The Sports Card Hobby Should Be Slowing Down... So Why Isn't It?

Welcome back to the Hobby Chop Podcast. This is the podcast for the people. I am Big Ken. He is Zip. Zip. How you doing, my friend? Doing well. This is the Hobby Chop Podcast where we chop up the hobby. Are you still in work mode? Am I just. Yeah, my reframing and rephrasing your words back to you in the session. No, I had. I had a bunch of counseling sessions today, though. I think I did. I did two groups. I had an individual session, intake side. I had a lot today. It was a busy day. And then I got home and did a little working out, and now we're here. Yeah. Ah, there's. There's our. Our best budget. We were waiting. It was nine o', clock, but. So we haven't heard from Spike yet. We'll give him another minute. We can't start the podcast until Spike is in the YouTube comments saying, Nine o', clock, boys. Oh. So how's your hobby and been going? Have you done any. You've been. You. You send me pictures of cards as. I'm assuming you're acquiring these big cards. I am just buying cards at a little higher price than I normally do, and I'm lowering the volume because I think if you still want to use grading and PSA as an option, you just have to have buy bigger cards to make it work, make the regular worth it. And if you're buying cheaper cards and still going to try to use regular, you better know what you're doing. You better know for sure. Yeah. And what's the. What's the. You know, I. I'm asking you this. What's the timetable in regular? You know, now that they've paused all the other stuff, like 40 to 60 days. Does that sound right? Yeah, I guess that would be right. I bet you I just said PSA grading, and it brought me to some weird ebay listing of someone trying to sell PSA God knows what. That was 40 to 50 business days. Okay. Okay. All right. So Spike says you still have stuff coming back in the meantime. Yes, Spike. And, like, I get surprised. I did. I forgot I even had a BGS order out that all of a sudden my. My Guy Hank, my FedEx guy, showed up to the door with a package and I'm like, what is this? It looked like it was coming from psa, but it came from bgs. And there were cards that I sent in for grading that, you know, know, probably. I. I probably shouldn't have sent in. Like, I. I'll be the first one to admit I probably shouldn't have sent Those to grading. But, you know, I was. Some of them came back nine fives. But at the end of the day, when I got them back, I was like, all right, just throw them over here. Right? And now what's that said? Shout out to Hank. And then, you know, I've got some. Some orders coming back that I sent through PC Sports Cards, and. And some of those grades. You're like, were you. Were you. Like, it almost feels to me that they were trying to make people not send their card in. They're like, you get an 8, you get an 8. You get an 8. Don't send no more cards. Yeah, the. The grading is. Is definitely interesting. I. I keep getting cards back too, and, oh, I do have a pretty cool update. I'd say the most notable update for me right now is, I don't know where I left it on the podcast, but I think I told you, golden is sending me the messy back. Oh, yeah. Which is great, because I was like, well, I'm just gonna grade, like, a 7 or an 8 and then go for, like, a couple hundred less than I bought it for, and that's just gonna suck. So that's. I. That's coming back to me, which is great. If anyone cared. If not, don't worry about it. But I'm getting my card back. We weren't worried. We weren't worried. Yeah, but at least you'll have the messi leading up to the. Yeah, the World Cup. Yeah. And you know what? I think what I'm gonna do, because I sent out that super fracture to Beckett, so I'm kind of thinking that I may reassess that, see if I can clean it up a little bit, and maybe I'll send it to Beckett. I don't know. I might. I might not. I'm just gonna do another look at it because I was just. I think I kind of didn't give it. I was. I sold myself short. I didn't really look into it too. Too much. I saw a couple things. I'm like, oh, I'm just gonna keep it moving, so we'll see. So Jeff Wills in the house. Says spurs fans can blame me, as I bought my first major Wimby five hours before the game. Luckily, they had Sunday prices. Sunday's price on Wednesday. There you go. I mean, I, I. I still think the spurs are gonna win that series. I sure hope so. I would hate to see the Knicks win this year. The Celtics freaking choked in the first round. I. I haven't even watched basketball because I'm still so mad about that first round loss. I, like, I have not watched. I'm, I'm like, I'm like it. I'll probably end up watching the finals and I'll be like, hate watching the Knicks and rooting for the Spurs. Isn't that the worst though, when the team you're rooting for gets knocked out and like, you were so into it, like, you weren't gonna miss a game. You knew what time Wednesday night, 8 o', clock, 8:30. The game's gonna be on and your team's out and you're like, well, I mean, yeah, it does, it does. It does suck too, because I had to get rid of my Nessen subscription because the Red Sox are so terrible. And I just like. So it's, it's, it's the Red Sox. The Celtics were super. I mean, they overachieved on the year, but they were the favorite to make it out of the east by like, a lot. And then they just choked. We don't got to talk to Celtics too much. I'll get into it and I don't want it. Yeah, like, honey, go ahead and put Love island on. Like, let's go, Wemby. Ruin the Knicks. Spike says Wemby game seven. He also said the kid hugging his teammate after the game was so genuine, he's on top of the world. Ah, so not to love Wemby. I'll tell you what, that he seems to do everything right and he seems to be a great leader, a great team. So, yeah, as a Knicks fan, this is music to my ears. You know what? You guys have waited a long time for the Knicks to be relevant for anything. So it's, it's your time to be here. It's fair. And it's a perfect example of a player playing well in his market, driving right through the roof. Right on cards. I mean, we talk about this all the time. I mean, it could have, could have been a complete opposite too, right? Something. And not him, but any player, something could have gone injury or something bad. Right? And, and next thing you know, the, the, the market tanks out on somebody. All of a sudden, somebody shows up, plays well, boom, their stuff, you know, just shoots through the roof. And if you bought at the right time, right, you're, you're golden right now. And, and would you have thought if people said, oh, buy Wemby, would you been like, ah, his market is kind of high already. Like, how much more could it go up? I think when we did, like, our, our guesses for the Finals, I Think I guessed OKC in the spurs to be in the West. And I think I was like, I think it will go six or seven. And I think the thought this, what I said is I think the Thunder will win due to their experience. I was like, however, the spurs are unreal. So if they like, if they do it, you know, that wouldn't shock me either and that, that happened. So like if you had an inkling of. Because also too like if Wemby loses the game seven. I don't really think it hurts him at all. Like he's been unbelievable the whole playoffs. He's 22. He's 22 years old, like clear. And this is the worst the spurs are going to be like for 10 years. Like I, I don't know. Like this is there, this is. They're only going to get better from here. So it's. I don't know. I don't really. What happens with market? They do win, right? What happens to Wendy's Market then? Does it, does it, does it continue to grow and does it stay at a fever pitch? Then people start, I think what happens because it's just the world we live in. People start having outlandish comparisons to all time greats and then is it that outlandish? You have to think how, how many does he win? What does he do? Like how many MVPs will he have? And it's just kind of. You start playing that and it's almost like the, the. I hate to say this because he's a really, really good player, but it's almost like what happened before Wemby, there was Luca and, and everyone had like all these MVPs and championships priced into Luca. So like if he had beat the Celtics, what was that in 20, the 23, 24 season, what would have happened then? You know, his market would have went crazy and people are like oh my God, he's gonna win this many. And, but, but, but when he's doing that 22. Yeah. You know, I mean you're kind of in uncharted territories. If he wins and he's playing like how he is like, and he just, they just knocked off the defending champ and back to back MVP and Shea. Like, I mean like, I hate to say this, I feel like the harder matchup for them was the Western Conference final. That's not even a shot at the Knicks. It's just the Thunder are a great team. It's not a shot at the Knicks at all. Like, like the Thunder are excellent. I truthfully thought the, the Western Conference finals was the NBA Finals, but I also thought my Celtics were gonna make it there too, so what the hell do I know? Yeah. Yeah. That's why they play the games, right? Sportsman Dan tv. Welcome in. He said last time he was for it. Last time, the Knicks. We're in the finals. He deserves it. Ziggy. No. Welcome, sir. So today's episode, I don't know about you, but I message with a lot of people all the time and they're all asking me, right, like I'm some sorcerer, what do you think of the hobby? Is it going to crash? Is it going to keep going? What's driving the hobby? What's. So that really fueled this episode, right? Just. And I thought this was a good, this some, a conversation and a topic like this is good when somebody else is here and we got a room, you know, in the chat, we got a ton of people in the chat so we could get a lot of people, you know, to, to, to participate in chime in. Yeah. So, so like just starting out, like, we know the economy is struggling and I know, I know the, the markets are better than, than, you know, they have been, but the, the economy overall with the price of things and things that are happening out there, but there just seems to be a ton of disposable income out there, you know, and as we're in this hobby, right, this, the, the sports card hobby, like why, why are the shows, like, I just, I don't understand sometimes why, why the shows are packed and six figure deals are still selling. Like what keeps the hobby alive and growing and, and what percentages would we put individually on the different, you know, the different parts of the hobby, from investors to collectors and flippers and repackers and whatnot. Online auction. I mean, what, what do we think is driving, driving, you know, the hobby? That's a great question. And you know, what is so terrible about me, like trying to answer is like I, like I have enough awareness to know. I have no clue, Ken, because like I like truth. You, you have a way better pulse on like at least the, the transacting circle that we know because we do. There's, there seems to be overlap with content and card shows. Like the people who, the people who are on social media with card accounts are typically more likely to go to shows, I would say. Right. And what I'll say about, since I've been working at the golf course and chatting with some people, the, the, I almost think of that as like a iceberg, you know, when you have the tip of the iceberg that's above and then under the waters, like 90% of that iceberg. I think there's that many people who just have cards at their house and don't have any concept of this psychotic flipping world that we're in. Like, like the, you know, the sports card world. Yeah, I mean, if you ask me, what I tell a lot of people too, is I do a ton of shows, I do a ton of card shows, but I think card shows are very small, what you're saying. I think they're a very small percentage of what this hobby really is. So people come to me and say, oh, what do you, and I'm like, I mean, I, I can tell you I've got my, you know, you're saying, Ken, you've got your, you know, your finger on the pulse of the hobby, you know, like, yeah, I do, but I, it's through content and card shows. Yeah. Right. So, so I, here I am searching around today, trying to find out like, what percentage, you know, it, what percentage of what is this hobby? Like, I could tell you what, what percentage of card shows, because I do a ton of card shows. Right. So, so, you know, when I'm going out to card shows, I could tell you the, the, the, the flippers would be right on top. Flippers and repackers at card shows. Right. I, I, I, I think and, and I'm gonna say this and, and I'm, I'm gonna throw it out to the chat and you can tell me too. And you two, zip. I mean, I think collectors in this hobby are the, the biggest part of this hobby. Like I, I, I, I, we, my view, and I'm talking about repackers and, and all this other stuff is coming from the card shows. But the bigger part of this hobby, I think, is all collectors. And I think that's what's dry, that's the driving force to begin with. I mean, we'll break down percentages, but I really think it's the, the collectors of the top as an overall part of the hobby. I agree. And I think the definition of collector, because I think what we're talking about when you talk collector, like, I feel like there are just so many people who just have cards at their house. They may not be intentional collectors. Like, they may not be in it all the time and super active, but they may just have a ton of cards at their house. And, and to me, that's still someone that participate is, is somewhat in the hobby. If you have a bunch of cards at your house, you Are at what. What bucket do you fall in? Right. The collector bucket. You're not a flipper. I mean, you could call yourself an investor, but if you have no idea what you have and you just sitting there, that's. It's. What kind of investing is that? Right. And I think investing more than collecting has some. Whether good or bad, it has intentionality. Not that, like collecting can have intentionality, too. Don't. Don't get that twisted. I'm saying, like, investing has. It's, you know, for sure, investing has intentionality. Collecting may not. Yeah. Not trying to piss collectors off. So. No. And here. And here's something funny, too. I mean, when I got back into the hobby in 2020, somebody called me up and I was that person. That person you just described. I was that person. I was always buying all the cards of the. Everybody that I liked. I just kept the cards. Like, I never went to a card show. I never sold cards. I never traded cards. I just bought the cards because I like the cards. And. And, you know, as in my collector mind, I felt that someday some of these. These cards are going to be worth a lot of money. Right? So did I look at them as an investment? Was I really a collector? Who knows? But I get a phone call and somebody says to me, hey, do you collect? Are you a collector? Do you collect cards? And I, I immediately, I was going to say no. And I'm like, well, yeah, I do. I mean, I have a ton of cards, but I don't do anything with them. I just own them. And that was the beginning of me in this hobby and going down the rabbit hole, right? And it, and it. I. At that time, I didn't realize there was this whole other world out there, right? And it was a perfect time because I know somebody just cardboard collaborative. I think he said something about it was the COVID boom, right? And that was somebody else that was probably doing the same thing I did. But somebody kind of brought them in and said, hey, look at this. Or we have shows. You can go to the shows, you can do the stuff online. You can buy this stuff here. Like, I bought stuff. That's where I got most of my stuff was on ebay, right. So I knew how to buy there. And I think there was probably more people like me out there than kind of what you're saying that we were part of the hobby and didn't know we were part of the hobby. I think that's the sleeping giant. If you had to ask me, I think. I think it'd be an absurdly large number that a lot of people that are in to card shows and have never really sat and thought about it wouldn't really be able to come. Like, like. And I feel like the only reason I have that kind of insight is because a lot of the collections I buy out are kind of like that. Like there's a lot of people who like they will just do breaks and just like hop into breaks and stuff, open boxes and stuff like that here and there for the enjoyment of of that activity. I mean the gambling really like it's. But like the hot. That's all muddy too. Gambling and hobby. It is a gamble but people can do it responsibly and in a hobby aspect. What I'm saying though is like there are so many those people who don't think about oh let me sell this or and there's so many people that are like oh it's worth this much, that's pretty cool. And like that's as far as the thought goes. It's not let me cash out of this. You know what I mean? Cardboard collaborative said investors is a large part too. I mean wouldn't we call and I'm just throwing that out there. Wouldn't we call most investors a collector until they sell that card? Investors a collector until they sell that card? You could and then you could also call. What's the difference between an investor and a flipper? They're short term investments, are they not? You're day trading. Right. Like that's kind. What's the difference? Yeah, I mean really if you break there's so like if you did like a Venn diagram it mean be more than just two but like if you had like some like the circles and the overlap it'd be. It'd look crazy. So yeah there I think trying to make sense of it is fun and a good conversation, a good thought exercise. But I think understanding the imperfection that is this like the ecosystem of the hobby, I think that's what it is and you just have to. I think finding your place and whatever works best for you is, is the best way to go about it. Which is cliche and corny but I, I truly believe that it's like you gotta. And it's not even like a lane thing like of it's just. Well maybe it is but like you what's your role in the hobby and are you happy or comfortable with that? Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I think a lot of new people come into the hobby because they hear there's money, you know they hear there's gold in them there hills, right? I mean, they come in and. And from my, from my view in my lane at card shows, you see these kids showing up, you know, and they're. And some of them are good, some of them are sharp, some of them are not very good, right? But they, but, but it's. It's kids, Kids, two things, right? It's kids trying to make money. And two, it's gambling, right? All that wax, all that ripping and, and even, even the investor part, too. I mean, you know, an investor, it's like buying the stocks, right? What happens if that stock just. Just crashes, right? And then you're out. That's similar to buying, you know, a, a Zion card or something along those lines, right? Where you really, at the beginning, invested a ton of money in, and then, then the, the cards, the, the investment never panned out, right? Happens all the time. And it really just depends on who you believe, who you listen to, because there's, you know, as much as we think we know, there's so many more knowledgeable people out there than, than you or I. Absolutely. It was funny because I was talking to someone the other day and basically, like, they were asking me about, like, they're like, oh, what's the most expensive card you sold? And I told them, they're like, wow. And, and what's so funny is, like, I'm thinking, I'm like. I'm like nobody. I'm like, no one. You know, I'm small fish in a big pond, right? And they just think, this is incredible of what I'm doing and I'm explaining it. And it also gave me perspective, too. It's like, here's something. Aside from all that, do you ever feel like being in the hobby almost desensitizes you to actual real life money and what that, like, think about? Yeah, like, think about how, how, like, without a second guess, you'd spend a couple grand on a card. But, like, I don't know, if it was something else of that monetary value, you'd be like, oh, my God, you know, like, yeah, like. But that's, that's like. That's the gambling mindset, right? You go to the casino and you start playing and you're like, oh, I get another thousand. I'll throw another thousand in. I'll throw another. Then you go home and you're a long way home and you're down 3 or 4k, and you're like, you get home and you think to yourself, the stuff I could have spent that Money on. Right? And. And I, I mean, I, I do the same thing. Sometimes I look at cards. Sometimes people come into my office here, and they're like, oh, wow, this is a. This looks nice. How much is this? And I told them. Then they look at me like, really? You got. You spent that much money on this card? I'm like, well, it's, It's. It's just like art, right? I mean, there's. Shout out to Craig, New York City sports cars. Talked all the time about art, right? It's. It's similar to, To a painting on your wall that instead of having a painting in here, I, I want that card up on my wall instead. Real quick, art thing. I went. I went to the Vatican. I went to the Louvre. Vatican blows. The Louvre. Just my opinion, because the Louvre, I just feel like you're going. You're going to Paris to see a bunch of Italian art. You might as well just be in. I guess it's Vatican some, but, like, you might as well be in Italy seeing the Italian art. Just. Just wanted to throw that out there. My little art thing. But Teach his own. Probably will never make it there. But if I do, I will remember that point. A lot of comments in here tonight, Ziggy. No, I hate repacks. However, I love the economy they provide. How do you say that? Next one. Unam. Unam. Passoli. Repacks. Provide. Provide the liquidity. Uno mas paso. I don't. I don't know. One more. What I'm gonna look at. Look what that is. 70s and 80s PSA, 9 and tens, hitting records. That isn't repacks. Yep. Well, I'll tell you, I sat at a show last week and, and, you know, we talked about. That was one of the questions we had on here that came in from basketball. Basketball card guy. Are there any set builders left? And I set up next to a guy that was selling, you know, all vintage baseball and football cards, and he had a line at his table the whole day. The whole day. People just coming up with their sheet of paper, going through, looking and, you know, pulling a few cards out they need. And incredibly, like, I'm listening to the conversations and saying, I've been collecting this set for 30 years. I've been collecting this set for 40 years. 45 years. 25 years. Like, that's a long time to be collecting a set, right? To. And. And just, Just to do it. Coming to the card shows. Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. I, I do have a question. It's not, it's not like tongue in Cheek. It's the legitimate question. How old are the people that are doing that? They're, they're definitely a little older. Okay. Because that's, I don't mean in a bad. Like, I'd be curious if there are younger people doing that. Like, is that, is that something where that's like, I'll say it nicely, going to fade out over time? Is that something that's gonna happen? Yeah, they're aged. Yeah. Yeah. But you know what? I, I think, I don't think it's going to become a lost art. Okay. But I think it's still going to be vintage stuff. I, I don't know how many people are going to be collecting sets with ultra, ultra modern stuff because you'd be like, oh, I want to collect the set of this. Okay, here it is. Here's the whole set. All you had to do was buy five boxes and you got every card in it. Right. I mean, I could, you know, I hear that, but I think the new age set collecting is collecting a parallel of the set, like collecting gold of the set or red of the set. You know what I mean? Like, out of five, out of 10, out of 50, out of something like that. I think that could be the, the newer. That'd be kind of cool. Yeah, yeah. Well, people. I know people like, did the downtown sets and the caboose. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Insert sets. It may just not be base set. Yeah. Jeff, Jeff, Will says 2020 optic downtown set is being heavily collected. Yeah. Spike says he's laughing at me. I'm never gonna get Uman's name right. See, I still got it wrong. UMass name, right? Come on, man. So let's go back to. I had some percentages here and I thought I would, I thought I would for it. What's that? What. What were the percentages you had down? So percentages for the hobby. And, and I'm not going to say they're my own percentages. I'm going to say that I did some, some digging around today, around the Internet and tried to, you know, find, you know, information that's been published just to try to see. Because I didn't want to base it just on what I'm thinking. But, but for the hobby, I mean, if we base this down to 100% and we have collectors, flippers, online auctions, whatnot, live selling, investors and repackers, what would you have for collectors? What would you think? And I'll throw that right out to the chat too. As far as the hobby as a whole, for A hundred percent. That's, that's the market. Okay, let me do this. Just because I want to add up. So like actual collect collectors in the whole hobby, not card shows. Right. We just said, okay, there's a hundred percent. Right. And we're going to break it down between again, collectors, flippers. Yeah. Online auctions, which would include like eBay, golden PW. Well, PwC fanatics, collect whatnot and live selling, investors and repackers. All right. I feel like what I'm gonna say is gonna be, and I just want to say I think every one of them is very important to the hobby. Okay, that's good that you feel that way. Okay, so here's, here's my thing. I also think the, I think the percentages are highly skewed by what we in our little, little sphere look at. I think collectors is probably like 65. Wow. Super high. Because I think that those collectors that we talked about before of just people who have stuff at home that's tough to account for. But from the everyday conversations I have and the amount of people that fall into that category are that like 65 may be a low number. I probably, I probably would have agreed with you maybe in 2020. But I would think over the last six years, I think the flood of people into this market that weren't collectors, I, I think it would, it would bring that down. I just think about all the, like what I do as a business and I don't go to a card show and I do a ton of volume and it's based off of. Yeah, but you like going to card shows. You just don't have the time. It's okay. It's, it's hit or miss. I, I this, we don't gotta get into that. Flippers. I think flippers probably like 10% online auctions. So when you say online auctions, would I fall into an online auction person or whatever your stuff is being. No. Well, you're, you're both. I mean, you are, you are flipper. You are the perfect example of a flipper. But you know, online auctions as a whole, in the market, if we're pulling a percentage, you know, it's all right, I'll go 10 online auctions then. So that has me at 85. What, not sellers. That's what I'm viewing that as. Yeah, well, the what? Not live selling. Yeah, live selling. Yeah. I think that's really low. I think that's like 2%. So that's like 87% investors. You didn't leave much for Them, honestly, I'm going to go back and I'm going to move collectors to 70%. So 70, 80, 92 investors will go 5% and repackage, we'll go 3%. That's the strength and conviction I have about this iceberg effect. I'm talking about in, in the hobby of. Because you have to think about the world as a whole and how many people there actually are, like, just like, that are buying and just putting stuff away. I mean, when I tell you pretty much everyone I'm buying from that I'm buying out collections, they don't do this. They do not do this. Like, I ask a bunch of them if they have PayPal, Venmo, whatever. A lot of them don't even have PayPal. They have Venmo to send them and their friends pizza and beer money. Again, like, I. Like, this is, this is probably my perspective on what I'm looking at past the card shows, because when I think of the card shows. Well, we'll get to the card shows in a minute. Because card shows, I feel like besides collectors, that's where all of this smaller percentage, that's where they're. That's. They're transacting there more than, than this silent majority, we'll call them, which. All right, so. So in the chat, I mean, do we have people that agree with. With zip. What did you say? 70. 70. 70 collectors, 10 flippers, 10 online auctions, 2% whatnot, sellers, 5% investors, 3% repackers, which I know a lot of people probably want to agree with me, and that's okay. Well, we got one. I got one agreement. Yeah, because. Yeah. What? Who. Who agreed with me? Because you could say his name. That's why Little bug stands. Oh, Ziggy no says nope. Disagree. Collectors are less than 20%. Like I said, many will not agree with me. All right, so interestingly enough, what I found scouring the Internet today. Collectors, 30% flippers, 25% online auctions, eBay, golden fanatics, collect, etc, 20% whatnot and live selling, 10% investors, 10% repackers, 5%. So I got the. I almost got the. How many investors was it? Oh, I have the numbers. 10. 10. Yeah. Okay. You're like, I got the cheat sheet. Yeah, I know I have the cheat sheet, and I totally. Ziggy says most people call themselves collectors, but if pushed, would sell to pay real bills. I. I think we would all. So this is my question. If someone sells their collection to pay bills, does that make them not a collector anymore? So does that make them a flipper if they weren't actively buying to sell for profit. Because that doesn't sound like a flipper. That sounds like a collector who has priorities. Or am I missing something? Yeah, real collectors don't have to worry about life issues. They're, they're a luxury to. True. It's a luxury to truly collect cardboard. Collaborative. I also think most people fall in more than one category. The amount of people that are solely collecting is probably 20. And, and I agree with him too. I have my collection cards. You know, I'm, I'm, I, I, I, I'm all over that list. Right? Yeah, I, I have my collection. Yeah, yeah. Sell things online. Yeah, I've done literally everything on this list. Yeah, Spike agrees with me. Thanks, Spike. All right, so that, so then I flopped it, flipped it, flopped it, flipped it right to card shows. Right. So not just the whole hobby. Let's just, let's just strictly, you know, look at card shows now. Now we're just, now we're just flipping it, right? So now we have, we have the same thing. We have the collectors, the flippers, the auctions, whatnot, investors, repackers. How much do they affect the card shows now? I would just say, like, get your slide rule out. I'm literally not even gonna break it. This is what I'm gonna do. Flippers, online auctions, whatnot, investors and repackers. I think's like 90. So you said flippers. What else Online, A. What else did you say? He didn't say nothing. What happened? I disappeared for a second. I know I'm talking to you. Sorry, I'm back in the height of the moment here. I know. Jesus. Sorry about that. That's okay. So you, you had flippers and what else? Everything besides collectors. I would account for 90% and then collectors would be 10%. All right, chat, how do we feel about that? So everything, you would have flippers, online auction, or people buying for online auctions, people buying for whatnot, investors and repackers. This is at card shows. I think all that somehow breaks up to 90 and then there's 10 collectors that are at the show. Yeah. So again, I scoured the Internet. 40% flippers, 25% collectors. You scoured the Internet? Yeah. Tell, tell them what your scouring of the Internet is. But you sound like you're some scholarly. No, you hit chad GBT and they spit out this answer. Scour. Listen, listen. We got two people that are on this show and one of, one of us shows up at seven minutes to start Time says. Okay, what do we got? I'm, I'm waiting for the dang link, man. One of us, one of us is therapy sessions all day. 40 flippers, 25 collectors, 15 online auctions, 10% whatnot, 5% investors, 5% repackers. Can you get on board with that? I think that's similar. The only difference I think could be 75. Yeah, I think we're 15. 15 off of what you just agreed with. Right. So instead of, instead of you had collectors at 10 and then everything at 90. I mean that's close enough. Yeah. And also it's off the cuff. I have no, I have no clue for sure. Yeah. But talking about card shows versus the hobby, when you say you have no clue, that means like you weren't prepared. No, this is just me trying to, to like, I thought about this today and it's just like I, I had rough numbers. I, I think the big difference is when you look at this, I think it's like, like here's, here's if, if you can't look, here's a little circle. This is card shows and this is the entire hobby. This is like a big. So like I don't really think the numbers are, they correlate in any way. I don't think they, they like match up at all. Because I think you have people who are hyper focused on the transaction and profiting at the card shows way more than you're having like more people who are literally just doing it as like a passing by hobby. I don't even think is that. I don't think it's a hot take either. Right. Like, I don't. No, no, I don't think so. And I, I just. Anybody in the chat that wants to, you know, comment on this, I'm just curious, what do you think is the best part of, I mean we've listed all these things out and we put percentages down on there. But like if you and I know we all have our lanes and we all do multiple things in the hobby. But if you were going to say I think the best place to be would be a collector or a flipper or you know, running whatnots or buying for investment or repacking. I mean, what, what, what do I think the best is? Well, it's not. I, I mean I, I can't say the best. That sounds silly to say. Right? Because I think it has to do with what your intention. I think try to not get too like counsely therapy type. But I think, I think it has, you have to be in alignment with what your intentions are. If you're, if your intentions are strictly joy or just doing something to pass the time or whatever collecting may be for you, if it's side income, if it's, or if it's making money to fund your collection because you want actual pieces rather than the act of like, like opening boxes or just accumulating stuff. Like, it may be something that has, is more driven for finances, but that has to be in alignment with what your intentions are. And I also say, I think people who don't really have intentions are going to fall into that collector category a lot more. And I think a lot of people in, like, our society just aren't intentional enough about stuff. So I think that kind of goes into my big collector number. Because when I say collector, I guess you could also say negligent hoarder of stuff in their basement, because I think that is the big number of collector, right? Like, that's how I encompass the collector. So, but I, I, I think you kind of, I mean, when you're basing it on intention too, right? So there's a lot of people in this hobby that, you know, do this full time, and I need to, I need to provide an income on this, right? But there's other people in this hobby that want for nothing, right? That just more money than they know what to do with. And they'll also buy something to flip it because they want to make some money on it. So I, I guess my question, I should have worded it a little better. Like maybe if, if everything was equal, like, you didn't need to do this for the money or you didn't need to, right? I mean, because I understand the intention part and I know most of us do this, you know, there's, there's a reason we do this. So beyond that, I mean, I saw four people in here say, money, money, money, money, right? And I think, I think that's, that, you know, a lot of what makes this whole thing go around, right? Every, everything. You go right down that list, right? Except for collectors, flippers, auctions, whatnot, lives, right? Repackers. This is, this is all generating income, right? Then you have collectors and investors that were saying, hold cards, right? So they're doing it for the love of the card. And the investors are holding, hoping that they're going to be a flipper someday. I guess I just, I don't, you know, that's, I feel like that's kind of tough. It's like, yeah, let's take money out of the equation and what are you left with? I don't know. I, like, like, I, I think money is so involved. Like, like people's different financial status, being in the hobby maybe is how they operate differently too. Not for better or for worse. It's just reality. So I, I, taking money out of it. I, I don't, I don't know. I mean, I guess if you take money out of it, what you wouldn't be flipping. It leaves one category. Like, like, if you take money out of it, there's not a, like, why are you flipping? Why are you, why are you ever selling a card? If money doesn't matter, you're just collecting it, right? I don't know. I'm trying to. Yeah, you're right. And I mean, I've spoke to so many people in this hobby who have said at one time or another, I put addition on my house, I bought a car, I did this, I did that, I cashed out a few cards and you know, went on the vacation of a lifetime type of thing. So I mean, we're still viewing it as money, right? I mean, it's, and it's what we want to do with it. I mean, it's okay to cash out if you've done well, just like a stock. Right. I just want to pull up Spittlebug's comment here. He said to further Zip's point about shows, he was at a Zwittlebug Cars was at LCS today and watched a bunch of people come in, buy boxes, singles and supplies. 75 of them. Did not know that there were multiple card shows nearby. So, and, and, and interesting, because when my son was young and I used to go to the same LCS that he was at today, I used to go there to buy Pokemon cards for him. Right. No idea. There was. I would buy the cards, the, the sleeves and the top loaders. Right. And I bought a binder. Bought a binder for him once too. Right. And that was it. So I had no idea either. So I understand exactly, you know, what he's describing there. Yeah. And like, for me growing up, like, I went to the Crystal Mall, which is now Electric Boat Offices, that entire building. Okay. And at the old, what used to be a mall, there was a shop there that sold like jerseys, like, like fan stuff, like, like mugs, blankets and stuff, and they had some cards. That's the only hobby shop I knew of. And I would go in and my mom would get me Allen and Ginter packs like that. That was my hobby experience growing up. That or like, if I got a rack pack at Walmart and I didn't even know, like, that the cards had value or I just thought they were cool because I like sports. You know, I didn't know what a parallel was. I had no, like, no, no clue, no idea. And I think, like, we're so, like, we have all this knowledge of it. It's like you're, you're in a different stratosphere talking about, about it. Like, Ken, if you were A perfect example is if you were to try to talk to me about computers, I, I don't know, you know, you, you have a computer, but I would have no clue, no idea what, what you're talking about. And like, I don't. That's not any different from any other thing that people have knowledge in. So, yeah, I think that's kind of the big piece of it, and it's nice to hear. Well, it's not nice, but like Zwittlebug's point, that's a, that's a anecdote. How about a card shop? We do, we do. We do. We did this breakdown for the hobby card shows. How about a breakdown of a card shop? Like that? That's a whole different thing too. And because that is their card show, essentially, and the fact that that is their, their card dealer. There's one dealer, right? It's the shop owner. Yeah. I, I can honestly say all the shops I go to, I, the people I see going in is all buying the wax, you know. You know, or supplies. Like, I go to card stores, and I don't really see people buying cards, you know, see them buying everything but cards. And there, I mean, there's a lot of different types of card stores. Right. And I, I've, I've been to a few that's got a whole room full of, you know, singles and just people sitting in there just digging through singles boxes. Right. So obviously they're selling cards out of there, but for the most part, I think a lot of people go to these places just to buy the wax, you know? Well, for, for a shop, think about how much less inventory just having waxes versus cards. Just as I would look forward to Saturday morning trying to see what third card I would get out of a Kellogg's 3D. 3D. Oh, yeah, the 3D. I remember those 3D cards. I remember just prizes in the, in the cereal. I think that's a thing of the past. Right. So, Ziggy, it's funny, I, you know, when you were. I, I see this last comment Says card shops and casinos are both growing like weeds. And I know you put up here that there's nothing like getting. They're the days. No. Oh, yeah. Well, both of them opening packs. One is about opening packs and there's another one about pulling, pulling a sweet color card or something. But yeah, I mean, a lot of that, A lot of that is, is gambling. Right? I mean, that's, we didn't even, haven't even gotten there. But the, A lot of that online stuff is gambling. And, and you know, just ripping wax is just a gamble. Right. I'm not, and I'm not saying it in a bad way because I do it. Yeah. So, I mean, I didn't. In the rush and the rush that Ziggy's talking about, that's. We all feel that way. Pulling a huge card out of a box, that's the dopamine hit that we do. I mean, like, I kind of like over the past, like this year, kind of like December, January, February, like, it really opened my eyes to like how much I was really just gambling. And, and I, at least I'll speak for myself. I can't speak for anyone else. I felt like I was opening it and then call it saying to myself it was a business. And I took a step back and realized that is a such a horrible business plan. If I'm not selling the brakes, like, like, if I'm not selling the packs, like, I'm literally just leaving it up to chance all the time. So how is that a business? That's not a. It's not a, it's not a, I don't know, reliable business model. So I just stopped doing that. And it's a lot for me again. I just want to speak for me, for me, it's been significantly better. I also understand I'm leaving the opportunity of pulling some absurdly life changing card, that whatever percentage possibility, you know, I won't have that possibility anymore. But I'll be okay with that. I know, I know. I bring boxes home and my wife and I rip them. And when we're done, the first thing she says, what do you think? She says, how much are these worth? Did I. Did we make get our money's worth? I'm always like, I'm always like, well. And I don't, I mean, I have to answer that question truthfully all the time. There's very few times I rip open a box and I'm like, yeah, we crushed this, right? And then I keep doing it. Right. It's like gambling, right. I keep Doing it because I'm like, sooner or later we're going to crush it. Right, Right. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I, I, I, I, I've just bowed out of that, that aspect of the hobby and I've, I've been much happier and I've been able to do all right for myself right now. So I'm just staying on this path I'm on. But I don't fault anyone for doing it because if you can do it and you can do it responsibly and it, and it makes sense for you, then, then do it. Just, I did my, and I went through all my inventory and I'm like, oh, so I would have this amount of money probably sitting in a bank account and it's way less than that because we'll call it negative roi. It's like. Oh, that's, yeah, that's stupid. That is literally like you were ripping a lot of hobby boxes too. I mean, you were, you were going in. Yeah, I mean, I also like flipped so much. Like I was, I really like, I mean over the year I was well up still, but it's just like taking like taking all that out of it, Bill. I'm a degenerate ripper. Haha. The Downtowns, baby. Downtowns. But yeah, I don't know, just not for me. I think, I think what, what I'm able to do without it has worked out for me better. So, so he says the hobby is a gambling rehab for him. He was, he was a poker player and a casino fan before getting back into the hobby in 2016. So interestingly enough, and we were just talking about this before we went live tonight, that, that's what I, I used to frequent the casinos here in Connecticut up until 2020, up until Covid. And then when Covet hit, I found something new to do and I never went back, I never became a regular. I, I changed that, that, that hobby for this hobby and, and, and a lot, a lot more nicer people here make a lot more. I made a lot more better friends here in this hobby and I enjoy. Homes. National Treasure RPA to 25 and a break. He bought for less than hundred dollars. Sold that card for less than 2k. Yeah. Still a good ROI on it. Yeah, yeah. I mean you didn't point out the fact that, you know, you made huge money on that. You made it sound like, like a bad thing. Like, I mean, we were talking about money before, so it's never a bad thing if you, you made that kind of money 100 turned 100 into 2k. I'll do that all day. Yeah, right. I'd rather like. That's a. That's the one thing that I like. I like, I think for me, I like staying under, like, the most. I really ever want to get into a car to like, like, keep me under $5,000. Because over that, it's just like, I'm, I'm not comfortable doing that. I think, like, staying under the 5k to like, buy and flip, I think that's like that 5k threshold. And I get above that, I start sweating a little bit, like, I don't know. That's a big card for me, you know. So one other thing, and I don't know, some people may think this is negative or positive, and I think this might be kind of, you know, your, your newest career path. But do we think we've created gambling problems to the young, the young people in the hobby right now with the, you know, the ripping, the wax and the, the flipping and all that stuff? Have we. Because this hobby is based so much on gambling right now. Do you think we're. We're creating some issues, or do you think that. Nothing to worry about, nothing to see. Why don't you answer that first? Well, I, I think whenever there's any game of chance involved in gambling and the psychology of it, there are certain people that, that's going to stick with and, and other people that nothing's going to happen to them. Right. Like, they'll, they'll be able to walk away from it. You know, I just talked about being the person that used to go to the casino all the time, and I found something new to do. Right. So, but I think, and again, I know this is kind of in your, your new career path, so that's why I, I thought it would be great to ask you because I think you could probably certainly answer this much better than I can. Yeah, I just, I don't know how people like what I have to say or not, but whatever. Yeah, no, I think, you know what I think is worse about, about this and the ripping and all that, because people are saying online sports betting is worse for sure. That's what Spike said and what he says said. There is the problem, in my opinion, respectfully. And this is, this is for opening wax. Okay. Like, I think, I think there's a much more calculated approach you could do buying singles than. Which is still inherently a gamble. But for me, it's like opening wax. Like, the, the optics on it are that online sports betting is worse. Okay. That's, that's how everyone feels. Like, how didn't they used to prescribe menthol cigarettes? And if you want to go back, Freud, psychoanalyst, used to prescribe cocaine, right? And that was seen as okay at some point. So the hobby is now looked at as this. This is acceptable. This is. This is a socially acceptable form because it's better than sports betting. It's better than the casino, it's better than this, it's better than that. And that gives it, like, room to fester and create more problems. And gambling addiction is like one of the easiest addictions to hide, like in Mask. And people don't know. And if you have the sentiment that it is a hobby and not gambling, right? Like it's classified as a hobby, it becomes even more difficult. Like, online sports betting is classified as gambling, right? It's gambling. This is a hobby, but it is. It's gambling. It is gambling, right? So I think in a way it's worse because of how much more socially acceptable it is, whether people agree with it or not. That's just my perspective on it. And for me, someone who. This is my right. Like, I'm not, I'm not. I'd like to think. I'm not dumb. This is my second. It's my second master's. My first was in psychology. The second is in clinical mental health counseling. Why I have to do two, that's a whole nother story. But. But I fell into the damn trap that it wasn't gambling. And I kept telling myself that it was a hobby and that, like, I'm like, wow, if I have the insight to this, like, maybe I'm just stupid or maybe I was just in denial. And I think denial and the cope. The coping just. We're given this excuse that it's a hobby. It's just portrayed to us in the chat. And there's nothing wrong with what anyone's saying because that is the sentiment that, that we have here is that it is a hobby. Sports betting is worse. Slots are worse. Poker's worse. All this is worse. Scambling, man. It's. Right. Like what? Let me tell you, I wish I, I wish I played a poker hand instead of opening wnba Prism. First off the line, chasing for freaking Caitlin Clark, getting hammered. Yeah, dude. Like, like, you know, like, I. At least it could have been over in. In a hand instead of. Oh, what's this Lotus? It's. I have no idea. The breaker. I have no idea who this is. Yeah, it's like, great. That's awesome. That's my big hit. So it's just like. Yeah, I don't know. I. And then. Yeah, parents have to parent. But also, like, here's something. It's easier for a kid to access. Hobby box. Right. Probably. Then it's easier to access a sports betting app. Right. Because they have to sign up with their id. I'm. I'm sure there's a way. Way around it too. Don't get me wrong. Like, if there's a will, there's a way I would be more worried about, like, whatnot. Like, you know, kids. Kids just being. And buying on whatnot. Absolutely. Have mom or dad's credit card swipe. Yeah, absolutely. There's no oversight there. That's what I'm saying. It's like, it is. I think it's more easily accessible instead of those things that are like clothes classified and see it as seen as actual gambling. Yeah. And everything else you. You talked about. There's an age requirement. Like, you know, you. You can't. All that stuff. You have to prove that you're 19 or 21. And even, like, somebody was talking about smoking. Even by. By smoking products. Right. You have to show an ID and all those other things. This is like the only one here that you could walk into a Walmart Target. You don't need an ID to be buying know boxes because, come on, man, they're just sports cards. Right? But I mean, to you and I, they are. But I mean, for the kids, I mean, they're. It's. It's downtowns and kabooms and. Will you pull up? Bill's comment summed it up. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Bill, opening a wax box is the same as a scratch ticket. There. There's no difference. Like, like, there's not like. And it's. It's a mystery, right? It's a mystery prize. Like, you. You don't know what's there. That's well said, Bill. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I hope that doesn't. Like, I'm not trying to be, like, I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer. It was like. I just. I appreciate you asking me that question, though, because I do. I do feel passionate about it. And also it was kind of like something that I realized like, that I was. I feel like I was just not like, aware of or I was maybe denying. And I just. For me, it's. It's made a big difference. And I know, like, I. I've shared more personally with you than I would probably want to share out here. And like, it's Safe to say I'm doing very well at the moment. Right. Like, so. Yeah. And that. That was a. Not the only, but a big reason to it, so. But yeah. Yeah. Glad to hear that. You know, sometimes we all have to do a little soul searching. Right? Yeah. And for me, it was. It was. It was really just looking at my books at the end of the year, like, oh, what? Like. Like, this is, like, ridiculous. This. This is like. It's not a business at all. That's what I felt like. This isn't a business at all. The game of chance, right? Yeah. It's like, what am I doing? Yeah. All right, kid. Anything else you want to cover before we hop off? There is one little thing. Yeah? With the. The PSA services going in the direction they are, I did send a card to Beckett, and I think I might be doing that more. I know you just had a bad experience with Becca, but I think I might be doing that more. You know, I. I probably got. I mean, I did get a bunch. I got a bunch of nine fives back with. With the nice labels on them, but I could tell, like, do you ever. You ever notice when you start seeing a pattern in something and you. You're like, I can see the fingerprint on. On. Even though it's coming from BGS and not psa. But somewhere along the line, you could start to see the same thing where the Caitlin Clarks, the Paige Becker, the. They all come back, you know, eights and nines. But then these random player that you're like, oh, you know, like, I'm prospecting on. Right. The same with the PSA orders, too. Oh, yeah. They came back tens. But the cards that you're really. You're really expecting that. I had, like, 30 of them, and I've gone through them, and I picked out, like, the best. Oh, they gotta be tens, right? And then they come back nines. It's like. I don't know. I'm so. I'm so turned off with grading right now. I'm not. I'm not. I have no plans to grade anything. Like, that's just how I feel right now. Maybe in a few months I'll feel differently, but right now, and even I had a stack of cards over here to that where I was preparing to grade, and I could have rushed them out last weekend. I was like, you know what? It's not even worth it. I don't even know if those people know what they're doing over there. So. Yeah, I absolutely hear you. And I don't Want to keep going on too. Too long? I know we're a little. We're just over the hour market. Just. I think what, what you're feeling, a lot of people are going to be feeling, and I think the people who kind of stick to it may have benefits because of that. And I. And I don't think you're wrong for feeling the way you're doing or operating because you're also going to card shows where, like, you really don't need to grade stuff in your business plan to make it make sense. You don't have to. To. No, it's just gravy. Right. It's just extra. It's. You're just building in more margin and more income. I get that. But you don't have to. You could buy collections, throw them in your case and make your percentage and just more volume. Like you keep turning it over. Yeah. They don't need to be graded. And it's funny because a lot of people start saying to me, they're like, oh, why didn't you grade that? I'm like, do you listen? Do you know what's going on? Listen to what I've been saying? I'm like, I'm not grading anymore. Yeah. And not to be like, like a hardo about it, but it really feels like a, like a thing of resilience, which I have this here. Resilience is the ability to adapt successfully to stress, adversity or trauma, which probably more. It's not. I don't think it's traumatic, but it's. It's adverse and it's probably stressful for people who have this as their business model. And I think, like, what I did before, before this even happened, I told you when the, when the bulk started to get out, the only things I was sending bulk, I took my buying, like, name list and shrunk it. Like, I have. I have like a very tight group of names that I'm buying. And then only ones that were going out to bulk were like goats. Right. Like, you. You could figure out who that was and everything. Higher level, like newer products, like cards, probably 200 and up. Ideally, I'm shooting for cards like 300 and up, but, you know, so that's kind of, that's, that's what I started doing because, like, I. I also think more so than anything, I think the names, I think more so than ever, the names are the most important part of the cards, the players, who it is. Yeah. Maybe we could talk about that more next time because I, like, we could talk about the strategy with the PSA thing, at least what I'm doing, what I'm. I think a lot of people will be doing, so. Yeah, yeah, that. And, you know, the other thing, like, you know, we'll need to talk about, too, is strategy with graded cards, not grading. But, you know, just, just what we're doing with graded cards now, what the market is going to look like right now. I bought this lot of Arena Club slabs, all like, first Bowman paper. I don't know. There's like 11 of them. I. Someone had it listed on Instagram for 25 bucks, and I was like, it's like, you know what? I'll take them. I've spent worse on it. And I'm just gonna take them and send a PC sports card to see what the heck happens. That's like, they're like, like all top prospect names. Like, they're all, like, really good pro. I was like, whatever, Whatever. Whatever the heck those are, you know, maybe. Maybe PSA doing that. These other grading companies. Get some juice. I mean, Gez, if I get five bucks a piece on it, I'll. I'll make out like a bandit, so. Yeah, yeah, you probably will be, just because you have an outlet for it. Yeah. 15, 21, 42, 52. Yeah. Ziggy. Yeah, I got about 70 cards at PSA through PC sports cards that are anywhere from research and ID to QA. Check one. So only one order out of all those I. I want to get back. It's. It's a value order that, that I shipped out at the beginning of March that had two downtowns in there. I'm hoping I'll have it back for the national. One second, because I want to give that update, too. I still, I think I still have, like 150 out there between now and October. Yeah. Oh, wait, now in October? Oh. Oh, no. Oh, because he's got cards coming back between now and October. Yeah, no, I was like. I was like that, you know, probably six, seven months ago. And some of these, by the time they come back, and I'm like, oh, my God. To cost the money, it's cost the greatest. I have to grade these things. I have to find a value in the, you know, in. In the orders themselves. So I. I still have cards from our group sub at Beckett. Oh, really? Do you. Are yours all back? Oh, no, my. Y' all came back okay. Yeah, no, I still have. I think I have, like, 10 out there, so. Yeah, I mean, and I, I actually had. I had a. I had a. I had a pretty good Jordan Kobe return. Actually, I had a 95 on the Jordan that was going on auction. That should be pretty good. So not bad. Spike says he stopped grading. I'm with you. I understand it. I understand. I. I just always think there's. Where. Where, When. When less people do something. The people who do stick around and weather that storm have the opportunity to. To thrive, too. Yep. But it's all. It's all about just doing what's best for you. Everyone's situation is totally different. So, like, I get it. All right, kid. This weekend. What is this week? Oh, I am. I am with Bill and Billy, going to the Celtic show in Albany, New York on Saturday. And I am doing Rich Riddlebug Cards Hamden card show on Sunday. Very nice. I am going to a concert tomorrow and Saturday. Nice. Who are you seeing? Kid Cudi and Machine Gun Kelly. Do you know. Is that. I don't know either of them. I said, do you know either of them? I do. I do. Okay. Machine. Machine Gun Kelly. Whose daughter was he dating? So not Bruce Willis. There's somebody. Somebody's daughter. He was dating. I know he was married or. I don't know about married. He was with Megan Fox. He has a child with Megan Fox. Anyways, I know who they are. Okay, cool. All right. Yeah. And I'll be back Sunday with my solo. Let's go. Zip. Oh, you know what? We. I didn't even do the outro. I almost. Almost hung up the phone without saying goodbye. Dang. Goodbye. Geez. I want to thank everyone for watching. Thank everyone for listening. Please. Like, please subscribe. If you haven't hit that subscribe button, we'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Zip. Have a good night. You too, Sam.