Card Ladder Confidential is back. It is 2026. This is the first episode we've done this year, and it's fully loaded, action packed, so much to talk about. And a lot of it is going to be topics that have been in my head for a while, and it's always fun to bring Josh and Chris on to kinda dig those out. But what we do here is we always start with a cold open question.

And, guys, I was thinking about this Dallas card show that's going on while we're recording it and just the everyone going and meeting in person and making these deals. And I just thought about, like, how fun the in person deal is. And I also thought about we want cards sometimes so bad that we're willing to travel for them, whether it's get it in the car, go behind the wheel, or get on an airplane, or maybe even take a boat. Who knows? But I know both of you have traveled for cards.

So the cold open question of the week is, what is the criteria that you develop in your mind that leads you to get behind the wheel, on a boat, or on a plane for a sports card? We will start with, we'll start with you, Josh. It's usually the comfort level of the seller. A lot of times, the seller is uneasy about shipping, which is very reasonable. And so if the card value justifies it, then I will for sure get on a plane.

I would I would go as low as, like for, like, a $5,000 card, I would I would fly somewhere to get it done. If it's if it's, like, something I really want my PC and they're like, I'm just I refuse to ship it, I would do it. But then, like, if the card is worth at least, you know, like, $50 or something, it's almost like I have to fly just because I don't want it shipped myself. Do you when you're do when you're in the on a plane going to another city, are you, like, making a night out of being in another city, or are you just, like, getting on the next plane back home? I think the three that I've done, I ended up staying overnight, but, ideally, I would come back same day.

It's tough to coordinate that in the same day. It is. Chris, I know you've been a road warrior on I've listened to your content for a long time, and you'll just show up halfway across the country with a new card. What goes into the decision for you to get behind the wheel and grab a card? First, I wanna make a distinction.

I think there is a big distinction between a card that we pick up at a card show because, like, we're there, you know, or we're at a trade night, like, we see something and the juices start flowing. Honestly, like, there's like beer goggles on cards that we pick up at shows where they look better when we're there and then when we're home. They often don't last. Like, if I I just was sort of thinking to myself as you were introducing the topic. If I did an like, a review of all the cars I've ever owned, what percentage actually stayed in my collection for the long term when I, like, spontaneously picked it up at a show, I think it would be very small.

So that there's a difference between like me going to Dallas Card Show and me seeing a card and getting excited and getting it versus like me seeing a card show up on an Instagram story and I really need it and I make arrangements to go get it. That was just a thought that I had. But what what I I'm looking for an excuse to go. So it doesn't take much. Doesn't take much.

Like, if it's if if it's even, like, close to a dollar amount where it's like, well, maybe I'd feel better if this was hand delivered, then I'm probably gonna make the trip. And I almost always go to the person. Although last year, I did have somebody a few times, actually, I had somebody actually come to me. So maybe that means I got the worst end of those deals. I'll come I'll come to you.

Let let's just make sure you get these safely and quickly. So I don't know. I don't know, man. I'm always looking for an excuse to go. Like, doesn't take much.

I I wanna go. I want I've I've traveled for what's the smallest card I've ever I traveled to get the Christian McCaffrey optic gold vinyl rookie one of one. That's probably the smallest, which now belongs in the PC of Andy, buy buy baby cards. So that's that's probably the smallest card I've ever and I traveled from, like, Chicago to New Orleans area for that. That's I was thinking about that card, and, obviously, I had friends with Andy and saw his crazy McCaffrey collage post, and that card was front and center.

And and I was thinking about this is when you when you go travel to a place to land a card, is the percentage that you are going to be keeping that long that card longer term go up, or does it is it just another card? Like, do you think about that? Obviously, like, there were circumstances that caused you to let go of the McCaffrey to Andy, but, like, do you find a stronger connection with specific cards that you have to do a little extra work or log some extra miles for? No. No.

I don't. There's not, like, any extra I I don't think so anyway. And, also, I didn't actually place it to Andy. I I sold that card when I consolidated to get his his NT shield one of one rookie, and it I sold it ironically at a Dallas card show. I I actually sold a bunch of, like, McCaffrey cards at one Dallas card show, and then and then it made it to him ultimately, which is great.

Yes. Congrats to, you, Andy, for, having that card. I know you are a loyal listener here at Card Lauder Confidential. Let's get into the topics at hand. Wanted to start this year off with a bang.

There is a lot of mainstream coverage of the hobby. I I spent some time with new baby at home, and I decided, you know, you got some time on your hands. Let's let's watch some some Netflix. So I I I logged my first king of collectibles experience. Never watched it before, but just said, what the hell?

Saw the hobby from a big time mainstream perspective, Netflix platform, and just the way that show is presented. Obviously, you've got the Pokemon illustrator, Logan Paul, be in the news, and you've got fanatics pushing the bounds, more than I think I even anticipated. So I wanted to start with, like, is the hobby growing, or is it just getting louder? And kinda go around kind of between both of you and get your opinion on this. And I wanna talk about, like, is the growth that we're seeing real growth, or is it just short term momentum?

And just any signals that you're seeing as we enter 2026 in this new era of the hobby. So, Chris, starting with you, is it growing, or or is it just getting louder? Well, it definitely is getting louder. Right? Like, just from the things that you mentioned.

So the louder's happening. And the growth question is a question of what are what which which growth are we measuring? Because there are different growths to measure. Like, you can measure price growth, and I would just look at the card letter 50 to guesstimate that. Not in any way suggesting the card letter 50 is representative of the price movements of any specific card or any specific niche, and acknowledging that there are lots of different siloed categories and sports cards and trading cards that'll move in different directions at the same time.

But the card letter 50 index comprised of those 50 cards that you can see if you want to from the card letter index page for it is up 45% over the last year. So as a measure, as a as a price weighted price index, there's there's one indicator of growth and that's price. And, obviously, you can niche down and look at different smaller categories within the, CardLater index offerings. And then here's a different one. If we look at, CardLater's industry page and we look at the monthly volume figure, and we can see that December 2024 was just shy of 250,000,000 for the, monthly volume for the platforms that we track.

And then, fast forwarding to December 2025, it was 381,000,000. And, just sort of eyeballing the graph, it's it's not like, December 2024 was, some outlier. It was it it fits pretty neatly with what, surrounding months were doing at that time, and then same for December 2025. It's it's pretty much lines up with with what the surrounding months accumulated as well. So there's two different metrics sort of speaking to measurable growth.

Josh, is there anything that you've observed maybe that isn't metrics driven regarding growth and things that you're seeing and just, like, current state and how you're evaluating what's happening across the industry? The growth of participants in the business side of the hobby has grown a ton just just in in terms of, like, how many requests we get from CardLadder for, you know, access to data and or help with guidance on, like, how to read and understand the industry. We're getting a lot more requests on that front. So, like, there's a lot of, new business entrants, a lot of people trying to get in on the business side of the hobby. And to Chris's point, like, monthly volume's up, you know, 70% or whatever year over year, and all the basically, every index is up.

Pokemon's up, like, a 100%. All the individual cards that I look at in the ladder are up a ton. The loudness, though, I the only other thing I wanted to add, is is that there's a lot of loudness around the shift to tops. So maybe just, like, bring bringing that up that there is sort of, like, this catalyst of an event that we all can talk about, and so there's, like, more content around it. There's more interest in the difference between tops and Panini, the number of parallels they're creating.

So that's sort of, like, increasing the volume of what we're what we're seeing that we might not get for the next couple years, but right now, it is it is amplifying. I definitely wanna spend a moment talking about the top scrum release in this under this lens, but it's interesting about new participants running businesses in the hobby. I have observed that, and I I just randomly seeing people who are leaving their jobs and working in the hobby or starting something, you know, that I think it's it I'm I'm it's fun to see that, some people, you know, putting their more of their energy in this space. Is there anything specifically regarding, like, either those people or those types of businesses that you you're observing when people reach out to you, you know, requesting, you know, certain datasets or API integrations, that sort of thing? Or is it just kind of, like, the same type of people or same type of business, just more of them?

Both. Like, there's a lot of repack businesses coming in, a lot more consignment businesses. There's also a lot more people that have taken an interest in the, like, the money side of it, the investing side. Like, they wanna know sort of, like, macro trends of cards because, you know, with, like, everything going on in the news and the dollar devaluing and inflation and things like that, people are looking for more creative ways. And, like, with the spike of gold and silver, for example, they're thinking, well, if gold and silver and these, like, physical assets keep going up, is there something that I can invest into the card space because it's you know, it connects to sports.

It's something I enjoy, etcetera. So there's been a lot more interest on that side as well. Is there outside of, like, you know, more repacks or more businesses, are there is there anything either of you have seen regarding metrics that maybe might might be going up outside of price prices that have impact on the people likely listening to this show, like 30, 55 year old collectors, you know, who have jobs who are kinda treating the hobby as an escape trying to build collections. Is there anything you have noticed or observed based on this growth that might have more of an immediate impact on these individuals that we might not be talking about or thinking about at this point. I'm not sure if this is exactly the type of metric you have in mind, but GEM rates grading volume stuff is interesting too, especially because that stuff is, like, really able to be cleanly parsed into sports versus TCG.

And so grading isn't necessarily reflecting market demand. It's not necessarily reflecting prices, and it's not even necessarily reflecting the number of participants. It's it's just measuring what it purports to measure, which is the number of cards being graded. And that can be as much a reflection of capacity increasing at grading companies. It can be a reflection of the perception of people who already routinely grade cards that they might be finding it more valuable to send in more cards at this time.

It could be a reflection of the manufacturing quantities on the TCG side and on the sports side. So I wouldn't make any any, like, sudden causal leaps from, like, grading has doubled to the market size has doubled. I think it's a lot more complicated and nuanced than that. But the grading stuff certainly can help show that a lot of growth is coming on that TCG side, which, like, the pricing indexes kind of show that too. And it it it also can just kind of show maybe sort of like an industry capacity perspective sort of.

How are the grading companies gauging the size of this industry? What level of capacity do they want to be able to serve? What does that reflect that they might think about the growth potential for the industry and so on and so forth? So those are numbers I'd keep an eye on too, but I'd I'd really parse through them carefully. I wouldn't just leap to any conclusions.

I wanna hit the before we talk about tops, chrome basketball, just getting your both your perspectives on signals that you might be seeing that indicate maybe good or healthy or sustainable growth versus, like, maybe not so good, gonna fall cave in on its face type of growth. Josh, is there anything you look at and use when you're, you know, looking into the data and you're saying, okay. This is really good. This is a good trend line. This is, you know, slow and steady growth, then this is probably going to lead to something positive versus this is something that's just like kinda I always think back to the the crossover and just like your old conversations around middle finger graphs, that sort of thing.

I'm just curious, like, anything, like, good growth versus bad growth signals that you're seeing kinda in the datasets? I still like to, peruse the latter and sort by market cap, and I just sort of, like, see where people are spending the most amount of money. So I usually, like when I see a lot of these Pokemon cards with insanely high pops and the values just keep going up, that's usually concerning to me. I also look to, like, big events that people get excited about. Those usually lead to, like, short term jumps and then crashes after the fact.

The two that come to mind there is the World Cup, which I'm already seeing, like, soccer values are going down on our indexes. So, like, the lead up to the World Cup is already, like, correcting itself. And then the other one is, like, the Logan Paul thing. You people are gonna get really, really excited because he's gonna, like, push it, push it, push it, and we're just gonna keep saying Pokemon. And he's, like, telling people to invest in Pokemon, which is ironic because he's selling Pokemon, which I don't think I haven't seen anyone comment on the irony of that, which is fine.

Like, the second he sells that card, he's gonna immediately pull back and, like, people are gonna lose the excitement. It's gonna go back to normal. So I guess those are, like, the main things that I look at. Yeah. I that's Logan Paul is such a figure, in the conversation right now.

Chris, what about you before we talk about top scrum basketball? Well, you know, like, let me just throw a total curveball at you, which is well, first of all, like, starting like, if you zoom out on the card letter 50 to all time, Like, if you look at the last year, it's it's straight up into the right. It's a 45% increase. But if you look at all time, you'll see that roughly around March 2021, that that price index peaked. And we're we're barely halfway back to that peak right now.

So roughly speaking, you know, the average price of the average card in that 50 card index is half of what it was. I guess they're almost five years ago. So and and, man, how fast those five years went by. But that that's that's something to to keep in mind is that the length of the middle finger, if it if it is forming, is much shorter. We we have a much stubbier finger right now if it is if it is a middle finger compared to 2021.

But the other thing I wanted to talk about here, the curveball is that what I think about this. I was thinking about this in the context of sort of the the very bullish 2025 and and also what's looking like a bullish 2026. And, like, a quick side note on the bullishness of that, over the last ten years, if you look at q four only of the c l 50 price index, q four being October, November, December, those final three months. If you measure from October 1 to December 31, the CL 50 price index has declined in eight of the last ten years. That's that's a normal seasonal trend, but there are two exceptions.

One exception was 2020, which was a massive exception. That was the year when sports were put on an indefinite pause. And so, like, during 2020, we had just seen the NBA finals play out, like, in October that year, and the the Lakers just won a championship and, like, you know, sports had, like, all suddenly started resuming at once, and everybody was staying at home. And that was just such an outlier year. The only other exception to that so in other words, e even after 2020, twenty twenty one q four, prices went down.

2022, prices went down. 2023, prices went down. '24, prices went down. The only the only other exception was this year or last year, I guess. Twenty twenty five q four saw prices go up in q four for the for the CardLadder 50 in price index.

So the the two outliers are 2020, and then if we remember what happened right after the the twenty twenty q four was twenty twenty one's q one and q two, which was the highest prices we've ever seen, at least for a lot of cards, or at least for the c l 50 price index. And does that position us for something similar in 2026 because of this weird q four twenty twenty five trend? So that's a question. But the part that I wanted to focus on actually was think about this. And I'm sure a lot of the audience remembers this, and and probably there's a lot of people who don't because they weren't in yet.

But think about from March 2021, which was the roughly the peak of the Card Ladder 50 price index. March 2021 through January 2025, which is almost four years, that time period was virtually uninterrupted price declines. We had almost four years of uninterrupted prices ticking down, bleeding, a slow bleed, like leeches being attached to your body one after another after another, sucking out a little more blood and a little more blood as each month, each week, each day rolled by. I remember, you know, the experience, like, logging into CardLadder and just seeing that negative red number on my collection value every day. I mean, do we really appreciate that we experienced that for essentially four straight years?

Are we really, like, processing that and thinking, contextualizing everything that has led up to this point in a very bullish 2025 against the backdrop of, like, almost four interrupted uninterrupted years of price declines. And so how do we think about that? Like, how how did that set the stage for this? And and I was always actually I'd I always took a lot of encouragement from the fact that as prices tick down, tick down, tick down, as things corrected, to be fair, as things corrected because things still stayed much higher than they were pre 2021, 2022. But I I always, like, sort of took encouragement from the fact that people just continue to buy cards and continue to collect, and industry volumes continue to tick up for the most part even as we were in a declining price environment.

So I don't know. That's that's that's that's sort of like you said you said signal, and I just was sort of thinking about that those four years and and contrasting them to where we are today. That's a good reminder. And it's almost like we I I remember getting the emails all the time. Your collection's declining, all this stuff in the red.

And it's it's almost like we just kept charging forward and forgot about it. So that that's a sobering reminder. But then we look at this, you know, q four example that you brought up, and you have that, you know, on the taking us into 2026. And what is helping also that is one of probably a dozen catalyst is this launch of Tops Chrome basketball, which I'm not even, like, looking at the cards. I'm just looking at the distribution.

I'm looking at the packaging. I'm looking at the manufacturer's approach to go to market with this product, which looks and feels a lot different than anything else I've seen before. And, you know, it's interesting where this this it's still in front and center in our faces, and the price of wax is continuing to go up too, which is another interesting thing where you've got, like, the Cooper Flag Superfractor that's pulled, but it hasn't impacted, like, the price of the Hobby Box, and the different configurations of that. So, like, I'm thinking a lot about that. And just I wanted to bring, like, this broader topic up in this in this light of how what is your guys' opinion so far and just, like, what you've seen in tops chrome basketball?

Like, the redebut of this product that has been maybe the most aggressive product launch we've ever seen in the hobby. And you can take it for any any way you want, like, the prices of these cards, the boxes, like, general observations. But, Josh, I know you spent a lot of money on tops chrome gold LeBron refractors in your lifetime, and now chrome is back, so in a big way, and it's helping take us to this next stage or this next era of growth as everyone wants to make us believe. So I'd love to get your opinion, on just this under kind of this topic lens. Yeah.

I won't be able to contribute too much to this topic because I've completely sat this one out on the sidelines. I'm I'm sort of paying attention to, like, the Cooper flag prices, some of the super factors. I know Chris has pointed out to me that there's, like, I think, five one of ones, maybe six, in, like, the TOPS paper and TOPS chrome, I'm assuming, is following a similar trend. I've I mean, I see, like, a v j Edscomb gold sale, but I click on the item and it's actually a gold geometric. I don't even know the difference.

So I know that I'm I'm a bit new to this this space, and I don't know, like, all the parallels, and it's easy for me to just immediately say there's too many and just be the curmudgeon. But for now, I'm just sort of, like, sitting back and waiting for, like, a year at least of this stuff to kinda settle. Yeah. I see this twenty twenty five, twenty six TAPS chrome Cooper flag white geometric refractor added two. Like, I didn't even know this parallel existed, like a parallel add two and sold via best offer on eBay for 45 k, which is a hefty hefty price on a maybe a type of parallel that isn't embedded in the hearts and the minds of a casual collector.

But what do I know? Chris, what is your opinion so far on what you've seen with chrome basketball? Yeah. Well, to to, pick up on the thread, Josh just started there. Topps paper, initially, I thought it had four one of one parallels, and I was thinking about maybe trying to get all of them with the one that was most appealing to me, like, the the first one, which is just like it just has that first card printed one of one stamp.

I haven't seen it yet for the player that I want it for. But, yeah, Tops paper ended up having or Tops flagship ended ended up having six base at one of one parallels, which is fine, actually. I I'm from from my point of view, I've I've become, like, a lot more accepting of, like it's it it can really be helpful to have more to choose from because you have the other situation, which is Chrome, which only has the super factor one of one parallel early. So that's all that's shown up yet on the checklist website so far. Now TOPS paper started with four and then a few more got added as more product configurations emerged.

But right now, it looks like Tops Chrome base set just has the one super factor, one of one parallel. But it's a little bit but it but the the way that but there's still another so so the but but but at least some of the players that maybe all have a have an image variation that also has its own super fracture one of one. So that's sort of the thing that Panini didn't really do too much of it. It did a few times, like, in prison football. But for the most part, you didn't really get image variation, one of one parallels to the base set, but now you do get that in tops chrome for basketball, which is, I think, adding a wrinkle and maybe a little bit of confusion or a little bit of maybe or glass half full opportunity for those knowledgeable about checklists to to navigate a a more complex environment.

But the thing that I'm observing and I'm I'm totally sitting out on the tops chrome thing too. Like, I I may have been interested, but the but just, like, the prices are completely pre preclusive to me. I I don't they're just the stuff is way too expensive. And, and I like the fact that Topps paper actually chronologically comes first. That kind of makes it even a little bit more interesting because, like, when we're talking about the first of a lot of these guys.

But, but, the thing that I've noticed, and, again, I'm not, like, very involved either, but the thing I've noticed is that there's there's been an attempt from a few of the accounts that I follow to, you know, find the next kaboom, the next downtown. And, they're and it's like they they're like, they can't wait. They just want it to come from Tops Chrome. And Tops Chrome offers, like, five or six or, like, several, like, multiple pair multiple inserts. And and they they have the Superfractor one of one parallel.

And and I just thought to myself, like, I I saw, like, one of the guys I collect is Yokich, obviously, and, like, one of his Tops Chrome insert super fracture one of ones is on eBay right now, and it's 30,000 OBO. And I thought to myself, like, you know, if Tops Chrome's analog is Prism, and I've I've dabbled in Prism inserts a few times and it never sticks. Like, had Yogurt's first far out black one of one, which was from 2019 Prism, And that was like a $750,000 card, $1,500 card, something like that. So maybe a little bit more now. You know, Prism was a Prism Prism put out inserts, and and it just it was never they never really caught on.

And, you know, Prism as a product was was seems, you know, to be really hyper focused on the base that parallels like the gold and the one of ones and stuff, and and the color matches and the silver and everything else. And the insert was never really the appeal. And so I've I've it looks to me like with Tops Chrome, like, well, you know, we've got the second basketball product. It's time to we can't wait any longer. It's time to have the next big case hit insert.

And that's just not the way it works in the Panini era. The k the the most popular case hit didn't come from Prism. It came it it it ended up coming from, you know, whether it was like the downtowns with Don Russ or, you know, the Kabooms, which actually moved around products, sometimes in Absolute, sometimes in Crown, I think. And they just those moved around a bit. And so that's the one thing I've noticed is just like and I'm really I'm really cautious about it.

It's like I just the the like, trying to manufacture or, like like, we need this cookie cutter process where, like, there's the case head and that's the big insert, and this is gonna be remembered forever, and this is gonna, you know, be the one. And and there's only been two basketball products so far. So This is a a great observation and a great segue into what I wanted to talk about, and that is research. Obviously, CardLider is a platform where you can spend all day doing research on cards. Chris, you talked about checklists, and then you talked about just that observation you made regarding the parallels people are trying to draw on case hits and how most of these case hits didn't come out of the Prism product and the Panini era.

I've been thinking a lot about research. And the more I dig into research and find different opportunities or things that interest me, the more connected I feel with those pursuits of cards, which I'm doing research on. Research, though, like, it isn't something that you can just, oh, it's time to do some research, and then and it like, you scroll and you learn everything, and then you can go make your decision. It very time intensive, and it takes a lot of work at piecing together data and different stuff. But I don't know.

Like, you guys have built a product that a lot of people use for research. I know both of you as collectors value research and just your own pursuits. So I wanted to talk about just, like, research as maybe an advantage we can have as collectors, and I think we're always looking for edges and looking for ways to understand something in a new way that other people aren't talking about. So much of what is delivered to us is, you know, on reels or quick hits, but the gold is kind of the research. So I don't know.

Like, when you you build a platform that a lot of people do research on, I have found the collectors that I connect with most and I learn the most from also are researching and value that as a part of their process. How do you I guess, Josh, just starting with you and just, like, research as a topic and especially with CardLadder in the picture, like, how do you think about the impact of research and what research can do for collectors, especially as we enter this era where it's like repacks, quick hits, like, in your face people telling you what to do. Like, how are you thinking about research from the lens of you as a collector or even from the lens of you as kind of the builder of Card Ladder? Yeah. This is a great topic.

I wanted to really quickly touch on what Chris said about the the, like, the drive to have the next case set, and then I'll it'll sort of, like, come back. It'll bring it back into this research topic. The it's it's like, the infrastructure is basically, like, dependent on the new case hit becoming a thing. There's so many businesses now that have become dependent on that specific type of card, driving the business of the, like, the repacks and the breaking, like, you absolutely have to have these sort of, not too hard to get, but expensive card that you can fill these products with. So, like, they're just gonna these, like, Helix, inserts or whatever these top scrub inserts end up being, they're they're all going to be expensive because, you know, the more repack products we can have, the better, and you just like so I just wanted to comment on that.

And it sort of comes back to, like, the research of, you know, you see you can you can only buy cards, especially if you're new to the space, based on what is available to you, on these platforms for sale. And so people take that side of it and think, like, I need to buy one of these cards because this is all I see, this is what's available to me. And when I look at a lot of these auctions, I see sort of, like, the same cards coming through. Like, if you just search Kaboom on, like, the latest Fanatics Weekly, it's like there's, like, 70 of them every single time. People think, okay.

There's a lot of kaboons. These must be popular. This is the thing I need to get into. And it's gonna this is the same thing that's gonna happen with the next insert with top scroll, and we're gonna continue to see these cards move around hands very quickly and often. And on the research side, you know, especially for a card letter, you should be going to sales history to kinda, like, vet what you're looking at that's available for sale and sort of, like, cross reference.

Okay. I'm seeing there's 60 for sale on this upcoming auction, and I see about to 70 sell every week, I can sort of anticipate this is a common thing. There's gonna be 60 to seventies all the time. And then start to, like, dig in to maybe some of the more underappreciated, more rare, and this is gonna sound so obvious, but, like, you gotta look for, like, the lower printed ones where there's less variations if if you're after, like, trying to find stuff where it's not gonna continuously flooded. And so using sales history to, like, see just how frequently something else might sell.

You know, for for myself, I'm obviously, like, very hyper focused on the football one on one. So I have, like, saved searches of Black Finite, and I have all the exclusions to try to get rid of the other sports. And the same for optic vinyls and super factors. And I honestly see, like, two to three sales per day that interest me. And so something like that kinda keeps me in tune to how much are people selling these things.

I have the active, save searches on eBay to see how frequently they come up for sale, and it sort of, like, matches what I see on the sales history side of things. So that research for me is key to understanding what's been sold in the past comparing to what I'm seeing actively for sale and sort of, like, the trend that there is and then what can I what can I expect to continue in terms of what people are selling, what's the hot new thing that I should try to avoid, etcetera? That, this is so good, and it triggered so many thoughts in my head, Josh. And I'm a sicko who, every week, I decide to based on content I'm building, I decide to just go into sales history, plug in eBay, and just go from the top to the bottom and just scroll and see what I can learn from that. And I just I just ran this filter as you were talking about it, but I did.

EBay sales between January 8 and January 15. That's just one week. And I just typed in kaboom. And there has been there is 1,203 sales in one week just on eBay of kabooms. The highest selling one right here is the Travis Hunter purple kaboom, b g s nine selling on January 10 for 20,500.

But when I start from the top and go all the way down, dude, it's like every five cards is like kaboom or downtown. And it's I do this every week, and it's like, I hadn't, like, thought to just, like, run a a filter and do kaboom until you were saying that, but I think it's a great point. And having a tool like CardLadder to be able to facilitate this is is certainly helpful. But, yeah, a lot of what you said has been on my mind, and that that certainly resonates, with me. Chris, like, what's your reaction?

Like, what's your on your mind? I know you're a big research guy, so you probably have a few things to say. Yeah. Well, price is, such a an interesting topic. And, because because the price is is purchasing power, and that sounds obvious.

It's like a tautology, a truism. But but really think about that. Like like, if if, like, Brett, let's say, you're like, well, I have my card here. And then I say, well, I have my card, and I like mine better. And you say, well, Brett, you're like, but I like mine better.

And and then and then we can go to price, and and we can say, and Brett, your card is worth $1,500 and mine is worth 500. So you could sell your card, buy mine, and have a thousand dollars left over. That's the power of price. Right? Price can really power or fuel or, you know, to to pick your metaphor, it can be the engine of of of activity.

So, you know, understanding price and how price compares from card to card is part of the equation to find opportunity to in improve our collections, but but it it it also needs to be married with an understanding of, you know, what we value as collectors, what card attributes that we think are important. And then when we can find that situation where we can sort of invert the price dynamic where it actually becomes advantageous to me to be able to say, you know, I can find the cheaper card that can't buy as many cards so I can get more of them. So I can you know, especially, like, when I start going to attribute for for attribute on a card that that, you know, I can that then down now the whole dynamic is reversed, and now I'm actually wanting to find the thing that has the lower price. So, you know, there's price you know, understanding price, understanding how to research price, you know and something that I do that's just, like, very similar to what Josh and you were describing. Like, Josh gave me this idea years ago where he was like, yeah.

Just every night, I have safe search on sales history and I look up the players that I wanna look up and I set the minimum to $500. And I just see the stuff that's sold every night. I just go look at it. And I've been doing that for years now. And and I just will see stuff that sells.

And sometimes I'll miss stuff too. Yes. You know, like, I The missing of the stuff is you you you yes. That that I do something similar, and I feel like it's very rewarding exercise, but then it also pisses me off because there are cards that I just completely missed and would have happily spent double on the card if I would have seen it. Yeah.

That's always a huge bummer. You know? And, like, that I usually do this is, like, usually one of the things I do before I go to bed. It's, like, one of the last things I do. I look at all my eBay save searches, and I look at, like so those are, active listings, and then I look at results.

And then even still, like, even looking at results, I was, like, breeze by something. Like, I it wasn't until I listened to the football card podcast where a few weeks ago where you had pointed out that a McCaffrey raw prism gold had sold for $5,000. I was like, oh, how did I miss that? But I go look at my card card letter safe search, and, yeah, it was right there. I just breezed by.

It's like even then I missed stuff because there's so much happening. So like that think that's maybe a maybe an underrated part of research too is just sort of understanding that like we will miss things too. Like not we don't I don't always see everything even though I think I might. So yeah. Don't research did research is everything.

Research is also a drug that or a dopamine hit that and I don't think think researchers thought of it as something that's like super sterile, and you know, I have to force myself to do this, and you know, it's the it's the prudent, disciplined thing to do, but it doesn't actually work that way. Research, like, can immediately put you into, like, the interest knowledge feedback loop where, like, if you're interested in something, you gain knowledge about it. And the more knowledge you gain about it, the more interested you become in it. It just circles around, and all of a sudden, like, you're really having a a good time, and then that's leading you to wanna collect more things from the thing that you're researching. So that's that's like something to keep in mind about research too is that like I I I almost find without without exception that anytime, like, I see a card and I start researching, I start getting, like, immediately more excited about it, the more things I start to learn about it.

So that's that's the other side of the coin of research. Yes. No. It's great. And we could do a whole episode on research, and maybe we'll dig into it more at another time because I have a lot on my mind.

I wanted to hit this topic of type collecting too, and it was my observations have been and my maybe my even collecting behavior has been more focused on type of card. And I look at just like a type of card that I collect, which is Prism Black finite and what transpired just in a year time frame with that niche category of cards and just the growth and demand and the prices. And, Chris, you in some piece of content, don't know if it was a Hochcast or something else. I think you were on you were on Cajun Cardboard, and then you did a Hoshcast on this, but you're talking about, like, ranking Jordan cards. And the a lot of the demand and a lot of the appetite for Jordan's cards came around, like, these specific parallel types that over time came very highly desirable.

And you look at how many copies of these cards, you're looking at, like, 50 copies or a 100 copies, which is for a nineties card is is not a lot of copies. But then you decided, okay. Well, because everyone is, like, focused in it on these cards and it is a specific type that over time people have felt like these are the Jordan cards you have to acquire. You kind of took a hard turn. You're like, well, let me go explore this one of one category of Jordan cards, and you've been actively pursuing, cards there.

And I just I find that interesting. I I I I and I wanted to talk about, like, how like, with type. Like, how do we get to a point where, like, a rubies is a must get card if you're a Jordan collector? And this can be this can be this can be LeBron, and how do we get to this point where gold refractors or the exquisite? Like like, how do we get there?

And so it just feels like over time, these cards build up and this type of card where people have to get it if they're player collecting. And then they also like, even if you're not a player collector, you just start to appreciate the card because other people are appreciating that card. And so I just wanted to talk about that. And I wanna talk about, like, how do how do we what are your observations based on your hobby history and, like, how do we get there to a point where emphatically when someone brings up a player, like, the consensus is, give or take a few moving spots, like, a similar list of these are the cards you have to get. And, Chris, since, like, you kind of inspire this topic in a way with kinda your episode, maybe we start with you and just, like, you're how do we get there with, like, a type?

How does a type of card become a card that not just, like, one type of collector needs, but, like, anybody who's player collecting someone specifically? Well, to be clear, this is the most important question for the next five years of the hobby. So start there. This is the big topic that will define the next five years, Maybe more. Maybe it will define who who knows?

Just like I can look back, and I can see sort of how access to detailed comprehensive pricing information define the previous five years, I think. And it created all these, like, sort of unforeseeable technologies and products too. Like like, I I just I think about about how different things would be if we never if this industry never sort of experienced the explosion of of data, pricing data that it did from, you know, I don't know, 2020 through today. And I and I think looking forward that that just like that sort of, like, helped us it helped us correct those middle finger graph tendencies that, you know, that it it it helped us, like, see and process and learn and understand a lot more things, and it just, like, really gave such a toolkit to collectors. And now I think looking forward, the next five years or so, that's gonna be the question.

It's like so now we have and we we have access to all this pricing information, and we can analyze it and and process it. And in in my point of view, from my from where I sit, I I think price is the influencer. I think I think one price realized dwarfs a thousand opinions given on social media platforms. And and it's because that point we were making earlier that that when you actually kinda think about what is price, price is sort of the power to do things like, you know, card for card. You know, if one card can buy the other card and then still have money left over, like, that's sort of the power of price.

That's sort of the the allure, the signal of price. So just a price realized is just such a strong signal. But I also don't think people really deconstruct price yet. I think they will. I think they'll start to think more critically about price as time goes on.

But what is a price? A price is, at best, at in in in in the strongest in steel manning what price is, trying to say the most favorable thing about what it is, it's just the opinion of two people. Whether it's in the fixed price or the private deal setting where it's a seller exchanging with a buyer, you know, that's two people agreeing on a price. It's two opinions. It's two opinions meeting to make a price.

Or if it's in the context of an auction, it's the second highest bidder and the first highest bidder telling us what the price is. The where the first highest bidder wins the card because they're one increment above what the second highest bidder maxed out at. So in any event, a price is is just the opinion of two people. And I think that's grossly overlooked. I think I think price is like you know, we I don't wanna say lazily because I don't think it's a question of motivation.

I just think as a heuristic, as a shortcut, as an accepted practice, we just look at price, and we just think that's the price. And and when you actually contextualize prices and, you know, you really wanna kind of see how replicable a price is, that would sort of be a very important part of analyzing if that is the price or if it's just a price. But but but I I think we look at I think price needs to start to become more and more understood as just the opinion of two people. And then we have to sort of start asking ourselves, who are those two people? And do we want to let those two people tell us what the best cards are?

Do we want to let those two people construct the hierarchies? Because right now, because of the proliferation of price information and because price is very powerful and because of what it signals and so on and so forth, price is is just so influential. You know? When when people I've I've been watching people do these, like, top 50, top 75, top 100 card countdowns, and what's the heuristic? What's the shortcut that people use to rank their cards?

It's price. Mhmm. Because, you know, that's that's a common language that we all understand. But I I'm pushing back on that, and I'm saying not that not that there's anything wrong with ranking cards like that when we do that. I think I think that's a that's a great compromise.

It's a great middle ground for us all to sort of meet on, but I'm I'm I'm pushing to deconstruct the idea of price and ask really what is it, and who are the two people who decided that who who was the second highest bidder? Who was the first highest bidder? Who was the buyer? Who was the seller? And do we want the opinions of those two people?

And granted, those two opinions don't happen in in isolation. Those opinions are influenced by lots of other data. But but do we want the opinions of those two people that tell us how we will rank cards from our own point of view? And if we don't, then what is our alternative? And the alternative goes to sort of the point that you're getting at with this question.

The alternative is, well, then how do we understand cards? And it's like some some that you've been pointing out in some episode this week, which is like looking at card attributes, and you were sort of pointing out, photography is very important to you. We we we can all sort of figure out what card attributes matter a lot to us. The one that I've settled on firmly for myself is rarity, and then that's led me down the rabbit hole of all the different types of rarity, whether, you know, print run rarity is just one type of rarity. The other types of rarity are chronological rarity, lineage rarity.

I won't do the whole bit on all those things right now, but I think rarity, like, has a lot of components to it that matter. So like that so that becomes the next phase. That's the next five years. That's the next ten years of the hobby is like asking ourselves like, well, what does inform our demand? What does inform what makes me gravitate to a card in an era after the deconstruction of price?

In an era where first we had price, and now price is just really on this high pedestal, and now I think after deconstructing price, how do we what what's next? What how do we decide, you know, how we'll rank cards on our own internal ranking systems as we decide what we wanna collect? So, you know, huge, huge question. That question won't be answered in the space of any podcast, and it and it and it's gonna we're all very new to it, and we're gonna there's gonna be a big learning curve here, but that it is the question. I I love this.

This is awesome, and it's got gives me a lot to think about. And maybe we're well, Josh, I I have to get your opinion on this before we get out of here. I'm gonna call kinda collapse this with the next thing we were gonna talk about, but, like, private deals and something Chris alluded to, where it's like, who do who are we gonna let people just two people buy up a bunch of car type of card and decide the price of a card and let people know just because they're holding these cards that these are the cards. That that is happening in so many different pockets in different categories in in in the in the hobby. It'll I I'm in inactive conversations about this happening in, various niche categories like wrestling cards specifically.

I'd love I feel like you've got just like this you're you're an observer, and you've got an opinion. Like, how do you think about this when you see that? When you see and whatever it is, when you see individuals who are privately transacting a specific profile of card and telling you back this is what the card is worth or then, you know, submitting the data even if they have legit receipts in CardLadder. Like, how do you think about that in terms of, like, a signal to let other collectors know what cards are valued at by individuals or, like, what cards that they should be going after because it feels like a lot of this is, like, game gamesmanship from the people who are holding these specific types of cards, trying to influence others to think that these are the cards that they need. Yeah.

I just, I I think I just very simply look to partake in private deals where it's very difficult to come up with comps and relationships. And it's like, we're dealing in such, like, specific niche, rare categories of cards and types of cards to the earlier discussion of that's like, I can't go to Cardletter and find 75 sales of this exact card and this exact grade. Those are the things I'm ultimately trying to avoid just because, like, to your point, like, I'm not forcing myself to be influenced by what everyone else is doing. So that's why the private deals usually are something I seek out because it's like, you know, it's just me and one other person work sort of, like, trying to figure it out based on what I'm comfortable buying for and what he's comfortable selling for, and that's really all that's the only two factors. You know?

We'll try to work off some comps as a general rule of thumb, but, like, you know, I'm not I'm not, subjected to the last, like, 50 sales of the exact same card. You know? No doubt. Chris, anything in closing before, we dig into maybe a pickup to close this out? No.

Let's go. Let's get some pickups. Yes. I'm curious. It's been a while since we've spoke.

I know you are actively, or active participants in the hobby. Have you have either of you picked up anything worthy of note that you'd like to talk about here on this, podcast? Josh, we'll start with you. You ready for a live mail day? Oh, yes.

Oh, actually, I was, like, two minutes late to this stream because the FedEx guy rang my doorbell. Oh, man. This is exciting. So I was, like, rushing to get get this in time for the show. We got it just in time.

Alright. This I actually bought this yesterday, and it's already arrived. So shout out to the seller for shipping it to me overnight so quickly. 2,016 National Treasures, Patch Autograph Shield, one of one rookie, Michael Thomas. Dude, that that is a how did you get what's the story?

So I have the Michael Thomas black finite. He's one of my favorite players. He fits into the category of, like, he peaked super, super high and then just, like, completely crashed and burned, and he's, like, out of the league now, which is fun because he has, like, one of my favorite seasons of all time, 2019. He still holds the NFL record for receptions of the season. He had a 149 receptions that year, first team all pro.

He has two first team all pros. He was offensive player of the year in 2019. Obviously, peaked and had a great career. So I got the black finite rookie on eBay, and then this one came to auction pretty shortly after that. And I just, like, lost the auction, and I was like, so no.

It was the the final auction on Golden. It was, like, the middle of the night I was bidding, and I finally gave up. And then it kinda came back to me at a similar price, the opportunity to buy it. So I bought it yesterday, and that's it. Dude, that's the that is a private deal gone right.

It you buy it yesterday, and it shows up on your doorstep the next day. Awesome card, dude. Congrats. This is my first Shield auto football card. All my other one is automatic.

That's pretty much the only reason I didn't buy it sooner. He offered it to me, like, a week ago, and I just sort of been, like, hemming and hawing over. Do I wanna go down the path of adding one of these? But it was cheaper because it's Michael Thomas, and I have the Black Finite. And I'm jealous of Chris's Christian McCaffrey pairing, so wanted to get on that train and create the dual Black Finite Shield auto rookie combo, which is which is obviously tough to do.

Amazing. Congratulations. Chris, what about you? Yes. So I have a fun acquisition story for this one.

Like, so so the card is the, twenty twenty four twenty five, Panini silhouette, Luca Doncic, base set one of one, and there's only one of one one of one parallel for it. And the key here is that it's one of the one of the few base set, one of one Lucas from his first Lakers season showing him in a Lakers uniform. And so I don't know how many there are. That's research to be done. That's like a little thing that I can look forward to one rainy day when I don't have anything else to do, and I can start that research and find out how many, exist, how many actual base set one of ones exist in total of him in a Lakers uniform, but I don't I think it's very few.

And this was, like, the one time in five years, you know, though this is like a what's something that happens once every five years, like an asteroid, a comet sighting or something, where I was looking at my saved searches at three in the morning right before I go to sleep, and I and finally, I I actually saw something that was been worthy. And so this card got listed, like, within five minutes of me looking at my safe searches at three in the morning. And, you know, it was taken the photograph was, like, taken far away from the card, and I just had to, like, do a double take. I'm like, is that what I think it is? And I had to, like I took, like, thirty seconds to just really quickly look up some of the silhouette comps from 2024, 25 of other players and, like, the other Luka cards.

I was I've looked. I've seen enough. I don't even wanna let the possibility of somebody else see this and hit Ben. And so I think the price is fair. Like, I don't I'm not saying that it was, like, some crazy steal or something.

Just think it was a a fair price. But, but how how how rare is it to actually see, like, a a fairly priced bin? So I just I just I just jumped on it immediately. And, and now yeah. I've and I've and and so now I've I've got the research ahead of me to find out.

I'll I'll probably and so the plan will be I'll probably take this to the national, and I I build my pile of raw cards to grade there, and then I'll start I'll I'll do the research eventually and find out how many of those Luka Lakers one of ones from the first year from base sets exist, and then I'll have a cool social media post that'll divulge that research. So That's amazing. The so I sentiment is big, and there has been nothing but positive sentiment on that silhouette product from the basketball card collectors and community. I had not yet seen a base set one of one from that, so that's super cool. But I the your train of thought in picking up that Luca you know, I've I have observed the Luca Lakers autograph in Panini one and one basketball and the conversation around, like, this is his only Lakers autograph in a Panini product.

And I like, that is I think that's the essence of what matters. Like, going through that process and try to understand, like, limitations of cards and the see where there are cards on top of cards, and that's fun. And so, like, what you just described and why you bought that card resonated with me. So, you guys are killing it. Congratulations on the pickups and awesome conversation.

It feels very much like a conversation we probably could have spent five hours on, compacted in sixty minutes. But, yeah, we'll be back next month with another episode. Talk to you all very soon.