THWC 400: Know Who You Are In The Hobby

What's up, everybody? How About Cage Episode 400, brought to you by Arena Club by card ladder, use code Cage. Save yourself a couple bucks and buy the Philly show. I said, come on here. Just jump right into it. Give you the same old, you know, Monday morning, June 8th topic. But then I realized as I was prepping the studio for this morning that it's not just another episode. It's episode 400. 400 solo episodes. You know, we're doing this a little over three years. We've upped the ante a little this year, and I've done almost an episode every day. I mean, as the weather got nicer here and I've had stuff, kids, birthdays and stuff the last couple weekends. We haven't really done weekend episodes, but I'll get back to those. Lots of fun stuff going on the weekends. Yesterday was my son's birthday, but I wanted to do something a little bit different, I guess, for the 400th episode. But then I said, you know what? That's not why you're tuning in. I'm gonna sprinkle in a little bit of fun for 400, you know, because it's a nice round number. But we're still going to talk about exactly what's going on in the hobby today, and then maybe we'll make 400 hit a little differently. Yeah, why not? We're going to call this know who you are in the hobby. That doesn't mean know what your screen name is or, you know, play a role or anything like that. But one of the biggest mistakes that I see in the space, one of the biggest mistakes that I see is people don't know what they're here for. And I say it out loud and think to myself, if I were listening to that, would I be confused? And. Yeah, I think I would. So let me explain. There are a lot of people who come here and they participate in the hobby and they buy a card. They buy a card of someone they like. They buy a card of whoever it, you know, might be, someone they think they're a fan of or someone they liked as a kid, and then they realize that they don't enjoy owning the card, they enjoy the action. There's just one type of person. There are people who come in and realize that they don't want to hold cards forever. There are people who want to make money in the space, and there are a lot more people like that now when the going is good. I'll tell you myself, I haven't heard much about Jeremy Lee's spectrum in a while. But I hearken back to that, Right. You don't have to be all or nothing. I'll tell you about me. I enjoy a lot of different parts of this hobby, but if we're gonna call a spade a spade and we're gonna be honest about it, we're gonna say what I like. I like being right. Yeah. There's an ego to it. You know, I like being able to say, all right, you know, I was on that guy before somebody else. I. I was right. That was a player that I picked. That was something that I knew about. There was something about this space that allows you to do that. I don't know if it's the combination of, you know, a semi illiquid market where not everybody could just log into their Charles Schwab account and buy the same thing. You have to do a little research. You have to find. Find certain things. There's a combination of knowing sport and knowing the hobby and knowing the asset class, and then acting on it and not just saying it, but actually pulling the trigger and putting your money down. You know, money where your mouth is, right? And. And knowing the right play to make early. And then sprinkle in the magic that is social media. Sprinkle in the magic that is Instagram and Twitter, X, whatever they want to call it, Facebook, Etc, where you're able to say, I'm buying this card. And then three months later, when somebody has won something, an mvp, a championship, they've hit a monstrous home run, they had some clippable moment in the playoffs, and you're able to show that that was your pick, you're able to have your own little sports center moment, Your own little like, yeah, beat the. Beat the chest here and say, hey, remember when I said I was all in on X? Hopefully you guys came along for the ride with me, man. This Wemby thing, it is. It is. It's been a fun ride. I mean, I can't tell you how many dms and. And comments I got. And that's just something that just over the last couple of months, right, where I said, I'm just gonna buy a bunch of Wemby cards, and then, boom, he's flying. Now there's another type of person in the hobby, and you got to know who you are also, right? You are the nitpicker. You are the clown, the. The tear down. And by the way, there's nothing wrong with you guys. You're an important part of the space. There's not much more in the world that's more American than you. Because we in the world, we love heroes. We love building something up. We love blowing something up. We love creating a hero. There may only be one thing we love more than that, and that is tearing that hero down. So as many dms as I got from hobby people saying, great call with the Wemby, I was riding with you. Thanks for talking about it in the playoffs. Thanks for talking about risk management and how you have the different types of exits with him and even if he doesn't win a championship, you're buying and you can hold for next season or for the long term. And the different, you know, the different ways of exiting. That was great. I loved learning and man, he's doing great. The amount of messages there was only trumped by the more recent messages from the last two games where the Knicks are up 20 and everybody who is in, I mean, you know who you are in the hobby in tear down mode of, wow, how those wimbys treating you now? Hey, you know, you, you, you, you got to be sad about all that Wemby talk. You know, you took your victory lap too soon. Okay. Love you guys. I really do. It's what makes the world go round, right? We get to have debates, we get to have the conversation, we get to have that stuff. I'm still winning and what are you doing? Did you buy Carl Anthony Towns cards, you keyboard warriors? I don't think so. You got a big collection of Jalen Brunson? No. No. Because I'm going to tell you who you are, know who you are in the hobby. You're the person who likes to talk and not act. And that's perfectly fine. You're allowed to be that person. But here's who you really are. Did you go buy a Jalen Brunson card when the playoffs started on April 23, 2026? No. You could have if you brought a Jalen Brunson 2018 prism so far on April 23, you could have went right on ebay. There was an auction and it could have.274.40. I don't know if my virtual background's gonna. There it is. Yes. See it? April 23rd. Nice little card ladder. I'm showing it to you guys if you're watching on YouTube. 274.40. The playoffs started on April 18th, so this is April 23rd. So this is round one. $274.40. And I'm betting a lot of people who are the keyboard warriors, the Brunson Guys, the people who help New York City paint the subways orange and blue did not buy that card. If you are the person who bought that card for 274.40, please message me. I would like to give you a round of applause because yesterday, June 7th, that same card. I'm not the same, sir. Although that would be funny if it is no different, sir. There's 600 and something of these. It went from this $274 on April 23rd to June 7th yesterday. My son's birthday. Six, seven. What's that? May? I mean, we're talking about five and a half weeks now. You Nick fans, the people coming out crapping on the Wemby play. If you did that and bought $274.40 on April 23rd, do you know how much one sold for on June 7th yesterday? Here you go. $2,325. There's your old card ladder. Basically 10 times your money in five weeks. The problem, of course, is that Everybody in my DMs did not buy that card. No. Do you know who you are? You should know who you are in the hobby now. You're the ones buying it today for 23, 25. And you need to know who you are. And here's why. That Brunson is just one example. There are a lot of people who are going to buy his cards now, and they're going to be upset because people are buying his cars, not because they're Nick fans. You have to know who you are. You're buying that card expecting to make money. You are wrong. You will not. If you're buying that card and you know who you are, because you just want to get one. And you want to buy it now to commemorate the Finals. And you don't care if it goes down to twelve hundred dollars next month, which it will, or eleven hundred or fifteen hundred or whatever it might be when the hype is gone and the hype wears off like it has with everyone else. If you don't care and you just bought it because you wanted to buy it during the Finals run and you're going to commemorate the Finals and you're going to hold this forever. And it doesn't matter the value of it. You're going to put it up on your. On your. Your. Your trophy case and remember the time that the Knicks won the Finals. You don't care how much you paid for. Great. Then you know who you are. You're a collector. You're somebody who wants to own something for A, you know, a memento and keep it forever. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. Last time the Knicks were in the finals and had a lead, I was 17 years old. Game 7 of the 94 finals was my prom night. I watched John Starks really mess that whole thing up. But now he's a hero, I guess. Not to me. I was a big Ewing fan. I was there on Friday, February 28, 2003 to watch the Knicks play and retire Patrick Ewing's jersey. So I get the fandom. But know who you are. If you're buying that Brunson now, you better be a fan. You better be somebody who's looking to hold that card for a long time and not look at that card ladder. Because if you know who you are and you're somebody who's buying the card because you hope for it to go up in value. I don't know if I'd be buying a Jalen Brunson card right now for 10 times what it was selling for five and a half weeks ago. But this is where knowing who you are comes in. Because if you're just buying it because you want it, go right ahead, be my guest, Enjoy. It's not a crazy amount of money. It doesn't matter. The Jalen Brunson's card is now selling on the seventh for the same price. 2400 as SGA, who is your two time defending MVP and has already won a championship. It has a chance for several more that it's selling for almost double. Lucas. Fourteen hundred dollars this week and now Wendy. That's still more, but it's close. We'll be still around three grand. Although one sold yesterday for five grand. So you never know what's going on with the old car ladder stuff. What's the point of all this? Well, there's a bunch of points. Number one, be careful with the Nick stuff. Now if I owned any card of any Nick, I'd be selling it immediately. I would have probably already sold it, but I'd be selling it immediately. The hype is at a fever pitch. And I mean it's not over obviously, but it would be a hell of a monumental comeback for the spurs to come back and beat them. But that could happen too. But even taking that out of the equation, the way that our hobby works is that stuff gets baked in. It's like almost any other asset class. Earnings expectations already baked into a stock. When the earnings report comes out. For the stock to go up, it has to surprise to the upside. If they miss, it's down hitting the mark is already baked in. It's the same thing as this right now. After being up two games to none and winning those two games on the road, the Knicks are expected to win the series. So that expectation is already baked into that $2,400. Jalen Brunson, Prism silver rookie. I spoke to people at a card show yesterday, and, man, every dealer at the had a table was trying to push every Brunson, get rid of every Brunson, make that money on Brunson. It was the retail who was buying it. That's where you got to know who you are in the hobby. Because if you're buying that card, hoping to flip it next week when they win, Nope, that sells your Brunsons. Just like I said, sell your Jalen hurts. Sell your Brunsons. Should have already sold them. And there's nothing wrong with it, guys. Caleb Brunson is a heck of a player. Yes. He's basically 10 years in the league, as opposed to some of the other guys that we just talked about. I mean, you know, Luca and sga. I mean, Lucas card's half the price. I guess if Brunson wins the championship, it should be right. I mean, you gotta love New York. You really do. I love each and every one of you guys. People who are coming after me on DMS about the Wendy's. I love you guys, too. I wonder how many you bought and sold. You know, I bought 47 of them. I have three left. I mean, I didn't sell a single one of them at a loss, I'll tell you that much. So we're having some fun here on the 400th episode. But knowing who you are in the hobby is an important thing. It really is. Because if you are a collector of cards and you're buying cards that you love and you're buying cards that you want, A lot of what I've just talked about is almost irrelevant, you know, and there are plenty of people out there who. Who enjoy that. I kind of have a little bit of that in me, right? I mean, there are cards that I held for a very long time. Every once in a while that switches up. Especially I like to look at what the market is like, what the market is doing, and when the market is hot like this, I don't want to have my cards, my. My. My money in cards that I can easily replace. And. And anybody who's listened to me has heard this, has heard me talk about this, knows about my, you know, my hobby journey. Over the last couple of years, I have traded in my 33 Ruth Gowdies. I have traded in my older vintage cards, my play ball, Ted Williams, you know, I traded in my, my, my high pop cards, you know, stuff that I can get back, and tried to buy rare cards, tried to buy really impossible to obtain cards, cards that if I sell them, I'll never see them again. And I bought a lot of those, and I've sold a lot of those. And I can use that money to buy multiples of the cards that I've sold. And that's a lesson I've learned. I know who I am in this space. I'm somebody who wants to use my brain, research, use my time, find something that hasn't been found yet. Find an area of cards, a player, a set, and have fun doing that. Enjoy the chase, enjoy the research, enjoy learning, and then enjoy being right. And there's nothing wrong with buying something that you have conviction in and then selling it when that conviction pays off, when the player does what the player is supposed to do, when the card has received the recognition that it is. I mean, look at baseball. Dynasty is a great example. Ohtani, right? I mean, I posted about it, you know, the card you could buy for 10 or $12,000 a year and a half ago, and now they're 200,000 you0 know, and it's not, you know, it doesn't take a genius to, you know, to pick Ohtani. Everybody's been buying Ohtani cards. It's just a, you know, why were RPAs in baseball not getting the love that they got in other sports? It's, you know, an interesting thought process. I know who I am. I'm the guy who wants to say, I knew that and I bought it and I was right. Who are you? Some of you are the people who want to DM me after game three if the Knicks win and say Wemby sucks, Even though I'm not part of the Wembanyama family. I mean, you know, I'm just somebody who made money buying and selling his cards. And you could have too. What happens if the spurs win tonight? Will that keyboard warrior come out to play? Know who you are in the hobby. It's a fun and important lesson because if you are a collector, I hope you enjoyed this episode. You should be laughing because it's drama and nonsense that just does not impact what you do. You buy your Michael Jordan cards, you check out the poster, and you check it off, and you say your prayers and thank you, good old Cajun, for making a poster for you. You know, you know, maybe you just stick to your pre war cards and you enjoy them and you love them and none of this matters to me. This space in the last couple years has changed a lot. It's become a lot more fast paced, a lot more fast moving, and there's a lot of cool stuff that happens here. Cool innovation in cards, you know, cool new products that come out, cool new chases that come out. And I don't think there's anything wrong with kind of riding that wave, especially if you're able to ride it in a way that is profitable. I know a lot of, you know, hobbyists, especially ones my age, maybe even younger than me, you know, think that's blasphemy. This is a hobby, all right? What I have found is that most of the folks who. Who get angry at people in the space making money are the ones that are losing money. And there's episode 400 for you, brought to you by Arena Club card ladder use code cage. Save a couple bucks. Look what I did for you there in the 400 episode and by the Philly Show. I'm very excited, guys. We got the finals here. I mean, there's hockey being played. I don't know if it's like real hockey, college hockey. Somebody told me there's a team in Vegas. You know, that's a square garden. It's gonna be crazy. Look at that right there. That's my ticket from the Patrick Ewing retirement. Not bad seats. Went with my wife. It's the last time she's been doing it again. Oh, man. 400 episodes to each one of you guys. Who makes it to the end, who listens and sends me messages, who appreciates the content. You have no idea how much I appreciate you. Wanted to shake it up for you today and give you a little fun, different side. Rather than just come on and talk about the Quadro. Maybe I'll tell you about my card show experience, you know, with Ian in tomorrow's episode. We had fun. You know, just a quick run through the show and. And buy some cards. Exciting times, guys. It's June. You know, we got World cup days away. We got Fanatics Fest. We got the National. We got so much cool stuff coming up. Can't wait to, you know, to see a couple of you guys, hang out with a couple of you guys, buy and sell some cards with you to you. You know, we all enjoy this space, and you'll enjoy it better if you know who you are and be honest about it. And there's your episode. Talk to you guys tomorrow. Take care, everybody.