puts the bow the icing, whatever you want to call it, right on top. >> Yeah, no, it's it's a real joy to have Mike grading these initial cases. Like having his eyeballs on these cards to verify, authenticate, and to put an accurate grade there has been nothing short of special. I mean, I've known about Mike Baker since, you know, for the last like 20 years. I've heard his name and and it's weird to, you know, get to know him and to discover, wow, this is a really cool guy. This is a guy you want to hang out with and then you realize, wow, this guy is the guy that kind of started it all. He's the guy that's you know, came up with the the PSA grading guidelines all those years ago and he's the guy that's graded some of the biggest cards in the industry and uh and now he's grading these massive cards that are going into our G1 cases and so it's been a real honor uh to have Mike uh part of the Mint story now. >> You know, uh >> It's uh it's been it's been really special. There's nothing quite like handing an athlete, like a Hall of Fame athlete, a card, their card in a G1 case uh with a grade by Mike Baker. Those kind of moments are just priceless to me. That's uh you know, when I started doing this uh 5 years ago, I didn't think I was going to be having those kinds of moments and now those are becoming kind of regular moments and kind of too good to be true kind of things. So, I'm very blessed I am. >> Yeah, man, where did you get When I hear you talk I don't think I asked you this last time and I don't know when I hear you talk and I the positive energy the sort of eloquent like you remind me of like and there were a lot of jerks but the nicest, the coolest, the ones that I wanted to hang out with, like creative strategic directors at ad agencies and because that I really liked and respected. I don't know I don't know where that comes from for you but like it is this is the highest compliment I can give you because it's like not only it's like the intelligence but it's like the nice factor and it's like Is that Where does that come from? Is that nature or nurture? Like, you know, like have you always been that guy? >> I've always been that guy, you know, like I was that guy in elementary school. I'm that guy now and I've been through some pretty gnarly, you know, tragedies in my life. I've been through some pretty, you know, if people heard my whole story, they'd be like, "Damn, that's that's pretty rough stuff." And yet, I've just I've never let those things bring me down. So, it's just who I've always been. I always had a a goal in life was to show people that you can be successful, that you can be a just badass you know, entrepreneur, businessman without losing your soul and without becoming a jerk. You don't have to It's not mutually exclusive. You can be a good human, a nice person, and also be extraordinarily successful. It's possible to push hard, you know, hold your team and the people in your world, you know, to accountability, but also be kind and uh and generous without being also someone who's walked over. So, it's a it's a fine line. And I would say it's kind of been my superpower in my career. Um And I don't ever I've always figured if I haven't lost all that by now in career, then that's not going away anytime soon. So, as you see, who I am is what you get. People will say, "Oh, are you putting on a character on your social media?" And I'm like, "No, that's exactly who I am." Or people on the other side will go, "Oh, Brian, you're such a, you know, you're a really nice guy. You're opening all this, you know, junk wax and you're giving away all this free stuff, but now you're charging a for $500 case. You know, maybe you were a grifter all along, you know?" And I'm like, "No, I actually said day one of doing my social media that I was you know, talked about cards I love, which tend to be, you know, junk wax and cards from my childhood, but I also from day one always said that I was going to be building, you know, displays and cases that would make uh you know, that were the kind that James Bond would want to have on his wall if he collected. And so, it's just you can be a good person, a kind person, a nice person, and also uh have huge lofty goals and dreams, and push hard to all those things, and do what it takes to get those across the finish line. So, it's a it's a real weird rare combo. >> I really would love to, you know, dig into like the rollout for G1 and like what you're doing now. We've got the National coming up. What what's sort of the road map for G1 the rest of this year? >> Um fantastic question. Um I always have like a master plan. Like my master plan is actually I have a five-year plan in place of where all this is going. So, it's a it's funny when people compare us to like Rare Edition or they're like, "Oh, you're selling these expensive cases. You guys are going to be out of uh business soon." I'm like, "No, there's a there's a pretty master plan here, and it it uh it's actually it's kind of fun. I find it I I see it as this giant game of chess, and [snorts] um and I enjoy playing chess, and I enjoy strat I love strategy. I love thinking, "Okay, here are my assets, here are all of my resources, here's my team, this is where we're going to go with it." And and I love There's nothing I love more than somebody saying, "That's not going to work." It's It's like a I see it as a I I love people going, "Nah, not going to work. That's never going to happen." And I'm like, "Yeah, just uh just watch. You're going to see what's going to happen." So, we did the first 100 G1s, um and we called it the 100 Club, and we ended up shipping all those, and incidentally, nearly everybody that's on the 100 Club have now bought a second one or a third one. And so, what I'm really doing is I'm trying to keep the G1 niche and special. I'm trying to put it into really big cards. We're getting a lot of uh whales that are reaching out saying, "This is the future. We know it's the future. And so, we want to buy, you know, get the uh the There's a microchip on the inside of each one. And so, we want to be able to kind of be early adopters into this program." The goal is to kind of roll this out, keep it special, keep it unique. Not I don't want to make this a pedestrian item. I want to make this a a very specialized something very special and keep it in that space. And then later this year, we're coming out with our wall display. Uh we call it the frame. And the frame is just stunning. Uh some people have seen one of our wall displays that we featured in a lot of our videos, but the new frame is actually better than what people have seen. It it features LEDs, it features magnets, it's uh and it's just stunning for people's homes, offices, card shops, or whatever. So, I think a lot of people aren't going to understand what the G1 is until they see it with uh cases in uh you know, on the wall. And when they see that they can put both our hobby cases, which are our our entry kind of point for the mint line, which is our a card case for uh for raw cards as well as the G1s. And then the end of the year, we also have another case coming out we call the hybrid case, which is far more of a approachable kind of price point. It's in the kind of $100 price. And that's uh instead of the G1, which uses steel and glass, the hybrid case features uh aluminum, which will be the the key differentiator. So, it's a lightweight construction, uh the price comes down a bit, but it still has the microchip on the inside. And so, all of these things kind of feed into the mint uh ecosystem, which all goes back to our tech platform that we haven't officially released yet. >> What's the uh education process? But, you know, like with the product and talking to people. I mean, I know you you enjoy talking about and explaining it. I mean, do we feel is it harder in the hobby, you know, to sort of break ground on new things? I mean, it feels like, you know, me coming back into it it's gotten better, but there's a lot of just like same same old, same old. >> Yeah. It's it's funny, you know, like Beckett released their new case and it's frankly it's laughable because it you can see the picture of the Beckett old case and the Beckett new case and they're the same case. There's minor differences. Okay, the flip has a QR code now and it's a little bit cleaner of fonts and and whatever. And but it's to me it's laughable because it's the same thing. PSA did the same thing as well. They spent like 3 years and millions of dollars to switch from their slab from 3 years ago to their current slab. It's the same thing. It's slightly sturdier acrylic, but at the end of the day it's the same thing. And so I just I just never liked those kind of things. I thought if you're going to do something right, do it go all out. Do it, you know, really analyze what it takes to make to protect a card, display a card, to make it so people can't crack out a card. Like PSA has a problem where people crack out cards, resubmit them or crack out a Beckett card, resubmit it. And so I wanted to solve that problem. Nobody can crack out our cases to go and resubmit. It's impossible. And so [snorts] we solve that problem. And so it's just I really enjoy the educational element. I enjoy talking to people because when you know you have a winning formula and you it would be one thing if I was trying to wrap something up that was that was terrible and trying to sell it. That would be very hard is if we had a subpar product and we were trying to push it. I couldn't do that. I I've never been able to sell something that I don't believe in. It's impossible. I'm I'm just a passionate person and so I have to really really believe in something. In fact, we had a working prototype of the G1 3 years ago. 3 years ago, summer of 2023, I had a working G1 in my hand. And I looked at it and I kept saying, "Guys, I'm sorry. I wouldn't I'm not I'm not I wouldn't buy this myself. I can't sell this thing. It's just not good enough." And so I went back to our engineers and designers and said, "We got to We got to kind of start this thing over." Um until, you know, we got to make sure this thing is better in every possible way. And so we went back to the the drawing board and restarted. Um and we made it that much better. >> What's What do you consider the state of the hobby? I mean, you made some points there that probably tie into it. Uh you know, with the lack of innovation. I've noticed that people kind of move the ball as far as they feel like they have to, you know, like but no further. Uh you know, but maybe on a broader sense, you know, Topps has taken over all the licenses for the most part. Uh it it matter. Uh you got PSA ruling the world. Um and I don't I bring these things up less because I'm suggesting I have a problem with it. I actually like some of the things Topps is doing. Uh but I guess on the broader sense of the hobby, what's the state of the state from Brian's perspective? >> Yeah, actually um really do like I like a lot of what Fanatics is doing. I like a lot of what Topps is doing. I think um I've I'm always against monopoly behavior. I don't like monopolies. Um but uh and it's not even that I don't like monopolies. I don't like it when monopolies actively try to crush other people coming into the space. If if a company is great and they're just building and they're a monopoly by virtue of they make great stuff, fantastic. But if they're actively trying to shut down everyone else that um it has some sort of a thing to say against it, then I have a a serious problem with it. So, I really do like Topps and Fanatics. I think they're doing such a great job with cards and art and getting players more involved. That's the probably my favorite thing that Topps is doing is involving players. Players never had connection to cards and now players with signing like MLB debut patches and the other debut patches across all the different licenses, I think are really cool. I think making cards for F1 and tennis and UFC and Star Wars SpongeBob and VFriends, I think it's really special that there's kind of something for everything. And during the Topps industry event, the Fanatics leadership talked about wanting understanding and wanting to make sure that they wanted to have entry-level product so that kids could afford and not be priced out. And so, I believe they're going to be rolling out a bunch of product for that's entry-level. And sure, it's not going to be having patch autos and you know, that kind of stuff and that's fine because I didn't have patch autos back in the '80s. You just were looking for base cards of players you love, right? So, I think Fanatics is I think they're trying to do the right thing in a lot of ways. Not just because it is makes them a bunch of money, which is going to, but because it's also cleaning up the hobby and making things better. I like the some of the pressure they're putting on card shops to provide a better experience. And I know it must be extraordinarily challenging to have every card shop on the planet blowing them up about allotments because everybody wants allotments and and the breakers having the allotments and then you're having, you know, huge amounts of allotments going to the Chinese. And so, a card shop, you know, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, might be like, "Hey, what's happening?" And so, I've talked to one of the the guys kind of in charge of of hobby shops, [clears throat] and he helped me understand that they do want to keep you know, hobby shops the core of the the the industry. That was always my biggest fear with Topps consolidating, building the empires that they would squeeze out the little guys or the mom-and-pop shops, and that it would only be kind of these franchised, you know, Tom Brady card vault kind of places. But, I believe the hobby's in good hands with the people that are currently running it because I do believe they do want to keep the mom-and-pop uh card shop culture alive, which I believe is central to keeping this going long-term. For the state of the hobby, I don't like um I you know, I the grading kind of world always bugs me from about a dozen different uh places. [clears throat] I don't like that kids feel like if you don't have a $10,000 graded 10 PSA case, that somehow you're a lesser person. Um you know, that's that's the thing that probably bothers me that you know, there's actually a bunch of things that bother me, but probably the number one thing is the culture of if you do not have some super auto graded in a PSA 10, that somehow you are a lesser person. And so, I I don't like that element to the culture. But, I like where everything I do overall love where the hobby's headed. I think it's got longevity. I think we pulled out of the the 2000s and the 2010s where it looked like the hobby might, you know, disappear entirely, and there's a resurgence. A lot of, you know, people and money are coming in. I have people all day every day tell me that they saw like a video of mine, and now they went to the card shop, they bought some junk wax, they saw some some new product, and that, and now they're ripping with their their sons and and grandsons. So, I think it's in a pretty good space, and I can't wait to see where it's headed over the next decade. But, I'm pretty happy with the health of the hobby overall. >> Let's drop some deets. Where can everybody learn more about Mint? Learn more about Brian Brian Ripps. >> [laughter] >> Also, there's Peerup. It looks like Ripps, so he's got the perfect last name for the hobby. >> Peer Ripps, yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah, so my I mean, our our website for the company is mintverse.com. Um it should be mint.com, but there's a nightclub in China that has my has our domain. So, I'm going to roll into China maybe in the next year and see if I can go and buy the domain from them. But, we're mintverse. It was kind of a you know, there's a moment we're sitting around going, "Well, we can't have mint.com, so what do we call ourselves?" And I think metaverse was kind of having some little traction at the time, and one of the my team members called him goes, "We should call it mintverse." And so, that's mintverse with a one instead of an an the I. And so, that's our that's our website. All my channels are all at Brian Peerup, you know, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok. Um and then the mint mint has its own kind of Instagram and all these kinds of things. It's all mintverse. Anybody just Googles mintverse, you're going to find us. Um but, yeah, we are we are mint, and I put the one instead of an I because every single case we make, every single product we make, uh there's unique identifiers. And so, it's all every piece has a one-of-one kind of nature to it, which I think is cool. >> M1NT. M1NT. Mint. The mintverse. Hey, and one hell of a nice guy behind it. Brian, appreciate you, brother. >> Hey, thank you so much, Ryan, and uh congratulations on the shop, man. I love seeing it, love seeing the studio, the shoes, uh the the vending the uh Pepsi machine. People should just [laughter] go to South Carolina to go just check out your incredible doorway that's a Pepsi machine. And the people should also go and say what's up to Bella. Bella is like a a sunshine in your office every day, and so uh she also makes the place a better place. And so it's a it's a you're doing it right, Ryan. I I love uh I love what you've done with the shop and look forward to on some future road trip rolling through town and seeing what you've done with the place. But I mean, who else in the world has a their own golden drive-thru? So, nobody has that. So, >> And the office is now the Chase Lounge. >> [laughter] >> Sick. Sick. I can't wait to check it out, man. >> Hey, guys, you know where to find us, the collectornation.com. We'll have all the links to Brian and all that he's doing with M1NT Mint and the Mint Universe. All the links to YouTube videos. You got to go follow him. All it's it's fun. I've had more comments from people about the videos that Brian did than about anyone, and I've been doing this for 10 years with a lot of celebrities and everyone else. And uh he makes it fun. He's got a good eye for it, and more than anything, you're supporting one hell of a guy. We appreciate Brian. We appreciate you. We'll see you next time at Collector Nation. >> Thanks for tuning in to the show. Be sure to follow us on your go-to podcast platform [music] and catch the full video episode over on YouTube. Visit us at collectornation.com and follow Ryan on Instagram at Ryan Alford. Now, get out there and collect yours. [music] >> Hey!