THWC 390: Records are made to be broken

What is up everybody? How About Cage Episode 390 brought to you by Arena Club, by card ladder and by the Philly Show. Man, I, I, I gave you a later episode yesterday and I was, I was confident in the space and talking about how had a conversation and you know, money coming in and where they were, you know, being thoughtful about their space spend and the whole deal. And then I came home, I won cards in last night in Alts Weekly and I won a card in Premiere also over at Fanatics, just winning cards left and right. Sometimes it's hard to win cards but I was not the one bidding on the Josh Allen Shield or the LeBron Chrome. And yeah, so I guess I didn't have to win on those. But let's take a second and if, if you, if you didn't look at last night's auction you should right click over to fanatics and just look at the results of the premier auction that just ended and you will see amazing results across the entire spectrum of the hobby. Big numbers, the first football seven figure public sale in a while, a big one. And it wasn't just what it was at the top. There were two seven figure sales in last night's auction. When you hear about them or when you look at them, it might surprise you because we have this idea of what cards are out there that could be million dollar cards, the high grade Mantles and you know the, the, the cards that we've seen sell for millions of the honest Wagners. The change made by fanatics in the last couple of years, the updates have, I mean they've left their mark and there is no better example of it than last night's Premiere. The two cards that sold for a million dollars are, well without a better way of saying it, they are fanatics. They are the current state of cards being made and layer in. It makes sense that those are the cards that sold for the most because they are the exact kind of cards that are what I'm going to call an apex type of card that's going to go to an apex type of collector. It's going to go to someone who has a lot of money and is looking to buy a card that they are the only one who can own. Not an out of 25, which sounds rare, not an out of 10. Both of the cards that sold were one of ones. And let's think about what they Both were. Number one coming in second. Just over a million dollars like 1.2. The LeBron James 20, 25 tops Chrome basketball, Super fractor auto now let's dissect that for a second because why is a LeBron James 2025 auto in his 23rd year of cards, the card that sells for so much money? Well, in the beginning of his career upper deck was making licensed cards. And then in 09 Panini took over and LeBron was an upper deck player. So starting in 2009 you did not have a licensed LeBron auto card in any of the packs. None. Nothing available. You could get LeBron Oros in upper deck in space jam in non NBA uniforms. I mean fanatics pulled out the all the stops with you know, McDonald's All Star and you name it and those cards sold for, you know, decent money. But it was not until Topps took the license back and had LeBron as a fanatics athlete that in this 2025 product you could pack, pull a LeBron fully licensed auto. And this was it. This was that chase, this was that first one of one Super Fractor auto by LeBron. Your first time to get one of these in 16 years, it is the one. And if LeBron plays for another 10 years, there'll be more, but this will be the first. If he doesn't, which most people think maybe next year is his last year, maybe a year after that, how many of these will there be? There'll be this huge gap in his 25 to 30 year career. There'll be this huge gap from 09 till now. 03209, you got your upper deck stuff. You got it. And some of that stuff is very expensive. But now Lakers first Lakers auto. Won a championship with the Lakers, you know, scoring a lot of points with the Lakers may be remembered as a Laker. I mean the, the Cavs fans will have something to say about that, so will the Heat fans. But if he plays one more year, you only have two of these two tops chrome super factor. And this is always going to be the first place. Three more years, only have three. And people think about that stuff. People who are coming in trying to buy the best of the best think about that stuff. And fanatics has created a card that was a chase, a fully licensed first. Lakers first tops chrome auto super fractor, the only one. And now someone has paid seven figures for it. And it makes sense if you take a step back and stop thinking of it like a 23rd year auto card and understand that there is more nuance to it. And when you think about it, you can understand why it makes sense to someone to spend that money and why it's all about what fanatics has done bringing LeBron into licensing. Think for a second if they were able to do that with Michael Jordan for example and you had a one of one super fractor tops chrome Michael Jordan auto pack pulled even that is not the same as this because Michael Jordan isn't playing, LeBron is still playing. So you have a playing days top scroll super fractor auto checks a lot of boxes and I understand it. And the second card which actually sold for more a million 4 million 3, 5. Josh Allen one of one gold shield. It sets up for what's next, right? Think about the lineage that's here starting with the Paul Skeens debut patch auto, the MLB debut patch selling for seven figures. And that is something that fanatics brings to the game. That MLB debut patch, you know, it's worn at that debut, that rookie, that first game that's patched on card auto, you name it, you don't get better than that. And these gold shields, these gold patches, gold logo, they're only going to be worn by people their MVP year, their defensive player year. So for someone like Josh Allen, right, It's an impressive thing because there's not a lot of games in the NFL season as opposed to baseball and even basketball, a lot of jerseys that are going to have the ability to have this on it. And more importantly, who knows if he wins another mvp, this could be your chance, your one chance to get that real game used tied to the sport. If you're a Josh Allen fan and guys, he's been a couple plays away from winning a Super bowl almost every year, you know, you know, a couple plays away from winning multiple, who knows, maybe he goes out there, wins another MVP in a Super bowl this year and the person who bought it is feeling smart. But even if he doesn't, it's not even as much about Josh Allen because there are other Josh Allen cards out there. It's more about the type of card and what it means for the desirability, collectibility and pricing of these cool chases that fanatics is bringing to the space. We saw The Shohei Ohtani 50 50, you know, logo man, you name. We saw the dual logo man of Otani and judge the gold logo man of Otani and these cards, they are huge chases. They're smart for fanatics because people buy boxes trying to chase these cars, trying to hope that that lottery ticket is theirs. You know, you have a grandmother, you know, who pulled this and you know, was hoping to pay for college for her kids grandkids. And now we'll probably be Able to without a problem. That's a cool thing. The pricing of it is because of the chase, but you can go further down besides those two and look at some amazing card prices across the line. And it's not just, you know, these. You have your Pokemon cards selling for a ton. You have your Michael Jordan card selling for a ton. Ohtani had a bunch of really, you know, big sales. You know, Kobe had these. I mean, across the line, huge numbers in last night's premiere auction. And I happen to buy a Steph Curry card, so, you know, I do share with you guys kind of, you know, what I'm buying and what I'm thinking. I don't really have much in the way of curry. There was a cool card in last night's auction, so I decided to, you know, to add that to my PC. That is not like a resell card. That's a, you know, I don't really buy a ton of basketball. I stick usually with the, you know, baseball, football. I'm able to find kind of bargains. But what's funny is I've seen baseball run. I've seen football. Look at last night's run. I seen, you know, basketball, which was always too expensive for me to get into. Now it's kind of the off season. Unless you're buying Wemby, SGA, or Jalen Brunson, you know, who's still playing. People are forgetting about Luca. People are forgetting about, you know, Steph for a minute. LeBron, obviously, he didn't get forgotten last night, but I'm looking at Steph when everybody else is looking at Wemby. So, yeah, that's my take from last night. Also won a bunch of cards in Alt. You guys know what I'm doing? It's all about the NFL. It's about quarterbacks and stuff like that. Buying. Buying cards at alt. And they did not charge my credit card immediately because I won too much stuff. So, yeah, that's the trick, I guess, if you buy enough. Yeah, I mean, I had a great conversation yesterday. You guys heard about that in yesterday's episode. Then I came home and just watched the auctions and watched. Watch the bidding on these things. You know, basically, the floor is in on the Otani dynasty. That was a, you know, a base out of 10. You know, Ohtani Dynasty RPA sold for 198, 000 last night. So basically, like, 200 grand. You want an RPA? You want a. You want an Otani RPA? The price to play is $200,000. You know, which Is amazing because you know, it was not that a year ago but so many things are in that same category. So many cards have, have gone up. It was nice to see a football card sell for seven figures. You know, I say, you know, records are made to be broken. That's a record Josh Allen, you know what I mean? And it's funny because I see some posts comparing it to you know, like Justin Herbert shield cards and Joe Burrow shield cards and those cards sold for seven figures and that this is giving that kind of a vibe parking back towards more Covid. There is a difference. Those cards were sold when those players had done nothing. They were rookie cards basically. You know, they were, it was all on, on hype and potential. And while they're both great players and Burrow made a Super bowl and Herbert is very handsome, it has a, a, a very famous girlfriend. Josh Allen won the mvp. That's how you have a gold, you know, logo man. A gold shield. Excuse me. You know, he's, he's actually, you know, got some awards here. You know, he's actually got some hardware now. If you had a Super bowl, but none of those guys did. It's a little different. The card itself is different than a, a, a non game used shield. You know, the stuff that Panini was doing. This is a, you know, you can trace this back to one of the games during the season last year. It is, you know, fully game used. And that does make a difference. You know, there are probably a lot of people listening who are not Josh Allen fans and can think of a much better way to spend, you know, a million three. I probably would not spend a million three on it. Also. I can think of some other things I'd spend my money on. But I do understand the buy. I do because this is now, you know, your first gold shield. So that's another thing to think about, right. You know, we all like to think about how much is it worth and then, you know, is it a good buy and should it be worth more? Perhaps the people buying these cards are thinking about it with a longer horizon. They're thinking about these as a 5, 10, 15, 20 year play. And who knows who's going to win the MVP in 10 years. I don't know. You know, maybe it's Fernando Mendoza, maybe it's Arch banning and in 2036 there'll be a gold logo man card made for Arch Manning or Mendoza, whoever it might be. And there will be years of these gold shields. Excuse me, I said logo man. These gold shield cards that Josh Allen will always be the first. It'll always be the one that started it off. So not only do you have that, it's a cool one. One game used auto. It becomes 2012 prism. It becomes a first. It becomes, you know, 96 tops chrome. It becomes 93 finest. It's something that you know is going to stay and there's going to be a long line of it. And it will always be the first. That LeBron will always be the first. Tops Chrome Auto, fully licensed fanatics 20 years from now. People don't remember. Remember when they first came out with that Tops Chrome super fractor auto in 2025. Yeah. Look at the LeBron. Remember that? Check out this LeBron. It's a first. So I get it. I love the prices. I can spend some time here going through, you know, all the stuff I bid on. I think eight cards obviously only won one, which means seven other cards sold for more than I was willing to pay. That's a good indicator, I guess, of the health of the space. There weren't any real crazy surprises. I did say on yesterday's podcast that the Josh Allen could sell for a million dollars. I mean, I, I said that beforehand. So the price does not surprise me just because the card is what it is. And I know that's going to be confusing and annoying and surprising to some people because, you know, the cards that sold for last night, one's a 23 year, 23rd year card and the other one's what, you know, a ninth year card, eighth year card. So why would that be, you know, such, you know, such a chase. It's not really about what year card it is in their career. It's what your card. It is in the kind of the lineage that's going to come and just what those cards kind of stand for. They are easy for someone coming into the space to explain to them why that card is important. At least it's easy for me. And I can understand why it would be an important card for a Josh Allen fan to want or a LeBron fan to want. And that's it. I hope you guys enjoyed this one. It's Friday 22nd May. We are heading into a nice long weekend. I will 100 find time to do episodes because, you know, I don't think the weather is supposed to cooperate with us here in the northeast for the nice long weekend, but it'd be nice to have it anyway. So, guys, let's go. Wemby tonight. I didn't even mention him during the episode. So you know, it's been a whole week of Wemby. Let's see. Let's see what he does. Let's go, Wemby. Let's go, Wemby. And to the folks of you, some of you guys listening, who are now new owners of Wimpy Silvers, we share our W together, and hopefully he wins tonight and your win increases. I'll talk to you guys later. Take care, everybody. That's another episode of the Hobby with Cage, brought to you by Arena Club, by card ladder and by the Philly Show. Use code Cage. Save yourself a couple bucks on card ladder. Take care, everybody.