What Do You Do With Shohei Ohtani Cards? Does Topps Now Cards Have Long-Term Value? Playing Another Round Of Quiz Show

You're listening to Cards to the Moon, a podcast about trading cards from both a collector and investor perspective. We hope you'll stick around for the ride as we take a deep dive into the state of the hobby, share some hot takes, hopefully some useful advice and fun stories along the way. Hey guys, welcome back to Cards to the Moon. This is episode 325, and my name is Clark from 5cardguys.com, and you can also find me at 5cardguys on Instagram, YouTube, and on Facebook. Coasting with me, as usual, is Hyung, who is at ChoHyung on IG and YouTube, and we also have John, who is at TradeYouAtRecess on Instagram. Okay, off the top, I'm going to admit that I've been buying more Topps Now cards than usual. Namely, it's because our Toronto Blue Jays are World Series bound, and there's been some key iconic sports moments and memories being made during this playoff run. And of course, Topps Now has been capitalizing on all of them, which is why I ordered cards like the Vladdy Batflip and even Otani's legendary 3 home run 10k game. And of course, for both these cards, there are short print chases, including a 1 of 1 autograph redemption card, which will be randomly inserted into one of the orders. So that got me thinking about Topps Now in general. And I want to ask you guys, do you think these cards have any long term value? And if so, which ones in general? Or is this more of a play by Topps to make money with these print on demand cards? And it's really only about for your PC collection, you know? What do you guys think? All of the above, what you just said. I think like a few years ago when Fanatics acquired Topps, and we started seeing a lot of the Topps Now and how we like the Topps Now brand in general, because it's moments really. It's big moments that happen in real life and people are emotionally connected to it. So I think one from a fan standpoint, I think it's one of the greatest sets out there for fans because you're not necessarily chasing any rookie card in particular. It's more of the moment that you remember as a fan. But with that said, from a secondary market standpoint, that's basically who you're going to get is local kind of fans. I don't think anybody that's a Dodgers fan would necessarily care to, or I would say let's say a New York fan in this case, wanting the Vladdy Batflip card, right? Because it would be more localized to a Blue Jay fan that remembers that moment. And to us, it's going to be a special moment, but I think to just a generic fan, it's not really a chase card where they're like, man, I got to have that card. With that said, there are big moments that are just sports moments that are incredible where maybe the pitching performance by Otani and the hitting performance by Otani is a big sports moment where any general fan might be like, you know what, I remember watching this game and this is the best game that has ever been in the sport of baseball. So having that Tops Now card might be very valuable to someone, right? And then on the flip side, I think there are cards that have massive future upside in value. So any of those cards can, so the Vladdy Batflip, even though Otani three home run pitching performance would hold value in the long run. But I think if you look back and we always talk about grabbing Otani cards, would you not grab his first MLB game or road to spring training of 2018, his rookie season, autograph. Those are great long-term cards that I think hold tremendous value as a collector and an investor because like I said, now this Otani chase has become ridiculous that any rookie card of Otani, any auto rookie of Otani is valuable regardless of licensing. The hobby doesn't like care anymore in terms of when guys like Otani go to the moon, right? So yeah, to answer your question and sum it up, it's above all the things you listed. I think you could kind of say it's true. And we'll talk about Otani more in depth in our next segment, but yeah, I get your point for sure. How about you, Johnny? What do you think? I mean, some of the really big moments you're talking about, the Otani game, when Otani went 50-50, that kind of stuff definitely has no question has long-term value. I'm just now thinking, we've kind of become fans of Topps now over the course of the last 24 months. And we said it had great potential. And Topps is using that format to its potential now. We see it, right? Their game news, whatever in the moment, stolen base, a piece of the base. It's all amazing stuff. I'm just wondering now if they should be rejigging the chase because even if you are a fan of the Vladdy bad flip or the Otani 3 home run game, I don't know, the three of us can sit there. Do we really want 500 base cards of that moment? Do we even want one of them? Maybe, maybe not. So if they make it short printed, there's only 1500 available, even the base. I think that could be better or they're in packs. Or if you're going to print them to the moon, give it to you in a little blaster format, kind of like Pokemon, where there's like three other random packs. There's like a Topps pack in there. There's a Topps Chrome, just something additional from, because when I watch people open these cards to try and get the actual chase, the chase portion is super boring because all you're doing is opening up 10 base, no color, 10 base, no color, 10 base, and you end up with these massive monstrous piles of heaping trash, like even the biggest Toronto fans, you get what I'm saying, right? Like the baddie flip. Like I don't, I don't know how interested I would be in the actual base card. So I think if they start to now rejig that chase a little bit so that there is some value to the, the, the original purchase, because I think most of us buying into these things don't really care about the base at all. Like we're clearly going for the auto one of one, you know, relic, et cetera, et cetera. So that's all I'm kind of thinking. I think it does the card itself to your original question. You know, if the moment is big enough, does it hold long-term value? Yes. Does it even hold long-term value for homers in, in a Homer, you know, in a, in a home team moment? Of course it does. Of course it does. Right. I think they, it's now time for them to kind of rejig the chase a little, just my opinion. That's a really interesting point. I didn't even think about that, but I like it. Yeah. Because I, I did put an IG reel recently about someone chasing a Cooper flag card and he, he ordered 200 of them, I think, and just got one color, you know, and, and you're right. The video itself was pretty boring, but man, when I put that reel up, the comments that I got, it was crazy. They're like, this is a money grab. This is a waste of, you know, cards like yours, like you were mentioning, John. And so I do see your point there too. I think the other thing to consider with Topps Now card is in the current format that it is in, it's not just about the moment, but it's about the print run, right? It is a print on demand and there's a limited time where you could purchase them and for super iconic moments like the three home run 10K game by Otani and it is Otani as well. So there's a player factor in it. The print one, print run was over 250,000, right? So the supply is, you know, to the moon. So that'll limit its value in terms of the base cards. But what I do like what Topps Now is doing is that every time it reaches a certain number in terms of print run, so 50,000, 100,000, 250,000, they insert like some special card, like a special parallel, right? So I think it's the first time that Topps Now had to issue like some kind of Opal parallel because it reached over the 250,000 mark. So that's going to be obviously worth a ton, right? Because it's that rare. And mathematically, like I get John's point, but mathematically there's no way Topps is ever going to do that because we're talking 250,000 times $11 a card or whatever it is. To me, business, the math is mathing. It's a great business move and we said it. It's like, to me, the margins must be insane and immediate cash flow right up the top, right? So for me, I'm okay with the print run because like I said, some people see it as trash and over time it will be trash. But hey, there's a few PSA 10s that people over time, they hold value. And I'll give you a perfect example. And maybe it's a wrong example, but I bought 10 Topps Now Trump cards when he got elected. And I ended up grading them. They're 11 bucks. And then I did a bulk order. So I was like 25 bucks in. And I was still selling. The PSA 10s at one point were going, I don't know what they are. They might be more than this or less, but I sold them all for 150 US. So to me, it was, I love the base. It was great. It was a great $50 investment plus grading. And I ended up making over $1,000 off of that. Not saying that that's where the future is, but there are collectors who like the PSA 10 versions, right? And not saying that all of them will PSA 10, but that pile was great for grading and it worked out for me. But yeah, going back to the base cards, I think it's going to, majority of them are going to be useless, but even same with those moments, like people aren't going to really want it. But if I told you, if there was a Topps Now card for the Batista Batflip, I think all of us would be like, yo, I would want that card. And I think everybody in Toronto would want the Topps Chrome Batflip card because it was a moment, right? And it was on card. So the PSA 10 value ends up holding well. And yeah, it's a good ecosystem because if now Fanatics is profiting off of this and it's a continued kind of initiative of Topps Now and the brand, I would want them to be doing what Clark mentioned is let's ante up the incentives. Like it doesn't cost, if you guys are making millions and millions of dollars per big moment, right? The really big moments you guys are making a million dollars in profit, not even operational costs or cost, the cost of goods. Like we're talking high margin, like people are just throwing money like crazy. Let's throw in some nice chases other than parallels. And that's where it's, maybe it's experiences, like experiences. We're waiting, Mr. Rubin. Like I think that's where the missing link with Fan and like athlete is, is like some kind of experience. And it costs nothing at that point. Yes. Yeah. No, I think that's like almost a natural extension of where Topps Now can go, right? And maybe there's something in the works in the background that we're not aware of yet, but I love that idea. I just want to go back on the print run. I mentioned that Otani, that three home run 10K card was over $250,000 versus the Vladdy bat flip that I got. The print run was just over $5,500. That's low. So, right. And I got 10 of them. So I got 10 of those $5,500 print run. So I think, and you know, what I'm hoping for in terms of Topps Now card, if I'm just looking at value, as the hobby grows, I think some of those cards will become more valuable because you realize some of these Topps Now cards like the Vladdy bat flip are lower than expected, right? And, you know, if there are, you know, we say Toronto Blue Jays, it's Canada's team. And if there's enough demand on that side, even if it's local, it's kind of this broader local, I can see that Vladdy bat flip increasing in value because of lower supply and more demand over time. For sure. Yeah. So we'll see. I love Topps Now. I can't believe when we started this pod, we were just razzing on Topps Now. Hey, it's the leadership though. That's why. They've done a good job. Fanatics have done a great job to kind of bring it to light. I agree. I agree. And I don't know if you guys remember, but when Topps Now started, those short print cards, those autograph cards that you can get, it was like first come, first serve. Right. I wish I bought more back then, you know, like the one of one or the five, you know, the of fives and of 25s. Some of those cards I'm sure are just really valuable and you could have just bought it right off their website. But now it's a lot of system. I did buy the Encarnacion wildcard home run because I was at that game. So again, as a special personal connection for me, but if that's what you want to do, if you want to chase short prints, honestly, like I didn't bribe the George Springer home run, the iconic moment for Toronto fans, because for that instance, I didn't want to get the base, but I do, I wouldn't mind getting a short print version of that. So I might scour on eBay once it gets delivered and get a short print version of that card. So it's another strategy. Yeah. Okay. All right. Like we teased off the top with just the insane prices of Otani. Let's go on to hobby headlines. So I want to give a quick shout out to our hobby friend, Josh at Inspired Sports. cards for giving me this idea initially, but the three of us have also been engaging on this topic recently as well. And the question we're trying to answer is, what do we do with Shoei Otani cards? If you weren't aware, many of his cards are at all-time highs, all-time, and even those cards you would consider lower end, certainly the high end is just breaking records left, right, and center. So think about that and think about this follow-up question I have for you guys. If you really want a nice Otani, do you have to bite the bullet and pay these crazy prices thinking that this is the new floor, or do you take a risk and wait, continue to wait till even the off-season or even longer, hoping for some kind of correction? And on the other side of things, if you have an Otani card, if you're lucky to have one, do you sell or hold? So let's start with the buy side, let's start with the buy side. What do you think? We talked with Josh a lot earlier about this, where the pricing was a fraction of what it is now, so you have your answer, you know, it's definitely a good hold for Josh's one of one. And yeah, it's crazy, the Otani market has been crazy and just witnessing all the, I guess, peaks, and I won't even say valleys, but it would be just peaks and then more peaks and then more peaks, it's pretty crazy to see, but like I said, this is the dangers of our hobby, it's all based on emotion, and right now, rightfully so, what Otani's doing is incredible, and I don't necessarily see his market absolutely tanking, but I think his prices are obviously ridiculously high, and there are good relative buys, I think, based on his market, where his main movers are kind of really pushing the market to a next level. So I think there's secondary cards that are great buys still, and that's why the Otani market is fun, or anytime you have a superstar like that, it's pretty fun because you have a massive, massive range of collectors that increase the demand for the desired cards. So if you're a hobbyist, and you have the inside scoop of what great cards of Otani are, and this is us, we knew every single great card of Otani, if you're in the hobby in 2019 or 2018, or even 2020, 2021, you've seen the great opportunities that you missed with the colored parallels that have been the most demanded cards. And these are great for hobbyists that have been in the hobby because it's no different than you being aware of something that would be a good purchase, or a good time to purchase. So for me, it's not like I have to go study Otani, I've always been part of Otani's market in terms of awareness, right? So I think purchasing good buys, good fundamental buys are a great opportunity. So if you have FOMO, I think that's where the value lies, not necessarily the chased cards, because I think those will correct itself regardless. And maybe the correction could be in a higher manner too, it doesn't necessarily have to say correction in a lower manner where the price drops. Hey, maybe Otani cards in general are undervalued based on the market, even the high end stuff, we don't know. Because what are we basing that on? Are we basing that off, you know, Mickey Mantle 1952 tops, right? And extrapolate whatever data you can to value one of one Otani, or you know what I mean? So it's like, we don't know because there's so much gray area in the space, especially from anywhere from a million plus. We don't know what that looks like in the Otani market. And we could only speculate what's going to happen. So both sides, it's like prices are ridiculous. In my opinion, they're ridiculously high. But we could be saying that right now, like we've been saying it for the past three years. And meanwhile, this whole time, people are like, you guys are insane. Two years, three years from now, prices are a deal, right? And that's the craziness of our hobby is you can't really look too forward, I think. But I think also having a good insight of the macro lens of why you would purchase an Otani card in the first place. Because for me, it's like, would I mind overpaying for a card right now and putting cash towards a card where normally it would be like, you want to trade up to purchase one. Maybe cash is not a bad investment in a high end Otani card. Because if you're looking at it long term, you're betting that this Otani card will basically outperform the dollar, right? So for me, it's a good time to buy because you have a lot of people, you have the demand there. So the demand ultimately would be the liquidity of it. And do you perceive that demand to continue? And based on what Otani is doing, I think the really rare stuff, it's a lock. And I think a lot of people are thinking in the same lines, meaning they're not here to flip a $50,000, $100,000 Otani. Or at least that's not their intention. I think these guys are flipping it because they have no choice. Because they're like, holy crap, it's $300,000 now. Maybe it's a good time to sell. And I have no problem with that because, you know, take your profits and maybe it's a good opportunity to buy an Otani when the market softens a little bit. And maybe it doesn't. That's the risk you kind of take. Yeah, no, I like that higher level view. I definitely want to get into the weeds in just a second. But I'm curious about your thoughts, John, because you tend to be a little more conservative. Well, I mean, let's look at it this way. Let's say the three of us had Otani cards when he was injured. This is like pandemic timeline, right? We all bought into a couple of cards and we've unfortunately sold way too early. These cards, some of them have really close to 100x from those numbers, right? As evidenced by one of our friends, Andrew, who has Exquisite Auto, that's nearly like really close to 100x. So ask ourselves if we had those cards right now, would we, as much as we are convinced to go in on Otani, would we be selling those cards? I mean, I don't know about you guys. I think we would have already sold. Yeah, which we did. But at this point, had we happened to have held it this long, I would be so tempted to sell it right now. There's always a price. Always a price. Always. And obviously when you're 10x, 50x, 100x something, it's just because of the sheer profit. It's kind of a no-brainer, right? So I do think, you know, Otani cards, we missed the boat. That's like the bottom line. Like this is, like Hyung said, there's no valleys. It's just peaks. This is, you know, Otani's graph is going to look like Mount Everest. It's just going to keep going up. But I do think from a seasonal perspective, this is as high as it gets. Perhaps it goes even higher, right? But for now, in a small vacuum, like this is, if you're buying right now, my goodness, you're at the top. Like I do think in the off season, it'll, you know, maybe not by much, but I think it'll waver off a little bit. But then to Hyung's point, there are a lot of people looking to take advantage right now, right? So then at the same time, you do see a lot of cards that you may not see in the off season. So it's kind of like a give and take. So if someone were to pay, you know, overpay for a big sort of rare card, like Otani Rookie Red Ink or something, you can't be mad at it because perhaps it won't show up in the off season, right? So it's a tough, it's a really tough question. But if you're, you know, if you're like us, a bit of a small peasant and you're dealing in the hundred to thousand dollar card range, you're really dealing with probably like base refractors and stuff like that in PSA 10 form, I would probably think best to wait a little bit if you really needed to get in because this is too crazy. I'm glad you brought that up because I was going to save this for later, but I think, you know, and first of all, I generally agree with you. I'm on the, there's a bunch of Otani watch, Otani cards on my watch list and none of them are rookie years because I just been priced out at this point, but you know, 2019, 2020, when he had the original rookie auto, like the way he signed it, I'm looking at those cards as plays. You got to be creative now with depending on your budget, right? So I think there are still plays to be had, but kind of to your point, I think in the off season there might be a correction, there usually is, but I don't think we can expect much of a correction like if with, with other cards, it's not 20 to 25, that's the standard correction on off season. I think we're looking at five to 10% most with Otani, like there's definitely going to be a new floor in general when you look at all the Otani cards in aggregate, right? So I think that's something to expect. But going back to the 2018 Bowman Chrome batting refractor card, non-auto, numbered to $499. Okay. PSA 10, just like you mentioned, John, it's currently on auction with, as of this recording, with six hours left. Current bid is at $18,700. Ridiculous. Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. I'm bringing this point up because I do think there are bad Otani buys right now. That's a terrible Otani buy. Right? Terrible. I agree. I'd rather spend 20K on another card that's not Bowman Chrome, you know what I mean? And maybe lower than $499, like, yeah. So I'm just saying, be careful. You can also easily argue not Otani in general. Right? Yeah. But here's the thing. Two years from now, we're going to be a meme, or we're going to be used as a real, say, this age, like fine milk. I mean, if you took clips two years ago, we're like, jeez, what are the people thinking? Terrible Otani buy. And then they're like, I bought Otani, I did really well, how did you do? So yeah, but I agree. Stuff like that where I think it will correct itself. It's not really a $20,000 card, right? I rather invested in, I showed you guys what I would spend $20,000 on, and you guys never seen that card before, right? So it's like, those are the buys that I would be comfortable doing because I wouldn't plan to flip it. I think it's a $100,000 card. Or it might be, you know, I showed this to Clark, I'm like, there's a couple of really cheap Otani cards, in my opinion, based on Otani's market. Like if you look at Bowman Best Color, or you look at Topps High Tech numbered, low numbered card, there's some value buys here where, yeah, would I have bought this when the market was down? Probably not. But I don't think those cards have caught up to the other side. I'm not saying that those cards would justify the Bowman Chrome prices, but it has to get, there has to be somewhere in between where, you know, a numbered, a low numbered offset Otani will be good value because based on a $499 Bowman Chrome, PSA 10 selling at $20,000, right? Whereas a numbered to $25 might sell, of an off brand might sell for $1,500 right now. I'm going with the $1,500 buy because there's so much opportunity to grow from that. And the demand, or the supply is so limited. You know what I mean? So for me, I'm okay at this point to buy a cheaper Otani where I see, hey, this is really good value based on current markets of the main cards. I agree. Speaking on the buy side, if we're looking beyond rookie cards, because, you know, I think we all know that the floor for rookie card autograph cards, especially are just insanely high. What other cards are you looking for? And Hyun, you already mentioned a couple of good ones. Some of these off brand ones might be good value. John, what do you think? Do you have any, if you're looking for an Otani card that would fit better into your budget, what kind of, what kind of Otani card would you be looking at? Yeah. For me, definitely auto at this point. Like even like a rookie, non-auto rookie, I wouldn't interest me as much as perhaps like a second year auto rookie gold cup or an auto with him in a Dodgers jersey. Like I think those would be definitely secondary for me. If you can't hit one of the big boys, one of the real true rookie auto cards, like I'm probably going for a second. Honestly, even third, fourth, fifth years of popular sets. Like we talk about red ink. Like if you had a third or fourth year red ink in a PSA 10, I don't know how much those go for maybe 2,500. Like I'd even be interested in that over some random, you know, tops chrome refractor base that goes for like $1,500. I'd probably spend that $1,500 on a rookie auto, you know, maybe not red ink, but you know, like a heritage, you know, the heritage, a real one auto fourth year. Like I'd probably be interested, more interested in something like that. Yeah. Um, I love the red ink, like 2020, 2021 play, you know, like non-rookie year. Yeah. That's, but I feel like even if it's an autograph card, the floor is pretty high, showy autos. So that's something to consider. I think I've been looking at his first year Dodgers and that's, that's coming up quickly too, in terms of value. So yeah, I agree. I think if you're looking at buying cards now is probably not the time, you know, while they're in the world series and, um, but yeah, I don't know. Oh, you're going to say something. Yeah. I'll say something in terms of what you should look for. And I, I would, I would be confident right now to make this purchase in this market is a second year or third year Ohtani auto, but the old auto, we talked about this on previous episodes, the old autos are dying breed. So if you look at the Kanji auto, you look at how much the Kanji sells compared to any auto. There's obviously very limited supply on that, but there's a reason, but if you kind of fast forward to 10 years from now, Ohtani is never going to sign the way he signed in 2018, 2019 and some of 2020, I think 2020 bleeds into the old auto and he started signing maybe 2020, 2021 with the new auto. So I think over time, these are going to age really well. And it's the rookie autos are ridiculous, but I see second year. Like I would, my, my thing is not even 2020. I'm going straight to 2019 and have a budget of 10 K let's just say, and then pick the best second year auto I could buy for like 10 K and then just lock it up because for me, it's like, maybe it's not worth 10 K right now. Maybe if I try flipping it, I could, I lose money, but my whole point is I guarantee you when two years down the road, when you're looking for another Ohtani, you're not going to be able to buy that for 10 K, right? So for me, that's the play is the value based cards. And like we broke it down and we, we said this before, it's like Ohtani's old auto is going to be the chase, like in terms of the good buys. So for me, everybody's looking at 2018 rightfully so, but I think the next play is 2019. There are a lot of good buys right now with Ohtani's old auto. And I'll give you a perfect example, a card that I would look at honestly, and I know dual auto is not for everybody, but there's Heritage, dual autos of Trout and Ohtani, right? Where I'm just like, holy, like this thing's going to really age. And it's very reasonably priced number to 25 auto. You get it for a reasonable price, reasonable price. Even Ohtani's rookie year with Acuna tops now cards. I think those, those are still under priced. So I think, I think, like I said, I have no problem putting new cash towards a purchase. And I know that's not the best way to kind of do this hobby. You want to dump profits into future investments that will net you out more profit. But at this point, it's another new investment where it's like, okay, if I'm bringing 10K cash to the table, I'm locking 10K cash. I'm okay with 10K cash because I believe this Ohtani will age better than the dollar at the end of the day. So for me, that's the way I see it. I don't mind putting cash towards a new Ohtani, but it would be in the sense that until somebody basically puts a gun to my head and says, now this card's worth 100K and you're ready to sell, then I'll sell, right? So there's always a price and, but the intent is, hey, long-term investment value, true value of, hey, I really believe in this card. I love it. I love it. I, I, you kind of stole one of my ideas and I've been looking at these two already, the dual auto, super, like there's value there. I'm looking at one right now on my phone. There's an Ohtani Ichiro, both on card auto, number two, three. It's a 2020 version of Topps Dynasty. It's 8,000 or best offer, like 8,000. Amazing. Yeah. Like that's what I'm saying. Definitive is an underrated brand too. So for me, it's going to get to the next step. Actually, Topps Dynasty. I think Dynasty and Definitive are both underrated. They're high-end sets. Yes, yes, yes. So it's like, those are the purchases I'm talking about. Like a second year Dynasty or a Definitive auto, on-card auto, old auto, it's like, hey, lock that in. I know there's so many plays. Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think there are just, I can't believe that Bowman Chrome refractor non-auto is at almost 20K, but there are some cards that I would easily let go, like that one. If I had it, I'm like, yeah, give me 20K because I want to reinvest that into something better. Right. Right, man. Just briefly on the sell side, we just kind of, that's a good segue to what we're talking about. Are there any cards that other than the Bowman Chrome non-auto refractors, are there any cards you would just sell or which ones would you just hold long-term, no questions asked? Like I said, there's always a price Clark. And I think for me, the priority goes like Bowman Chrome autos obviously is the grail, right? And then you got your Topps Chrome autos, you know, you got your Topps Finest now starting to pick up steam with some really, really solid colored sales. And that's why it's like, I really love Topps Finest and Bowman's Best. Yeah. Like these secondary sets were undervalued. And I think they're still somewhat undervalued, but Otani markets. So I'm, but I'm selling those. Like, but if I have a main Otani, like the top two where it's, it's more so like Bowman Chrome or Topps Chrome, even Topps Heritage, Real One and Red Inks, those in my opinion are grails. Like these are, these are grails that, you know, don't come up often. And I'll even go as far as, you know, I know they're sticker autos, but, you know, I had a opportunity in, in really, I know you guys don't like sticker autos, but there, there was a, there's a point in time where I remember showing this card and I was about to pull the trigger at seven and a half K, right. Seven and a half K for a Topps. Um, they have the SSP and SP autos, which are super short printed to like five and 10. And I knew that just chasing Acuna and Soto for the longest time in 2018, I knew that these existed and they're super rare, but nobody knew about them. And the, I guess the demand for on-card autos are way higher than sticker autos. So it was kind of like a stink where it's like, ah, I rather spend $7,000 somewhere else, but I look back and that's exactly it. It's like, man, I knew that it was numbered to five, but it's a non-numbered card or it's low five to 10 print run. It's like, if I locked that in for seven and a half K, right. It's like, it's, it's not the greatest, but I think those will hold really well just based on kind of like, uh, the print run as well as flagship. So when, when we're talking about selling and buying and holding, I think those main flagship super, super high demand until the price is so ridiculous, where, like I said, somebody puts a gun to your head says, I'll give you like 500 K for this gold auto. It's like, okay, here, take it, you know? And then you, you, you repeat the process. You're going to have FOMO and you're like, I want another Otani. And then you buy it when the market, you know, makes sense or that value makes sense, and maybe it's putting more cash towards even a, a bigger one of one Otani at that point where you're dumping profits because you, you actually believe in it, uh, believe in the card and you're constantly upgrading. So I don't have, like I said, this hobby is great because it, it allows you to move however the market dictates, and then you will have a new kind of like. Chase and grail card that, you know, you love so much. Yeah. So many different plays for sure. I love it. Uh, what do you think about, and maybe I'll ask this to you, John. Unlicensed Otani. Oh, I mean, I still, I still think it's pretty viable. Okay. Right. At the end of the day, it's not everybody's favorite, but you know, some of the flawless cards, national treasures, they look, they look really nice, you know, there's value there in background there is. And, um, you know, the optics look really nice. I've always been a big, big fan of optics. So I, it's a trickle down effect, right? Like once, once the big boys go for insane prices, the secondary things are the ones that are going to start catching fire because someone's willing to spend 10 grand and know what Otani rookie autos are 10 grand, except maybe the unlicensed and it's like, boom, that's, that's what I have to buy. That's my price price range. Right. That I, this goes back to what Hyung is saying. I think Otani cards right now is in a space where you can dig deeper for things that are a little bit more obscure. We would normally never recommend the more obscure cards ever, but Otani is just in the outer space right now. And, and obscure cards haven't quite caught up to the hype of the Bowman chromes and the tops chromes, et cetera. And the real one autos, et cetera. So eventually when Otani's, you know, I don't know, base refractors worth $5,000. Yeah. Those, those flawless and national treasures, like those are going to be big, big money. Right. So, um, yeah, I think there's definitely a play on unlicensed. I know a lot of people hate it, but yeah, right, right now there's, there's value compared to the prices we're seeing, uh, the license one sell for, but I want to do issue and warning and you tell me if you guys agree or not, if the market really corrects, right, even on Otani cards, the, you know, the, the Bowman chromes and tops chromes, they'll probably do fine, but the, all these secondary ones where we do currently see value because of the hype, those will crash super hard, agree or disagree. Dollar cost average. That's when you buy, that's when you buy and you keep buying, you know, and, and going back to the license thing, I think Otani right now is the only guy in sports that can make unlicensed cool, you know what I mean? It's, it's, it's crazy as like, I, I, it's ridiculous that we're even having this conversation and justifying that, you know, unlicensed, because we all came from that where it's like, well, that's big, that's one of the most massive things for me as someone who's investing in something is, is it licensed? And like I said, if you look and extrapolate in the business world, there's a reason why licensing is millions and millions of dollars to, you know, brands is because of, you know, exactly what we're talking about. There's, it makes a big difference in terms of just brand value in general. So for me, and going back to this, it's like, you look at going back to Josh, he has an unlicensed Otani and he picked it up at great value at that time. And that's what we're talking about. It's like, well, everything we've known about licensing, unlicensing goes out the can, it doesn't really matter. So for me, it's like, yeah, if, if, if the value is there, there's always a play regardless if it's licensed or unlicensed, but with the asterisks, it's like, you're right, the first thing to go down are those secondary cards. Right. But if you've purchased properly and you've purchased it at a reasonable price, I don't think the damage is, is too much at this point because what Otani has been doing, you can't reverse it unless he does something stupid, like gamble or something, you know then, you know, that would obviously affect card prices, but that would be the only thing. So it's hard to reverse a market in terms of what Otani has already accomplished, but you're right. If anything does happen, the thing that usually hurts is the secondary card prices and I'll include, you know, unlicensed at this point, it's like people want a liquid and exit out of a card, you know, those are the ones that are going to really drop in, in, in value. But like I said, Otani, you can't apply what happens in the whole hobby with Otani at this point, because Otani is the trendsetter, he might make unlicensed cool, right, in general, it's crazy. We'll clip, we'll clip that and yeah, I mean, Otani is a, let's just say he's a unicorn in MLB, he's a unicorn in the hobby, like there is no other guy that we can compare Otani to, right? And I think, I think that's what we're dealing with and, and I think that's why it makes it so interesting to see what other people will do with Otani cards, because he's just setting new precedent for, for everything these days. I will add to Clark, what I noticed too, base cards, I know people hate base, but I'm telling you, I have probably, I would say 300 plus Otani cards, and just going through majority of them, they have gone up so much, like I'm talking in just like if I were to submit these PSA 10s, I'm not saying that I would get every single PSA 10, but I would be confident that I'm landing 70%, you know, gem, gem rates on these. And these all are like common cards that are going for hundreds of dollars now. So for me, I think there's a huge play in buying raw. And when the time is right, you do a bulk grade at a good, good buy in price. I think there, there, there's great plays there where if you're not willing to spend thousands of dollars on Otani, you could still participate in this hype, because like I said, the value lies in one, and I know who is it, Paul Hickey, he loves the grading and grading and flipping, right? These are great times where you could buy great raw cards where people are like, I would sell this Otani for five bucks, 10 bucks as a raw card, get rid of it, keep the cash going in my collection. And then some people will see that as opportunity. You buy, you know, 100 raw cards, you know, and you get 70 gem mints out of that. Right. And to me, you know, those are great investments, too. It doesn't necessarily have to be that one card that, you know, has. enormous value now and you're hoping that that card just goes up based on previous pricing. So like I said, if your game is, you know, zero to a hundred dollars, great. There's your move. If it's a hundred to a thousand, there's a move there. If there's a thousand to 5k, there's a move there. So everybody can play. It's just, you know, using your creativity to kind of see what's out there. That's why I wanted to do this segment. Like there's so many different plays, especially if you don't have the cash flow, like, like, you know, we're all in the same boat, you know, not everyone can afford five, six figure Otani cards, but, but yeah, um, speaking of which, Hyung's point is, uh, sounding all too familiar. It sounds like the COVID era. I'm getting PTSD right now. He's on eBay on the side right now, submitting everything and you're looking for lots. Uh, well, you know, it's Otani. He just breaks all the rules right now. Right. We're having this, we're even having this discussion and, and, uh, you know what? It just reminded me, I was going through some of my cards the other day and remember I bought that tops 50, 50, um, set and I, I submitted like the home run 50 base, which I got a PSA nine in, but I still was able to sell it for 80 bucks and, um, uh, just kind of to your point that you just mentioned, there's a whole, I have like, you know, what, 30, 40 more base cards. Yeah. See what PSA tens are worth. And then like you said, bulk submit and, and I'm sure I can make some money off of that too, if I wanted to. Right. Um, but yeah, I love all those ideas. I hope you guys, uh, got some ideas of your own, especially if you only have a thousand dollars to spend and you want to know a tiny card. Yeah. Just be creative. And, and, um, you know, in five years when we celebrate our 10th anniversary of this pod, we'll either look like geniuses or we'll either look like, who are these guys? We'll be internet. Oops. We'll be memes. He's like you said earlier. Um, all right, let's go on with, uh, our next segment we're calling quiz show. Okay. Um, this is going to be a short one because I knew this, uh, tiny discussion would be longer. Uh, so I have one question for you and if you guys answer this quickly, I got one bonus question for you. So we'll see how it goes. We're just saying off the air, you know, if it wasn't for the Jays heading to the world series, we'd be much more into the NBA season, right? We'd be focused on the Raptors and the NBA, but the season has started and, um, I'm like, wow, the season started and that's because we're so into the Jays right now. But yes, the NBA season has begun. So I thought this question would be appropriate for our quiz show segment. Um, so the one question I got for you guys is which active NBA players have card sales that are over $1 million. So there's five current NBA players that have had a card sale over a million bucks. Who are those? So it has to be Curry LeBron. We'll get those out of the way. Curry LeBron. Yup. Check, check. I know the Giannis is up there for one. Giannis is there. Zion is not, he was a hype during COVID, but he did not, he did not hit the $1 million mark. Hey, I wouldn't be surprised. Thankfully. Thankfully for, uh, yeah, whoever might've bought it at 1 million, that was, that would be hard. 1 million. So MJ. Active. Oh, active. Okay. Okay. Active. Active. Um. Wow. There's five. Luca. Luca. Luca's there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. So that's four. This is always the one. I've asked similar questions like this in different ways. And this guy is always the one. It's Anthony Davis. Yeah. Wow. See, I, I would think it was something like Zion, but yeah, I remember this Anthony Davis sale. That's crazy. Sorry. So which, which, yeah. I could have asked you which of these fives don't belong as much, as good as Anthony Davis is. Uh, you know, I don't think he belongs in that category. Yeah. That was a tough buy. Uh, AD. Yeah. Um, okay. So this is a bonus question because I knew, uh, you guys would answer that quickly. Just like the, uh, MLB. I don't know if you guys remember, remember the gold patch MLB logo for the award winners of the previous year? Um, like Paul Skeens won the Cy Young and, or a rookie of the year. Um, and then, you know, they, they would insert those gold patch that they wore in their jerseys this past season into future tops cards. So the NBA doing the exact same thing, right? For the players that won MVP, rookie of the year, and defensive player of the year. Do you know who those players are? So it was last year. This past year. Yep. And they will be wearing gold logo man patches this season. And that these, these will be inserted into future tops. Stefan Castle won rookie of the year. So he'll have the year. And then you got SGA. You got it. And then, um, defensive player of the year who, who won defensive player of the year? Uh, Dyson Daniels, maybe? Nope. No. Rudy Gobert again? No. I'll give you a clue and this should give it away. Cleveland Cavaliers. Okay, maybe not. Uh, Evan Mobley? Evan Mobley. There you go. Oh yeah. That's right. Oh shoot. But so those three will be having gold logo man patches. I think, I think that would be a good chase with, with, uh, Stefan Castle, um, you know, I think him and Wendy are going to do some damage, but yeah, SGA, I think he's undervalued and this is going to help his card prices too. But I love, I love the idea. It makes so much sense in every aspect. Yeah. And this is what fanatics is really good at, right? What works, you know, we talked about the NBA debut patch, uh, last week's episode. Um, and there's this rinse and repeat. So it's amazing what a change in leadership does for the hobby. All right. Uh, we'll finish off our regular weekly segment called pick one. And Hyung, do you want to start things off for us? Sure. Uh, I'm going to, because we're talking about Wotani and I'm, I'm going to not go off of sold prices. I'm going to say what's available in the market and at the price point. So it's like, we got to make a purchase by week's end. Okay. By tomorrow. Okay. The first one is going to be, and you remember this card too, Clark, cause we, when we went to fanatics, we interviewed that guy, um, with the Wotani freshman flash orange. It was a PSA 10 though. So he's doing pretty well. I think with that card now he was, he was, he said he would sell it at 17 K in a heartbeat, but I think it's, it might be worth more than that now, but, um, should have bought it then. Yeah. We should have bought it then. But there's a PSA nine version auto 10. So it's a Wotani orange number two 25 freshman flash auto that's listed for 15 K. Okay. Which is, which is high in my opinion. It's like, I don't think it's worth them, but I know somebody who's going to purchase it. Right. So there's that card. So insert auto rookie auto of Wotani number two, 25 old auto. Would you rather spend $15,000 that's available on eBay right now? Or would you buy two of the Bowman chrome first autos of Vladimir Guerrero jr gold BGS nine, five, 10. And they're, they're about, there's one at a buy it now for AK and then eight and a half as a best offer. So let's just say 15 K you could buy both cards, right? Of the gold auto. Would you rather buy the two gold Vladi autos or the Wotani PSA nine auto 10? Oh my, Oh my, I'm going to take my Homer bias out of it. And maybe it's because we spent almost 20, 30 minutes talking about Wotani just previously in this episode. I'm buying the Wotani hype. Really? Wow. Holy. Give it to me. It is number two, 25. It's a number two, 25 on card auto, right? And what, what year? Like it's his old, old autographs, old autographs. 2018. Yeah. Rookie. Rookie auto. Yeah. Sold. Sold. Hmm. 15 K. So that, that means, that means that that value of that PSE 10, um, PSE 10 is probably put it at 40 K. He's doing well. Yeah. The problem, the problem right now is Wotani is just eating up. He had been eating up the entire market for the last two seasons and he's just going to continue to eat up the market. So Soto has a great year. No one cares. Junya had a pretty good, no one cares. You know, Rookiebet had a near heavy, no one, nobody cares. So as much as like Vladdy, you know, is, is getting into his potential and earning his keep. I don't know. I don't think anyone's going to care. So that's, this is the problem right now. So like, I want to jump on the hype, but when we just talked about the fact that I think it's too crazy of a high. I'm a little concerned on that. And then I think if I take a step back and kind of relax a bit, conventional wisdom, you know, deep value investor, he is going to say, if you're going to go for a player, if you still think like, if you do think Vladdy is going to become the superstar that he is, he's clearly showing it during these playoffs, then you got to go for the best of the best of his cards. of the best of the best of his cards versus, I don't know, you know, a secondary, you know, like a fifth string, 1600th string, Shohei Otani, Rookie Otto, still really nice. So I think I have to kind of take a step back here, conventional wisdom and be like, okay, let's, let's calm down and choose the two Vladdy's. So I'm going to choose the two Vladdy's. So one's emotional, one's logical, right? So let me ask you guys a quick question. What do you think the upside of that gold auto is on Vladdy? I think that could be like 20, 25,000. Really high upside, especially where the market's going in the past. What do you think the freshman flash could be? I think it'd be the same. It could go anywhere, right? It could get there too. Yeah. I think it'd get to 22. Yeah, that's... Well, it's already there, right? Yeah. So that... But then, but then you got two Vladdy's. Two Vladdy's. Yeah. That's, that's the, Vladdy might have the upper, but that Otani auto might be $80,000. That'd be... Like we don't, to us, that's ridiculous, right? Like it would never get to 80K until it does. That's what we've been saying. Because think, if, if these upper echelon cards of what we talked about, the five superstars that are a million plus. So it's saying, let's just say Otani gets his cards there, not saying that that card would be specifically a million dollars, but his Bowman Chrome, obviously Super Fractors worth way more than that. And it might go for 10 million, who knows? And then that totally sets the precedence of all his cards and where the value holds now. That's true, yeah. So that's, that's the scary part of this whole question is like the logical answer is Vladdy. Like those are two grails of Vladdy that I would, but it's not necessarily saying that, you know, that's going to have the higher upside. Yes, the card itself has a higher upside and Vladdy is a goat in himself, right? Generational talent, but Otani might have the higher potential. I don't know. That's, that's, that's the crazy part is what we think is a grail in one card could be, you know, still outperformed by a lower end of Otani, right? So, but in saying all that, as of right now, if I'm dropping 15K, I'm stanging up those Vladdy's. I think they are like $20,000 cards eventually, because I believe in Vladdy as a talent. I believe he's worth every penny and he's going to continue to hit. But like I said, you can't go wrong with either because I do have the FOMO of the old Otani auto, especially in the rookie card on card. So I go back and forth, but yeah, I'm going to go with two Vladdy's in this case. All right. You guys are homers. Okay. John. Yeah. So I'm going to stick, I'm going to stick to baseball at this is this. My question does not apply to Otani. So remove Otani. But if you were like, if you're in the sort of hundred to $1,000 spending space, we're not talking Brent, the value investor, big money. We're just talking, you know, peasant, peasant money. Would you, for somebody, you know, like a lot of under, there's tons of underrated at this point, everyone is underrated compared to Otani, but there's tons of underrated superstars, potential players that are going to go to the hall of fame. Would you rather for whatever amount, a hundred, 500, a thousand equivalent, equivalent, like a rookie card of a certain player or the equivalent money into their current or whatever iconic team they become associated with? For example, I just think of George Springer is a bit of a Homer pick, but you know, George Springer rookie on Astros, Astros, right? Versus George Springer, the Blue Jays, where he's now starting to become more like an iconic figure. Would you rather the Blue Jays, Mookie Betts? Would you rather Mookie Betts on LA or Mookie Betts rookie auto? Juan Soto, not yet, but I'm assuming in the next 10 years he'll be like more iconic in the Mets jersey. Would you rather a $500 Juan Soto autograph in a Mets jersey or would you rather an equivalent $500 rookie card in a Nationals jersey? Which for somebody investing 500 bucks or a hundred bucks, what's the better play? It's a good question. It is, but for me, it's personal preference. I just default to the rookie, the rookie card overall over everything. So that's an easy one for me. Yeah, I think. The argument I have. with that Clark and not saying that I agree because my whole first thing anytime I'm looking at a player I'm going rookie card first best value there if there's the values not there I would go to like current or like in this case LA Dodgers with Otani would be a staple of man there's still a high demand but we would still kind of go towards the rookie card first to see regardless if he played for Anaheim or not it's still very sought after right so yeah I think in general the rookie card is the answer but I think with the marketing and current now hype of any player can potentially be a better investment in terms of value right so like where Otani Dodgers uniform might be a lot cheaper to buy in and that flip might be the better value compared to his rookie card because the rookie cards more overvalued so obviously every player is different and it would be value based but in general I would gravitate towards the rookie card for sure just straight up that with with it let's just say there's no value let's just say a player like Vlade Guerrero right or George Springer will use your example a George Springer I probably go his like a rookie patch auto where George Springer has great value because he's not a hype in the hobby right as opposed to like a Juan Soto where the value might be in the modern modern lens if that makes sense yeah yeah I think when I think about this a little bit deeper and I know we're kind of running out of time I'll try to be quick I think it really comes down to long whether you're going to be out the answer becomes long term or short term so I'm going to answer it from a short term perspective and I think the iconic jersey has more volatility in the short term so I'm going to go with that and may perhaps I'm just trying to save my own 1v1 I really I actually truly believe it like if you're going for a Mookie bet somebody sort of in the lull period where there's not much excitement like not many people are investing they should be but they're not investing in Mookie bets and I think whatever volatility you know like if Dodgers end up beating our Jays like I think it's the Mookie bets LA Dodgers like I think the LA area people who are fans of LA like that movement and that demand is going to be a lot greater than Mookie bets the player right so I think the Mookie bets the LA player is going to outweigh Mookie bets the future Hall of Famer so I think in the short run if that makes any sense the iconic jersey George Springer Blue Jays is going to be way more of a hot demand I could say that George Springer rookie card like the fan fans of George Springer the like like the long term of their you know perhaps he comes becomes a Hall of Famer I think there's a lot less of that and way more Blue Jay fans of George Springer so I think in the short term the answer is the iconic jersey or the iconic team that they're currently on I can see that yeah for sure and I think it's player dependent too so you know remove Otani again he's not in the argument yeah all right you know what I'm going to do for the last one because yeah we do have to log off for today but I'm going to tell you what my pick one is and I'm going to put a poll up on my Instagram at 5cardguys and then we'll revisit it next time we meet and see if we agree with the general population out there okay so some of you guys know that I bought this past week a Vladdy Guerrero first Bowman chrome blue refractor number to 150 BGS 9.5 10 auto love that card already I bought it for 3k just under 3k all right what's the better value in that 2016 season of Bowman chrome the Juan Soto BGS 9.5 blue refractor these are all blue all BGS 9.5 that sold for 7,500 this past month and the Fernando Tatis jr. blue refractor BGS 9.5 sold for 2,000 so you got Tatis at 2,000 Soto at 7,500 and the Vladdy at 3,000 think about it which one is the better value I'll put that poll up on at 5cardguys and at cards to the moon and we'll see what how people vote all right thanks for to all our listeners coming in week after week we'll have a brand new episode for you guys next week as well talk to you then bye hey thanks for listening to cards to the moon we'd really appreciate you subscribing to our podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts and you can also connect with each of us on instagram at five card guys or you can follow young at integrity sports cards or John at trade you at recess you can also check us out at 5cardguys.com thanks again and hope to connect soon