THWC 412: A Tale of Two Shows In One Weekend

What's up? Everybody happy with Cage episode 412412 brought to you by Arena Club by card Ladder Use code Cage Save yourself a couple bucks and buy the Philly Show. We I'm the countdown guys. I mean, it is Monday, June 29th. I can't believe June is basically over. This is my pool. Yesterday for like first or second time this summer, I was like, I can't believe it. Like, yeah, I gotta, I gotta start using this pool more. I gotta, you know, I gotta start getting more summer out of the summer here. I mean, before you know it, I'm snap my fingers here. It's gonna be July. It's kind of crazy to think about how it's moving, right? You may be listening to this in July. Some people, you know, listen 48 hours later, you know, and then it's July. It's crazy. And you know what July brings? July brings some, you know, some massive hobby events between Fanatics Fest and the National. So I mean, the countdown is on as we, as we record this today. I still don't have my entry ticket bought for, for the National. I have to buy that. I saw a post yesterday that there was still tickets available. So that's good. I'll make sure I buy that, you know, soon, sooner than later. And yeah, I mean, looking forward to that. It's funny because, you know, the Fanatics Festival, four days, I'm gonna be there all four days. So you know, that's, that's, that's much closer. And then boom, you know, you, you transition over from Fanatics Fest to the National. And it's funny, last week I was recording and I said, you know, hey, anybody know of any shows out there? Anybody you know of any, you know, card shows coming up in the next couple weeks? You know, or is it really just, you know, a couple weeks with nothing until Fanatics Fest? I got some messages and I'm here to tell you I had a busy card weekend. Two shows this weekend and two shows that could not have been any different. So we're going to talk about the shows. I did a show on Friday night and I did a show on Sunday afternoon. So we bookended the weekend. Both shows a lot of fun. Both shows a great time. And I'll tell you about them in a second. They couldn't have been more different. That's why we're calling this a tale of two shows in one weekend. But before that, let's just jump into it. If you need any indication of the health of the hobby. Two auctions ended last Night on two ends of the spectrum. Although weekly auctions have become what premier and monthly auctions and elite auctions used to be. I mean there are six figure cards selling in weekly auctions almost every week. Yesterday was no exception to that. I bought I think 19 cards in the fanatics weekly auction last night with the biggest ones being Pokemon cards which is a departure but I'll explain kind of why in a moment, you know. And bought another Wemby. I bought a bunch of Wembies. You know, I mean I've been telling you guys it's pretty funny. Go check out card ladder. You know, remember you had that post finals dip and I mean if you bought during those post finals dips your cards are, your cards are going back in the right direction anyway. So it is what it is. But I bought a bunch of cards there. If you need an indication of kind of the health of the hobby. Take a look at how some of those auctions ended last night. I mean you cannot buy a Kobe or a Jordan or a LeBron or a Kaboom or a downtown or basically anything that anybody wants, anything that you would find in a repack, you know, anything that is really liquid, you cannot buy it this week for what you could have bought it for last week. That is an interesting thing to see. And the funny part was I think I came on Monday and said the same thing to you after last week's weekly auction that you know, it was cheaper last week, it'll probably be more next week. I don't know how long something like that can continue but I'm getting tired of asking how long can something like that continue? Because it just keeps continuing. So that's, you know, that's one fun thing. The second fun thing, man, on the other end of the spectrum did we have some monstrous sales last night in the Golden 100. A nearly 3 million dollar LeBron. A nearly 3 million dollar Ohtani. The LeBron is one. You guys know. You know it's the, it's the exquisite RPA gold. There's only 23 of them. It was a really nice copy. You know it's, it's something that has always been a seven figure card. It's the one that sold for five and change, you know, back in the last kind of crazy run. Not the same copy but you understand what I'm saying. And then the Otani was the tops chrome super fracture, you know, the, the rookie super fractor. I, I've been told that the, the Bowman chrome super sold for you know, a pretty penny. Previously this year. So this card doesn't really surprise me that it sells for that much. But in addition to those, you know, there were a couple of other, you know, there's a Pokemon sale that went for over a million dollars. Another illustrator, there's a group of jerseys that went for over a million dollars. There are a lot of half million dollar cards but just some other headline ones that are important for takeaways of the market. There was a Tom Brady flawless horizontal patch From I think 2019 that sold for over 100 grand which is, you know, I mean, listen, I think that gold foil is only out of five. So you know, that's a nice card. But that is a, a, a clear record price for that card. You don't see the later flawless is doing those numbers, the later flawless cars doing those numbers. So that was an eye opener for me. Not just from the price perspective. The biggest eye opener, the 86 FLIR Jordan going for nearly $400,000. I mean we're, we're, you know, we had this kind of crazy run up. A couple of them sold for like $700,000 and it dipped back down. I'm pretty sure I sold right at the bottom there, the PSA 10s for like 150 grand, you know, in the, in the O3 bottom. And now we're right back up where we, you know, where we're near $400,000 almost. I mean it really is an, an amazing thing to see. The turnaround on that one card does not make a market. Let's remember that. Also there are a lot of those cards out there, a lot of people who own them and it, you know, you could see defensive buying in an offensive manner. If you want to really use some fun hobby terms of art. Ohtani dynasty rookie PSA 9 without an auto grade sold for like $207,000. The base version pitching, you know, PSA 9 decent patch. I mean that's been sort of the, the floor on those $200,000, you know, entry level for a, an RPA. For Otani it is, I mean the goats do goat things. You know, Jordan did his prices, Kobe did his prices. A Shaq PMG Green sold for almost $400,000. That just every time you turned around there was another two, three or four hundred thousand dollar card ending. It was a massive auction. I would tell you to, you know, if you didn't, if you didn't see it go, just click on, you know, golden and hit, you know, sold items for, for last night's auction. You'll See just an amazing assortment of high end, high prices and I mean even a Bob Ross painting which I was bidding on sold for a lot of money, like $200,000. That was one of the last items to end, if not the last item. I know there were two, two items left last I looked, the Yogi Berra which also sold for a record price. There was a Yogi Berra SGC 10. There's only one SGC 10. You know there's, there's a bunch of, I would say single digits, maybe nine PSA 9s. I used to own a PSA 9 and I think it might only be one PSA 10 and it's in you know, the Arizona Diamondback collection, you know like everything for vintage baseball and that SGZ 10 I think it was know 30 something thousand dollars card in 2023, you know, when we were bottoming out. And now, you know, I think it sold for six times that yesterday. So I mean really, you know the, the headline here from the auctions is, you know we saw kind of a run up a couple years ago, we saw that drop and now we're seeing it kind of, you know, head right back up to where it was. And you know the question on a lot of people's minds and what the conversation you're going to hear a lot at fanatics fast and national is, you know, is this something that is sustainable? Are we going to actually go past those prior kind of COVID highs for lack of a better way of, you know, of labeling them or are we, you know, we hitting those highs again? Those highs are, were not sustainable five years ago. Are they going to be sustainable now? I guess it remains to be seen, right? The infrastructure that we're building these prices on now is a little different there. I believe there are more participants now. I believe that they're, you know, they're the repacks are a big, big, big part of pricing, you know, for good or for bad. You know, whether you love them or hate them, you know they do provide a lot of liquidity and a lot of, you know, pricing transparency on a ton of cards. You just see a lot of these things sell very often so you can have some confidence in the pricing of it. So anyway, that's kind of the, the lead in now for the shows because everybody loves a Monday morning content. I have never been to one of these but Friday night my son and I drove out. It was only about a 15 minute drive further out Long island and it took us longer to find a place to park than to drive to the show though, because it was that crowded, right? It was also in like a sports facility. There was like a hockey game going on and stuff like that. And you know, when it came down to it, I was tired of circling around and not finding a spot. So I said I was there for hockey instead of the card show. And they let me park in a different lot. You know, I got out like, hey, look at me, I'm one of the Hanson twins. You know, a little hockey action. But that was, it was an all Pokemon show that I went to. And it was nice, was on turf, like on a soccer turf field. So that was good for the old dogs. Had a blast there. My son was in his element. And I don't know what the hell is going on. I don't know anything about that stuff. I mean, I know the old stuff. I, you know, I know the, you know, the first 151, you know, I mean, I know, I know like before Mew, you know, like mew. And then, you know, we go before that, right? I know the starters. I know the, you know, the original 16 Hollows, you know, I, I know like that stuff just because that was the set that I was building. So I kind of know, I know those cards, the various Pikachus and gengars and whatever else is going on out there. I mean, he speaks the language, you know, we talk about a tree. Kachu. It's a Pikachu with trees in it. Or I don't even know. There was some weird Gengar. But anyway, we bought some cards and you know, I bought a card called an umbreon. I mean, I don't know. In alt. In May and Ian was actually showing people how, because I gave it to him for his birthday, how much he paid for it. And they were high fiving him. Now this is a, a card in a public auction in May and now here we are in June and people high fiving him on his buy because he's like, hey, I got it for this. You know, I, you know, and they're like, well, you're up like 40, 50 already. And that's kind of normal, I guess, in, in the Pokemon world, you know, the stuff are, are. Are kind of going crazy. So, you know, he made a lot of trades. That was one of the biggest differences. You walk up to the tables, everybody was kind of smiling. Everybody was like, hey, what are we doing today? You got cards to sell, Trade, you're looking to trade. I would say this, about half the tables were raw cards only. And that's a fun difference also. And my son bought raw cards, which he never does at a card show, at a, you know, a sports card show. He bought raw Pokemon cards. You know, check the condition of them. I think his eye is maybe towards grading them, but he's putting together a set of some Master ball. I don't know, you know, I wish I did know. But the fact that he knows and is enjoying it, that's fun also. And a cool part. He brought some of his Pokemon cards, he sold some of his cards and traded, bought, used some of his cards, gave them to, you know, people and was able to kind of, you know, wheel and deal and leave with some of the cards that he wants to collect. Now that may change in a month and he'll be moving these, who knows. But the dealers were happy. The dealers were smiling. You know, we bought a bunch of wax to open and, you know, look, you're talking about like a 10 pack box. 100 bucks, 80 bucks. Did we get the cards that he wanted to get? No, but we had fun opening them, you know, and it was not a rip that's going to bankrupt you. Did I know what I was looking for? Absolutely not. There is no Mickey Mantle Pokemon yet. I mean, there might be, I don't know. There's a Durant, I think, but not Kevin, just Durant. But man, a fun experience. It really was. Everybody's kind of helpful, everybody's smiling, A lot of wheeling and dealing going on. That was a fun show to go to. One thing that kind of stuck out to me though was there was a table with a guy set up, not selling supplies, you know, not like, you know, Mr. Minty selling sprays, but like a Kurt's card Care. I forget the guy's name. Just sitting there with a sign, let me repair your cards. Let me turn your old treasures into diamonds. You know. And he was telling people as they came up, like, I, I could do some minor stuff right here. Like he had a light and he was fixing cards right there at the table and, you know, was like, he was telling people, like, if it's a major fix, gotta take it home with me and we'll figure it out and I'll get it back to you and, you know, we'll ship it, the whole deal. But I can do little small stuff here, which is. It's pretty funny to see that. I mean, maybe funny's not the word. I don't think people would go for that at a sports show, you know, seeing people kind of repairing cards. But maybe Pokemon Is more with the comics where you have restored comics where you, you know, maybe it's more like the art stuff for, for whatever it is. People were walking around, walking right up to that table. And I guess it's not as frowned upon in that space. I don't know. I don't know. But that was a fun little takeaway. Literally set up like right in the middle of the room. There are a bunch of tables right there with a light. Wasn't selling cards, selling a service. His service was, let me fix your card for you right here as you wait. Interesting. Different. I did not see that on Sunday afternoon when I went to the card show. Now, Sunday afternoon, I know about this show. It's about a 20 minute ride from me. Maybe 25 minutes if there's a little bit of traffic. Maybe 35 minutes if there's a lot of traffic. And there is usually traffic, especially on a Sunday coming home, there was traffic. We got stuck in little Hamptons. The Hamptons return traffic. But you know, we were hanging out at the pool today, you know, yesterday and you know, the day broke where everybody was done. And you know, I said to my son, hey, there's a show that runs until 3:00'. Clock. It's almost 1:30. You want to hop in the car and go. And you know, I gave him a stack of cards and hey, you know, maybe we'll, we'll go, we'll see what it's like. And if it, you know, if it's terrible, come on. But take us 20 minutes to drive there. We can spend a half an hour. Anyway, show ends at 3. We got there at like 10 after 2, 2, 15, something like that, and people already closing up. I had one interaction, partly my fault. I think I had a huge box of cards to sell and I went over to the one table that had the huge buying sign on it and you know, they're like, oh yeah, we're buying, we're buying. Okay, what do you got? I, you know, take a stack of, I'd say like 40 cards out. Now normally you go to a buying table with all liquid cards. Of the 40 cards, 30 of them were downtowns and the other 10 were a combination of Michael Jordan, Messi and other case hits. Kabooms, you know, color blasts. I mean the liquid of liquid stuff for a reason. That's what I bring to shows because I know I can get rid of them. 99 of the time. You put a stack like that down and the person says, all right, I'm gonna start comping these out they put a little post it note, and, okay, this is what I'll pay for this. This is what I pay for this. And I'll say, okay, I'll take that. Okay, I won't take that. I'll take that. I'll take that. And, you know, they spend the time they. They move the cards from one place to another place, one place to another place. And, you know, there's three different guys. And now the cards are kind of going all over the place. And they take out two cards. And I'm like, all right, so, you know, we want to start pricing these out. They're like, no, no. How much for just these two? I'm like, just those two. You don't want all these. You just want the two you want to. All right, well, you know, those are 800 a piece. Oh, you want full ask on them. I said, you asked me what my price was. I thought we were going to be doing a bigger deal on all of these things. So, yeah, if you're just taking out the two you want. Yeah, the last couple sales on those were 8:50, 8:25. I want 8 on each. Figuring he would say, oh, no, I got to pay 90% the last selling. This is 825. I'll give you 765 something and we figure it out. No, you know what? I'll pass on those. Okay, I'll take my cards back and I count them because this is the first table I was at. I know how many slabs I have. I stand there and I count the card because these guys, there were three of them. They were kind of like, you know, juggling the cards all over. I count the cards like, what are you counting them for? You think you want to check my pockets? I'm like, no, I'm counting them because I just laid 43 cards out on the table for you guys, and I want to make sure I have 43 cards. They were kind of all over the place, the way you guys were, you know, moving them around. I thought I was going to get an offer on all 43 of them, or at least half. Not two cards. Let me make that. You have a problem with me making sure that I, you know, I have all my cards, that they're all here. Yeah, you know what? Next time you want to sell cards, come back without the attitude. Lose the attitude. This is what they tell me like, okay, I didn't know I had an attitude. I mean, I kind of do have an attitude. You guys know this. But what I'd like to tell you is within 15 minutes from that interaction. Not only did I not have the 43 cards like I had, I didn't even have the box that it came in. I left with an empty bag because the cards I brought were cards that are easy to move if you are reasonable and you don't try to squeeze every drop of blood out of somebody. I gave a stack to my son. He was. Come back. Here's the money. Give me another stack, you know, oh, you want to move this one? I sold a wimby. I sold a bunch of messies. I sold the. I mean, you know, literally left the show after a half an hour with no cards left, zero cards. But the fun thing that stuck with me was that I was able to walk past those guys as they were closing up with a stack of money. You guys. You guys selling anything? I mean, I got my attitude on a bunch of money. Ah, it is what it is. I guess so. I mean, one dealer, one whatever doesn't, you know, change the whole stuff. These are younger kids, and, you know, maybe I caught him at a bad time or maybe they didn't like that. You know, my expectation was different than their expectation. And who knows? One interaction is just one interaction. I walked around the show, had a great time at the show, a lot. Pokemon, you know, my son was buying Pokemon. We were selling cards. One fun thing, we sold some messy cards that I purchased, you know, a month ago for significantly. I mean, these are cards. I'm not talking about thousands of dollars, but, like, you know, these are cards that I bought for $400 that, you know, went up to seven and change in just the course of the World Cup. And I was able to sell them at a good price to the kid that I sold them to. This way he can turn around and probably make some profit on them, too, which is what he was doing, but also at a good price to me. And this is what you're able to do in this space, right? If you. If you buy some liquid messy cards in advance of the World cup, then people are looking for his cards during the World cup, they go up in price. You're able to sell them for more than you paid and not have to squeeze every penny out to the person who's gonna buy him from you at the show because they can still make a little profit. And maybe Messi continues to do well during the World cup and make even more profit. Sounds pretty easy. It doesn't happen every time, but, I mean, you know, right now, buying soccer stuff is sort of a gamble. You Got to be betting on who you think is going to win. You think Jamal takes it? You think it's Mbappe? You think it's Ronaldo? No, it's not. You think it's Messi? I mean, you think Holland? No. Harry Kane, maybe. I mean, it's. Now it's a bit beforehand there was no bet. You knew these guys were at least going to get through to the 32. So you had a month there of kind of build up. I mean, Messi scored in every game he played so far. So, you know, that was a pretty easy bet going forward. Now it gets a little more interesting. And as luck would have it, I now own one messy card. 1. I sold all of the messy cards I have besides that. All of them, even the Color Blast that I had all gone. Psg. Color Blast moved one card and it's on my page. So you know what it is. Anyway, guys, I had a blast at both of these shows. The, the, the, the Sunday show, which is a small, local, like a Knights of Columbus style show, you know, over 600 people added. I talked to somebody who was there earlier. They said it was packed, it was still crowded with business being done and deals being made at the show. When I was there, you know, like at the end, the last half hour, I think I Was there after 3. Might have closed the show out. And people are still buying packs, you know, wheeling and dealing as folks were packing up their, their stuff to go. So you want to bookend this. The health of the hobby man. We have million dollar sales. We have a lot of liquidity, we have a lot of people going to shows. I went to two shows in one weekend, all within 15 minutes of my house. Both of them are very crowded, both had great energy, both had a lot of kids, had a lot of fun going on. So, I mean, if, if you ask the question and let me answer it, you know, can this keep going? Can the prices keep going up? Can we, you know, have all these participants in the hobby? My answer is yes, because I could imagine that there are kids who were at that Friday show with their parents who. Or at that Sunday show with their parents who went home and told their friends that Friday night show, the Pokemon one, they were probably at Saturday Little League telling their friends or their parents who took them, were telling their friends, parents, the teens, parents, hey, the next one of these is next month. We should all go together. You know, the kids had a blast. They were giveaways. They had somebody dressed up like a Pokemon walking around. You know, it was easy I think. And yeah, man, I mean, I think this can continue because, I mean, all the evidence that I see points to it continuing. And that's it. There's your Monday morning wrap up, Taylor. Two shows in one weekend. And both of them were awesome. That is the hobby of the cage. Episode 412 brought to you by Arena Club by card ladder use code cage. Save yourself a couple of bucks. And by the Philly show. I'll talk to you guys soon. Take care, everybody.