What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to Stacking Slabs, your hobby content alternative.

This right here is auction talk. It's that time of the week where we talk about everything auctions and in between, and I am joined by my co host Nic at The Wharf Sports Cards to dig into some topics that are going down.

And boy, did we get into a discussion upfront that took up a majority of this conversation.

I thought it was fun, and I always enjoy this part is to get a pulse on the things that the consignor, Nic in this case, is seeing, hearing, or thinking about players, sets, buying, selling, all those elements.

And I dig into that up front, and this conversation really opened up a lot of subtopics, and that is what we're going to dig into today.

I think you're gonna really enjoy this one. I know I enjoyed it. If you're looking for a place to consign your sports cards with, look no further than my man, Nic, at the worst sports cards.

If you're looking for someone to fund your next grail, hit up my man, Nic. And if you wanna show your support for stacking slabs, tell a damn friend.

Make sure you're hitting that follow button. And if you want some more exclusive content from yours truly or to be part of the collector conversation, join that Patreon group.

Link is in the show notes. We went long with this one. I hope you like long ones because this is one of them.

This is Auction Talk. Auction Talk is back, Nic. You know, I prepared these episodes. You contribute to these episodes. But this one, I'm just like I did this, I think, a a few days ago. I'm like, what are we talking about again?

So but we'll we'll make we'll make it through. We always do. I feel like we've built a pretty good rapport of, you know, just making it happen during this conversation, but there's a lot of cards and topics.

But, anyways, how how are you? Are you, survived the weekend with the little ones ready to get back in the saddle and do your thing? Here I'm breathing, so that's that's surviving with the little ones.

Got through another weekend. It was good, man. We got some outside time last week. It's a game changer when you have kids and you've been stuck inside for what feels like months and months and months.

So hopefully spring is around the corner. It changes your world when you're a parent of little kids. So pumped for that. I'm glad that this episode is a little bit, you said you're not quite totally ready for what's gonna happen.

That that just gets me more excited. Yeah. My favorite one. So let's go. Yeah. Net we're not over engineering this, not over manufacturing this. I'll say this, and this is for all you football card, NFL just maniacs out there.

Yes. This weekend, I, this really has nothing to do with cards specifically, but more just like the state of the NFL. My wife and I celebrated our eleven year anniversary on Saturday. And Congrats. Thank you, man.

We were in Chicago the weekend prior. I talked about this. So we weren't like there was nothing really romantic going on. But after we had we we peaked out by being by ourselves in another city with a amazing sushi dinner.

Yeah. So during the week, she's like, what do you wanna do? And I was like, I don't know. Like, you pick and choose. Like, well, let's why don't we why don't we go to the combine with the kids? And I was like, that that sounds awesome.

Of course. I'm not gonna say that. Yeah. You did. You struck gold. I did. I I I picked a winner. Right? That was the recommendation. But, dude, I just wanted to comment on this because I'm not sure I'm not gonna get a chance to.

We went on Saturday, and we went, like, on NFL Network was, like, starting at 01:00, and it was, like, Saturday was receivers, running backs, and quarterback, which I would say is probably the most favorable spot.

But we we drove to Lucas Oil. We parked our car. They had us, like, parking, you know, in a space. It was free, like, free.

It was super windy and indie. The anything they had planned for outside, they moved it inside. I literally felt like when we were walking with the kids to the stadium, it felt like we were, like, going to an NFL game.

Like, the volume of people, people in every team's jersey from all over the place. And I was just like, we just got off of the Super Bowl, and there are all of these people. It was, like, inside. It was wall to wall. It was just insane.

But I don't know. It was like a a reminder that the NFL never stops. And it was like, this is this audience is just here because everyone's optimistic that their next savior on their team is somewhere in this building.

And Yeah. If they can get a chance to watch them, they are. So they that that's why they're here. So, you know, we hardly saw anything. You know, kids only last so long.

You know, we we spent probably instead of making a lunch at home, we spent probably, like, 10 times, by getting, every possible, type of food, you know, hot dogs, Dippin' Dots, Sour Patch Kids, all those things.

We, you know, it was we we we came for the food, basically, and, we left. But I don't know. I just I wanted to comment on that because it just it feels like football and football cards specifically are are just continuing to trend up.

And that moment, like, being like, we just had the Super Bowl, and this is where we're at was pretty pretty remarkable. That's huge, man. And I got a dose of it too with the Deebo Samuel trade.

Yes. Yes. Defenders. What do you think about that? I just for how did we get him for only a fifth round pick? I'm trying to I feel like we fleeced him, but we're also taking on a huge contract. But we have the money to do so.

But, like, I'm I'm usually the guy that's like, I don't really get excited about big names for, like, off season moves because I'm like, usually, the team that they're leaving wants to get rid of them for a season type of thing, and rarely do those players, like, exceed expectations on the new teams.

But we did see that with, like, Saquon Barkley. We saw it with Derrick Henry. They went to better offenses, and they produce they they produced more than they did in the past or or exceeded expectations.

So kinda hoping that's what happens with Deebo. He's got the familiarity with Adam. He was our GM. He was an assistant GM with the forty niners.

And we have offensive firepower. Right? Like, we have a creative offensive coordinator, so the pieces are there for a guy like Deebo to come in and and make a big impact. He his health is always a concern for me.

It feels like I never like, every time I turn on 40 niners, it was like, I don't even know if he's playing this week or not, like, every week. But I'm happy that all we gave up was a fifth round pick. Yes. I'm happy with that.

I do hope that we still, like, really emphasize the draft and and building through the draft first. But, yeah, dude, it's like the Super Bowl just ended. We're already making trades. The offs like, free agency hasn't even started.

Like, this trade can't even happen for, like, another three weeks or something like that, like, officially. So it does feel like the NFL has got to this point where it's like, the excitement's all year round, man.

What's fun about that trade as as you were talking through it is we are reaching the point where you have two players, two rookie receivers in the 2019 class are now joining forces on the same team Yes.

Terry and Deebo, which is fun when, like, I I I think about a lot of the what I think about sometimes is just rookie classes, and I attribute it to cards.

And 2019 to me is such a pivotal year because, like, of the time me getting back into the hobby. So as you were, like, talking about that, I was like, oh, like, two rookies in 2019 Prism, like, now playing on the same team.

That's fun. I'm pumped to see Terry. Like, Terry, he finally got his, like, real quarterback. Yeah. Now he might have a real, like, second, like, you know, second receiver. You know what I mean?

Or whatever you wanna call. Deebo, he's kind of a hybrid guy, but, like, second weapon. And it's it's like I said, I've said this many times as a Washington fan. I try not to get too excited about these type of things, but I'm excited.

There there was there was plenty of, commanders jerseys in the audience. So I I did see you you win some games and you get some fit you get more fans from the periphery. That's just how it worked. There we go. I love it, man.

Awesome. Let's let's start here. I, always like to, like, dig into interesting topics. And I I was like, I I'm kind of a nerd sometimes when, like, my kids actually do take a nap, and I'm, like, not in the content creation mode.

I'll sometimes be, like, looking through Card Ladder to think about, like, what could potential topics be.

And I just, like, fiddle around with Cardbladder. And one of the things that I started to dig into were filters. And I was just out of my overall curiosity, I was curious because we just went through February, which is insane.

We flew through February, and now we're in March. So things are are ticking, but I was trying to, like, compare and contrast, like, performance.

Like, I wanted to come up with, like, a qualifier for the month of February and then compare it to another that same qualifier in a different year and just see where we're at.

And so I started here. Would love your feedback before we get into the data.

But I a threshold and maybe this is like a personal threshold for me, but, you know, the more you collect cards, the more you, spend money on auctions, this and that, the more you build up equity in your collection.

Like, I found through my own experience, like, the the bar for which I am willing to spend money, the top end bar for a a card has increased because I've got the security of having, cards in my collection that can cover the cost.

And that's just how it's worked. Like, the more time you put in, I think the more you're willing to spend on specific cards.

And so over my course of time, like, my bar has gone up. And, like, I think currently where I'm at, I'm always just like, I have certainly bought cards above this.

Most of the cards I I I buy are below this, but I thought, like, man, $3,000, for a card, is is it is is very expensive. And just and and I know, like, it it just feels like a good, like, breaking point where it's like, okay.

If you're spending 3,000 or above, like, you are probably if you aren't, like, in super wealthy and you have a bunch of disposable income to spend on sports cards, like, you're probably if you're spending 3,000 on a card or above, like, you're probably going to have to do something, consolidate, sell, do whatever.

So I use that as a threshold of, like, $3,000 or above in in terms of sale price for the month of February. But before I get into the data and what I wanna talk about, like, what do you think about, like, that $3,000 threshold?

Do you think that's, like, a point that we should we we could focus in on and and and there would be some interesting, data to to look at?

Like, I feel like once you hit 3,000, it kinda maybe changes the way, like, as a collector, you behave and decisions that you have to make.

But I'd be curious. Like, what do you think about that 300 $3,000 threshold? Yeah. I mean, it makes sense. I think it's, you know, gonna be different for everybody kinda like what you said.

Like, yours is yours is raised as you've gone on and built a collection. I think mine is probably 5 k. So it's right in that rage. And it makes sense to me because at $3. 05 k, you start to capture, like, less valuable guys' best cards.

Like, absolute best cards can be in that range. And then you're still getting, like, maybe into some of the mid end or, like, lower mid end of the better of the best players. Right?

So if that makes sense. So it it's kinda that overlap of, like, your best players and your worst players. Best cards for the worst players, maybe some of the lower mid tier for the for the best players, and then everything above that.

So I like that. It probably captures the most type of cards and is probably the the sweet spot for generalizing, like, market, market, trends that we're seeing.

So I took, I took that number, the 3,000, and I just wanted to see in Cardlight, I wanted to see in the month of February how many sales that we had this year of $3,000 or more.

And we had 6,911 sales. And I was like, that seems like a pretty good number without any context.

I was like, it seems like a pretty healthy number. So then I went back and looked at 2024, data, and there was 4,876, sales with with an extra day because last year was a leap year.

So you had an deck a debt additional day. So and then I went back to 2023 because I was like, okay. Where were we at then?

You had 5,200, 54 sales. So we went from, 5,200 down to 4,800 and then back up to 6,900. So that's a 27% increase from 23 to 25 and a 34% increase from 24 to 25 in terms of volume of $33,000 sales in the month of February.

To me, I think that, like, that doesn't tell the whole story about the health of the market or the health of specific segments of the market.

But to me, that it could be a really strong indicator in terms of looking at the, buyer behavior and, what people are doing.

It just seems like there's more confidence in spending your money on the higher end or the 3,000 and above than it had been the year prior. That's what I was feeling as someone who's talking about this stuff regularly.

But the the data really grounded me to the fact that that's actually what's happening. Like, performance is better, More cards selling at a higher clip than the year prior.

Yeah. No. That makes sense that that, you know, more cards are worth more money. So that would mean more of those sales would happen. I'm thinking about the flip side too.

I'm thinking, why has there been so many more sales this year? Is that a indicator of what we could see this year in the market and maybe prices start to go down because we're seeing an increase in supply overall?

I'd love to see, like, 2021 and 2022 numbers, like peak COVID where, like, you know, prices were going nuts, and everything was worth a lot.

And people were selling more because they were making more money as they sold. I wonder if those numbers are higher or lower than any of these because I think we could pull from that.

Like, maybe this is the start of what we saw three years ago. Does that make sense? Like Yes. Increase of number of sales could be a good thing.

It could be a bad thing. Time will tell. But So so quest question for you. Do you I would love to know on that let's say we have, 34% more $3,000 cards selling in February this year than last year.

So so more cards selling. What potentially would be a negative that you would see from from looking at that data? That if there's more of those sales, maybe there's less conviction in those cards.

Gotcha. Okay. People are getting rid of them. But I see the flip side more, like right? More maybe it's cards that were a thousand dollars, and now more people are willing to spend $3,000 on those cards that were a thousand dollars.

So there's, like, some really detailed things we could look at in in each sale, but I'm also like, maybe the per maybe it's just a participation thing.

Right? Maybe we have more people participating, and that's what's driving up the values, and that's what's creating more demand for a $1,000 card and making it a $3,000 card.

But the opposite could be true where it's like, I have there's more junk in the $3,000 range now.

I'm just throwing this out there. Like, maybe Yeah. Feel like, okay. These are these are not as rare and valuable as I thought they were, so I'm gonna start selling these.

And maybe we're just seeing a a a cycle of that. You know? I think it's it's definitely something that catches my attention and makes me wanna look closer at the at more of the say the actual sales that are happening.

What's fun about that is that was more or less a setup for what we're talking about next, and that's I I I wanted to prime the pump because I wanted to get into your seat for a moment or let listeners into your seat and try to get a little bit of pulse to the market from, like, the consignment seat.

I think that we haven't done this in a while. I think it's valuable for people to understand.

Like, I I put that point of data out there, but then I think the context, and it's that you have a lot of conversations with people that are selling our cards, considering selling cards, consolidating this and that.

So let's, like, maybe talk about some of what you're hearing this year. And let's start with what sort of trends in terms of players Yeah.

Have you you noticed, you know, over the last few months? Yeah. It's definitely felt like it's trending back to the goats. Like, I look I the the easiest place for me to look is, like, what are people wanting us to fund most?

And it's it's been way more MJ, LeBron, Kobe, like, Messi, Griffey, Barry Bonds, Barry Sanders, Jerry Rice. Like, it's been that type of stuff more.

Where at the beginning of this funding thing, it was it was more it was a lot more spread out. That's been sticking out to me. I look at the stuff those people are selling, and it's more you know, it's still trending.

It still feels like it's trending in the direction of, less cards, more valuable is what people want, more rare, right, which which usually equals more valuable.

So people are willing to get rid of quantity for quality right now. Do you, so we spent all of last year in those those players that you talked about, many of which are part of the auction talk hall of fame.

But we we saw, like, guys like Bonds, guys like Jerry Rice, like, start to in specific cards, start to set all time highs. And so we're we're reporting on that.

We're feeling like the groundswell of, you know, well, maybe I should buy a Barry Sanders card and seeing a lot of different interest evolving. Do you think, the focus in on some of those players that you mentioned are all time greats?

Do you think that has anything to do with, the fact that there's been a year where there's been a lot of these sales and now collectors are being like, okay. There's been a year. This is prove this is proving itself out.

I've always thought I wanted a Jerry Rice, Barry Sanders, Barry Bonds card. And now I'm now I'm going to go attack it. Or are these existing collectors of these all time greats that are just adding pieces to their collection?

I think it's both. It's definitely both. But it's been more people that have been collecting these guys and are kind of, like, redoubling down.

And I've seen a lot of, like, you know, selling, like like, say, Messi, like, consolidating into a big Messi and then selling a lot of of of their cheaper Messi's that they have.

Right? They're still important cards, for for different reasons. Like, you sold a twenty eighteen National Treasures, patch auto Messi in last night's auctions.

Number 10 of 10. Cool cards. First National Treasures Messi. But it wasn't Game Award. And I think, two years ago, people cared less about that, and that card was probably worth a lot more money.

Fast forward to now, people really care about where the patch is from, and the value is is, significantly less for those that aren't game worn.

So I think people are start you know, like, he this person was probably more willing to cut ties with a card like that, getting into a bigger card that they have more conviction in, what whatever that card may be.

So it's been a lot of existing collectors kinda reshuffling what they wanna focus their collection on for those guys.

But, yeah, you definitely see, like, some people need a year or two of of data to really change their mind or or or or have enough conviction in what they're seeing to to take that jump into a bigger card of a player.

I wanna hit some other categories here.

But before we get move off of this one, something that I'm always interested in and would love your perspective, because we started to go in that direction through this conversation, but I'm just gonna hit it on its head.

The this is a thing this is a position that a lot of collectors have been in. A lot that are listening to the show is where you collect a certain player.

You've invested a lot of your own resources into collecting that player and building up this collection. And while you've done that, like, say you've been doing this for five years, any player.

While you've been doing that, the player has done everything they can do maybe, from an on the field perspective, or there's just if they've retired, there's been just more interest in general, and so their market has moved up.

And so you've bought these cards. Maybe when you bought these a card, it was, like, a thousand dollars.

And now that card is 6 or $7,000. And that card or type of card isn't, like, the profile of card that, like, is the most attractive to you. So there there always is this mindset, I think, as a collector where we have to figure out.

It's like, if the market's going up on stuff we're holding, it's like you ask yourself this question. It's like, do I love this card or this type of card as much as the market likes this card or not?

And so I guess I'd be curious, like, do you see, like, people who are just a big with someone that they collect that they love and their decision making isn't like or maybe it is.

Maybe it's like, okay. I've got, like, five of these cards that I don't love as much the market, so I'm gonna sell them.

Then I'm gonna get these funds and figure out something to do with it. Mhmm. Or is it just like, you know, they sell those cards and then they're just like, well, this can go to that one that I've always been chasing.

Like, I'm curious to understand, like, from your end, like, when you're talking with people if they are anal like, the decisions that they make when the market is going up on cards that they have had in their collection for a few years and how they think about making the next decision.

Yeah. I think if the the less rare the card is, the more willing they are to get rid of it when the market is going up on those cards. And it use but it usually comes down to, like, most people aren't just gonna sell a card.

Most collectors are not just gonna sell a card because it's going up. They're they're gonna wait until they know what they're gonna do with that money. So so a lot of times, it's like this bigger card came up.

It came available, or maybe it's been available, but it's been the price has always seemed rich. Right? But now they have these cards underneath it that are that are coming up in value, and they can get more out of them.

And maybe they can make that move on that bigger card, so they're willing to sell those. But it's it's with collectors, it's almost never like, I'm just gonna sell these because there's they're worth more than what they are.

They're the money they're worth is more valuable than the everything else they're worth to me right now, and I'm just gonna sell them and figure out what to do with that money.

They almost always know what they wanna do with that money just before they start to sell.

But but this kind of might lead into the next question. But, like, I've definitely seen that trend where it's like, look at the credentials the the credentials future and now parallels.

Like, we've sold a lot of credential higher numbered credential parallels over the last year, and almost all of those are consolidations into either a more rare credentials parallel of the same player or just a more rare bigger card of the same player.

Because those those cards have increased in value, but we're also getting to the place where they don't feel as rare as they used to.

Like a card out of 75, where you you you might not have saw a public sale for four years, and then all of a sudden four of them sell in the same year.

And it's like, oh, you know, I thought it was scarce even though I know there's 75 copies.

And now at this price, all of a sudden, everybody wants to sell. Gives you less kind of conviction in that card and and makes you more open to selling it. Not necessarily something I thought we're gonna hit on, but, like, perception.

Like, I think perception plays such a critical role in, like, digging into, like I'd love to talk about maybe, like, products or parallel trends. You just mentioned the credentials that you've observed for your clients.

And maybe I'll tee it up by just saying, like, through that example, like, perception is is an interesting one where it's like certain cards, say they're out of, you know, seventy, seventy five or whatever, and you haven't seen the card in a while, the perception is that, like, they're stashed away in collections and they'll never go anywhere.

And then all of a sudden, because someone is consolidating, because cards are going up, they maybe flooded might be too aggressive a word, but they make available more of these types of cards that collectors in a certain category haven't seen in a while.

And then all of a sudden, collectors are scrambling to try to make decisions on if they should go after this card, or maybe because there's so many at once, they decide, like, maybe my working theory about this product or parallel isn't accurate.

But in all reality, it could just be one collector making a decision to shake up their collection.

And but you don't really know that by just, you know, bidding on cards on in a on a marketplace. Yeah. And it just takes, like, digging in and someone sharing information.

So I say all of that because I'm I'm I'm a believer that the market moves based on, less about players, more about products in parallel, trends that happen. It's just my my belief.

But I'd love to know just what you're seeing, hearing, thinking from a a a product parallel perspective and just some of those conversations or, consumer behavior you're seeing from your clients on what they're doing.

Yeah. So the one that won't surprise you is people people are are going harder and harder at the best of the best nineties parallel. So this isn't a surprise on the surface, but, like, what does the best of the best mean?

Yes. That's what I was gonna ask. What's that mean? So so the obvious is, like, okay. What are the best of the best parallels? Like, credentials now and future parallels that are super rare.

We've seen those going nuts. Gym masters, like, 24 karat golds have been huge. Like, we saw, like, that Griffey PSA eight did almost 50 k, and a PSA 10 did 54 k, like, two years ago.

So, like, the the best of the best is is can be different for each sport and player, but it's it's a list of, like, three to five parallels for or or, parallels or inserts for a for a player versus where, like and I was I was this way too.

Like, I mean, my Jerry Rice collection three years ago was probably, like, 40 cards.

You know? It is like, we're seeing a lot less of that and a lot more of, let me turn those 40 into five or three or, like, can I make a run at, you know, one of these top three cards with 30 of the 40 cards that I have?

We're seeing a lot more of that. And I it goes back to, like, we've seen the trend. Right? For a year, it seems like let's let's pick on nineties football.

Like, the the best of the best nineties football has been really climbing to that next level. And I think, like you hit it on earlier, we're starting to see more people that were like, I don't know. I don't know if this is real.

I don't know if I believe in this. Start to say, alright. It seems real because these sales keep happening. How can I get the best one of the best cards I want before it sells for a hundred and 50 k and I can never buy it?

So and a lot of that happens privately because once some of these cards hit auction, they're they're selling for a lot more than what they're being offered to it privately because people don't always know what to value in that privately.

They're going off the last comp, and maybe they're going a little higher than that. But if it goes to auction, it might do four x the last comp. So, a lot of that We're talking, like, we're talking, like, you know, 25 to $50,000 swings.

You know? Yeah. Yeah. Easily. And and think of a collection of, you know I think of my 40 card Jerry Rice collection. You know, $25,000 could have been 20 cards, 15 cards.

And, you know, depending on which ones I picked, it could have been 30 cards because I had some cards that weren't even worth a thousand dollars that, you know, I love and and were rare, but they just weren't worth it to other people to be worth more than a thousand dollars.

So, yeah, you you you talking about some people having a that that could be a whole collection for some people. 25 to $50,000 easily could be a whole collection for some people.

So those swings do matter. And there's a couple other. Do you wanna say any more on that, or do you want me to jump into the others? I do want you to jump into the others, but I think it's important.

And this is part of what I wanted to get at, and I'll just, like, hammer it home. It it sounds like from what you're saying, there is a movement happening with people who you work with that have this less is more mindset.

And I think that is important. And I think that's important to know. I think as collectors, no matter what type of collector you are, naturally, like, we are accumulators.

Like, typically, more makes us feel more comfortable, but it sounds like which is true. Like, I like having more cards, but whenever I have to make a decision, I get rid of cards to sacrifice it to get that one card. Mhmm.

So it just sounds like from everything you you've said there, like, my primary takeaway is that there's a trend from collectors right now in the community that are focusing in on having collections that are maybe five to 10 card as opposed to 50 or a hundred or 200 cards.

For sure. And then, you know, one other one other thing I wanted to add that that I've seen and I've done it myself is, like, how I wanna collect so many different dudes.

Like, if I could, you know, like, I would Yes. This would be, like, so long. You know? It's so hard for me to focus in on, like, one to three guys. Do you do you I'm gonna sidetrack you.

Do you wanna collect more guys, or do you wanna collect more guys in specific products or pair sets that you love? Yeah. Probably, probably it's probably a combination of both because here's how I feel about it.

Like, say Jerry Rice is my main my main guy in my main collection. Like, I'm willing to go deeper on the type of cards I would add to that collection.

But then, like, I still love Barry Sanders, and there's this card of Barry Sanders that I don't have of the Jerry Rice. I would love a Barry Sanders card, but I'm not gonna buy 20 Barry Sanders cards.

I'm gonna buy the best Barry Sanders card that I can get that might not be represented in my Jerry Rice collection yet, or the best Isaac Bruce card that I can get that might not be represented in my Jerry Rice collection.

Like, you know, friends of mine, like, collectors I talked to, will will recognize this.

They call it the fringe collection. Right? Like, they want a piece of this guy Yes. And they're they're probably gonna get the best card of that guy they can get, and that's that's that guy's collection.

It's one it might be one card. It might be two or three, and then they go deeper on their main guy. Dude, I I I wanna just, like, I'll just, like, personal example that maps right back to this.

But just, like, getting into WNBA collecting, it's like, I don't want, like, I don't want a team collection. I don't want play like, necessarily want, like, these big robust player PCs.

I am the fun part about, like, opening up a new lane and collecting something new is, like, it affords me the opportunity to make decisions on what I want that to look like, and I've made this decision.

I want it to look like a lot different than the other categories that I'm collecting in. And so, like, what you just said resonates with me where it's just like, yeah, there's so many great players that I I love watching.

And based on where the market is and the performance, like, I can be the CEO of my PC and say, you know what? You know, I, I want a Diana Taurasi card, goat just retired.

I want her I don't want a whole collection, but I want a card that is, you know, maybe a gold prism, you know, a certain year, and that's just the card because I want a piece of Trossi in my collection.

And Right. I have never it it's maybe back to when I started, like, back into cards, like, I worked that way. Obviously, it was at a scale of, like, I'm buying a bunch of base cards because I don't know any better.

But now, like, I'm I'm having this, like, evolution of, like, being back in that mindset where I'm thinking about, like, value and also connection with players.

And I don't know. To me, it's reinvigorated my overall collecting experience. And so I just had to jump on that because what you're saying resonates with me. I love that, man. And it keeps you in the game.

Like, I talked about that before. Like, I it's hard for me to sit on the sidelines. Like, I like to stay active, so it keeps me, you know, involved in in in the markets and buying new cards and and keeping my collection moving.

So get was there on that front, was there anything else you wanna you know? A couple a couple other segments real quick.

Like, I believe patch autos have been on fire, at least for us, like, in the funding situation. Like, a lot of the bigger cards people are looking to go after have been patch autos. Not all of them.

Like, there's, you know, been some ninety key nineties pieces and some other stuff, but, I feel like there's especially with the MJ MJ Kobe LeBron stuff, it's it's almost always a big patch auto. So that's it just says something to me.

Like, it seems like the guys that and it's a lot of guys that have been collecting for a long time. And it's like, I always feel like when they get sidetracked, the first thing they come back, the game use patch autos of these dudes.

So to me, it's like it's that's valuable information to me as a football collector because I feel like football always follows basketball. Eventually, it does what basketball does. So that just it gets me thinking in that regard.

And then also, like and these are usually less valuable cards because people are trying to find that value, but, like, there's still this, like and and I we might even kinda touch on this later, but there's still this, like, pursuit of what of of people trying to find that, like, hidden panini set.

What is the hidden one like that this in ten years from now, people aren't buying it now, but in ten years from now, they're going to.

And, like, that's been going on for Yes. For years. And it's like it's I love I love it because people tell me why Yes.

What they're buying is that set, and it just gives me so much, like, perspective on what other people are thinking and how they how they get to where they're getting with stuff, and it gets me thinking about stuff.

And so I love seeing that, but it's it's just something that fascinates me that's just, like, it's never gonna go away until we're ten, twenty years out of the Panini era.

I wanna hit question on the game patch, and then I wanna hit Panini stuff. Yeah. Is is it is is the OG collector's going back to the game worn of, you know, LeBron, Curry, whatever.

Is it a supply thing, you think? It's like, I know that the supply is just really low, and so I'm gonna do. I think so, and especially Kobe.

Because, like, his autos, he's you're not gonna get any more Kobe autos. Right? So, like, I feel like we've seen a lot more Kobe auto and, you know, people get, you know, more bang for your buck when there's a game use patch on it.

Right? It's like Kobe's gone. There's not gonna be any more Kobe autos. Like, we LeBron, we don't know about.

Like, there could be a whole wave of new LeBron autos coming with with Fanatics and Topps. And then MJ still like, okay. Is he randomly gonna sign 10 more PSA 10 MJ Fleeers? Like, you know what I mean?

So there's still, like, the question marks may be there, but but mostly we know there's a certain scarcity and rarity with those type of cards, you know, when LeBron's about to retire. So, like, we're not getting more game use MJ stuff.

Pretty soon, we're not gonna get more game used LeBron stuff. So, yeah, there is kind of a finite or or as finite as it can be, supply for those type of cards. Cool. So then hitting the hidden set of the Panini era. Yeah.

So a couple observations I've made, and I do love this because, those individual collectors out there who are all in on specific sets already and trying to explain why they're all in, I think what's really cool about that is, like, you can't knock people when a card, a specific set, or category performance is not, like, you know, the headline of the highest sales of all time.

Like, deeply rooted in that decision to go all in on a specific set is, like, an appreciation for that set.

Like, whether it's the aesthetics, the the the limited nature of it. And I think there are a lot of collect there's more collectors out of there than we all probably realize that are focused in on that.

Yep. But the other observation I make on that is, like, there are so many stories in our hobby over a long period of time, and these stories exist in all over the place.

And they're not centrally located. And a lot of this information, you can get it through old hobby message boards by just hearing stories and seeing things.

And I think, like, and I always just go back to, like, 97 PMG because it's an easy one to just it's the first one always in my brain.

But, like, during that period of time where, like, you know, even Beckett wasn't calling this, like, you know, the transformational set or whatever, or highlighting it like we talk about it now.

It's like there were collectors during that period of time that saw something different in those cards and collected them all and and sat on them forever. And then, you know, if they sell them, they are likely multimillionaires.

And so the fact that that's already happened in our history of the hobby decades prior leaves a desire a chase, and it's not a chase for, I'm gonna go collect this prospect because I think in twenty years, they're gonna be a hall of famer that we're all talking about.

It's a, desire to be that next collector who struck gold because of conviction around aesthetic and time and place. And to be honest with you, dude, I don't, like, necessarily think it's a terrible strategy Yeah.

Based on how many freaking people came into this hobby during this time and how many forty years from now, like, I believe and it's not gonna be all the sets, whatever.

But there's gonna be so many different products and parallels from the Panini era that are going to be embedded in the hearts and minds of collectors because we've come back during this time.

And so I don't know. There's people dedicate their handles to it. They dedicate their whole page to it.

And I don't wanna call out anyone specifically, but I don't know. I I noticed that, and I think that's, something that we should all be taking note of is just seeing how all that plays out. But that all makes sense to me for sure.

Yeah. And it's a great call on on on Beckett and the PMGs. I always talk about the Barry Sanders example. After Barry Sanders' two thousand yard season, Beckett came out with and ranked, like, his top 20 cards or something.

Number one was his select certified premium stock red. Number PMG Green was, like, number seven, and his his 97 star rubies was, like, number 14.

I mean, the the rubies and the PMG Green are two of his most valuable cards out there, and they weren't even you know, one was barely top ten, one was barely top 15.

So, you know, that's that gives these type of collectors hope and excitement. And it and it also is, like, makes people like you and me be like, yeah.

Maybe they are onto something, but we won't it's the unknown. Right? It's like you won't ever know until you know. Right? And then how long do you hang on to that hope?

Dude, it's like, you minute like, get the men in black mine eraser and just, like, totally forget everything you know, and you just look and, like, say you have these traits on, like, what you appreciate in sports cards and what you think will be valuable.

Like, I think, like, you can look at, like, the supply is a good one. So you look at the green PMGs. Like Mhmm. The supply is is very, very low.

And then you could just like, the other one that I think is interesting is just, like, you look at that still today, dude, still today in the nineties, you put the green PMG, Barry Sanders down next to any of the other Barry Sanders cards, and it's going to look so aggressively different than everyone else that Yeah.

To me, it's it's going to stand out. And I think, like, that is a trait. Like, obviously, supply, but then just how different something is. And different can be bad. It certainly can be bad, but, like Yeah.

I don't know. In the PMG example, it's just like I'm sure there's so many collectors who collected hard during that era who's are still collecting. They were just like, what was I based on what I know now, like, what was I thinking?

Why didn't I just gobble all these up? But that's what makes this all fun. And I think one other point I hear people all the time complaining about the lack of design innovation in cars today.

Uh-huh. And I'm like, look at what they're competing with, guys. Like in the 90s, there was zero innovation before '96. So you were going against the base car.

Like you put some color on it and it was like, boom, what is this? You know, like, it's all been done before. So how do you create new completely new, unique designs? It's it's really hard to because it's like movies.

Right? It's feel like all the movies come out. It's just like a different version of an old movie that we've already seen. Like, it's you get to a point where it's like, how do you do new and innovative?

So that's the one hang up I have with some of this stuff is, like, where are the opportunities that haven't been already, like, captured with previous cards?

Whereas, like, the the PMG Green was, like, it was such a totally new concept to the world of cards at that time that it was gonna take time for people to catch on to.

But it also makes me think of stuff like, maybe it is tech. Like, I'm not a blockchain guy at all.

Furthest from it. For this, I might never own a digital card, but I see the the the the excitement around the possibilities of it because it feels like one of those things. It's like it's so unique to the world of card collecting now.

Doesn't make any sense to a traditional card collector now, but neither did a PMG Green when it came out. And now look at it. Right? So, like, I it it does make me think of stuff like that. Maybe we all should be buying blockchain.

Again, I'd never have a Getting getting sucked into this Spinitron vortex. I'm like, I see that logic right there. Totally. That logic actually does align with the whole, like, innovation of the nineties.

It's like now it's a technology innovation instead of a design innovation. So, you know, just things to think about. No doubt. I love this. This is a fun bread.

I'm glad we're pulling on it. I Sure. I I wanna know, is there a category just in your observations and through conversations that you think potentially could be at its its floor, and at this point, all signs are likely pointing up.

Is anything stand out in your mind? Yeah. It's not a super exciting name. It's not some person nobody's heard of, but it's Tom Brady.

I mean, dude, it's happening. It's already happening. It's I don't see it slowing down, especially when you just look at what happens all the time over and over with MJ, Kobe, and LeBron.

It's like, you think you start to hit a floor and then boom. It's like, nope. There's there's more of us that want, more of these cards, and we're gonna take all these to a whole new level.

Like, Brady is just so ripe for that, and it seems starting to happen with some, like, select cards. It hasn't happened. I don't feel like it's really happened in his non rookie market yet.

Like, people tend to flock to the rookie market first, and it's still not all his rookie cards. It's like, we are at a point where there's less cards that are important to people. So it's not gonna hit all his rookie cards.

We're gonna figure out which rookie cards really matter for Brady because I do I do think we were at a point where, like, it felt like too many Brady cards matter, too many Brady rookie cards matter.

We were at that point with LeBron a long time ago too. It was like, okay. We can't have 900 different LeBron cards that matter, like, from his rookie year.

That's just not, like, feasible. So I think we're gonna see, like, which ones are really gonna rise to the top and which ones are gonna kinda settle in at the middle.

Like, Brady's rookie card market is so rare, like, just from a supply standpoint that, like, I do think all of them are gonna hold value.

We're just gonna see which ones are gonna kinda rise to the top. And then we're gonna think we're gonna see a resurgence with the key non rookie card refractors. That hasn't happened yet. I don't I haven't noticed.

But, man, what was it three years ago, four years ago now? Probably 2021 where it was, like, finest gold refractor early finest gold refractor, like, you know, gold anything from from a nonlinear was, like, parabolic.

And it came way down because a lot of that stuff had to get sold off by some some people that were forced to sell stuff, so we saw a lot of supply.

And that stuff just hasn't really surfaced since then. So I've it just feels like that wave that wave is coming again, and it's so sort of started already.

It's funny. It's like I can't imagine how many prospective Brady buyers are sitting there now being like, man, I saw when he retired, everything start going down, and I knew I should have been buying at this point.

But, like You're a %. You that, like I mean, I have granted I will say this, and I'll be very I have not bought a Tom Brady card, but I would be lying if I said I haven't been looking.

And so I I will say there's probably a lot of individuals like me who it's like, it's not only looking, but then evaluating price point.

And and, like, it has to be the right card. Like Right. And so, like, I have done my due diligence and, like and it hasn't been a it hasn't been like a situation thing where it's like, oh, these cards are too expensive.

It's been, like, the right one for me hasn't popped up where I'm willing to, like, sell off cards to acquire it.

Yeah. But I think it's an interest to me, it was like, is it's it's the the we saw where his cards were. Stuff is going down because he's not playing. And so to me, that's just, like, screen has screamed opportunity.

And I'm sure there's been Brady collectors having a I know there's been Brady collectors having a field day during all of this because it's not just because he's not playing, does what does that mean?

It's just it means that attention isn't on him. So, I think Brady's always an interesting topic of conversation around this type of stuff.

Yeah. And it just feels like when's the last time you you saw a bunch of hype around Brady cars and how they were selling? Like Just one to one conversations with individuals is Yeah.

Like, you don't you don't scroll Instagram and see it. I mean, I haven't seen that for years. No. It's And I've seen it with MJ for years. So, like, four years now. We're we're years into the whole MJ nineties thing, like, boom.

Right? And exquisite. We're years into that now. So, like, it's just a matter of time before it happens with Brady, And it's gonna hap and it's gonna stick for years because of who he is.

And I think the reason I kinda think now might be, you know, some Brady Brady guy kind of opened my eyes to this was, like, Mahomes losing in the Super Bowl.

That that Super Bowl result was actually the most beneficial to the Brady market. I think in the at least in the short term, unless Mahomes comes out and wins another one next year.

But, like, at least in the short term, it it it kinda paused that conversation to, like, Mahomes is on a better pace than Brady, which which he technically is.

But, like, it makes it seem harder for him to actually catch Brady even though it's just one year.

Right? Like, there's still a lot of years left from Mahomes. But I never had thought about it that way until some Brady guys kinda said that.

And I'm like, yeah. It does make sense because people want to react to the Super Bowl. So, like, they're not gonna buy Mahomes because he lost and played bad. They're not gonna buy Hertz because he doesn't get them excited.

Oh, wait. Brady was commentating on this game, and he's still the GOAT, and nobody's talking about him. Maybe I'll get excited about him. Dude, back back to the what I was talking about walking into the combine.

Just seas of people walking to combine. It's it's not like you asked those people. It's like, well, who's the the greatest player of all time? It's like, I'm sure a majority of them are oh, yeah.

Looks Tom Brady. And so it's I think and and by no means does Tom Brady need someone to hype up Tom Brady cards. But I just think about, like, this era we're in where the NFL is just the beast.

And I think about, we're talking about Jerry Rice and Barry Sanders and just there's reverence when we're talking about them because we think about the plays they made and the dominance at their respective positions.

But the NFL was not in the status that during their time playing. Sure. The Super Bowl is big and a lot of people watched it.

But what what we're living in is what we're living in right now is an unprecedented time with a sport in our country, and it's really hard when you're in the moment to, like, realize what's happening.

And so I think about that and as a side effect of all this. Right? Like, people trickle down and then collect football cards. That's just a side effect of this.

But, like, Tom Brady's the guy in this in this in this time frame. I mean, he cannot play for the next ten years, and he's he's still the guy. So Okay. I just think that's those types of things are important considerations we make.

Not necessarily when we wanna build, like, the collection that of our dreams that's for us, but, like, if we're spending money on cards that we wanna store value or go up in value over time, it's like you have to analyze all the outside forces as well.

Yeah. It's so true, man. It's so true. And and just just one little, like, nugget I wanna leave you guys with that that leaves optimism for me.

Tom Brady has had zero non rookie cards sell for $500,000 or more. Zero. Kobe Bryant has had one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13 sell for at least 500,000.

He's had one, two, three, four sell for at least a million. So and Kobe's, like, third on most people's, like, collecting list.

Like, it's usually MJ LeBron Kobe. Maybe it's MJ Kobe LeBron. But it's like Brady in football cards, and then it's, like, notches down probably Mahone's, right, as far as collectors. So just just think about that in in the potential.

Of course, we just went ham on this opening topic, and we've got the rest of our show to get to. But more time time left. Yeah. We got we yeah. No more time. Everybody, I hope you enjoyed auction talk.

I wanna get some auction talk or auction recaps really quick. We're gonna do them really quick. But one of it, like is there anything just you wanna comment on just regarding, like, what's happening on the funding side?

I feel like we haven't, like, given an update there in a while. I wanna give you the floor to maybe talk about just, like, how that's going, any observations, things you're seeing.

Yeah. It's it's it's been booming. And, you know, I talked about some of the stuff I'm seeing on the funding side in in in, like, the trend section that we talked about earlier.

But, like, what's happening is the people that are using the funding, like, almost all of them just, like, keep using it more.

It's it's to me, it's like it's just, like, the clear indicator of, like, people love this because it it just opens up cash flow for people.

Right? Like, even if you don't need the cash, maybe you have $10,000 sitting in your bank account that you could buy your $10,000 card with.

Well, guess what? You let me buy it. You send me cards to cover it. You have that $10,000 sitting in your account for however long you need it. Right? And then, like, it's still there. You can use it.

You can still use it on a card if you need to. You can use it for other more important things if you need to. It's still there. That's called cash flow. Right? You still have that cash to flow through that, purchase of that next card.

Say you you buy it yourself, you have $0 now until you sell all of your cards and get paid, which is usually about a, you know, three to five week process depending on how you do it.

So you're out that money for a month. Right? And it might not seem like a big deal, but now multiply that over multiple cards.

Or say an emergency comes up, like, somebody you know, a kid breaks their leg and you have a big hospital bill. Right? Like, you could lose that $10,000. You don't know you need that money till you need that money.

So to me, as a business owner, like, our minds are always like, I wanna keep as much cash available as possible so that I can make the moves I need to make for my business to keep it growing.

It's the same thing in life. Like, you wanna keep you wanna keep money available as much as you can because you don't know when you're gonna need it until you need it.

But it needs to be there for you to to make those moves. So but, yeah, it's like it's just been validated by the people that are using it.

They they're they're just using it more and more. I think one of the things that that I need to keep working on is the efficiency of it. It's not the most efficient right now.

I'm trying to think of ways that I can make it the most efficient, and then there's gonna be kind of levels that we climb to get there. But that's kinda kinda the next, process of the whole funding thing for us.

I've I've used it, and I'll validate. I've continued to use it. And so I would just recommend if you have questions, reach out to Nic, about it. Let's see. Let's talk about some cards. I don't know. Do you see this Paul George sale?

No. I didn't. Okay. So the 2012 Paul George, which we've talked about we talked about the 2013, the Paul George PSA nine Gold Prism debut out of 10 sold, e on eBay auction February twenty seventh for 11,987.

So you're we're talking about Paul George's in the midst of Paul George's worst career year, his debut prism card almost at auction sold for 12 k.

What's your reaction to that, Nic? That feels way way high. But, you know, this this space never surprises me. It just feels super high.

Like, my initial thought is suspicion. Right? I'm like, something is weird here. But if it came down to it got paid for, let like, I've been more surprised in this hobby. No doubt. And this is, like, this is what it made me feel.

It made me feel like there is certainly psychos who are trying to collect all the twenty twelve gold prism basketball. Yes. And we don't necessarily hear about it because they don't wanna talk about it.

So to me, this feels like and and, dude, think about this. You have three of those guys or gals doing this. All of a sudden, the supply on these I mean, I think it's undeniable that and and we talk we talk about, the Prism stuff.

Like, yeah, it's pretty generic to say that first year Prism gold are probably gonna be a pretty safe place to put your money. It's just how much money are you gonna put into it in 2025.

That's the question. But I to me, the this is, like, the dynamics you're starting to see play out, which that we see in, like, the 90 stuff where it's like, you've got the set collectors involved in this.

And once you get the set collectors involved with that, like, the prices begin to be elevated.

What I think is even more interesting about this is there's 10 copies. There all there there'll always be just 10 copies, and there's no one of ones in basketball.

So I think it's remarkable sale, definitely feels high, but this is one of those ones I wish we could peel back and see everything that's involved in the resulting of the sale.

And I think if it's not, like, funny business, I I think what we'd find on the other end is some pretty cool stories.

Yeah. I'm I'm super curious. I would love to to know more, but you're you you made a great point on the set collector. Like, I just looked on eBay, and there's two other copies, on buy now, best offer right now.

So How much are they listed for? There's a PSA nine listed for 15 k OBO, and there's a raw listed for $11. 05 OBO. I don't know if those were listed before the sale or not.

I bet you they went up. I I if you're out there and you've been observing this, like, let us know. But, dude, I would I would bet that these, that they were listed as a as a side effect of this, but that's crazy.

That's probably that's my guess too. And I'm looking at the bid history on it, and it was a the the winning feedback had fourteen twenty six feedback.

Second bidder was four ninety. Third bidder was two twenty one. It doesn't, like nothing jumps. There was a private bidder down here at, like, 2,300, but, you know, nothing's really jumping out at me at the top of this bidding.

So, you know, on the surface, it looks like it's probably legit. Alright. Here's your guy, Jerry Rice. Ninety nine Metal Universe, PMG at a 50. PSA seven sold last week on eBay for $11,211.

What's your reaction to that sale as a Jerry Rice guy? I mean, it's the highest sale public sale. There's only two. Is that would that be right? There's two, PSA copies. Yeah. There's, like, no PSA.

There so I just pulled up the PSA pop report. There's only eight total graded by PSA. So they, like, never surface, graded by PSA. There was a SCC eight that sold in August for 10,600. Still feels low overall for me.

I mean, we just sold a Penny Hardaway, 98, which is the same design. It was a BGS nine five, and I think it was the first time we've seen a Penny sale for years and years and years, and it sold for $43,000.

So, like, you know, I always will do that comparison. But, again, just it's the set collectors. It's the the high end collectors just aren't there in football like they are in basketball.

But strong sale, but also just, like, I see a ton of opportunity still with this card. Okay. Next one, 2018, Bowman Chrome, Shohei Ohtani pitching rookie auto b g s nine five, 10 auto sold for 11,700, on eBay.

This dude, this this is there's okay. So there's look at the the population. There's 281 of these grown by BGS, a hundred and one, BGS nine fives.

There's 245 PSA, graded copies with 54 tens. Wow. I mean, the supply is high, dude. Like Yeah. What Yeah. It's Shohei Ohtani, though? I don't know. Like And there's a batting version.

Like And there's a batting version. So you're talking about 500 graded copies of the pitching, 450, let's say. There's probably 450 graded of the of the, batting, and then there's all the parallels above it.

So, I mean, you're talking about thousands of Bowman Chrome rookie Shohei Ohtani autos in existence. So the fact that the least or the most common can sell for that much is is pretty impressive.

Okay. So we're gonna talk about the Brady sale through Wharf. I have it here, but we'll wait because I think it's in another section when we get to you.

So we'll hold on that one. Okay. Let's let's end this by talking about the twenty twenty National Treasures, Jalen Hertz, Shield that sold one of one PSA authentic.

Auto nine sold on Fanatics for 25,200. The obviously, like, someone's holding Jalen Hurts just won the Super Bowl. This card's sold. What's what's your reaction to the the sale price of this card?

It doesn't, like you know, it didn't blow me out of the water, but I think I'm still thinking of, like, what these were selling for just, like, two years ago, these type of cards.

Yeah. Right? Because the cracked ice PSA 10 dual 10 sold for, like, 20. So, you know, and then there's, like, 20 or 23 copies of that.

So, you know, two years ago, this would have been, like, a hundred and $50,000 type of card probably. Is is it is it the combination of the unworn plus the auto being a nine? Is that what we're seeing here? Why this isn't Yeah.

And PSA authentic just turns people off. They they assume low low low low low grade or, like, something is so wrong with it that they wouldn't even put a number grade on it. And then, it's like the it's the insert set.

Right? Like, I don't think this is the base. Yeah. This is like Yes. Rookie treasures. Yeah. Rookie treasures. So it's like, you know, he has many, like, multiple shield autos in this product.

So it's not like the shield auto of the product either. I I I wanna, like, I want your opinion on this because we talked about it, but I'm a tee up a a nuclear bomb.

Are we seeing the fall of national treasures? Are we seeing the fall in real time, or is that too aggressive of a a statement to make?

Man, it feels like it. It feels like it. I'm thinking of some of the guys that might be holding it up and that might keep it up, and it's like Mahomes and Curry. Right? Like, they have some big rookies from National Treasures.

And a guy like Mahomes doesn't have any Game Warden stuff yet, so, like, it's easy to to to just, like, what's the next best thing? But I feel like, yes, in general. I feel like this has been coming for a long time.

Like, I remember five years ago when people were like, why would you buy a non game worn patch card? Like, when when you can buy a game worn patch card. Like, why are the why are the why is National Treasures worth more than flawless?

It makes no sense to me, even though the rookie years, for for basketball. Football is a different story. You, like, can almost not find game worn football these days. But on the basketball side, yeah, it does feel like that.

And that trick basketball's at the top of the mountain, so, like, it just kinda naturally trickles down to the other sports. But, like, you can't find a game worn patch auto rookie card of Jalen Hurts. They don't exist.

Like, that's football doesn't do that. So it should mean, like, the player award should mean, like, should hold value more on the football side because there's less game worn, but I think it's some trickle down from basketball.

I think it's like there's other cars. Right? There's gold prisms. There's there's other cars. There's the the the Contenders brand is big on the football side.

So it's like, why would I spend way more on this non play nongame Warden Patch auto card than I could spend on this, in my opinion, cooler looking, still very rare card like a contender's cracked ice or some or a gold prism or something like that.

I love it. Good cards, good thoughts.

Let's spend, like I want I keep pushing Josh Allen, and I wanna talk about him even though we don't have time. But, well, we do have time. We have all the time in the world, Nic. We can do whatever we want. Yeah.

Yeah. That's fine. I wanna talk about Josh Allen. We've he won an MVP. He didn't win the Super Bowl. Mhmm. First major accolade, and I wanna talk about just what you think is going to happen or is happening with Josh Allen's cards.

Over the last year, his cards I'm looking at the player index in card ladder, shout out card ladder. His player index is up 13% over the last year. If you look at it over the last month, it is down 4%.

Does the MVP of it all matter with Josh Allen's long term, collectability, or is the fact that he hasn't won a Super Bowl limiting Josh Allen from hitting his potential that we think he probably should long term?

Final note before I kick it over to you and Josh Allen.

I believe we are entering the year, and I I draw so many parallels. Well, I I I like Josh Allen because I draw parallels with my favorite players and two of them, which is Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck.

Number we'll go with Luck first. When I watch Alan, he's the closest reminder I have of watching Andrew Luck, so there's that. But then the Manning comparison is, Manning had this hanging over his head forever.

It's like he just can't win the big one, And it took him, you know, 02/2006 season after being drafted in '98, which I believe Allen is entering the same mark going into next season in terms of time frame of when Peyton got his.

And now, like, the clock has been ticking on Allen and that if Allen wants to, like, mirror Manning in terms of winning his first, I believe this is this is the year that Manning would have wanted or the equivalent.

So those are some just things that I think about.

I think he's a great player. Obviously, won MVP even though some people thought it still should have been Lamar. But I don't know. What do you think about how are collectors thinking about Josh Allen maybe going into next season?

I think the MVP kept him in the game and brought him back in the game for a lot of collectors. I think I'm looking at his, like, six month trend, and it's different than it normally would be for an MVP winner.

Normally, you'd start to see supply increase during the after the MVP and is, the prices would just go way down. Like, the peak would normally have been December, January before the MVP announcement.

But like you said, a lot of people thought Lamar would win in because he got first team all pro. So why wouldn't he win MVP? So the MVP for Josh Allen was actually surprised.

So that's why you actually see a pretty big jump in his values right when they announced the MVP. Like, February 3 was the peak. I think that was that might literally have been the day they announced it.

I have to go back and look. And then it's kinda tailed off since, but it's still way higher than it was January 12, like, kinda going into the playoffs. So that's interesting to me.

You have to look at the big picture because coming into the season, a lot of people had given up on Josh Allen. So the MVP, like, exceeded expectations for many people and might have made them rethink how they think about Josh Allen.

I also listened to the chatter about, like, who's the who are the best quarterbacks, and people are still putting Josh Allen, like, two, three, four, like, one sometimes.

And they're almost always putting in the head of Lamar Jackson, who is, like, who people were arguing should have gotten the MVP. So it is interesting to me, but I think the MVP, like, it keeps him in the game longer.

Now if he goes three more years without an MVP or a Super Bowl, like, I think it is now the point where it's Super Bowl or, like, he's just gonna keep dipping.

I think it is. I also think it's there's gotta be a psychological component for him. Like, how does he ever beat the Chiefs in the playoffs at this point if he hasn't done it yet?

I think the only way he wins the Super Bowl is if he just doesn't match up with the Chiefs in the next, you know, one to three years depending on what the Chiefs do with their roster.

But it's like he's gonna need some luck on his side to actually win the Super Bowl, but it does feel like it it could happen still.

So back to the Manning comparison, it felt like so long that if Manning was going to win this, they have to they have to not play New England and the Patriots, but it or New England in the playoffs.

But it wasn't until New England came to Indianapolis and hit play them at home that he got over the hump.

So maybe that's what Josh Allen needs to share. He needs he needs, the Chiefs to come to his house during the playoffs, and then maybe he'll Has he never played them at home in the playoffs?

I feel like they have, but maybe they haven't. Yeah. That could be true. I have to look at that.

Yeah. That's somebody's out there saying, yeah. They have. They know. Yeah. You're you're right. I still find Josh Allen to be a very entertaining and fun player. He's a great he's a great player. I totally agree.

Okay. So one topic that we danced around a little bit, but I think will be fun to hit on. What debut set in the Panini era not named Prism do you think has the most potential for or potential for the most value right now?

Let me say that again. What debut set in the Panini era, not named prison, do you think has the potential for most value right now?

What are you picking? You want me to start? Yes. Alright. I'll go. I've talked about the set before, so it might not surprise you. I'm going twenty fourteen flawless football.

And and let me get into the weeds a little bit more. Is the debut of, a high end game worn patch autos and patches for for from Panini? Like, it was the first, like, high end patch set for them.

And a lot of the big names in the set are retired, and they had very little, like, game worn stuff to choose from prior to that. Like, I'm thinking Jerry Rice. Like, his game worn selection is very minimal.

And and when you look at, like, what happened before 2014 flawless, there's ultimate and exquisite, and then there's just a bunch of random patch products and random sets. Like, it's there's no rhythm to it.

Inexquisite on the football side looks nothing like exquisite on the basketball side. The quality is it's I'm just gonna say it. It's it's lacking. Right? There's not I've never seen a Jerry Rice exquisite card that got me pumped.

Like, I've never bought one because I'm like, this is I would be buying this just because it says exquisite on it. And the same ultimate is a little bit better. The patch windows are so tiny, it drives me insane.

It's like a little tiny patch, and it's hard to get, you know, multicolor, like, quality patches. And it's like, if I'm buying a patch auto card, the patch needs to be sick and the auto needs to be clean.

Like, so you really don't see that until 2014 flawless. Now you get these jumbo patches, you know, white clean cards, clean blue autographs.

You get the the the the flawless greats dual patch autos that people love. The patch quality is amazing. And the biggest thing that I think helps it is there's recognition from the basketball side already. Right?

Like, people know it's not Panini certified. Right? Like like football used to do that. It'd be like Panini, like, certified would have, you know, all these patch owners, like, basketball collectors, like, what is Panini certified?

I don't know what that is. They know what Panini flawless is. They know what flawless patch autos.

They look the same on the basketball side as they do on the football side, and that that carryover and that consistency is what brings people from other sports or other avenues to to the football side or to the other sports side.

So I think that's huge, and and there's been consistency since 2014. Now they've gone away from some of the game worn stuff.

Like, we don't always see game worn in it because there's just such a scarcity there on the football side, but the design will look the same on the football side as it does on the basketball side.

And then it's just a double down on the overall scarcity of game worn patches on the football side. There's 16 games, 17 games now in a season.

You know, if they play in the playoffs, there's more. Like, a lot of these players are not they're they're swapping jerseys. They're giving you know, they're keeping their jerseys. They're giving them to family.

Like, they're not giving them to the card manufacturers to to make game worn, you know, cards out of. That that will probably change with fanatics and the the, player associations getting a cut of the cards and all that kind of stuff.

We'll probably see more Game Warner. But prior to this point, like, the lack of Game Warner on football, it there's just a fraction of what you see on the basketball side.

And then just look at the prices on the basketball side. I just it screams opportunity, and it just to me, it starts with that twenty fourteenth of all set.

That's a really good one. If I was a big patch collector, I would be all over this set. The cards in and of itself look, they look important, and I think that's important.

And you layer in the game worn and just how from a football perspective, how that's been just such a hard thing to acquire in this space, it being the first.

That's and, like, the players in that set, it there it's a really good checklist of players, which I think is fun.

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you think about, like, the 90 stuff, you you don't get Tom Brady in any of those checklists. Twenty fourteen flawless, you get Jerry Rice, you get Barry Sanders, you get Marino, you get Favre.

All those dudes are in there, and you get Tom Brady. Okay. So I'm going to stick to my guns of just repping the Chromium Chromium, category as hard and loud as proud as possible.

But when I, like, constructed this question, I thought of my I thought of, like, what is what is the set that I think maybe has the most upside, doesn't have that much attention on it?

And, potentially, like, if you were to collect this exclusively, you'd probably make out okay.

And, like, the one that stood out in my mind is 2016 Optic. And, dude, why I picked this is, like, if you were to pull, like, the audience and you were to say, what year is the first year of of Optic?

I think, like, of course, like, people who are in the game deep in the weeds are gonna be like, oh, 2016.

But I think it's not as clear as, like, 2012 Prism. Like Yeah. I think that the uncertainty around debut year and there's something about 2016 too that I just think is, unique, in and of itself.

I look at that I think about the design of the 2016 optic, and you've got the player's name in, like, the simile autograph up top, the way the card is broken up, the borders.

I I just think this the design is very, very favorable. And I think about, like, it's not I think undeniably, when we think about Chromium cards in the Panini era, we're gonna go with the flagship and Prism.

But it leaves me saying, like, well, what's next? And, you know, you could make your argument with Select, but I would say, man, have you seen what Select has done over the last, like, four years?

It's like you you become less interested by that, and I think when you become less interested by that, you it makes me more interested in, like, optic and that debut year optic.

And I think the fact that there's not a ton of attention on it makes makes it more appetizing to me.

I was looking at Cardliner, looking at some of the data, and not the the highest selling twenty sixteen optic ever is a LeBron Gold during the boom, which is was for 35 k, which is almost just like an outlier.

But if you look at, like, the best cards in the debut set, like, in May of last year, the Steph Curry gold vinyl one of one sold, it sold for $25,200. And I'm just like, that's it?

And I know it's crazy to say that's it for that card, but if I had the means that I bought the card at that point, I would be very, very confident that if I held this card for the next ten years, I'd be, I'd do pretty good.

You have to go all the way down a list to see the first football card sold, which, sold actually through Wharf Sports Cards, which was the Tyreke Hill, gold vinyl in November of twenty twenty three for $9,100.

But it's like, I'm looking at it.

It's like, where are all the football cards in this? And to me, that screams opportunity. It's just like going out and, trying to find key cards in this set is really hard. Now I'll I'll say I I've shaken a lot of trees in my time.

I have the Andrew Luck gold vinyl from this set. I love the card. It took me forever to find the golds out of the set of Andrew Luck. I've got two. I feel very fortunate about that.

But I just think about, like, the the fact that you've got the gold vinyl, one of one. You've got the super fracture look and feel of it and just how attractive that is to so many collectors. And I don't know, man.

It to me, this is like the the look, the feel, the supply of the it's almost like Panini didn't know if this was gonna perform, and that's why, like, even looking at, like, the the base stuff, it's like it's really hard to if you're building out a, a 2016 optic base set, I don't think it would be easy.

And for all of those reasons, I I I would I would I would pick Optic, as kind of the set twenty sixteen Optic is the debut set that I think has a lot of value.

I love it, man. Like, that would be one a or, you know, one b or one a with flawless on on my list as well.

And I think, you know, just to to hammer home a couple more points that you thought, like, it's unique too in the sense that, like, like, they made the the gold vinyl the one zero one.

So it kinda it kinda carried over the tops chrome, like, super in Bowman era Superfractor one zero one concept. And then on the football side, there was only the gold vinyl one zero one.

On the basketball side, they had the gold vinyl one zero one and the black one zero one. Now football eventually, I think, made of black in their, you know, like, 2019 or something like that.

I think they have now now have multiple one on ones and maybe even a nebula. But Mhmm. OG set was like it was it was special, and it was a lot more limited. And I do think there's a ton of upside there.

And I know the debut I know the debut select. We've talked about it enough, like, how the look of it, the borders, how clean it is. But, like, we hear so much about debut select, and I don't think we hear anything about debut optic.

Yep. Never. You never hear. It's yeah. It's it you literally never hear, anything about Debut Optic. Now you did five like, pre COVID boom, I think they used to yeah.

There there was, like, a big push for optic in general, but it wasn't necessarily, like, 20 16 optic. It was just, like, optics more rare than prism. It should be more valuable type of thing.

And, like, we saw that a little bit into the start of COVID, and then it just kinda completely faded off and prism just took off and ran. So I I agree that does scream more opportunity because there's less attention on it.

Alright. We're gonna hit mailbag. First one is not on my list, but I remember this as we're recording, and I was like, I gotta ask this question, or gotta address this question.

This is from Aaron two two sports cards. Aaron asks, with tops taking over, a lot of us will be looking for gold vinyl replacement. With the super factor being out only out of one, what are your thoughts on the other gold parallels?

Do you have any comments on just we we kinda touched on this. Do you have any thoughts on just the parallels as well? I was talking about more like the new parallels, like, trying to find a new one.

Anything gold, I think. Well, because how many out of 50 golds do we have now? Like I know. Well, you probably know better than me because on the wrestling side, you've seen some of it.

How many are there? I think it varies. You've got yeah. I think it varies. And I'm just my mind's going I haven't really looked too much at the russet, but my mind's more going at the Bowman Chrome stuff.

And I'm thinking about the, like, Caitlin Clark stuff and just the shimmers, the the ices, the lava. I mean, there's just Yeah.

Sapphire. Yeah. The the fact that, like, we're talking about this makes me not that interested. Yeah. Gold vinyl replacement. I don't know, man. I wish I had I mean, is it just the the the the red out of five or the orange at 25?

Like, is it just a different totally different color parallel? It just you're you're banking on the the rarity of the card? Because, otherwise, I'm not sure what the option is. Yeah. That I that's where I I tend to lead.

Because I think for this for me, the supply is such a critical component, and it I don't think it's gonna be apples to apples, unfortunately, with the gold vinyl, Asure, like, going and finding a super fracture, but you can't always hang your head on that.

So I don't know. I feel like we're gonna be getting more of these types of licenses moving over to tops now.

What questions which I think will be fun to to consider? Card father 13, assuming grade and price are equal, would you rather buy a gold vinyl out of five?

I didn't realize we're continuing it. It's and people are, like, all the same wavelength. Yes. And you carried this over from 2016 optic even.

Yes. Would would you rather have a gold vinyl out of five or a true gold out of 10? I'm a I'm a true gold out of 10. Yeah. How about you? So we're really talking about aesthetics then. Right? I Grade and price are equal, it says.

Oh, grade and price are equal. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'll I any way you cut it, I'm still picking the true gold, I think. You know, it shouldn't surprise you I'm gonna go gold vinyl because I think more people would go gold.

So I just I just like to be different. Yes. I think it's a the fun thing to think about. I've just always been a I feel like Prism Gold is such a well, I collect gold vinyl too, so it's Yeah.

It's kinda like I don't know. I I'm going with gold, but I can definitely see both ways. Pack the Slap said whatever Drake said this week, and I will say Drake didn't ask a question. So Uh-oh.

What did we do to him? I don't know. Drake. Make mad. We're sorry, buddy. We love you. Yeah. Drake, we need your questions to fuel this episode. It goes really long when we don't have your questions because we have no direction.

So please ask a question for us next week. Here's a good one from Black Griffin cards. How do we move away from crack culture? It destroys pop reports and provenance.

I could not agree more, and the the crackers don't care. The the people cracking this stuff, they don't care at all, man. And so I I I I don't know. I I think I don't know, man. I don't like the fact how it screws up the data, though.

When we've talked about examples over the course of the time where it's like, you know, we've got, dude, we were talking about the LeBron credentials that you sold and It's like it was for a hundred yeah.

It was a hundred and two copies, and there was a hundred and, like, 20 graded or something, wasn't it? Yeah. So I don't know.

It would have to be, I think, like, something within the grading companies to detect, you know, if something has been cracked out and then they don't put them in a holder again. I don't know. I don't really have a good answer.

I do know this this is an issue, though. Yeah. Real quick, I wanna just make it clear we're talking about cracking slabs and not the other type of crap culture. Alright? Yes. Yes. Yes. Say say no to drugs.

Drug free, podcast. Yeah. Say no to drugs. Say no. I think it does have to it would have to come from the grading companies, and they're never gonna do that because they make a buttload of money on cracking and slacking.

It's like, I guarantee they have conversations about this all the time and, like, why would we do that? We would we would lose millions of dollars if we said you can't regrade this card with us.

So I I I know that doesn't, you know, solve the problem at all, but it also tells me, like, I don't think it's gonna ever change because there's too much money involved for the grading companies.

I just wanna say this, and I'm not trying to point fingers. But if you're out there and you you crack these slabs yourself and you resubmit it, you got you got a screw loose in your head.

I I just I can't I can't bring myself to bowling. Dude, I would rip that card in half. Like, too much pressure, too much anxiety. Like Oh, man. You be surprised how often this happens, man.

Like, people that grade regularly cut like, they're consistently getting their grades back and saying, nope. That got undergraded. That got undergraded. That got undergraded. And then resubbing them, like, over and over and over.

I mean, it happens hundreds of thousands of cards a year easily. Maybe we need to start, like, just like, you know, we had we we certainly the last thing we need to do, I'm I'm referencing history here, everybody.

I'm not referencing policy or politics, but we think about the Reagan administration, and he had the, the war on drugs, which is a great band that I like that had made a name based on.

But the war on drugs, and they went and fought it. Maybe we need a war on crack culture.

Who's ready to take the lead on that one, man? Somebody probably it won't be us, though. Yeah. A j m cards ninety four. Adam, does the recent Cheetos arts say I'll say anything about the Pokemon card market?

Did you see this, by the way? I just so I think somebody posted on the Instagram story, like, we're in a world where a Cheetos sells for 6 figures, whatever it sold for.

That was literally all I saw on it. But, yeah, what does it say about the the Pokemon card market, man? It's, it does say that, like, it's it's a widely recognized Yes.

Like like, so it's funny. When I get asked about cards by people that don't know about the card market, more people ask me about Pokemon cards than anything because they did or their kids now are into Pokemon cards.

So it is it's a big thing. Like, you know, I don't think you should just start buying Cheetos and not eating them and sorting through them to look for one that looks like a Charizard, but it does show us how popular Pokemon really is.

No doubt about it. I think that was my primary takeaway. J r f alini. Joe, question for auction talk.

If it hasn't been discussed yet, in what circumstances does it make sense to sell a couple of cards in a single lot rather than selling them individually? Is there any instance in your mind where putting them together makes sense? No.

It almost never the only the only time is when they're so low value that it's like they would sell for, like, a dollar, 2 dollars each, and then you just put a bunch together to sell it for 25 because it just saves you from having to make 25 listings and ship 25 different cards.

So when it's like a if it saves you time, but it's usually gonna sell for less money you know, if you're talking to, like, where there's actually some value there, it almost always sells for less money when you combine cards than versus when you sell them individually.

Guys, almost always on complete sets too.

There's times where it's like a 1986 FLIR set or, like, a super significant set where the set, based on grade or something like that or how hard the set is to put together, where this complete set might actually sell for more.

But almost all other times, I'm I'm telling people to break those up and sell them individually.

Now that's also where a consignor is very handy because I would I do think, like, if you have a a complete set of 50 cards, like, it there there's a lot of value to putting those together and only having to do one thing rather than a 50 things.

So it's selling for less. You're you're paying for the time at that point. Right? But if you're sending it to a consignor, sending it to us, most of the time, I'm gonna tell you break them up. You're gonna get more for it.

Last one in the mailbag, Brendon, Ragnar cards. If you were super collecting a new player from a Panini era and the black finite were locked away with a collector or terrorist, which cards which cards would you pivot to?

For the sake of this discussion, assume it is a relatively young player and all the cards are available, Mosaic Nebula, black shimmer, gold vinyl, etcetera.

I I gotta stick to my guns here. I'm going optic gold vinyl one on one. That's where I'm going.

I just I have to stay with it after that discussion we just had. I respect it, and I'm going Mosaic Nebula because There we go. I think that's a newer Panini set that could add some longevity in that parallel specific.

Thank you everybody for sending in your mailbag questions. Appreciate that. Nic, Wharf Auctions. Yeah. What happened this weekend? We sold 245 cars. They did $280,265. I finally said a six figure number right.

Good for you. Yeah. I've been I practiced that a lot this morning. The one I wanted to highlight was the 2010 Panini certified NFL shield one zero one. Tom Brady, graded PSA authentic. This is game worn. Sold for $17,400.

So this, is the highest sale ever for, like, a not full shield. Right? Like, this this shield is kind of covered by the card. Like, it's not you don't get the whole entire crest of the shield, which does matter on these.

Like, you'll see the full crest. They sell for, like, 60 k and that pretty much. A 2,006 Absolute, Canton Absolutes BGS eight that the shield looks like this too. It's in that small attached window.

Sold for 7,600 in September. The 2011 version of this card, this exact Mini certified card, it's graded at BGS nine five, and it did $12,535 in June of twenty twenty one. So, I thought it was a very strong sale.

I think there was a lot of it the one thing that stood out to me is, like, if you look at this card versus, like, there's ones with, like, the the full crest, but, like, Tom Brady's, like, tiny up in the corner, and it's, like, a basic card.

It sells for $60,000. Like, this card looks way better than that card. But there's a massive premium on the full crest versus the partial crest. Right? So it's very fascinating to me, like, what nuances matter on cards like this.

No doubt. I was following that one. Cool card. Good week. Let's oh, I know what I wanted to do. So I wanna highlight a card. I actually think this I'm gonna share a card here, Nic. I believe this one's selling to the more sports cards.

Is this accurate? Yes? Yes. That's through us. Okay. I I I put this one on the agenda be to to plug the fact that if you're a part of the Patreon community and you have a card up for auction, we can talk about it on Auction Talk.

And that's what we're doing, and this is a good one just because I think we've talked about the the twenty eighteen kaboom gold kaboom of it all, so this is timely.

And this is the twenty eighteen kaboom gold manning at a 10 nine. It is selling, on Fanatics Weekly in this Sunday, and it's currently at $3,600 with 17 bids.

Doing some data digging in card ladder, I noticed that there's three public sales. What I found was interesting are the last two. You had a sale 11/21/2024, a nine five sold via alt for $7,800.

Then a couple weeks later, 12/08/2024, a nine five sold on Fanatics Weekly for $11,700. So we had two back to back, obviously, a big jump in those sale prices. Same, BGS nine five as the first PSA, copy that we've seen in a while.

Debut, gold, kaboom. Nic, I'm gonna put you on the spot here because this card is being sold to the worst sports cards. Based on where those those increases, where do you think this one ends up?

And also with anything else that's happened with the twenty eighteen gold kaboom market? I think this should be a 10 k plus card, and this is actually the first PSA public sale that we've seen.

I couldn't find another PSA copy public sale anywhere, unless we just missed something on one of these data platforms. This is a pop three, and there's only one PSA 10.

So it's you know, you got one shot at a higher grade with PSA. So I think that matters. I think this is supposed playing days for for Manning, but it's also him in a Colts uniform, and it's, like, first year Panini kaboom gold.

So I I do think it's a very, very significant card in parallel. And you think of, say, Nic significant Panini cards for Manning are almost I mean, they're all in a Broncos uniform.

Right? Like, twenty twelve Prizm, twenty thirteen Select, twenty fourteen Flawless, twenty sixteen Optic. Right? That's not even that's post playing days technically.

Right? Twenty fifteen was his last year, I believe. Yep. So, like, you know, in a Colts uniform, it's it's limited. So I think this is actually a a pretty massive card and one of the bigger cards in the set.

And, you know, if a BGS nine five is selling for 11, something like where we are with the PSA nine to BGS nine five, I think PSA nine should be at least that when you consider that this is the first PSA copy we've actually even seen sell publicly.

So it has a lot going for it. I'd put the over under at 10. Awesome. Didn't get a chance to comment on this, but I'll quick.

We don't have a ton of time, but I'll just say, last Monday, I got a chance to go and listen to Manning, and they did a whole night of champions deal where, they brought back, Dungey, Manning, Marvin, Reggie, Dallas Clark, Saturday.

And, dude, it was so awesome. Jim Nantz moderated it.

It was just crazy. Seeing pictures and stories from the Super Bowl year, it just it made me so nostalgic, and it was so fun to be a part of that. But, yeah, once your team wins the Super Bowl, they're heroes forever.

That was my basic basic Is that true, man? I don't know what that feels like. Yeah. Hey. It's not in my lifetime, at least. Hey. Soon enough, they're you're building something.

You mostly hear me well to the promised land. Oh. Alright. So these are all ours. Right? Yes. Yes. So these are, five cards that the war sports cards is consigning through Fanatics Weekly ending Sunday 03/09, I believe, is the date.

This is a '96 Bowman's Best Atomic Refractor Shaquille O'Neal PSA 10. Like, I just love Bowman's Best Atomics from the nineties. The the '98 gets all the love. It's the the cracked ice, look out of a hundred.

This is not serial numbered, but it's the first, like, base atomic refractor parallel. They never sell. Like, this is a pop 12, but there's only been three or there's only been two total PSA ten public sales in the last nine years.

So one sold one sold in July for, like, 1,200, and then the last one before that was sometime in 02/2016. So it's crazy how infrequent these sell.

Dude, yeah. The I I was gonna say I've seen the other one so many times, and I I don't know if, like, I had the visual on this one in my head. Yeah. Do you see, like, the the the insert sets of this? Like, the best cuts?

There's, like, the, the honor honor roll or something. There's, like, three, I think, insert set of topic refractor parallels, but this is the base parallel. Dude, I will say I just recorded something today, and I made a comment.

I was talking about an Ed Reed card, and I made a comment that in my lifetime, I don't I don't know a situation where I wouldn't put Ed Reed in my top 10 best players in my lifetime.

That's how I that's how highly I think of of him. We're we might have to go back to check the tape here.

He's he's probably on the list right now for auction talk hall of fame this year. Or as early as it is, I feel like we've brought up Ed Reed a lot, and I'm here for it because I think he he doesn't get the respect he deserves.

Just safeties in general, though. But, this card is the 2,002 finest gold refractor out of 25 Ed Reed rookie card, PSA ten.

So we haven't seen a PSA ten of this card sell since 02/2017. So it's been Dang. Almost eight years, which is nuts. A PSA nine did $1,575 in September.

So I feel like this is, like, let me hit I'd have to go back and look at his catalog from o two. I'd imagine he's not in everything because he was a defensive player and it was his rookie year and it's football cards.

This might be what, like, the best Ed Reed rookie card we've ever seen hit the open market. I have to I will go back and look at all that because if it is, I wanna post on Instagram, but I would guess that just on the surface here.

The argument I think the only other argument I would make, non auto because there are some, like, auto stuff.

But I would say that, like, the x factor out of 20 from this set It's sold? Well, I don't know. I well, I remember one selling for a while. I don't know if it was a VGS 10.

A VGS nine sold last January for 2,300. Okay. So yeah. You know, just card for card maybe. But this with this being a PSA 10 Right. I'd probably notch it. Yeah. But yeah. This is this is a big one for Ed Reed. No doubt.

Awesome card. I can't wait to can't wait to see where that one ends. Sure. This is a cool one. This is a '20 '2 thousand '4 Bowman Chrome Gold Refractor out of 50 LeBron James PSA nine. Like, I love the Bowman Chrome LeBron stuff.

Like, the designs are so cool, man. Like, this it's got, like, an old school vibe too because they call this Bowman chrome or Bowman, like, rookies and stars, I think, and then it's, like, chrome gold.

Like, just, like, the the whole, like, titling of it is different on the card, which I love.

The photo is amazing. Like, it's it just looks like a just a amazing photo of him going up for, like, a looks like a windmill reverse dunk and, like, people taking pictures in the background.

Like, that photo itself would be captivating, and then they threw it on the card. And these, like, they don't sell that often, but we just saw a PSA ten sell for 12 k last week or the week before.

And it's the second year, Bowman Chrome Gold. And when you think about his tops, Chrome Gold's being out of 99, these being out of 50, you're just going aesthetics too, like, man, this card has a ton going for it.

I love the photo on that one. Very cool. Young LeBron windmilling it home.

Sure. This is a 02/2008 Bowman Chrome Super Factor, one of one Magic Johnson PSA nine. I I figured this one would catch Brett. He loves the, the the guys that played it forever ago, and it it pop up in a In nice cards.

In nice cards. Cards. Exactly. So this this one's sick, man. And it's I I have fully seen I can only find two, like, pre Panini Magic Johnson Super Fracture one zero one public sales.

Now Panini took off and made, like, a bunch of different random Super factors, but this this card is sold publicly before, and then it's 02/2007.

Topps Chrome Super has sold publicly before, but that's it. So, like, you're not looking at, like, he's in every single Topps Chrome, Bowman Chrome products in all the years, and he's got supers in all of them.

I don't think he does. I didn't look at all the checklists. But as far as, like, what's selling out there, you're not gonna find much.

So, I think this is a a pretty special card. We we don't talk enough about the fact that this guy, literally, his name was changed to to magic. Yeah. Like It it, like, per like, that's what people call him anymore.

That's what that's what his name like Yeah. It's on the slab. It's on the cloud. Slab piss. Yes. I mean, that's just, like, you were so special that they they permanently changed your name for you to Magic.

Dude, when I was a kid, I didn't even question it either. It was like, oh, it's Magic Magic Johnson. Yeah. Like, when people would say Irvin Johnson, you're like, who's that? Is that that?

Because there was another Irvin Johnson that was, like, a center and was, like, average, like, three points a game. It was like, that Irvin Johnson? Oh, you're talking about Magic. Alright. This is this is gonna just disrupt everything.

But is is Magic Johnson the greatest Nicname in the history of sports? Oh, man. That's so tough. There's there's there's probably, like, Futter Nicnames, maybe, like like, Clever, you know, but, like, significance.

I mean, air like, Air Jordan, but people don't call him Air Jordan. Right? People don't call him Air. They call him MJ or Michael or Mike.

Right. Or, you know, his Airness or whatever they wanna call him. But, like, Matt, like, this is what people call him. Like, if you meet him, you call him, it's nice to meet you, magic. You don't, you know, you don't call him Irvin.

So, like, significance, it probably is. Dude, I love it. I love it. Cool freaking card, dude. I love this card, by the way. It's I love how it's, like, blacked out in the background, and you can see glimpses of the fans in the arena.

It's just got this, like, vintage look to like, the whole card kinda it's hard to describe, like, a a a card looking vintage, but also having the super fracture appeal and aesthetic to it.

But this one has got it going on in my opinion. %. Hundred %. Alright. Last one here. This is a 2,000 Fleer showcase legacy out of 20.

Barry Bonds PSA nine. It's a pop two. There's only two total graded copies, and they're both PSA nines, and they both were in the same collection before this one came for sale. So this is part of a consolidation.

There's only been two public sales of any copies of this card ever. The last was a PSA nine for $3,750 in September 2023. I think it was this card. And then a raw sold back in 02/2006. That was the only other public sale.

So these never sell. This is like I love this set in this parallel because it it's just like all of a sudden that because it's in February, people don't respect it like they do the nineties, but it's way more rare.

They never surface for any players of the big players.

Like, it's actually very respected on the basketball side, but still not, like, compared to the nineties stuff. So it's fascinating to me that it's like all of a sudden, it says 2,000 on it, not $19.

90 something, and it's worth a third of the price. But to me that to me, I'm like, I'm all over. Let's do that. There's only 20 of these. There's only two copies graded and only two public sales ever.

Like, I'll take that for a fifth of the cost all day every day. Anytime I see bonds with, like, that the arm elbow brace thing, it's just like that's when he uses, like, a robot just like Like Gronk too.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. It's like if the ball's coming anywhere close, it's headed for the water. That's for And then the straps come off, and then he throws the straps and runs. Yes. Yeah. Forget that.

Nic, we went we haven't had a a a doozy like this one in a while, but I feel like it was a good discussion upfront And appreciate everyone being engaged and sending in questions, giving us feedback, supporting, what we're doing over here.

Nic, any plugs or anything you gotta say before we get on out of here? My only plug is if you are not in Brett's Patreon group, you are missing out. You need to jump in there. It's cheap. You get so much value out of it.

Like, the conversations, I'm only able to really hop in there, like, once a week with with the auction talk post and, like, comment with people and stuff and talk about the episode. But, like, the discussions in there are so valuable.

Like, I'll get in the chat and just read what people are saying. I don't always get to comment just for time constraints, but, like, the value you get out of there is insane and just the connections you can make.

Like, it's worth every penny, so hop in if you're not already. Appreciate you, hyping my stuff up. I will say this. I have the biggest thing that I've noticed recently, is just the dialogue on the post.

We'll post something, and then the passionate collectors will create dialogue. And that format of just, like, responding to someone who's we're talking about it and just threading it out, like, I don't know.

It's really, really fun, and there's, like, some thoughtfulness to it because you it's not like you're in a chat where you just, like, hit post and whatever.

So I've been really enjoying that and have to shout out the group, like, to everyone who's making that happen.

For sure. Anyways, appreciate everyone showing their support for Auction Talk. Hit up my man, Nic, for consignment funding needs, and we will be back.

Talk to you soon. Thanks, everybody. Always enjoy the conversations, the dialogue, everything that goes into Auction Talk. A lot of fun topics that we dug into today.

Always appreciate the mailbag and everything else. You're bringing it. You're passionate. Your collectors really appreciate your engagement. Until next week, More stacking slabs on the other side. Talk to you soon.