Latest / The Sports Card CEO Podcast / Episode 36, S2: Ham House Catch Up | Pivot & Embrace Change in the Hobby

Transcript

Episode 36, S2: Ham House Catch Up | Pivot & Embrace Change in the Hobby · The Sports Card CEO Podcast

0:00
[SPEAKER_04]: What has happened to everybody?
0:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Welcome back to the sports card C-E-O.
0:04
[SPEAKER_04]: We got a fresh week and we got a fresh young buck on the screen here.
0:08
[SPEAKER_04]: A little mat.
0:09
[SPEAKER_04]: What's happened, buddy?
0:27
[SPEAKER_02]: a 40-70 season and a season of life in the other and naturely baseball history from one of the co-natured.
0:38
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a drive right on the panel.
0:40
[SPEAKER_03]: Evan Carter, one of the things that he is having.
0:44
[SPEAKER_03]: He hits the show and he hits the line of the left.
0:47
[SPEAKER_03]: My truck has ripped him on the line.
0:50
[SPEAKER_00]: What's up, guys?
0:51
[SPEAKER_00]: My truck.
0:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is the sports car.
0:53
[SPEAKER_00]: See you with current, bubbling hand.
0:59
[SPEAKER_01]: What's up, what's up, how's everyone doing and everyone on me and my father's, how you doing buddy?
1:04
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm good man, I'm good.
1:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Hey, it's fun to do the pod with you again this week, man.
1:08
[SPEAKER_04]: So, current straddle in this week and our episode from a couple weeks ago did so well, we got so much feedback.
1:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Here's like, man, you and all Matt jump on again.
1:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, people seem to like it, so we're like, that's fine, well, we can talk cards all day.
1:20
[SPEAKER_04]: I certainly know you can.
1:22
[SPEAKER_04]: So, we're gonna job back in the day and we've got a specific strategy that we wanna talk about
1:27
[SPEAKER_04]: you know, to our listeners about the idea of pivoting.
1:30
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
1:31
[SPEAKER_04]: So today's the concept of today's is going to be pivoting.
1:34
[SPEAKER_04]: We've done a lot of different things in cards.
1:36
[SPEAKER_04]: I think we've pivoted really well, especially here lately.
1:38
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's what we're going to dive into.
1:39
[SPEAKER_04]: But real quick for all of our listeners.
1:41
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you guys so much for tuning in.
1:43
[SPEAKER_04]: If you are listening to this, make sure you like, subscribe, leave comments, reviews, all that good stuff, wherever you listen to this or watch this, YouTube, Spotify, iTunes, all the different channels.
1:53
[SPEAKER_04]: So appreciate you guys being a part of this.
1:55
[SPEAKER_04]: You can always call in your questions to the show, 888 pod CEOs, that's 888 POD CEO S.
2:03
[SPEAKER_04]: check out the website, the sports cards CEO.com.
2:07
[SPEAKER_04]: So a little Matt, you are out of school done with travel sports and we're getting ready for the the big rush of the summer show schedule.
2:15
[SPEAKER_04]: Pretty busy, July coming up for you.
2:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, July.
2:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just going to be decently busy.
2:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, it's like, you
2:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Tonight in about four hours, I'm going to have to be on an airport flying by myself for the first time without an adult.
2:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So, but now taking a trip with my brothers and my cousin, and we're going to see her point theme park.
2:33
[SPEAKER_01]: It's that to be really fun.
2:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Do we get through that?
2:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I have basketball tournament.
2:36
[SPEAKER_01]: We get through that.
2:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm helping my proud, I'm helping my mom.
2:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Councilor Kamp for free wage.
2:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you got financial stress and national.
2:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So, it's going to be a super busy month.
2:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, July is going to be kind of off the rails, but, you know, we've had a really good June kind of closing out the month.
2:55
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, as we're recording this, it's the next the last day of the month.
2:58
[SPEAKER_04]: So talk a little bit about what's going on in the card hobby outside of the personal life for you.
3:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, last night or yeah, like two nights ago, had the biggest few, I had the biggest like sales night in my life sold over like 60 K and a night.
3:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was big sold a bunch of stuff I was planning on holding till national, but some advice to everyone listening
3:16
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're planning on holding something, but you get too good of an offer to, I mean, like, tick the offer.
3:21
[SPEAKER_01]: You never go broke, taking profit.
3:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So I had some stuff I was into decently, and I sold some stuff, and I'm glad I did because now my dad doesn't feel stressed with all the cash, and I'm going to go to a frenetic fest, and have a fun time buying at the show.
3:38
[SPEAKER_01]: But we, do we share about the grading response?
3:40
[SPEAKER_04]: I will we'll talk about that in a little bit, but yeah, card show this weekend in Raleigh, energy was good.
3:45
[SPEAKER_04]: It was the first card show for us in a few months.
3:47
[SPEAKER_04]: How'd you feel?
3:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Dude, being back in a card show is like, I love it.
3:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I love going to shows and I've made a deal.
3:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I made multiple deals, but with the same vendors, you know, the same four four vendors.
3:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And I kept going back there and I made a bunch of big deals.
4:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was good picked up in insane Kobe Bryant card, a hard court at a 50.
4:06
[SPEAKER_01]: That was a super rare find.
4:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Other than that, I think it's pretty good.
4:10
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, one of the things that I've kind of come to learn is when you spend enough time around cards, you just kind of know it when you see it.
4:16
[SPEAKER_04]: You know what I mean?
4:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, I think we first started, like, oh my gosh, a Mickey Manel card.
4:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
4:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Case in point.
4:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Can you tell our listeners that Big Matt actually put in some work this weekend?
4:27
[SPEAKER_01]: When I mean Big Matt put in some work, I've been given this guy crap for three years about how he doesn't make money during his vintage flips.
4:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And Big Matt comes to me and he's like, yeah, I just dropped 5k out of vintage table over there.
4:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, what if I, what if I taught this guy, he started, he's acting like me now.
4:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And but yeah, he went and he bought a lot.
4:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it was 4900 for the whole lot.
4:49
[SPEAKER_04]: 47.
4:50
[SPEAKER_01]: 4700 and I not kidding you he already told two of the cards for fifty fifty four hundred so he made seven hundred hours and still have three cards so I'm so proud of that.
5:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, you're proud the proud son.
5:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm proud that you, that you sold some cards and made a profit.
5:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, you know, I can't do that.
5:10
[SPEAKER_04]: I have done that.
5:11
[SPEAKER_04]: So just to remind you where you got it.
5:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because I worked in sales for 25 years.
5:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, when you get saucy on it.
5:18
[SPEAKER_04]: So yeah, big, big is funny, man.
5:20
[SPEAKER_04]: We had this lot come over.
5:22
[SPEAKER_04]: couple weeks ago and it was kind of the family friend kind of estranged husband I think situation had passed or away or something like that.
5:30
[SPEAKER_04]: I can't remember all the details, but bottom line is we ended up with a lot of cards from like late 60s to the early 70s and I had a good time going through those and checking out what was there and I started to kind of understand a little bit of the values in the vintage era, like mid-vintage era, like late 60s early 70s.
5:45
[SPEAKER_04]: which is kind of an interesting time because not a lot of big rookies during that era, but you had early knowing Ryan, you had some still early Reggie Jackson, you know, you've got some Clemente stuff, you've got May still in there.
6:00
[SPEAKER_04]: Hank Aaron.
6:01
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I just had a good time going through that.
6:03
[SPEAKER_04]: So anyway, I had just gotten done kind of looking through all the Nolan Ryan's and really understanding population and grades on Nolan Ryan cards.
6:12
[SPEAKER_04]: And I go up to this this vintage table and dude, he had a 1969.
6:17
[SPEAKER_04]: It's Nolan Ryan's first solo card because his 68 card, you know, is shared as a rookie Metz pitcher.
6:25
[SPEAKER_04]: It was an eight and a half, and the interesting thing was, is it was an SGC slab versus a PSA slab, but you can get away with and then to, you can't get away with that in boom and or modern.
6:35
[SPEAKER_04]: But, you know, it was an eight and a half SGC slab, and the difference in the PSA and the SGC comp was pretty dynamic because an SGC eight, five hat and sold in a while, whereas there was a fresh eight, five label, and when I asked the guy what he was asking for it, he was asking kind of more in line with SGC comps.
6:53
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I basically gave him his ask on that card.
6:58
[SPEAKER_04]: And I just felt like there was incredible value there because the gap from PSA to SGC invented is a little less.
7:04
[SPEAKER_04]: And so anyway, did really well on that and still have a couple of nice cards.
7:08
[SPEAKER_04]: So it just felt good to kind of get back in the saddle a little bit.
7:12
[SPEAKER_04]: I will tell you this, Matthew, you didn't see this interaction, but this is one of my little like pet peeves.
7:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, if you are set up at a card share or if you are promoting your cards online specifically a card share that and you have a sign over your booth that says buying
7:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, and someone comes to you and they say, hey, what would you pay on this card or what would you offer on this card, right?
7:38
[SPEAKER_04]: You're, you've got a sign that says buying, right?
7:40
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't have a sign that says selling in the sense that like, if I'm at a table and have a card in my case, and someone says what do you want for that card, you better be able to come up with a number.
7:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Similarly, if you're, if you're buying it a show and somebody gives you a card, you need to be willing to make an offer on it.
7:56
[SPEAKER_04]: right and and just the fact that you don't actually make an offer on the card shows me that you're kind of trying to take advantage of somebody who might not know what they have.
8:05
[SPEAKER_04]: So case in point I went up to a guy's booth and he had a buying sign and I gave him you know a 19 69 Reggie Jackson.
8:14
[SPEAKER_04]: card comp for $790.
8:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Comp before that was $660.
8:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Comp before that was like $550.
8:22
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's kind of like rising fairly quickly.
8:25
[SPEAKER_04]: And I gave him the card and he was like, what do you want for this?
8:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And I said, well, just, you know, make me an offer.
8:30
[SPEAKER_04]: You know the comps and it, well, I don't know.
8:32
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't
8:45
[SPEAKER_04]: I said I would be I would be around 90% of an average of the last two cops, which would put me about 675.
8:51
[SPEAKER_04]: He's like, I can't pay that.
8:53
[SPEAKER_04]: I was like, okay, that's fine.
8:54
[SPEAKER_04]: But it was just my point in saying all that.
8:57
[SPEAKER_01]: If I'm not mistaken, that same dealer was telling us how much vintage was flying at an his showcase at the Nashville card show.
9:03
[SPEAKER_01]: You remember that?
9:04
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, absolutely.
9:05
[SPEAKER_04]: When we start talking to him, he's like, oh, dude, it's been crazy.
9:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Let me stuff flying off the shelves.
9:09
[SPEAKER_04]: And so my little rant or point to say that is like, when it comes to cards, like, hey, know what you have, be know what you would sell it for, you know, see know what you would pay for a card.
9:20
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you're afraid to acquire certain high grade, highly valuable assets, you're losing in this market right now.
9:28
[SPEAKER_04]: But you're getting absolutely torched if you're afraid to kind of throw it out there on a high on a on a solid card, you know, not not not your average cards, but on really solid cards.
9:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'll tell you an interaction with the dealer that made me really upset this weekend.
9:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm with my brother.
9:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm walking around of the cards showing, you know, I try to dabble on some vintage just because we're talking about that, you know, like strategizing and pivoting.
9:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So I know my I feel kind of vintage, not as well as the big vintage yours, but I know it.
9:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And I see in 1954, Jackie Robinson, PS6.
10:01
[SPEAKER_01]: That card has three comps, 232500, 2500.
10:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So I go to the dealer.
10:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, you don't have a price tag on it.
10:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, would you do 2300?
10:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And he like, chuckles.
10:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, I think 2300's kind of a fair offer.
10:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's like, kid, he's like, I know that you're, he's like, let me tell you about this.
10:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Inventage, you can't pay 80% or something like that.
10:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And I showed him the last three cops that said, I'm offering 92% and he's like, well, then he's like, well, at a show, I go to Chicago called the National.
10:30
[SPEAKER_01]: These things are going to fly off the shelf.
10:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, I've been in the National last three years.
10:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm offering 92% and I'm getting laughed at.
10:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said this, I said, I think 2300 is a fair offer.
10:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's like, yeah, fair to you.
10:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, what do you mean fair to me?
10:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, is that not a fair offer to you?
10:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's like, well, I'm telling you, I'm going to sell this card of the national.
10:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, that was a pointless conversation because this guy didn't know you saw.
10:56
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, again, it's interesting in the hobby you have to be able to tolerate certain personalities and things and you also got to learn how to navigate and you can't take it personal or get frustrated.
11:07
[SPEAKER_04]: At the same time, it's like you're paying to be at the show and if you have a price or don't have a price and somebody offers you kind of fair, just be honest and say, you know, hey, listen, here's the deal, but it's to hold one upmanship.
11:18
[SPEAKER_04]: But anyway, we could go on a rant for ages about that, but I wanted to be just kind of
11:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, and you know what whether it's life or business like I tell you in basketball all the time Matthew, so you play basketball What do I tell you if you your three's aren't falling take it to the rim yep and and if and if it's not going down at the rim and your three's aren't falling What would I what would I tell you to bring the rock yeah or focus on your defense yeah right like there's multiple aspects to the basketball game and and you don't want to become a one trick pony
11:52
[SPEAKER_04]: and that I just shoot three's.
11:54
[SPEAKER_04]: I just drive.
11:55
[SPEAKER_04]: I just, you know, rebound and block out or play defense, whatever.
11:58
[SPEAKER_04]: So my point is is, you know, one of the things that I don't really put it in the hobby.
12:03
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why that's why the bronze James is the goat because he knows how to pivot.
12:06
[SPEAKER_01]: He can do everything.
12:07
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
12:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Here we go.
12:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
12:09
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not going to entertain your childish ways on this podcast young Skywalker.
12:15
[SPEAKER_04]: So the point I was trying to make is the ability to pivot.
12:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
12:19
[SPEAKER_04]: And we've said for the last month on the sports card CEO that baseball in Bowman is really, really struggling right now outside of a few key players.
12:28
[SPEAKER_04]: You know what's not struggling right now?
12:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
12:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, what's interesting is, is if you're around the hobby for long enough and you pay attention to the trends and you watch what's being put out content wise, you start to see like last year, there was a run up in Steph Curry pricing, right?
12:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And little Matt, you do such a good job of analyzing the market, you kind of know what's coming.
12:57
[SPEAKER_04]: And the other day, this has been two weeks ago, you came to me and you said, Dad, the next run is Brady and LeBron.
13:05
[SPEAKER_04]: And Jordan's already high, but you're talking about like Brady and the Braun and Kobe compared to Jordan and, you know, even looking at Babe Ruth and even looking at some old Mickey Manl some key vintage.
13:17
[SPEAKER_04]: It was like you saw the market trend before the market saw it.
13:21
[SPEAKER_04]: And so you went and bought a couple of, you know, Brady's.
13:25
[SPEAKER_04]: And sure enough, you bought this Brady Bowman rookie paper card.
13:29
[SPEAKER_04]: And I mean, dude, the last couple of cops are up how much?
13:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Like 30%.
13:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's like 25% two weeks.
13:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And so, what do you attribute that to?
13:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, what is your, how are you picking up on that?
13:40
[SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, what would you say to this whole concept of pivoting?
13:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I picked up on it because you can, like, when you see folds in the market, like, I talked about that last time we were on here, I talked about the Jordan Kobe East investor fractured.
13:54
[SPEAKER_01]: There, there's only two cards at Jordan Kobe Bryant or on the get it.
13:57
[SPEAKER_01]: That's one of them.
13:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Jordan's markets up a lot.
14:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Kobe's markets up a lot.
14:01
[SPEAKER_01]: But that card's specific was not up that much.
14:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when I saw that, I said, oh, Jordan Kobe is going to be 30 can if you weeks.
14:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure enough.
14:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It would jump from 21 can to 27 there.
14:10
[SPEAKER_01]: because when you see a player's market going up like this and a certain card of players like this buy that card because it's going to have to eventually catch up with the market.
14:19
[SPEAKER_04]: So that you know it's interesting.
14:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, there are some cards of players that just don't get the love.
14:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly, so you avoid like like a perfect example last year in the same lot.
14:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I sold a Brady Bowman Chrome PS9 for 3K and a Brady flea showcase metal BGS9 for 6,100.
14:41
[SPEAKER_01]: You remember that card?
14:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
14:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So I sold those two cards in the same lot.
14:45
[SPEAKER_01]: The Brady Chrome now is $10,000 and the metal is $7,000.
14:50
[SPEAKER_01]: So the metals up $900, while the Bowman Chrome has tripled on the price.
14:55
[SPEAKER_04]: Wow, how, I don't get that.
14:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, because there's more of the Chrome and people, I think people are manipulating the bum and Chrome mark.
15:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, you think just people are just scooping it up?
15:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, yeah, it's like, if people have 10 bum and Chrome's and they go buy one high on eBay, then now the cards worth a lot more.
15:13
[SPEAKER_04]: And, yes, you're saying that's happening in large scale.
15:15
[SPEAKER_04]: It'll own cards that you can acquire like that.
15:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly.
15:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, flea Jordan's in that and Griffey upper decks.
15:21
[SPEAKER_01]: But like, on the rare cards,
15:23
[SPEAKER_01]: than they are, like rare Brady should be up a lot more.
15:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Contenders Brady should be up a lot more and they're not, because they're rare.
15:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're just seeing, and another thing too, is I called up on on the Bowman.
15:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So I bought three 9.5, two of them at 5,800, one of them at 6,200.
15:38
[SPEAKER_01]: PSA 9's we're doing 6,500, when I bought them.
15:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Why are BDS 9.5's the less than PSN?
15:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Does that make zero sense?
15:45
[SPEAKER_01]: What's it like?
15:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you see certain grades, doing a lot, and other grades, not doing a lot, that's another thing that you can do to find the market.
15:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so we pivoted and had done really, really well, you know, I think we said you look back at the month of June and you know, we were pretty close to like a what a 40% margin.
16:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, 50.
16:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Probably 50.
16:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, 40, 50 percent margin on what we've been buying, which the market's booming right now.
16:09
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's one thing.
16:09
[SPEAKER_04]: But when you're buying strategy as well, like that's a whole other thing.
16:13
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's really what we've been doing.
16:14
[SPEAKER_04]: So with booming being slow and baseball and general being slow, here's another thing is everybody, everybody has the same mindset, the idea that hey, head into these big card shows.
16:24
[SPEAKER_04]: We want to have the best of the best.
16:26
[SPEAKER_04]: right you want to have the ultimate the goats right and so again getting ahead of that a bit and having those cards in inventory has been huge but like you said not being afraid right now if everybody's jumping on that bandwagon being able to sell out and take some profit even if you leave 10-20% on the table if you made 50% like you're okay you know you know what I will say
16:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Every year, what does everyone say in national?
16:52
[SPEAKER_01]: A buy QBs in February after the Super Bowl and then whole-tailed national.
16:56
[SPEAKER_01]: The QB market's down since February because people are smarter.
17:01
[SPEAKER_01]: People aren't buying after what happened to people.
17:03
[SPEAKER_01]: People have fried on Desmond Ritter and Kenny Pickett and Mac Jones and Trevor Lawrence.
17:08
[SPEAKER_01]: They have nothing to look forward to in these non-quarterbacks, so they go and they buy the goats.
17:13
[SPEAKER_01]: It's talking about pivoting.
17:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I did young quarterbacks for two years, three years.
17:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And I bought every, I've had every contenders of auto, every quarterback, every kaboom of every quarterback.
17:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just, in now, I think that people are smarter.
17:26
[SPEAKER_01]: They've gotten a lot smarter.
17:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're now pivoting instead of buying the quarterbacks.
17:30
[SPEAKER_01]: They're buying the best quarterbacks.
17:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Tom Brady Aaron Rodgers, you know?
17:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So now people are buying stuff.
17:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And what I will say is, it's kind of like what, what we did in Bowman.
17:39
[SPEAKER_01]: If everyone has the same plan of hold now, and then sell it national, there's gonna be so many sellers that are national and not enough buyers, but it's kind of like baseball and spring.
17:50
[SPEAKER_01]: What did we do?
17:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone's like, oh, yep, selling me or selling April, selling April.
17:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we sold March.
17:55
[SPEAKER_01]: We sold early March.
17:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So we didn't have to worry about holding too long.
17:58
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't own a Connor Griffin past April.
18:01
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, if I'm saying like, we were ahead of the game.
18:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure, we left out 10%, but we also saved ourselves
18:09
[SPEAKER_04]: So like on certain guys for sure.
18:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
18:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I think I think the idea here is one of the things I want to do is kind of like provide a concept to our listeners is, you know, a business that generates all of its revenue from one vertical or one area is going to be subjected to that area always.
18:29
[SPEAKER_04]: And again, it's like a coffee shop that starts serving
18:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I was going to say a donut shop start starving coffee.
18:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I was going to say a coffee shop start serving donuts or a coffee shop start serving smoothies or, you know, to me, like adding layers of of or hey, we're going to add some, you know, swag.
18:47
[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to put hats.
18:48
[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to do shirts because you have a captive buyer and it's like if you have a few different things.
18:54
[SPEAKER_04]: One of the things I was going to kind of break down to folks is, you know, people that kind of shy away from low-end stuff.
19:00
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, and I agree, I don't like it's on a low-end stuff, but one of the things that I've always been open to is picking up bulk lots when people have them available.
19:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Like,
19:09
[SPEAKER_04]: We've literally had three or four people local who dropped off like 80s lots and these are like in their addicts.
19:16
[SPEAKER_04]: They're not interested in them and they'll drop them off and you or mom, but I don't bring that in the house and I'm like no, I'll bring it in.
19:22
[SPEAKER_04]: I'll spend a little bit of time organizing it and I'll turn around and I'll put it on Facebook marketplace or I'll liquidate it or whatever.
19:29
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, we've probably made, I don't know, maybe five grand or they're about maybe four grand this year on just random stuff like that.
19:39
[SPEAKER_04]: And so that's one little that's one little area.
19:41
[SPEAKER_04]: Then you have grading.
19:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, guess what, grading is down right now.
19:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Grating is tough right now.
19:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Grating's taking a long time right now.
19:49
[SPEAKER_04]: So you have to pivot.
19:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
19:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And you have to be willing to pivot.
19:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll say this.
19:53
[SPEAKER_01]: This is where
19:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I see people post all the time pictures of stacks of cards, 40 cards, and four stacks, like, and they'll post on the shore and they'll be like, good weekend at the L.A. card show.
20:05
[SPEAKER_01]: It's only more 30 to 100 slats.
20:07
[SPEAKER_01]: 100 people that were buying $5,000,000 cards.
20:10
[SPEAKER_01]: and now they're buying hundreds of these cheap slabs.
20:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you told me this morning, I bought a card at the card show for $220.
20:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I sold it for $240.
20:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure, it's a free $20, but I, in the same time period, I could buy a card for $5,000 and sell it for $5,400 and make $400.
20:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So I actually disagree with you on the point of buying low end to make money because it's so much more work and you always make fun of me for being lazy like I'm a grinder when it comes to the market, but I hate shipping I hate that make fun of you for being lazy all the time you're like you don't want to do like you you always call me lazy that's a lot and
20:50
[SPEAKER_04]: The first of all, I've never used the word lazy.
20:52
[SPEAKER_04]: I think you're internalizing that.
20:54
[SPEAKER_04]: But I will say you don't like to sort out cards or deal with like lower in cards.
21:01
[SPEAKER_04]: And then there's opportunity there.
21:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and that's why like our new situation, like I don't have to cheat anything.
21:05
[SPEAKER_01]: like our partner does that for us now.
21:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's perfect.
21:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And he does well-ship and stuff.
21:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And what I'm saying is like, you could buy 10 cards and cheat them.
21:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Like this is why I've gotten to the cheating thing, like I've done it before, but I don't do it heavily.
21:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I know people doing 100K, 200K sheets every week.
21:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the amount of time that that takes is absurd.
21:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I know people that pay people like $100 an hour just to cheat for them.
21:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Cause that like that.
21:31
[SPEAKER_04]: So what I would say so again when you start to the point of pivoting right we're not talking about necessarily pivoting on market stuff we're talking about pivoting to other ways to make money in the card hobby right and so what would you say kind of the buckets are that we have to always kind of keep our eyes on for right so we've already said low end you know me if somebody's dumping a bulk lot we've got a liquidation channel you could do that.
21:57
[SPEAKER_01]: You texted me this morning a list of seven ways that we can make money at like seven ways that we can make or five ways some of that so there's low end buying there's dot like people go and they look in value bins and they look at collections and they make money doing that look at we had a guy over to our house yesterday.
22:14
[SPEAKER_01]: He literally all he does is buys collections.
22:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's low end.
22:17
[SPEAKER_01]: There's grading.
22:18
[SPEAKER_01]: There's people that just buy and great.
22:20
[SPEAKER_01]: There's people that have deals with auction houses that just buy an auction because they don't want to deal with repackers or whatever.
22:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So they just buy and they throw it on a designer or an auction.
22:29
[SPEAKER_01]: There's people that buy to quick flip to like a re packer any range.
22:34
[SPEAKER_01]: There's people that source deals for people and advise people and make money in sports cards.
22:39
[SPEAKER_01]: There's people that just do finders fees and make money in sports cards.
22:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's people that just deal in really high-end stuff.
22:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there anything that I left out you think?
22:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, one of the things we talked about too was this idea of like deep diving into the market and starting to find like nuanced cards within the market.
22:56
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, why does that card not do what that card does?
22:59
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, why does that card, you know, not have the kind of value that that card does?
23:02
[SPEAKER_04]: So I like which said you said low end, you said grading.
23:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And I would include kind of crossing, you know, potential crossing in that auction house relationships and then, you know, quick flips if you're just buying and quick flipping it if you have like a liquidation channel, whether it's a a repat company or something like that, and then you've got looking at sourcing cards and strategy buys and then I think deep does.
23:25
[SPEAKER_04]: So again, the point being is is be aware in the hobby and figure out different ways that you can take advantage of different channels.
23:32
[SPEAKER_04]: And if Bowman is slow, then what's not slow, move to that a little bit.
23:36
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I think the point is you can't be all things to all people.
23:39
[SPEAKER_04]: You can't be involved in all aspects of the hobby.
23:41
[SPEAKER_04]: But I think one of the things that's made us really good is we've been willing to move to different areas of the hobby when things might be slow in one area.
23:50
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think that's a really, really good strategy for our listeners to take on, especially in the middle of the baseball summer being slow.
23:58
[SPEAKER_04]: And we've just seen great opportunity in that.
24:01
[SPEAKER_04]: I just want to encourage people to look outside their normal window.
24:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I will say, like, I've seen people who've listened to our podcast that have done majority booming.
24:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're texting us saying, like, especially after we did the podcast with Deep Value Investor about 90s inserts.
24:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And they've gotten the 90s inserts because we talked about it on the podcast.
24:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's just like 90s inserts are a great way to make money because at the end of the day they're in user cards.
24:24
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not cards that are going into a repack, you know?
24:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Their cards that are going in people's collections.
24:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's why 90s inserts sell up.
24:30
[SPEAKER_04]: And you've got to be a little bit more patient on cards like that that don't have frequent cops.
24:35
[SPEAKER_04]: And again, if you can be patient, I think that there's value in that.
24:39
[SPEAKER_04]: So I think strategy wise, we talked about this on the podcast earlier with Bubba, is like diversifying your portfolio and have your blue chip players and then you have your like your sleeper picks and then you have your pitchers.
24:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you look at your overall portfolio, how it's kind of spread out, I think for us, it's really interesting, like right now, I would say that like maybe 5% of our portfolio
25:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's true.
25:01
[SPEAKER_01]: We have three bumming.
25:02
[SPEAKER_01]: We have three bumming cards.
25:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Is I your red and it's not more.
25:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we have more.
25:06
[SPEAKER_01]: We have teen red.
25:08
[SPEAKER_04]: We've got we've got maybe five.
25:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Thankfully, but my point is is that we've been we've been moving into these other areas and so just don't discount that I guess is the the main point that I wanted to make
25:20
[SPEAKER_04]: But the other area where we've seen a lot of success, and this is the idea of grading is subjective, right?
25:27
[SPEAKER_04]: And so taking advantage of cross grading cards is something that's very, very strongly should be strongly considered.
25:36
[SPEAKER_04]: you know and again with so few people truly knowing how to kind of prepare their cards and if they send them into their local shop and they're not looking at them they got a thumbprint on them or whatever and we've had a lot of success of taking cards that are freshly graded and moving them two different grading companies or even resubmitting cards that don't have specific certain numbers on them and I mean I'm just thinking about right now we just had a pop today
26:04
[SPEAKER_04]: So, if folks are looking to submit cards like that for grading or re-grading, what would you say is the key things to look for Matthew?
26:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, here's what I did on this specific Carbys 10 today.
26:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Kind of share the card.
26:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's going to air the podcast going to air in two days.
26:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it's fine.
26:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
26:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So the car that we popped today was a 20, 20, six, a Tony all aces PSA 10.
26:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So what I did is I went to three people.
26:26
[SPEAKER_01]: The three people I knew graded the most and they literally like, like I said, there's people that do like stuff for like this, these people, they literally all the news buying great.
26:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And
26:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I went to them.
26:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, you grade all these types of cards.
26:39
[SPEAKER_01]: What is normally the issue that you see with all aces or an all Kings card?
26:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And they said, the back edge always has peeling.
26:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So I went on eBay and I searched for every single of Tony all aces area or all Kings.
26:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And I saw which one didn't have peeling.
26:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And I ended up buying this one for $5,800 and a PSI 9 and a PSI 10 to sold for $33,000.
27:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you can see like so you look at like here perfect example.
27:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Our booming listeners are booming listeners will understand this.
27:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone knows that 2025 Bowman is infamous for having the corner.
27:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you can find a PSA9 that has a good corner, then that's a good resub candidate.
27:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, for sure.
27:19
[SPEAKER_04]: So I think the point is too, if you're getting into that market is find the nuance where there's a card who has a big jump from a nine to a ten, you know, and then understand the card and kind of the quality control issues and like don't be afraid to take a risk there.
27:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Because if you did it on five cards or ten cards and you pop one or two,
27:39
[SPEAKER_04]: it definitely makes it worth it.
27:40
[SPEAKER_04]: That's not my favorite way.
27:42
[SPEAKER_04]: This is something we're kind of exploring but dude, with this show hay all aces and with the East West refractor Jordan that we did and then we had the Connor, the big come-up on the Connor, do we've had three cards that went from nine to ten and I mean what?
27:57
[SPEAKER_04]: 60 something grand on those three cards?
28:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the Otoni will be in the 30 range, the Jordan was 15.
28:04
[SPEAKER_01]: That's 45 in the corner was 22.
28:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So like almost 70.
28:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
28:07
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
28:08
[SPEAKER_04]: That's crazy.
28:09
[SPEAKER_04]: And again, it takes some stones to regrade, you know, older cards or cards that are not because you, it could go the other way, you know, and we've had that happen a couple times the trout didn't move, you know, the tiger didn't move.
28:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and so, you know, don't be afraid to do it.
28:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but we've done really, really well on grading this year, like especially like we've had like, I want to call them cheap, but I call them mid-end grades like we gym two magonical goals from BGS Nines, both of them were BGS Nines with gym both of them.
28:37
[SPEAKER_01]: We made 7k a pop there and Connor Blue 10s and Connor Gold 10s.
28:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So like we've done really well on grading this year.
28:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I think the point being is when the market is where it is and there's so much competition you kind of have to work with what you have and you got to be smart and you got to be willing to take some risks and then if you have a couple wins it's like, hey, let's go do it again.
28:56
[SPEAKER_04]: You know what I mean, let's go do it again because now it's often it's that it can be done.
29:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I just saw a text come up on the phone.
29:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, I just saw a text come up on the phone from our business partner.
29:07
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, let's buy two or three or four.
29:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
29:10
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, so anyway, I, and again, we could chat math.
29:12
[SPEAKER_04]: You just on and on and on.
29:13
[SPEAKER_04]: Hopefully, our listeners will get something out of this.
29:15
[SPEAKER_04]: I think the main point today we wanted to talk about was the markets changing, the market shifting.
29:20
[SPEAKER_04]: There's a lot of different things going on right now.
29:22
[SPEAKER_04]: When the market is pivoting, you have to pivot as well.
29:25
[SPEAKER_04]: You've got to be strategic enough to understand the market to kind of look at where things are, where money's moving to right now and you have a bunch of capital flooding into the market.
29:34
[SPEAKER_04]: people my age, you know, guys in their 40s or 50s, that they were always about Jordan.
29:39
[SPEAKER_04]: They were always about Kobe.
29:40
[SPEAKER_04]: They were always about, you know, kind of those Brady, you know, Griffey, those kinds of goats, the money's going there right now.
29:46
[SPEAKER_04]: So kind of get in that market and play that market space for a little bit and do different things.
29:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Like you said, low end works, grading works, quick flips work, auctions work, you know, sourcing certain cards works.
29:59
[SPEAKER_04]: So just be willing to kind of modify and set it going, huh?
30:02
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, immediately what comes up in my head, and you said that you told me this quote, since I've been eight or nine years old.
30:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And you haven't told me in a while, I just remembered it.
30:09
[SPEAKER_01]: But you used to tell me this when I was younger and I'd get mad.
30:12
[SPEAKER_01]: You would just, you would just say, a true person's character is shown how good they are when things are going bad.
30:20
[SPEAKER_01]: You used to always tell me that because your business partner, when you're at that fearless,
30:25
[SPEAKER_01]: told you that.
30:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember it just shows like if the market is in a bad place, are you gonna win there and sit and are you gonna go and you're gonna find something else to do.
30:35
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, so I did it.
30:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I just thought about it.
30:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's good.
30:38
[SPEAKER_04]: This good.
30:38
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm glad you actually listen to some of stuff I say.
30:40
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't just call you lazy all the time.
30:42
[SPEAKER_04]: All of our listeners think that.
30:43
[SPEAKER_04]: So there's thank you for redeeming me as your dad with actually some good things that I share with you.
30:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, he also tells me not to shoot the ball and I shoot him well.
30:52
[SPEAKER_04]: No, I just said hey, mix it up.
30:53
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I mean, mix it up.
30:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Shooters going shoot though, baby, right?
30:56
[SPEAKER_04]: Keep taking the shots.
30:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
30:58
[SPEAKER_04]: little Hamilton, not throwing away my shot.
31:01
[SPEAKER_04]: So all that said, I think the last piece that I want to just emphasize to our folks is instead of sitting around and waiting on something to happen, it's always a good reminder to kind of get up and get out there and go do something that works, you know?
31:19
[SPEAKER_04]: And if something's not working, you know, move a little bit, go try something else.
31:22
[SPEAKER_04]: That's applicable in life, it's applicable in business, you know,
31:27
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, all kinds of stuff, if you're lifting weights, if you're trying to be disappointed about what you're eating, you've got to change things up.
31:33
[SPEAKER_04]: You've got to be willing to pivot, you've got to be willing to move.
31:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And right now, the hobby, things are moving.
31:39
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think the people who do the best in the hobby are the guys that are willing to kind of move around the market.
31:47
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, they're smart, they pay attention, they kind of maneuver,
31:51
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, they're not waiting on, you know, Trevor Lawrence to have another good year and sit on this big card, they're just they're kind of staying quick with it.
31:59
[SPEAKER_04]: They're staying in they're staying out and then they're they're buying or allocating their capital towards the true rare assets that are always going to be in demand because of supply and demand.
32:09
[SPEAKER_04]: So anyway, that's kind of the thoughts for today.
32:11
[SPEAKER_04]: You have any any final little nuggets before you head into your busy July.
32:15
[SPEAKER_01]: No, man, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do my business partner something to do.
32:18
[SPEAKER_01]: He's telling me to go buy more cards, and that's just like, how will you?
32:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I can buy more cards.
32:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So I, the next, I'll be in Cedar Point for the next week.
32:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So I might not have access to ship any cards.
32:29
[SPEAKER_04]: I over under, over under, on, over under on you finding a card shop in Ohio.
32:34
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I don't, I'm not going to make my uncle go, but we'll be it.
32:38
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll be it.
32:38
[SPEAKER_04]: It would surprise me if you like get an Uber to a card shop in Ohio.
32:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Dude, if I'm like tuking in the bushes after, I'm just going to call an Uber after the roller coaster.
32:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I know I'm going to throw up after one of them.
32:49
[SPEAKER_01]: If I, so I'm going to call Uber and just like take me to a car clutch or two shop and yeah, guess you're Ryan.
32:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but you know, I will say I thought the over under was going to be over under how many cards you buy on the trip and I said I say we said a line I say we set the line at four and a half for now you think you buy over four and a half cards while you're away.
33:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, you're about four and a half cards tonight at the airport.
33:15
[SPEAKER_01]: No, that's, that's kind of crazy.
33:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, dude, I, I think I'll buy like five cards on the around, you know, around the of the whole three days, but Well, I'll tell you what, I know you well enough.
33:26
[SPEAKER_04]: I know you well enough to tell if I take the over, you'll do everything you can to get the
33:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, true story.
33:37
[SPEAKER_04]: All right.
33:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, listen man.
33:38
[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to wrap it up.
33:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you guys for for listening and tuning in.
33:42
[SPEAKER_04]: Hopefully a little chat with a little Matt and I about pivoting just a little insight into the market little strategies little nuggets are helpful to you guys and you guys can continue to win.
33:51
[SPEAKER_04]: That's what we love more than anything, man.
33:53
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, we had a young kid kind of house today bought a card and, you know, we helped him along the way and he's doing well and it's like, we had another guy that said, hey man, can you hook me up and, you know, we've got cards that, you know, we're doing well on them and we help people out like, I love this man.
34:07
[SPEAKER_04]: So hopefully it's helpful and math to you.
34:08
[SPEAKER_04]: I appreciate you jumping on the day, bro.
34:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes sir.
34:11
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, later guys.