Latest / The Sports Card CEO Podcast / Episode 44, S2: Big Matt x Little Matt | Market Trends, Manipulation & Repackers

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Episode 44, S2: Big Matt x Little Matt | Market Trends, Manipulation & Repackers · The Sports Card CEO Podcast

0:00
[SPEAKER_00]: What is happening SportsCart CEO community?
0:03
[SPEAKER_00]: You got Big Matt little Matt today.
0:04
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to do a brief market update.
0:06
[SPEAKER_00]: It talk a little bit about this crazy hobby that we all know and love the SportsCart hobby.
0:29
[SPEAKER_03]: a 40-70 season and a season of life in the other and naturely baseball history from one of the co-natured.
0:39
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a drive right on the panel.
0:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Evan Connor and what a fun season.
0:43
[SPEAKER_02]: He is having the hits that show on hard.
0:47
[SPEAKER_02]: He hits the line of the left.
0:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Mike Trump, that's right the moment on.
0:51
[SPEAKER_01]: What's up, guys?
0:52
[SPEAKER_01]: It's Mike Traut and this is a sports car, C-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E
1:19
[SPEAKER_00]: got to step it up made your full-time business man entrepreneur running you know the card game and your basketball player baseball player and you know school and all the above so you got a lot on your plate right now.
1:30
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes, a lot going on, but time management is something that you taught me really early having to manage everything and you know if you're a busy person, I know you're a busy person, you have to manage a lot of stuff so hopefully just handle it better than you do.
1:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I don't handle it well.
1:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Well cool man, well let's do a little you know in honor of kind of the tradition of sports cards CEO I'll let you kind of kick it off with a little bit of a wrap up of what's going on and then today We're gonna talk about market things you know things that you notice trends that you see in the hobby What you notice about certain cards pricing et cetera We had a listener ask us about Bowman at the National we'll touch on that briefly talk a little bit about kind of repract repackers new product coming out
2:10
[SPEAKER_00]: and then kind of close it up with the story about connections in the hobby.
2:13
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'll let you kick it off though with a little bit of a what's up in your world kind of thing.
2:17
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, dude.
2:18
[SPEAKER_05]: Honestly, this is probably the most cards I've done in a little bit.
2:21
[SPEAKER_05]: This weekend, I haven't really had anything going on.
2:24
[SPEAKER_05]: So I said, you might have to go buy some cards and I bought a few big cards and there's a deal we need to talk about in a little bit that we'll get into in a little bit.
2:33
[SPEAKER_05]: But I
2:34
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, but I bought some cards.
2:35
[SPEAKER_05]: I bought a east-wester for actor Jordan.
2:38
[SPEAKER_05]: Those are always nice.
2:39
[SPEAKER_05]: That one I bought it on eBay, so go check out my comp.
2:42
[SPEAKER_00]: That's like you're what six to one of those?
2:44
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, six.
2:45
[SPEAKER_05]: It's one of the most important cards ever made.
2:46
[SPEAKER_05]: I think it's really undervalued.
2:48
[SPEAKER_05]: So happy to get that one anytime I can pick it up.
2:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, flashback, you actually called that card being undervalued.
2:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably what two months ago, I guess.
2:56
[SPEAKER_05]: three months ago in the podcast, I said, when they were we're PSA 10s or 20 cash at PSA 10s to be at 30 K and PSA 10s like 35 K at this point.
3:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
3:05
[SPEAKER_00]: For sure.
3:06
[SPEAKER_00]: So cool.
3:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Got a East Western Frater coming in.
3:08
[SPEAKER_00]: What else going on?
3:09
[SPEAKER_05]: But a Lebronka boom.
3:11
[SPEAKER_05]: I bought a.
3:13
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, I buy, and I bought a lot of some cobees and stuff, and then I bought a lot from our local shop, port city sports collectibles.
3:20
[SPEAKER_05]: So I've been, I've been pretty busy on the buying front.
3:22
[SPEAKER_05]: I know you wish I was busy on the selling front, but we did have multiple auctions close in the past week.
3:28
[SPEAKER_05]: Absolutely killed it.
3:30
[SPEAKER_05]: Auctions right now are super hot, and we can get back more, we can get more of that later.
3:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so shout out the port city collectibles.
3:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Our our buddy, Jamison Long, who's going to join us on the next episode of the podcast for our listeners.
3:41
[SPEAKER_00]: This is definitely one you don't want to miss.
3:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Jamison has been in the card space for a long time.
3:46
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a local card shop owner, but Jamison is actually the guy that sold the big deal to Mr.
3:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Wonderful at Fanatics Fest.
3:54
[SPEAKER_00]: a big show hay card so we're gonna have Jamison on the pod to talk about that deal along with kind of his perspective on the market and some things he's got a phenomenal collection great guy really invests in a hobby with the local card store here port city collectible so excited to have him on next week but we're recording this kind of a head of that and he's coming on next week so definitely bookmark that on my end man you know we just wrapped up the summer with the family which is a wild time we had fanatics fest middle
4:22
[SPEAKER_00]: We had the national end of July and then we did a trip to the mountains with our family, the middle of August.
4:27
[SPEAKER_00]: So we had a 30-day span where we were out probably what a total of 10 to 12 days during that 30-day span.
4:35
[SPEAKER_00]: So super, super busy season for us, but that's the summer.
4:39
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how it goes.
4:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And so now kind of getting back into the saddle on my front with early oak, with the insurance company.
4:46
[SPEAKER_00]: There's been a great year for us, a lot of growth there, really trying to strategically reposition kind of where to from here, we're about 28, 30 months into that business and so a lot of exciting days ahead challenges there as well as with just a growth initiative.
5:02
[SPEAKER_00]: As far as kids get back in a school man, I'm really excited how you guys have in some kind of schedule.
5:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I love the fact that you have a car now.
5:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Much to your dismay, you get to run some of the errands that I've been having to run over the last, you know, three or four years at the card business for sure.
5:18
[SPEAKER_00]: So what's that like dude, like having to actually have some responsibility to get stuff to the post office and make sure that things get taken care of.
5:26
[SPEAKER_05]: Dude, I'm telling you, gas is expensive.
5:28
[SPEAKER_05]: I did not thank you for being that expensive.
5:31
[SPEAKER_05]: And it goes away like so easy.
5:34
[SPEAKER_05]: But dude, like, I've gone through a tank and like a week already.
5:37
[SPEAKER_05]: Like it's a, it's a, it's a lot.
5:39
[SPEAKER_05]: But dude, I love having the car.
5:41
[SPEAKER_05]: It's a good freedom.
5:42
[SPEAKER_05]: And it's like, I know every time you're like, every time, you know, there's like a fight inside the house, like I, you can just go away from it.
5:48
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, yeah, but I have to go post office.
5:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And the fight inside the house, what do you make it sound like we're fighting?
5:52
[SPEAKER_00]: What are we fighting about?
5:53
[SPEAKER_05]: No, not us, not us.
5:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, gosh, I'm getting out of here.
5:58
[SPEAKER_00]: How's it going?
5:59
[SPEAKER_00]: People are going to watch the pod and think I'm like throwing hammakers in my kids or what?
6:03
[SPEAKER_05]: I've heard something.
6:04
[SPEAKER_05]: No, when the girls are like, when everyone's like oversimulated, I'm like, yep, I've taken these to post office.
6:09
[SPEAKER_05]: So it's a good freedom.
6:11
[SPEAKER_05]: And I can just, and I visit Fort City's work clock to both a lot more now.
6:15
[SPEAKER_05]: I've been like three days in a row.
6:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's good stuff, man.
6:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, I'm I'm looking forward to the fall.
6:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I think right now my mind said it's just been a bit of repositioning, you know, we had a really good spring run with baseball really good summer run with the national and now it's kind of like re acclimating and I think it's these these seasons of resetting your business.
6:35
[SPEAKER_00]: and doing a lot of personal introspection like is very, very important.
6:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a huge proponent of this.
6:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Earlier this week, I got to speak to a real estate development company in Florida as part of kind of the nonprofit work that I do.
6:48
[SPEAKER_00]: It's actually a community, believe it or not, that I sold real estate at back in my 20s and they're redeveloping some areas and they asked me to come and speak.
6:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the things that I really,
6:57
[SPEAKER_00]: hammered home for those set sales team is like if you don't have an awareness of your own sales process, if you don't have an awareness of your own personal you know highs, lows, strengths, weaknesses you know you can get into this law where you just keep doing the same thing but in reality you need to fix something about yourself and so we do that really well with cards probably much to your dismay I'm always like hey Matt
7:20
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you want to do here?
7:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's reset this.
7:21
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you think about this?
7:23
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm the one that kind of like fine tunes, if you will, the dial on that along with, you know, Bubba and kind of his involvement in that business thing.
7:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think right now is a good opportunity for fine tuning some things.
7:36
[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, diving into this week's episode man, you had some things on your mind that you wanted to share that you're noticing in the market and we just kind of have a general conversation that I think will be really helpful for the listeners.
7:47
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, man.
7:47
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, I want to go back to one of podcast meetings you did a while back.
7:51
[SPEAKER_05]: And I made a comment about how the Brady Bowmans were getting pumped.
7:55
[SPEAKER_05]: And I said, get out while you can everyone.
7:59
[SPEAKER_05]: They're bidding them up.
8:01
[SPEAKER_05]: And I think I was right because at national they peaked at 15k.
8:06
[SPEAKER_05]: And you saw five of them go on auction on alt.
8:10
[SPEAKER_05]: And they sold some of them sold for like 10, 11, 10.
8:13
[SPEAKER_05]: So Brady Bowman's, they're literally down like 20%.
8:17
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
8:18
[SPEAKER_05]: And they shouldn't be because like, it's not like Tom Brady's doing anything bad of him slapping Logan Paul.
8:23
[SPEAKER_05]: But it's just pure market manipulation.
8:27
[SPEAKER_05]: And it just kind of, it proves like there, like absolutely, like you can't deny it.
8:32
[SPEAKER_05]: Like,
8:32
[SPEAKER_05]: Tom Brady didn't do anything to make his cards go down like a that just proved it can clearly.
8:37
[SPEAKER_05]: And the thing that proves that even more Brady contenders are up.
8:40
[SPEAKER_05]: Brady asks please are up like no other Brady's are down.
8:44
[SPEAKER_05]: So just proves that that card was just over overhyped.
8:47
[SPEAKER_05]: And I think a lot of people, that's like,
8:50
[SPEAKER_05]: A comment I made a while back that it's easier to pump a car than 20,000 of versus the car.
8:56
[SPEAKER_05]: There's 2,000 of and that's why I said the flea Jordan would be more easily Nipulated than the star Jordan and right now I think we're seeing it with a few players markets and I just be careful out there not not in the bumming game But in the goat market, there's a few players right now that
9:11
[SPEAKER_05]: have literally skyrocketed in two weeks.
9:13
[SPEAKER_05]: If you see a car that has gone up more than 50% in two weeks for no particular reason, then it's a clear pump inside like people are manipulating the car.
9:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so you know this story, and I'm gonna share this story, and I think our listeners can relate to this story.
9:30
[SPEAKER_00]: So when Walt Disney, which was founded in California, when they were seeking to unveil Disney World in Orlando, Florida,
9:38
[SPEAKER_00]: They bought all the real estate around, you know, this kind of late point of this to area.
9:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you remember the story, they had to buy the land under different aliases, under different LLCs and different companies, because if the market saw that Disney was buying all of the real estate around Orlando, then the real estate would have gone
10:00
[SPEAKER_00]: extremely expensive very quickly.
10:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So what ended up happening was, Disney was able to acquire all of this adjacent land under different names in LLCs to accomplish his objective of having Disney World proper, which is all of this real estate.
10:16
[SPEAKER_00]: it's no different in the card market when you have certain people that you know have an interest right in a certain player or a certain card or a certain set or if they have you know again if they're running an initiative and they want to leverage what their resources are to move a market then they can do that you know and again this is why within the
10:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Investment world within, you know, kind of the stock market, there's regulations there.
10:45
[SPEAKER_00]: But we exist in a card hobby where there are no regulations.
10:48
[SPEAKER_00]: There's this loose set of gentleman's rules, right?
10:51
[SPEAKER_00]: That some people adhere to some people don't.
10:54
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's really the Wild Wild West if you want to be honest.
10:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And there is no regulation on it.
10:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's this internal moral compass that drives you to say, okay, I'm gonna do this or I'm gonna do that.
11:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's very different for people.
11:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And so for someone to step into this hobby and not understand that there are massive amounts of money and corporate money that are kind of shifting and moving these markets, that's a very real thing.
11:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, we've talked about this for years when it relates to seasonal flow of cards, right?
11:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So everybody's been talking about the football market.
11:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Traditionally at the national, the football market is booming.
11:31
[SPEAKER_00]: This year it wasn't, but I've noticed that the football market over the last couple of weeks has started to turn a little bit.
11:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
11:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's just a little bit delayed.
11:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Naturally, as games start to come on TV, people start to watch things kind of trend up.
11:43
[SPEAKER_00]: We see that in the springtime with baseball.
11:45
[SPEAKER_00]: We see it in the late fall with basketball.
11:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And so understanding general market moves is a very important thing.
11:54
[SPEAKER_00]: But the thing you can't put your finger on is this underlying market manipulation, especially with cards.
12:00
[SPEAKER_00]: that seem to have kind of a high population count and a lot of these things that were you know the Jordan rookie, the Brady rookie, you look at Wayne Gretzky rookies, you look at the Griffey, upper deck rookie, there's these cards are readily available right and so if somebody wants to move a market with a hundred thousand dollars or two hundred thousand dollars or half a million dollars
12:19
[SPEAKER_00]: and they want to buy up a bunch of these and the market starts to rise and then they liquidate into a rising market and the market comes down.
12:26
[SPEAKER_00]: That's kind of what you see happening and it's not all look at these bad people doing this.
12:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just be aware of the game that's being played.
12:34
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, exactly.
12:35
[SPEAKER_05]: And if like...
12:37
[SPEAKER_05]: It just shows you that like if you like you can't like hate on it because there's a lot of people like doing it But like just you got to be careful like there's a lot of people out there and they're in it for themselves and You can't get caught with the back, but one of the next things I want to talk about was how repackers affect the market
12:56
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, a lot of people say repackers ruin the card market, repackers ruin the hobby.
13:02
[SPEAKER_05]: I actually think the complete opposite.
13:04
[SPEAKER_05]: When repackers are buying, when repackers are in the hobby, like it literally affects the hobby greatly.
13:13
[SPEAKER_05]: like I'd like to point out a situation a few a few months ago um one of the biggest bone and repackers in specific stop buying.
13:21
[SPEAKER_05]: You saw the bone and market literally go down in percentages just because they stopped by and they have such a big toll on the market.
13:30
[SPEAKER_05]: that people don't realize like if repackers stop buying like everyone wants them to like the market would go down like a big reason why this market is where it is or because of repackers and something like that.
13:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, let me explain this a little bit further.
13:44
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's the deal.
13:45
[SPEAKER_00]: What drives a car's value is demand?
13:49
[SPEAKER_00]: and the demand either comes from one of three areas, all right?
13:54
[SPEAKER_00]: There is genuine collectible demand.
13:57
[SPEAKER_00]: That is somebody wants to own and hold this asset as a collectible.
14:01
[SPEAKER_00]: This is an end-user collector, okay?
14:05
[SPEAKER_00]: When you're dealing with Mickey Mannell's vintage Jordan low population, whatever, and then you get into major league performers, you know, you've got the show haste, the judges, you know, these kinds of guys, that is there's an end user out there that goes, I want to own this card from a personal collection, that drives demand.
14:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Secondarily what drives demand is corporate money.
14:28
[SPEAKER_00]: This is repackers.
14:29
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how I refer to it.
14:31
[SPEAKER_00]: they need product for their packages that folks are opening, and so they are naturally creating demand because they want to have the best cards available to put out their into their streams, okay?
14:43
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is largely driven by people getting into the hobby.
14:47
[SPEAKER_00]: They're looking for a risk-reward scenario.
14:49
[SPEAKER_00]: They're buying into a repacket $500 with the chance of hitting a $5,000, $7,000,000, whatever dollar card.
14:55
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, that is a bit of a gambling environment, but it is driving
15:00
[SPEAKER_00]: because they have to keep revenue up.
15:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, they have to keep running repacts.
15:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, they have to have the inventory.
15:08
[SPEAKER_00]: So as long as the demand is there from the buyer, who's buying into the repacts, you're gonna have the demand up on the cards because the market's there.
15:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the third is just FOMA.
15:19
[SPEAKER_00]: This is just the flippers, those like us who are getting into that market and they're dabbling in these assets.
15:26
[SPEAKER_00]: As long as those three things are healthy and you've got those three things, you have a market economy that is strong and it's kind of swirling like this, right?
15:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I would argue that the flipper game or whatever the new money coming in, like that's what's really driving it along with the repackers.
15:43
[SPEAKER_00]: The collectors are always the collectors.
15:45
[SPEAKER_00]: They're always the collectors.
15:46
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just the demand on those cards is higher because there's more people in the game.
15:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, I've said this before.
15:52
[SPEAKER_00]: The more flippers that are in, the more people that are getting into repacts, the more collectors it'll create.
15:57
[SPEAKER_00]: So it automatically works and moves in a good trajectory, but be aware that that's what's driving this.
16:03
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I think another thing too is uh, repackers are actually starting to buy a much better inventory now.
16:09
[SPEAKER_05]: Like back then,
16:11
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes, people, you see people in repacts, coupons, downtowns, damage draw.
16:17
[SPEAKER_05]: Like you remember, we had that guy bring cards to our house and all of them had like repacts, stickers, and the wall was absolutely cooked.
16:23
[SPEAKER_05]: You're seeing repackers put a lot more slabs and they're buying really good cards, a lot of them.
16:30
[SPEAKER_05]: only need goat cards, right?
16:31
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, that's why a lot of, why a lot of goat.
16:34
[SPEAKER_05]: It's a strong because repackers need Kobe, need Jordan, need LeBron.
16:37
[SPEAKER_05]: And something I noticed, another thing is, I'm going to put like a math equation out.
16:42
[SPEAKER_05]: So let's just say, our repacker needs a card.
16:45
[SPEAKER_05]: in an $8,000 chaser.
16:48
[SPEAKER_05]: Let's just say a $5,000 LeBron card goes on auction.
16:52
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, technically the re-packer can go buy it on auction for $8,000, even those only were five, put it in their repack and use it as an $8,000 chaser.
17:01
[SPEAKER_05]: So I think I explained it pretty clear, but what they're doing is they're going on auctions because there's gonna be a public comp.
17:08
[SPEAKER_05]: Instead of paying someone out to 100%, they're saying, I don't wanna deal with this guy, I'm just gonna go buy it from Alt or from Fanatics or from eBay.
17:17
[SPEAKER_05]: And a perfect, her multiple examples of that is I actually bought a lot off Fort City probably a month ago.
17:24
[SPEAKER_05]: It was four cards.
17:25
[SPEAKER_05]: And Jamison had mentioned that they got the cards off a guy, who got a lot of repacts.
17:31
[SPEAKER_05]: had a direct within the last month, every single card.
17:35
[SPEAKER_05]: And like, they were all gold kaboom, like gold kabooms, black pindor down towns, like downtowns, like little brown, finest, refractor, I bought like same card, same shirt, had a direct on eBay, two weeks prior, and then now it's in my.
17:50
[SPEAKER_05]: And you notice a lot of these factors are fine on auction now.
17:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and again, it's just, it's important to note, but it's an understanding of the market when you start to see that this kind of thing is going on.
18:01
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, okay, well, this is, this is it.
18:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it is what it is, because the demand is there for people getting in these repacts and making these hits, because they're turning around and selling it, making money.
18:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And the system, the economy, you know, there's this ecosystem there that's
18:16
[SPEAKER_00]: everything's healthy because people are kind of cycling money through.
18:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And so a lot of this is like, you know, just a recognition of the awareness that you're in the vibe.
18:24
[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the thing, if the plug ever got pulled on someone buying into repacts or repackers not picking up inventory, those highly collectible assets will fall some, but the ones that there are heavy populations of or whatever that demands not high enough.
18:40
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's where you're going to see some retreat.
18:42
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, another thing I'd like to put out, too, is how a repackers have buying lists.
18:47
[SPEAKER_05]: So they'll say, hey, little Matt, these are the teams we need.
18:50
[SPEAKER_05]: These are the players we need.
18:51
[SPEAKER_05]: These are the ranges we need, right?
18:53
[SPEAKER_05]: So last year, a lot of the repackers took Michael Panics Jr off their buying list.
18:59
[SPEAKER_05]: And as soon as Michael Panics Jr went off the buying list, all the flippers that sell to repackers stopped buying Michael Panics Jr. And all the
19:16
[SPEAKER_04]: behind him because he's not collectible.
19:19
[SPEAKER_05]: Like who that gets collected, Michael Pentech's junior.
19:21
[SPEAKER_05]: So when you see a very long time, go ahead.
19:24
[SPEAKER_00]: No, we when you see what.
19:25
[SPEAKER_05]: I said when you see very like highly non collectible players selling for a lot of money, like just know, as soon as repackers take them off their list, like their market is like gonna be like done.
19:37
[SPEAKER_05]: And a lot of repackage, they transition into the goat market because they know that people collect goats, like a lot of people would rather have a Michael Jordan card than a, you know, JJ McCarthy card.
19:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, for sure.
19:49
[SPEAKER_00]: So this relates directly to Bowman, which a lot of our listeners are Bowman, you know, baseball guys.
19:55
[SPEAKER_00]: You see the same thing with Bowman prospects, right?
19:58
[SPEAKER_00]: When you have
19:59
[SPEAKER_00]: whether it's MLB pipeline or whether it's baseball America or whatever.
20:04
[SPEAKER_00]: When someone starts touting a prospect, the market floods to that prospect.
20:09
[SPEAKER_00]: But you could also have a big boom in buyer.
20:11
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, to mean if somebody knows that hamhouse is buying a certain player, there are people that pay attention to that and they start going, huh, okay, these guys have a pretty good track record if they're buying it.
20:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to start buying it.
20:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And the natural market tendency kind of follows.
20:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it reminds me of a great story.
20:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Think I've shared this on the podcast before I can't remember though, Billy Graham, who is kind of iconic in kind of the Christian evangelical space.
20:36
[SPEAKER_00]: He was a nobody at a North Carolina.
20:38
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't say it's on the podcast.
20:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so he's a young nobody preacher at a North Carolina and he went and did a tent revival in California.
20:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And the owner of the local newspaper was a big mogul.
20:50
[SPEAKER_00]: He basically sent out a message to his team and it said, Puff Graham, which means build up this guy.
20:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Dude overnight Billy Graham became this guy because he was on the front page of every paper and then he just transcended and to be Billy Graham with these, you know, massive kind of followings and all this kind of stuff just goes to show you that the principal stands if there's somebody with cloud capital buying power whatever that says by this guy right it's going to happen and people can hate it all they want to but when you look at
21:19
[SPEAKER_00]: All of these guys on social media who have these followings, you know, to mean from, you know, sports card investor to card collector to the king of the cards to the guys at backyard breaks or to the guy wherever, whoever it is, fanatics, you know, tops, whoever these big corporate entities are, if they start putting a guy out there, if they start pushing a guy forward, what you're going to see is the market focuses on what they tell you to focus on.
21:45
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, oh, focus on this.
21:47
[SPEAKER_00]: The market goes there.
21:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this is understanding like Matthew, you're taking psychology this year in school, right?
21:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
21:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So the understanding of human psychology and the fear of missing out and kind of like how to be able to, you know, sway and encourage people.
22:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm telling you, it's just this is what we're in right now.
22:05
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's important.
22:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it matters
22:08
[SPEAKER_00]: when it comes to understanding the market now there's a difference there between what the market is saying to focus on and then what you have conviction on.
22:16
[SPEAKER_00]: So go back to Bowman, you might have conviction on a Bowman player that nobody is touting and you might hang tight on that.
22:24
[SPEAKER_05]: I think a really important thing about Bowman as well is cool, like Clout, like you said, like how much Clout did they get?
22:30
[SPEAKER_05]: Because a few a few weeks ago, Zire Hope was absolutely matching the baseball, absolutely matching.
22:36
[SPEAKER_05]: But there were no posts of MLB Pipeline saying, Zire Hope, four for five with QM runs, Zire Hope, like I think that's a really big deal personally, because like when people see on Instagram or on Facebook or on ESPN that,
22:48
[SPEAKER_05]: Like on the headlines that this guy did well, they're going to, they're going to notice it.
22:52
[SPEAKER_05]: But it's not like a lot of people are going into ML, ILB stat Lawrence to see what's I, you're hoping.
22:58
[SPEAKER_05]: Like it's very much for a posted like when I remember when Jackson holiday was like a prospect every single one of his games was jacks, no, and jacks, and so that's why he had a lot of hype because he was even being posted every single night.
23:12
[SPEAKER_05]: And that's why I think it's the fact that you look at the fact that they're not posted
23:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, early season, you know, Connor Griffin stuff, you know, Kevin McGonagall stuff, you know, whether whole these three guys we were high on, I mean, they had a lot of that following or whatever.
23:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, what's interesting is, as you've had some guys like Eric Hartman this year that have popped off, you've had some others as it chased Harlan that was doing really well and kind of chased Harlan.
23:34
[SPEAKER_05]: Eli Willis has been doing good, like a Charles Davelin.
23:37
[SPEAKER_00]: There's some more, yeah Davelin, there's some more unknown guys that have kind of popped off this year when you start to look at kind of like statistically like, and there's guys in this hobby, man, that they track that stuff and they're so good.
23:48
[SPEAKER_00]: It figure not a prospect, although you can buy for $10.
23:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And next thing, you know, it's, it's sourced up to 100, you know, you 10x on your money.
23:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the beauty of the Bowman game.
23:56
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what people love about it.
23:58
[SPEAKER_00]: But we had a listener asked us specifically Matthew about Bowman at the National.
24:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And I always say this, Bowman is the drug that nobody admits to using.
24:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And what I mean by that is, you see people with Bowman at the national, but it's generally tired Bowman, right?
24:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you don't see super fractures, you don't see reds, you don't see salt after Bowman in cases at the national.
24:22
[SPEAKER_05]: I will see you later.
24:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I see.
24:24
[SPEAKER_05]: you, like, Bowman that repackers would take.
24:26
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, Camonero True Blue PSA 10 or Nick Kurtz or Aaron Judd, Ronald Alcunia.
24:34
[SPEAKER_05]: You see a lot of the big names, but you never see any crossback.
24:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's interesting because you see, you know, when you get into prospects though, you tend to see, like, more tired guys, like guys that are like overplayed.
24:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't remember seeing hardly any kind of grip and any Kevin McGonagall, any of that stuff to you.
24:50
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, not at all.
24:51
[SPEAKER_05]: Not at all.
24:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and then you go down, like the Luis Pinias, the Modais, I mean, there was a little bit of that kind of stuff, but like it's just not readily available.
24:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, so much of Bowman is transacted behind the scenes.
25:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what people need to understand in this hobby is the private buying dynamic within Bowman is very, very exclusive.
25:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would relate it due to the really high-end insert market, right?
25:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Like,
25:16
[SPEAKER_00]: How often do you see 52, I mean not 52 manals, but that's an example, or like some of these high in Jordan, they don't just all the sudden pop up.
25:25
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of that stuff Transacts behind the scenes.
25:28
[SPEAKER_05]: They don't move publicly.
25:29
[SPEAKER_05]: None of them like you don't see thunder at my point.
25:31
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, go on auction.
25:33
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
25:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
25:34
[SPEAKER_00]: They move privately and and Bowman is the same way.
25:37
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of the stuff moves privately until you have these public cops and then because there's no public cops, once a public cop comes out, oh my gosh, I gotta go grab this because there's guys that are holding it behind the scenes that there was no public cop on it and they're not afraid to bid on it because it benefits them if the card goes high.
25:55
[SPEAKER_00]: So understanding all of these different dynamics is really
26:02
[SPEAKER_00]: right versus what is readily available in the market and how you start to kind of position yourself when to get in and out of those assets.
26:08
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, but like specifically, Bowman on the show floor, there was maybe five tables that had even a showcase of just Bowman, maybe five like it was, it was a trotist like a lot of people, I mean at trade night, specifically, there was out of five
26:25
[SPEAKER_05]: hundred tables.
26:26
[SPEAKER_05]: There was one table that was a Bowman table and it was all about guys set up at the same table and that was the only Bowman table.
26:35
[SPEAKER_05]: So you're saying like one of that one of our every 500 showcases had Bowman at the National.
26:41
[SPEAKER_05]: It was ridiculously expensive.
26:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's what keeps the boom and market strong is because a lot of the players in the boom and you know the mean they're more private, they're not necessarily out there, you know the mean in the marketplace.
26:53
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very boutique, you know, it's just very boutique and it's very niche and that's what keeps it strong.
26:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that that is what's so interesting about boom and what'll be more interesting about it is how the lockout and all this kind of stuff could potentially affect all of this, the sports card market in general.
27:10
[SPEAKER_00]: you know and so I think that's to be that's an unknown we've already kind of made our stance on it but it's gonna be interesting I think as we head into this off season and what it starts to look like next spring with you know are they playing and you know who's getting the hype if if the minor league stuff is still playing and all this kind of stuff because there's so much talent out there but like you said it's not just about having talent it's about the talent being able to connect to the hype
27:35
[SPEAKER_00]: being able to connect to the kind of public praise of that prospect connecting to the market FOMO wanting to pick that prospect up.
27:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's where the game's been happening a lot earlier because most people that are bought mod day, they've bought mod day, they're holding mod day.
27:52
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?
27:53
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like there's a bunch of mod day out there for sale.
27:55
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, well, I'll tell you this.
27:56
[SPEAKER_05]: If I have one piece of advice that I'd say, hey, listen this for the show would be this.
28:02
[SPEAKER_05]: I think a lot of repackers in specific are gonna kind of, if there is a lockout, I don't think they're gonna be buying much of the Play MLB players.
28:11
[SPEAKER_05]: So I think that people's markets like Barnes, Griffey, Geter, Chipper, Ripkin, I think that those guys could see a big,
28:21
[SPEAKER_05]: big rise because with more people not buying MLB players, they're going to have to either shift to prospects or goats.
28:28
[SPEAKER_05]: So if I had to put my money into some baseball, I'd put it into goats.
28:31
[SPEAKER_05]: Right now, I think baseball goats are extremely undervalued compared to basketball goats.
28:37
[SPEAKER_05]: Actually, how my dad figured out about cow rip can inserts was looking at Michael Jordan inserts that did hundreds of thousands of dollars and they go picking up the
28:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's again, it's kind of a cheat code when you start to understand the market demand on certain cards because it will trickle down, you know, it will trickle down and I believe that wholeheartedly, I think that that definitely is a new way.
28:59
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the things that I was going to say too, Matthew, is that, you know, with with the rise in the market right now, you're also seeing a boom and Disney product, you're seeing a boom in a lot of this, you know.
29:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's just it's wild because people are starting to understand the dynamic of like collectibles, you know what I mean, and the nature of collectibles and there's something to be said for something that somebody's willing to collect, you know, and when you get into Disney or where you get into Marvel or whatever, like it just the all of rising tide floats all boats, right?
29:34
[SPEAKER_00]: So you're saying the
29:35
[SPEAKER_00]: the rising tide, it's starting to influence all of these other things, and so it becomes about, and I've said this time and time again, it becomes about low population assets.
29:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I've said this in years, that was in real estate sales forever.
29:49
[SPEAKER_00]: They only make so much real estate on the water.
29:51
[SPEAKER_00]: 50 years ago, nobody cared about being on the water because it was like, oh, it's the water.
29:57
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the marsh, whatever, for whatever reason, when the migration of people went to the water and it started to become a status symbol to have a house on the water, they don't make any more of it.
30:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And so if you can own real estate on or near the water, it's a high demand asset.
30:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Same as true as sports cards.
30:14
[SPEAKER_00]: When you get into goat type players, collectible type players, iconic type players, and then cards they just didn't make a ton of, those types of assets are the assets that are always going to be in the highest demand.
30:26
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean always and I mean dude like I can't even like look at this Jordan market anymore like cards that were going for 2k in March.
30:36
[SPEAKER_05]: They're going for over 10k right now.
30:38
[SPEAKER_05]: Like you're looking at 5x and how long like five months?
30:42
[SPEAKER_05]: Like that's 90 days same.
30:44
[SPEAKER_05]: That's insane.
30:45
[SPEAKER_05]: And I just don't know how much in it's wild.
30:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Now as some
30:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I think some of that will not be sustainable, but, you know, at the end of the day, we kind of watch.
30:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, I've always said this, try to stay quick.
30:57
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's, try to stay liquid and then hang on to the stuff you have conviction of.
31:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're buying everything with profit, you're in the green already.
31:04
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, we're in a good spot.
31:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Now look at our shelves sitting across from the camera right now.
31:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm looking at,
31:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Michael Jordan, Mike Trout, you know, Ripkin, Show Hay.
31:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I don't have any hesitation at all owning these cards.
31:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Like these are fantastic cards that I think are highly desirable, and they will be long term.
31:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I feel confident about that.
31:27
[SPEAKER_00]: But no one went to make some moves and how to make some moves.
31:30
[SPEAKER_00]: It definitely definitely plays off.
31:32
[SPEAKER_00]: But anyway, dude, I think it's probably a good rap point for us on the episode.
31:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have any final kind of market thought,
31:39
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah dude, just be careful on the market.
31:41
[SPEAKER_05]: If you see a card, rise really quickly.
31:44
[SPEAKER_05]: Shikula Neal cards are rising really quickly right now.
31:47
[SPEAKER_05]: Like his scoring king has tripled in a month.
31:50
[SPEAKER_05]: So I just be careful on Shikula Neal.
31:53
[SPEAKER_05]: I think he's a great investment, great player.
31:55
[SPEAKER_05]: But I think that part of the market where he's like tripling is like pretty pretty scary right now.
31:59
[SPEAKER_05]: But Dad, do we want to share the story about the Mike Trial autographs that our boy current helped us get?
32:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, we can't.
32:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we can do that really quickly.
32:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have them there across the room.
32:09
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, so it's really neat, man, full-circle story for those that watch the show.
32:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Trout's been on the show before he's a friend of the podcast.
32:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, he does the intro.
32:17
[SPEAKER_00]: He incurred, you know, have connected and become, you know, friends.
32:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think they had connected recently, incurred, he'd let us know that there'd be an opportunity to get a card signed.
32:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, back probably six, eight months ago, we went and bought
32:33
[SPEAKER_00]: 2011 tops, you know, very, very limited print run.
32:37
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of a color match with the angels, with the red border.
32:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And we bought that card and then we had a good buddy of ours in the hobby, Hutch, who had a tops trout gold.
32:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And we had told him we want to buy it and get it signed by trout.
32:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So we've had these cards for a while kind of waiting for the opportunity.
32:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And we were able to get him signed and they're getting ready to go off.
32:57
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, the PSA to be reholstered, you know, and they'll definitely have auto tens on them because they're beautiful.
33:03
[SPEAKER_00]: The red has a red auto.
33:04
[SPEAKER_00]: The gold has a sharp blue auto.
33:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm just grateful to trout that he would, you know, sign them for us.
33:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I wish we'd have been there to see Michigan's hands say what's up.
33:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Great for the current for doing that.
33:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And for our buddy Hutch, you know what I mean?
33:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I think Hutch was kind of like, I want to sell you this card.
33:17
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, because you're you're probably flip it or whatever, you know, no, and hut, you're like, no, man, we're going to actually get it signed, and so to be able to show that to him a guy, man, I thought you, you know, we're getting it signed.
33:26
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is a really cool full circle moment, and how just connections in the hobby matters so so much, man, and we're grateful for ours.
33:33
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
33:33
[SPEAKER_05]: Absolutely.
33:34
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, I feel one last thought is that a connections or if if you have a twisting between connection, like burning a bridge, like keeping a connection or profit, keep the connection because that matters a lot more than, um, they're the profit in the deal.
33:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
33:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's hard, because sometimes you see things in front of you that are just like, oh, that's too good, you know, but the connections are what mean everything.
33:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think just expressing gratitude for those connections and just letting people know, hey, man, I appreciate you doing business with us.
34:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for always reaching out.
34:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for the opportunity.
34:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Just be in sincere about it.
34:04
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think that's what's really helped us go a long way.
34:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're being honest, man, you know, being honest.
34:10
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the thing is like, one of the things that I can say confidently is I've never run from anything and I've always been honest, you know.
34:16
[SPEAKER_00]: We've had some people kind of want to throw shade at us or whatever, and the reality is, is that whatever shade's been thrown, it hasn't been transparent and completely honest.
34:24
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we, in fact, we've mentioned this in the podcast before Matthew, we had a situation about a Steph Curry card.
34:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been over a year ago.
34:32
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, and some some weird stuff went down with it.
34:36
[SPEAKER_00]: There were people making accusations that the patch was switched out and for us, the card was in a BGS lab, you know, it had a comp in the BGS lab.
34:45
[SPEAKER_00]: It actually had a raw comp.
34:48
[SPEAKER_00]: in the sealed case with the current, you know, the patch on it.
34:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And these people were making these accusations that like somehow we had a fake, fake, you know, patch and I'm like, we have nothing to go off based on what's here.
35:02
[SPEAKER_00]: But for the buyer of that card, there was an opportunity
35:05
[SPEAKER_00]: to resolve the situation, to which that buyer said nope don't worry about it.
35:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm good to go.
35:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, that specific buyer was making accusations that we, you know, kind of scammed or whatever.
35:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like man, you had the opportunity.
35:19
[SPEAKER_00]: We had a conversation over a year ago.
35:21
[SPEAKER_00]: You made the choice to move in this direction.
35:24
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a very weird situation for everybody.
35:26
[SPEAKER_00]: We understood that.
35:27
[SPEAKER_00]: We've talked about it on the pod.
35:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not running from it.
35:30
[SPEAKER_00]: But the reality is, I think, to be honest, right, and upfront about all this stuff, it helps build those connections.
35:39
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not always going to go great every time.
35:41
[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to have people that got on the bad end of a situation or they got overextended or whatever.
35:45
[SPEAKER_00]: But ultimately, if you're honest, I think, and own up to it, it really helps those connections stay in the last.
35:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that that matters tremendously.
35:53
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, absolutely.
35:55
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, I can't finish coming in.
35:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Any final thoughts?
35:58
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
35:59
[SPEAKER_05]: No, you listen to sports cards to your podcast.
36:02
[SPEAKER_05]: If you want to call one of the podcasts, uh, pod, what is it?
36:05
[SPEAKER_05]: One, two, eight, eight, eight, seven, eight, eight, five CEOs.
36:10
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm trying to do your job right now.
36:11
[SPEAKER_05]: But, uh, this is.
36:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Give me your best big mat impression to give me your best big mat impression to close the show.
36:18
[SPEAKER_05]: All right, boys, we're, I think we're coming to an end today.
36:22
[SPEAKER_05]: I hate to do this with great episode today, but if you want to reach out to us, you know, we've always deemed us on Instagram.
36:28
[SPEAKER_05]: So yes, there, podcasts would be on Apple, make sure to, you know, like we all, we appreciate all that stuff.
36:33
[SPEAKER_05]: And make sure to call in on 180 pods, CEOs, that is 180 pods, CEOs, but uh, current, any funnel thoughts, Bubba?
36:41
[SPEAKER_05]: Nope.
36:41
[SPEAKER_05]: All right, well, boys, son, off, peace.
36:44
[SPEAKER_05]: I did good, I did good, right?
36:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Peace.
36:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, he did good.