THWC 389: Think Like a Millionaire

What is up, everybody? How About Cage Episode 389, brought to you by Arena Club, a card ladder, and by the Philly Show. Come to you here on Thursday, May 21, a little later in the day after work today instead of before. Busy day, Busy day. Let's see what we got. Nicked game tonight. We had Wemby going last night. We had Ohtani going last night. Otani, another win, 4 and 2, dropped the ZRA and let off the game. First pitch, home run. Only the second time ever that a pitcher has let off a game with a home run. The first time was a guy named Shohei Ohtani. So he kind of tied his own record. He's getting hot again. He's. He's doing his thing. Spurs. Listen, I mean, Wendy, what did he have? 27, 17, 24, 17, 21. I don't even remember what he had, but, yeah, 17 rebounds. A bunch of blocks, a bunch of assistance. This, you know, Dylan Harper going down doesn't help. It doesn't help. J Dub went down for okc. You'd like to see both of these teams at full strength because it's just a fun series to watch. I mean, some really fun basketball. You know, I don't think anybody expected San Antonio to win game one. They definitely didn't expect them to sweep and win all four games. Obviously, it sets Friday nights, game three up to be a pretty pivotal matchup. And if you're San Antonio, you expect it to probably have to win two in okc because, you know, okay, see, it's pretty good. You know. You know, do that thing, you know, they're gonna. They're gonna get the refs to call a lot of fouls, and they, you know, they may win one in San Antonio. I mean, the defending champs with the mvp, you'd expect them to play. Well, the Wemby market has not slowed down at all because even in a loss, look at the game he had. It was impressive. Pretty crazy, but it is what it is. We've done enough talking about Wemby this week. You talk about, you know, a whole bunch of other stuff. I'm excited because it's been a few weeks since I've gone to a card show. I'm going to a card show on Sunday. Just sort of a local one at a school near me. And then you got the White Plains show the week after that. We really are, you know, heading into, you know, the. The warmer weather just had, like, 90 degrees here in New York. It's colder now, but, you know, shows are Gonna start soon. The big shows are gonna start soon. And I get excited for that. That's a lot of fun. I get to see some hobby friends, and I had a. I had, like, sort of an intro to that, sort of like a precursor prelude, you know, preamble, pre, whatever you want to call it today. I say this is the best hobby in the world. It really is. You know, I get to post stuff about Wendy, I get to post stuff about Ohtani, and then I get to post a little picture on my page of my, you know, a little video of my daughter singing. And I. I mean, such great reaction from so many hobby folks. That was awesome. You know, I appreciate each of you guys. I'm very proud of my daughter. I don't know where the hell she gets it from. It's not me. I'm basically tone deaf. So not me. But I mean, just awesome. But what's cool about the, you know, the space is who you get to interact with. And you never know who's on the other side of a deal or who's going to reach out or who's enjoying sports cards, who's enjoying the hobby. And, you know, with. I. I give fanatics credit. I give, you know, just the space credit. Just, you know, some of the content is out there credit. You know, somebody reached out to me recently who was a long time listener of the show. It doesn't matter who it is, but it's a very successful person. And I was able to have, you know, lunch, coffee, whatever you want to call it. Today, the coffee place did not have any soda. So, you know, I had, like, what's called a cold brew. For the first time in my life. I wound up having two of them in like an hour and a half. And when I went back to my office, I was told I shouldn't have done that, because even with the amount of soda I drink, that's a lot of caffeine cold. I just thought it was like black coffee with ice in it, but I guess that's not the case. I was even a little more hyper than my normal self. But, I mean, tell me, is that bad? Should I have not drank two cold brews really quick? They were like big cold brews, too. This podcast has. I mean, look, I've had Gary Vee on a couple of times. Patrick bet David athletes, you know, like Michael Parsons, the. The sandlot guy. But today I. I got to sit down with somebody who, you know, who's a. I mean, a really successful person, and just talk for two hours about cards but what's cool and why I want to share it with you is this is somebody who could spend their money anywhere and probably does in, in. In other facets of life and maybe have some art and that kind of stuff, but really thoughtful about the space in a way that had me very optimistic about the future of it. You know, really thoughtful about what they're buying and why. Right? Where they're putting their money, why they're spending the money that they're spending in this space. And, you know, we like to hear about like 10xing the hobby and the different ways of doing it. And, you know, the complaints that are out there, you know, are fanatics isn't going to 10x the hobby with tech mobile inserts, or they're not going to 10x a hobby by, you know, printing things to death or whatever it is. What I'm more concerned with is the attention that fanatics gets, that the space gets, the eyeballs it gets. And, you know, I like to say that, you know, the Kevin o' Leary stuff is interesting, right? They're walking around everywhere with, you know, the, the necklaces with the cards on and, you know, value of their cards and just, you know, buying a whole bunch of big, big cards. People see that. You know, people see that and they talk about it. And, you know, the more comparison you get of these little cards, these little cardboards to the art world and the, you know, the money that gets spent there and the items that are there. And, and the more that I talk to people, the more I hear about, you know, people reach out to me about some of the cards on my page. And they're doctors and lawyers and politicians, and I talk to them all on the phone. You know, I. I give my number, we, we chat. And I love hearing that, you know, people are creating trusts for their cards. The same way that they're investing in, you know, gold or the same way they're investing in fine art or real estate, they're also investing in and buying cards, and that'll be part of their estate planning. They're putting them in a trust and they're, you know, this one last person I spoke to had three kids. And, you know, they're. They're building up, you know, a portfolio of cards that each one of the kids gets as just another asset. And it makes sense, right? You know, we've talked about this sort of, you know, just in my own life, I invest in the market, I invest in a lot of things, but the returns that have been available on the hobby, on Cards over the last couple of years are, they're unmatched. I don't care if you bought sandisk, I'm still doing better than you, you know, Nvidia great. I love it. I have it. You know, some of the, some of the, you know, the returns in this hobby are even more than that. And you see it, I mean you see the post, you see that stuff. And the reason for that is I think the attention and the eyeballs and the, the consumers that are coming in now are very different than the consumers that were here last time around, the last little run up. And, and that's important for me to kind of share with you guys. At least I think it is. Because the, the questions that I get asked the most are, you know, sort of like the what inning are we in? Right? I get asked the most about, you know, what's the difference between this and the last run. Isn't this just like the COVID bubble? You know, do we, do you expect this bubble to burst? You think we gotta, you know, we gotta be careful. Is this another bubble that's gonna pop? Etc. E. You know, in one form or another that question gets asked. And listen, when I post 27 Wimby Silvers, that's going to draw a comparison to the last, you know, run up that was like me buying Tatis or people buying Lucas or you know, prison based cards. But that's just me being me, right? That's not driving the high end of the market. High end of the market is very different than it was last time. People were not, they were not doing their research to locate those high end pieces and you know, say what you want about wondershine index and, and, and you know, Kevin o', Leary, but you know, one of the things that they say that is accurate is just like in the art world, right? It's better to buy that top piece, that creme de la creme as they like to say, right? Buy that Warhol that's already millions of dollars because it has the ability to appreciate that type of, that type of thought process. There are a lot of people coming in doing the exact same thing. And that does trickle down. Not immediately, right? Not immediately. It doesn't mean that your cards and my cards are going to be impacted by that because I like to talk about that also, right? Just because a pop one one of, one of somebody sells it doesn't mean that your base card or your other parallel, you know, that there's a lot more of, is going to necessarily go up in my, you know, I Mean that's sort of a human nature, you know the, a typical reaction to it. But, but like everything else, you know Bob Ross paintings were readily available a couple years ago. I remember bidding on one. I remember you know what she's don't pay for Bob Ross whatever. And I wish I bought it because they've gone up a lot. But the reason why Bob Ross paintings seem like bargains and why there's price discovery there is because people see what an Andy Warh can of soup painting goes for now. And before that Pollock and, and you name it, you know and, and just the millions upon millions of dollars that people are paying for art. It's the same kind of thing, right. You know that there's a trickle down effect there. Right. And, and you know I record this tonight there'll be the fanatics premiere auction and the Josh Allen first ever gold shield that was worn during his MVP year will sell. And it's gonna sell for a lot of money. I think it's already at basically half million dollars. And you know that is a cool thing and it's going to reset the market. It's going to. People are going to be looking for other gold shields, gold logo man, like these high, these high prices. They do have an impact on the overall space because listen, let's say that card sells for a million dollars. It's already I think Josh Allen's most expensive card. Right. So let's just. I'm just throwing a number out there so something million dollars. There'll be an article about it. You know the last Kobe Bryant, you know Essential Credentials that sold Nowhere near the 3 million dollar PMG green. It sold for like 600 something thousand dollars. Even that was in the news, right? These are all newsworthy items. And guess what? That $3 million PMG Green was in the news. Someone read it, someone saw it. And then very soon thereafter more Kobe cards came up for auction and more people probably spent a little bit more money or were more willing to bid on those Kobe PMGs, the rubies and the Essential Credentials. Why? Because they saw that the ceiling on Kobe had been lifted, right? Had been raised. There's a 3 million dollar BMG green sale for Kobe. So $600,000 for an essential Credentials doesn't sound so nuts. That's the kind of thing that happens. But what I was most impressed by this individual was calm, cool, rational thought process. Not a I'm coming in because I have money to spend and I have money to burn. It's I like what I like, right? I did My research and I'm willing to pay for the stuff that I want, for the players that I want, for the, the cards that I want. And I'm not going to just dip down to the next thing. It's funny because I say this to my son and, and the difference between my son's net worth of negative money and this person's net worth of billions or whatever it might be evaporates. Because the same lesson is there when I say to my son, all right, you want to buy a card of somebody, whoever it might be, don't just run to ebay and buy what's available. You figure out what you want. And if you can't get that, you have to continue searching for it, you have to continue working for it. You don't just say, okay, well I can't get this, I'm going to settle for this, right? You don't say, hey, the dynasty is not available. I'm just going to go for the definitive because it's the next best thing. No, you hold off. And maybe you have to pay a little more for the one thing that you want, but chances are that one thing is worth it. And that's what other people are going to come in and want as well. And it's the same lesson that I try to impart on my son is the lesson that the people who are coming into this space who have real money to spend. That's why you see so many of these headlines and you and I may think, wow, $3 million, that's crazy. Maybe not, because it does reset everything under it. You know, Aaron, Judge Dynasty 1 of 1, $1.95 million. Is it nuts? Maybe. But if the person buying it believes in Judge, maybe judge wins a World Series this year, another mvp. And this is someone who's willing to hold the card for a couple years is not looking to flip it. I don't think they lose money on that card. I don't think they lose money on that card at all. Even though it's a eye popping number. Now with the super factor selling for the superfractor auto sold for that dynasty at 195 is a bargain. And also I have a dynasty. You guys know this. I now want more for mine. Doesn't make much sense, but I do, I want more for mine. And that's kind of the way that it works. But for me it was a real eye opening day. It was a fun day. And if I'm allowed to be honest, I left my hour and 45 minutes coffee with this individual and walked back to my desk and said, I gotta find a way to stop having this desk and start being able to do hobby forever. Because I was thrilled. I was thrilled to just get a drink, even though it was cold brew, which is weird. I guess I'm still a little hey from it, and just talk cards and just be able to talk about the market. What I'm seeing, what he's seeing, what he likes, what I like, you know, and just kind of bounce ideas off of each other. It was a real fun time. And it's. It is a different thing that this hobby brings than anything else. And I want to share that with you guys. Now, I'm not going to share who it is, because I'm sure they wouldn't want me to share. But. But rest assured, it was a fun conversation. And it left me even more confident with the trajectory of our space, of our hobby, of our market, and more confident that there are more people like this coming in and being smart about what they're buying and putting real money in this space. And, I mean, who could ask for anything more than that, right? I know there are a lot of you guys out there who are collectors. I know a lot of you guys out there who, you know, don't care about this at all. You just want to collect what you love, and that's great, too. And, you know, I have no issue with that. I do the same thing. You know, my. My son came to me today and said, hey, dad, guess what? Ian Thomas just signed with the Raiders. And I'm like, all right, well, we got like 3000 of his cards because we collect cards of players named Ian. If Ian Book ever makes a comeback, we're going to be in good shape. We have a lot of Ians, you know, Ian Kinsler, Ian Happ, Ian Thomas. A lot of Ians out there collected. I mean, is my Ian collection ever gonna be worth anything? Probably not, but it doesn't matter. So I feel you collectors, too. But on the other side, if you do care about value of the cards and the value of the space and just the overall hobby itself, I'm here to tell you today, more than yesterday, I'm pretty confident in this space. I'm happy to be a part of it. And that's another episode for you guys, brought to you by card ladder by Arena Club and by the Philly Show. On card ladder, use code cage. Save yourself a couple bucks. I'll talk to you guys tomorrow.