Another week. Another episode of Pack Into Profession brought to you by eBay. Excited for this chat, digging into, the website, the history, and, the collection buying, which is something that I'm certainly interested in exploring.

Today, I'm joined by Kurt and Aaron from BBC Emporium. BBC Emporium is a private collecting company that specializes in buying full sports card collection since 1999, which definitely was a long time ago.

So there's a lot of years in between then and now, and I'm sure there's a lot to talk about.

But, Kurt and Aaron, welcome. How are you? Good. Thanks for having us, Brett. I wanna dig into Right. I wanna dig into maybe private collecting company. That is something in just the on the website that caught my attention.

May Kurt, maybe I'll just toss this one over to you. Like, how would you define a a private collecting company, and maybe what makes you different than maybe some other, operations, selling, dealing, sports cards all over the country?

Sure. I I can tell you kind of how it started and how maybe it's transformed, a little bit. But, me and my brother both, we have pretty similar, I would say, journeys in the collecting world.

We're both engineers by trade. We grew up in a family business, a manufacturing business, but we're both big collectors. My brother kind of focused more on comic books. I did more sports cards.

But, I think probably typical of most collectors that kind of start becoming more dealers, I think the first step is is you're looking at getting access to private collections and paying more of, like, a wholesale price versus a retail price.

So when we first got started, you know, I still consider myself primarily a collector.

I was going out. I was buying collections with the idea of adding to my personal collection. And then, you know, obviously, within the collection, there's gonna be material that I personally didn't want.

So I'd sell that off and, you know, kinda start tipping my, you know, dipping my toes more in the dealing side of things. And, obviously, as as it's growing, I'm definitely consider myself much more of a dealer now than a collector.

It's kinda hard to do both at the same time, but, I still consider myself at at at my core a collector. So, you know, I think when we started the business, we approached it much more as collectors versus straight dealers.

What was the and I've noticed, and we're I'm sure we'll get into, like, the vintage conversation on what you all specialize in. But I'm curious, like, if we rewind the tape a little bit back to 1999.

I I think about just all the different, chapters and evolutions of the in the hobby, like, what we're currently in, what we were in in the February, and even before that in the nineties.

And then, obviously, there's a whole history that predates the nineties. But maybe talk a little bit about the landscape in 1999 when you first started, like, things you saw, opportunities, and observations that you all were making?

Yeah. Aaron, you wanna talk talk to your I can turn it over to my Because it'll even go back before '99.

So Kurt and I are brothers. I'm eight years older than he is. I'm 51 now, and you could say our journey probably started around 1980. You know? And I was collecting cards and comic books, you know, the first five years, eighty to '85.

It was a lot of buying packs, trading with local kids in town, and then started to get heavily in interested in the back issue comic market and the older vintage cards, which growing up in in rural Iowa presented a challenge because you couldn't find them anywhere.

You know, there would be a card show that would come into our area two or three times a year. We'd scour those shows looking for what we were trying to find, and and usually it was hard. So that was one avenue was the traveling shows.

The other avenue was buying these items via mail order, which, you didn't really know what you were getting. You didn't know if they'd have it in stock. You filled out your want list, and, maybe you got what you wanted.

Maybe it was the right grade. But all these things kind of factor in a little bit to where we're trying to take the store, which is items where we have deep inventory in stock, you know, and all these, sets that we're trying to offer.

We have the scans there, and we can, you know, provide lead times that are pretty well, you know, a day or two.

So everything the opposite of what the landscape was at the time. And, eventually, it became so frustrating that I exited the hobbies. You just couldn't find the back issues in our area.

And then around early two thousands, everything changed with, with the internet. And I can still remember my wife saying, Hey, I've got eBay and you might, you ought to take a look on there.

And I think that's where Kurt and I both started finding, you know, older items, and and the rest is kinda history from that point.

The, maybe the starting a business, not necessarily pre Internet, but, like, what through the pro proliferation of Internet and going from this phase where you're not being able to find cards to all of a sudden you have a platform like eBay and you can find whatever you wanted, like, how did maybe that transition, change the mindset of kind of what you were doing and what you were building to then the potential of maybe where you're at and what you're doing today?

So yeah. Good good question. And I would say as we look back to the at the start of the Internet age of collecting and dealing.

Kurt and I both, I would say, were heavy auction buyers and heavy auction sellers on eBay. Today, we rarely sell at auction. So from the from the point we started to where we're at now, the, the auction selling has gone by the wayside.

I think we're we're much more content and confident in how to price the items and letting the market decide and and risk having a a bad auction, you know, compared to some of the, you know, maybe favorable results.

So one thing that that's been a huge issue for us and a huge advantage is we both had massive personal collections that we carried into the business. So when we started, that was our contribution.

Kirk contributed his card collection. I contributed my comic collection, and we had starting inventory, which is kind of the big challenge for a lot of, Internet sellers is how do you get the inventory established?

And we didn't really want to run down our inventory. So the the goal is is to continue to try and build it, sell enough that we have to to fund the business, but not run out of stock and completely deplete, you know, our inventories.

And and, Brett, going back to your question, I'll give you a little anecdote that maybe you'll speak to what you're asking. But, I was big collecting basketball cards.

And for me as a kid growing up, like, 1987 Fleer, you couldn't find it in our area. I remember I graduated college, and I was I had bought a house in Iowa, and I was putting my collection away.

And I came across that I had two 19 80 seven Fleer basketball cards. I had a Dominique Wilkins and a Isaiah Thomas. And I'm like, I'm just gonna jump on eBay and see if I can buy some more of these.

And you I I I think one thing the Internet eBay did to the hobby was what perceived scarcity was of certain collectibles. You quickly realized that that maybe wasn't the case.

So, you know, I think the Internet and eBay really changed the landscape in terms of giving a really honest understanding of what was scarce and what was readily abundant. I love that.

And I love the the idea of, like, starting you with your own collection as the inventory you're using and then, what you learn along the way as the Internet brings more listings and information your way on what's truly scarce or not.

One of the themes I've observed through kind of my own research is, like, your specialization in collection buying.

I'm always fascinated by the the purchasing of collections and the depths, individuals will go to to find those collections and make those deals.

Like, that's always some of my favorite content when I come across it. Let's maybe talk to talk about the collection buying of it all.

Like, what is that ideal scenario for you all in BBC Emporium as you're searching for the right, collections, and then maybe even get into, like, when you find the a collection that you're interested in, like, what are maybe the ideal, conversation and communication and how you work with the individual on the other side to make sure that they feel good about what you're giving them.

And then on the other side, obviously, you feel good with the cards that you're getting in your possession.

Sure. So I I can speak a little to that. I'll I'll first say from a collector standpoint, going out buying private collections is probably the most exciting part of the job. It's a little bit like treasure hunting.

You know, you go out, like, it's like the adrenaline's up. It's exciting. You don't know what you're gonna find. But, in in terms of finding the collections, we use a lot of online advertising to, you know, bring in collections.

We get multiple leads calls a day. The the challenge becomes vetting which collection kind of fits what we're looking to what we're looking to buy.

I would say probably 90 per 90% of the leads that we get are kind of from that junk wax era from the late eighties, early nineties.

And then, you know, a lot of times when you get a collection lead, you really don't know where the expectation of that seller is gonna be.

You know, we would prefer that person's done research. They know what they have. They know the value. They're much more reasonable in terms of what they have.

Unfortunately, what you see a lot of times is, you know, people jump on online or jump on eBay, and they'll find the highest, like, a PSA 10 of a card they have is beat up and creased.

And all of a sudden, they think they're sitting on a gold mine. So kind of the process that I typically do is I first wanna kind of vet how serious and how realistic is that person in terms of wanting to sell the collection.

So the first thing I'll kinda do is I'll request pictures. And depending on how large the collection is, what I've learned is I usually start with a smaller piece of the pie or the collection and say, hey.

I'm gonna quote you this. And that kind of at least I can kinda see our our expectations gonna be aligned. If I court a little bit and they're like, no. I wanna, like, triple that.

I'm like, well, most likely, it's not gonna work for the rest of the collection. And then, you know, if we are close, and I'll kind of open up my quote to the entire collection. And, typically, I'm doing this before I travel.

So, obviously, I'm making a lot of assumptions, and I'll give them kind of a broad range in terms of, like, here's where I think approximately I'm gonna be in terms of acquiring the collection.

And if we're in the same ballpark, that's kinda when I'll make plans to actually travel out and view the collection.

And when I was first getting started, I would I would travel for, you know, collections that weren't that great. I just love doing it.

As we get bigger and as the business grows, in order for us to go out in the road and actually view and acquire a collection, it has to be a pretty significant collection just to make it worth all of the time and expense that goes into it.

Has has the, idea of, getting having those conversations, like, going doing the back and forth, getting on the road, going and visiting, meeting those individuals face to face, and making a deal, has that, like, collection buying aspect been a vision for BBC Emporium throughout the whole life cycle of, you know, your company, or is that something new?

Maybe talk about, like, the original vision you had said and, how that how that is either stayed the same or maybe changed over the years?

Sure. I I can I can definitely tell you how it's changed? You know, going out and buying these collections, it's it tends to be a little bit hit or miss.

It's not a consistent way to buy inventory that kind of fits our, you know, what we're looking to buy and sell. So as we grow, we still love buying the private collections.

However, what we've found is trying to maintain a constant flow of inventory becomes a challenge. So in addition to the private collections, we'll buy a lot of bulk material through auction houses, stuff like that.

The the margins may not be as good through, like, a large auction house, but it's a very consistent way to buy material.

So I would say as we get bigger, we become less dependent on the private collections, yet still, probably our favorite thing to pursue when the opportunity arises.

When when I think about your customers, I think about, like, maybe the the two sides. Right?

You've got customers that you are going to make deals and buy collections, and then you've got just consumers, right, that, you know, find your store and see a card, and, they you you sell to them based on a card that maybe they've been trying to find themselves for a long time.

How are you all maybe the hobby changes so often. I mean, this year looks different than last year and the year before, and the trends change, and the desires and intentions of collectors change.

How do you maybe keep a pulse on just the the various types of individuals that are entering the hobby to make sure that, you know, you're all, you know, putting your best foot forward as you're trying to, you know, find new deals and and sell some of the inventory that you already have.

Yeah. I I can I can speak to that one as well?

You know, to me, probably the best way that I think we keep our kind of finger on the pulse of the hobby is, I think, a couple of things. One, you know, the the chat groups and the forums, you should be the primary method.

A lot of collectors come on there. You get a lot of feedback. You learn a lot. And those still are very, you know, big part of how you kinda keep your finger on the pulse.

Now with social media, whether it's like Facebook groups, Instagram, things like that is another good way that you can kind of just kinda gauge in general what's going on in the hobby.

And then I'd also say a lot of, like, whether it's eBay or the private auction houses, just watching what's coming to auction, watching the results, kinda seeing what prices are going up, what prices are going down.

Just another good way to monitor in general, you know, basic trends in the hobby.

I, appreciate how I would I would add that Go ahead. I was just gonna add, I think, one other test that we'll use, Brett, is if Kurt and I think it's cool, you know, that's kind of our litmus test too.

And sometimes we will get out of out of the curve, and a lot of times it works out. That's yeah.

That's not that's not a bad way to do it. Natural feel, does it make me feel something inside? Does it excite me? I definitely, enjoy that. I I I think I saw something on your site where it said if it's old, we're interested.

And you actually I love how intentional you all are with, like, in baseball, football, and basketball, like, exactly here are the types of cards we're looking for.

Here are the years. Through my observations, mostly vintage or cards that would be classified as vintage today.

Maybe talk about the current landscape with vintage and and maybe different things you're seeing with with cards or collectors that are buying vintage, any key themes that you're observing?

Sure. I can speak to that, and I'll I'll kinda go back to during the COVID bubble because that had a pretty large impact on the vintage market.

But I would say in general, what you see when people enter the hobby, people typically enter the hobby buying stuff that they bought as a child.

So, typically, you'll see guys in their twenties or fifties. They're buying more kind of like that seventies, eighties, nineties stuff because that's what they bought as a kid.

And what you see is is that stuff's not a lot. It's not real valuable. It's pretty easy to get, you know, get a decent collection from that era.

So what you see is people enter through the modern market, and then they start kind of gaining interest in the hobby, and they start going more towards the vintage.

So you sold it a lot during COVID. People would come in interested in modern, and they'd quickly shift their focus to the vintage market.

And I think, you know, what we're seeing in in general when it comes to vintage cards, the market overall is very stable. The high end, high grade rookies, and vintage cards continue to go up at a pretty good clip.

I think the other thing that's interesting that you're seeing a lot of is there's these new little niche vintage markets that are opening up. A good example would be like the non sports, segment of the hobby.

A lot of guys feel like vintage. They're they're kind of priced out of the vintage market. So they're looking they wants to they still wanna collect vintage collectibles, but the sports stuff's too expensive.

So they're going more, like, into the non sports sets that are out there, and there's a whole range of those. In addition, you're seeing things like the unopened market.

You're seeing photographs gain a lot of popularity. So, you know, you're seeing a lot of different segments within the vintage collectibles market emerge over the last few years.

As a, the on on that, like, thought process of, like, the top tier vintage high grade out out of my price range and collectors trying to find new areas, maybe on on the non sport side, which people are gravitating towards, is is the mentality, like, I like I like this stuff.

No one else seems to be, buying it right now.

It seems cheap, and then over time, like, collectors talk, other people think it's cool, and then eventually, those may be forgotten about or maybe never gotten attention sets gain traction over time just as more one collector starts showcasing kind of what they have and then other collectors, realize, this stuff's pretty cool.

Maybe I should look at it too.

Is that something that you you observe through, like, niches moving and growing in the vintage space? Absolutely. Especially with the nonsports. A lot of these sets, people didn't really know they even existed.

So a lot of a lot of times in these forums or boards, you know, people are sharing the stuff they buy and kind of like it kinda catches the attention of other collectors. Like, that stuff's pretty cool.

It's pretty aesthetic. And then, also, it's pretty affordable. Now some of those things are becoming kind of priced pretty high pretty quickly, but still a lot of the non sport sets can be collected, at a relatively low cost.

I which I know the listeners probably are too, and we all, you know, doing this show, people always gravitate to the stories.

And I'm I'm I'm guessing through your own collection buying and traveling and, you know, unearthing gems or maybe just falling up short and visiting a collection that's not quite what you expected it to be.

I'm curious what kind of stories, that you have from just, like, your process of getting on the road and, making deals, anything that stands out in your mind. Aaron, you got you got him share a few of those? I certainly have some.

I can start with a story. Go for it. Sure. So Paul's buying a comic book collection, but it's really the same principle whether it's buying cards or comics and traveled up into the Chicago area to look at a collection.

A son selling his dad's collection, and we met in the Starbucks, arranged to meet there. We saw the collection for sale on eBay at a high price. I reached out to the the man and we met.

And I took my son with me at the time, and we went through all of the old comics in that Starbucks. He was there with his girlfriend, the the seller was, and Jared and I went through a graded each comic, priced each comic out.

You know, it it took probably two hours, and I could see he was getting nervous when we were trying to point out different flaws that existed in the books that he wasn't aware of, where there was restoration.

And at the end of the the evaluation, Kurt and I are always have always been transparent with who we're selling to.

I think their collections are and I shared the valuation, and he's like, no. I'm not coming down. And it's like, well, this went nowhere. And I reached into my billfold to give him a hundred dollars for his time.

And at that point, he could see a change in his demeanor, and he's like, these guys really are dealing with integrity. And he came down off of his value, and we reached a deal on the collection at that point.

It's like it was it was just a unique way on how it ended. But I think that's bode bode well for us. We're both straight shooters, you know, and it's it built a lot of trust with people we're buying collections from.

Yeah. I got, I got a probably my favorite story was I was contacted by a high school kid, and he was he lived in Indianapolis or just right outside of Indianapolis.

And he said that his grandmother had given him a tobacco collection, which obviously piqued my interest.

And I said, well, I said, you know, give me some of the names. He's like started listening off, like, you know, I got a Ty Cobb, got a Wagner.

You know? I started listening to some of the big hall of famers. I'm like, okay. You got my Andrew. So I'm like, I'll be out there tomorrow. So, anyway, I went out there, and I showed up to the to his house.

And on the kitchen table, he had two stacks of tobacco cards. He had one that was maybe a half inch high, and then he had one that was probably, I don't know, maybe a foot high.

And he said he said all the good cards, he said, I'd I'd put into this smaller section over here. So I sure enough, I start going through, and they're they're caramel cards, they're tobacco cards, t two o fives, t two o sixes.

All of the big names are there. So I then go over to the large pile of cards, and the second card in, I flip over like a stewless Joe Jackson rookie.

And that's kinda like where you know? At that moment, you're kind of faced with, like, you know, this kid has no idea what he had. I could really rip this kid off or else I could be honest with him.

You know? So I I said, you know, as Aaron said, you know, I think one thing we've learned is, like, it always is better to be transparent and honest with the people in terms of what they have.

So I said, hey. I said, this is a Sheila's Joe Jackson right here. It's probably a $20,000 card. So we went through everything. We kind of and his his dad had come in by that time, and we kinda worked up evaluation of the collection.

And they could see that I was being honest with them. And they made some comment to me like, well they they say we we see your treating us fairly. So they pull out this e 93 caramel set, and this thing was still in plastic pages.

And it looked like it had just come out of, like they were, like, high grade cards. I think, like, the the Wagner ended up grading, like, a six. The Ty Cobb, like, a seven.

I mean, really nice stuff, but you know and I I I have a handful of other stories about, like, old tobacco cards, but the thing that never ceases to amaze me is how many old original collections are still out there.

You know, most people kinda think, well, shoot.

Most of those people know baseball cards are worth a lot of money. Most of those collections have surfaced. There's still a lot of them out there, which is, you know, to me, a neat thing to think about.

One of the I love the I love both of these stories. One of the things I think about all the time, and I would love just as maybe someone who gets out and, you know, whether it's at shows or visits people to buy collections.

Like, we all have our own view of what we think the the hobby looks like, whether it's through, like, the lens of Instagram or the lens of the the shows that we go to or travel to regularly.

But I'm always amazed because it's like the the hobby is it's way it's it's way bigger than any of us think, and it's, there's all of these types of stories that are happening that never get unearthed throughout, you know, the country and throughout the world.

Maybe maybe share some perspective there on just, like, the breadth and depth of the hobby and just, like, the hidden treasures and gems that are just sitting in closets or basements all across the world that we have absolutely no idea about and we don't even know that they exist.

I would imagine part of your job is to find those and and and elevate those and bring them up, but I don't know.

I'm guessing there's a a piece of, like, it never ceases to amaze you every time you come across something like old tobacco or caramel cards. Yeah.

Well, I I would maybe speaking to the, I guess, the the size of the hobby, one thing that I think really caught us off guard as as we sell through our eBay store, eBay's kinda got a nice feature where it'll tell you if you have a repeat buy or not.

And, you know, we maybe sell anywhere from one to 200 cards a day through our eBay store.

And as we were getting started, we didn't have a really good idea of maybe how many different buyers we would have. We figured maybe, you know, one to 2,000 buyers.

I don't know. We didn't know what to expect. The one thing that surprised us and would still surprise us to this day is the amount of new buyers that consistently come in and they buy from us.

It's, you know, the amount of people that collect is much larger than I think most people understand.

Once again, I think a lot of people that are really in tune to the hobby or that are on the forums, You know, I think they think that all collectors are on these groups.

You know, these online forums maybe contain a fraction of a percent of the people around the country that collect.

So you know? And then to your other question, yeah, I mean, in terms of what's still out there, like like I said, it's it's weekly we're getting leads.

And it's not like I said, it's it's tobacco stuff. It's it's stuff that is extremely rare that someone's grandparent had held on to. And a lot of times when the grandparent passes away, someone's going through their old belongings.

They come across this stuff. But there's a lot of unearthed collections that are still out there to be found. You mentioned the eBay aspect of that. Go ahead.

I I was just gonna share, Brett, one story in regard to that that's kind of an interesting one is about two years ago, my daughter gave us a lead, and Kurt and I both kinda discounted it. It's like, yeah, this would be worthless.

You know, one of her friends, grandpa, had some cards. You know? Well, it turns out that collection had a 52 mantle in it, and it was in a house two houses down from where our parents live, you know, in Burlington.

So it's to to your point, we would never dream one of there's a 52 man in the wild living around where we're at, but it is.

And they decided not to sell it at this point. But I do think there is a lot more cards sitting in private collection than anyone realizes.

I love that. How do you all think about, the management of all of the inventory that's, you know, either entering or leaving BBC Emporium? Like, what what is your process and your thought or strategy around, inventory management?

I can tackle that one, Brad. I manage the operation here, and it's a great question. As we've talked, the our buying is chaotic, and you we can be buying private collections.

We can be buying things at auction, and so we're getting all this different types of material in. And if we try to list in that same sequence that we're buying, it's it's chaotic and inefficient.

And so what we try to do is list strategically. So as we buy, it goes into what Kurt and I referred to as the war chest, which is this big conglomerate of material that we have that isn't listed yet.

And as we start piling up items in the war chest, we'll make strategic decisions about, okay, we've got 15,000 cards in this set, let's run them through, or we're gonna run this through.

And so the the listing part of the business is is real deliberate and intentional. And and we have a a real well oiled machine set up here that, like Kurt said, we're both engineers.

We're heavily focused on process. And when things are really running, we can list three to 4,000 cards a day. You know? So that then leads to the next question you had, which is inventory management.

You know, at the moment, we've got about 800,000 unique items for sale. And as those items sell, we've gotta pull the right item and and do it in a way that we don't spend all day looking for.

And so we've got things organized so that, generally, we can pull an item in thirty to sixty seconds when it sells. But in in the morning, you know, we're pulling. In the afternoon, we're pulling items.

It looks kinda like a big library, you know, lots of boxes, lots of, you know, dividers, labels, but it's been really challenging because it's growing at such a pace that we're we're having to figure out, you know, where are we gonna put this set or where are we gonna put these additions at?

And, you know, in the last three years, our inventory has grown about from 50,000 items to 800,000.

And so, you know, if we continue on with that rate, it's like we're gonna have to figure to continue to innovate and come up with ways to organize and to operate efficiently, but it's something we really take a lot of effort in.

So 50,000 to 800,000 in a few years is insanity.

That's like I can't even imagine. I know you guys are engineers, and you're very good at keeping things in order and building out processes, but that's that's, mind blowing in a way to think about that kind of, growth.

What what what kind of obstacles or hurdles have come from that sort of growth? And it can be on the inventory management side or just in the business in in general. Yep. I I can speak to that.

As you as you look at the listing process, you know, you have your your grading, you have your scanning, you have your for like I said, we sell primarily through eBay, so we have to fill out all of the fields within eBay to sell something.

The challenge that we had was trying to automate that process as much as possible.

So there's a lot of commercially available things like the high throughput scanners, for example. You know, back before they came out, you're sitting there scanning cards on a flatbed scanner.

It's like it takes quite a bit of time. Now with high throughput scanners, you can scan, you know, two, three cards a second, both sides very quickly.

The other big thing that's helped us out quite a bit is we had our own custom software created. So when you load a scan into our software, it'll automatically recognize what the card is.

We have to we we tell it what grade it is. But once we tell it what grade it is, we've also developed our own pricing database where it'll automatically identify the card, price the card, and fill out all of the eBay listings.

So some of the big challenges overall that we face was trying to automate, that process as much as possible.

I would say the two manual things that we still have to do that take the most amount of time is we're still manually grading each card.

And believe it or not, taking the card, putting it in a plastic holder, and labeling it. Those are probably the two things that take the longest amount of time.

I'm I'm not sure, you know, the whole ordering of whatever automate that portion of it, but, like, with a lot of the AI stuff coming out, I'm pretty optimistic that AI grading, it's already out there to a certain extent.

It's not nearly as accurate as we need it to be.

But, you know, trying to develop an efficient system is probably our biggest obstacle to get to where we're at. What what sort of okay. The hurdles, I definitely understand that in what you're doing in listing.

Maybe what sort of tough decisions have you all made that have come along the way over the years that have maybe shaped, that operation today, you know, 800,000 cards, inventory that you all have?

Maybe talk about some of those tough decisions that you've made to get to where you're at today.

I can tackle that one, Brett. And the the decision that comes to mind when when I joined with Kurt, Kurt was in business two years before I we teamed up, and he was living in Colorado at the time, and I was in Iowa.

And so BBC Emporium, you know, was based in Colorado, Colorado operation where Kurt and his crew were running that.

The decision we made that was a tough one was to move the business to Iowa. And I would say that was a somewhat stressful move for Kurt moving all those cards out. We were we breathe a little little easier once they made it to Iowa.

But by setting up shop here, we have a huge network of family and friends that are trusted and good help that allowed us to really expand our workforce and our team to extend to a a lot larger operation than what was possible there.

And so Kurt ended up moving back as well, you know, now in Iowa, which is great, but kind of a tough decision that impacted moving the business, but ultimately resulted in, you know, a a lot more flourishing operation.

Kurt, what was that like, taking all those cards, from Colorado to Iowa?

Like, making sure they are safe. Like, did you were you stressed out about that? Take us back to that moment. Yeah. It was stressful. So it happened over multiple trips, but they're kind of the final trip.

I rented a big U Haul and probably loaded up the majority of the cards. And I think it's about a twelve and a half hour drive, and, just white knuckling it for twelve and a half hours.

Kinda trying to maintain mental focus was, it it was it was stressful, but, thankfully, the drive from Colorado to Iowa was pretty, pretty straight and boring. So as long as I didn't fall asleep, I felt pretty safe.

How do how do you guys think about, differentiating, making I'm I mean, I I like what I've heard from from you all about just, like, you know and it's kinda weird, but to say, but, like, I've picked up on, like, integrity, trust building.

That's, like, part of your process, which I think we all should, like, expect that in this industry, but also might not always come available for all of us in in a way.

So I I picked that up from you, but maybe talk about just, like, how you all stand out.

Like, what do you how do you think about differentiating and making sure that when that deal pops up, individuals are thinking about you you all as opposed to somebody else.

I I can tackle that, Kurt, and you can tag on. You know? I think one of the things that we're trying to do with our operation is to run as efficiently and low overhead as possible.

So in doing that, we believe that if if we're offered a collection, we can be as competitive as any other buyer, you know, other than a private collector that's willing to pay full retail, that we're operating at a lower cost basis than than our competition.

The the other thing that we believe is a differentiator is really high quality imaging and consistent grading.

We take great pains with all the with all of our graders to train, calibrate, try to meet PSA standards, and we really get good marks with respect to our raw grading.

Ultimately, if the product isn't there, we realize that's not that's the foundation of our store.

And then service is the other thing. Both Kurt and I came from a industry where our our business our manufacturing business was kind of founded on strong service.

We've tried to carry that in here, really being responsive, professional, like you said, Brett, working with integrity.

I don't know, Kurt, if there's anything more you'd wanna add. I I would say one thing that we kind of decided up front to be to differentiate ourselves a little bit from other dealers.

If you look at a lot of other dealers in the hobby, a lot of guys are going after the big name cards, you know, in terms of the vintage world, your your mantles, your Willie Mays', your Hank Aaron's.

Everybody wants those high profile cards.

They're easy to move, but the margins are pretty slim just because there's such demand for cards like that. You can't buy a card like that cheap and then turn around and sell it for a bunch of money.

It's just it's, it's hard to do. So one thing that we've talked about, we've talked about it throughout this podcast, is kind of this vision where we wanted to be a one stop shop for collectors.

If if somebody was wanting to fill out a 1957 set, they are missing eight cards. They know they can come to our store, and they can find those cards in any condition possible.

So, you know, that that's that's kind of the vision is we wanted to be able to offer a very wide range from the very low end budget collector all the way up to the high end collector as well.

So we try to kinda service the needs of a wider breadth of customers.

That's amazing. I love that. And one of the things as a content guy I noticed from just visiting your website is just, like, an emphasis on education where you've got price guide, you've got resources.

To me, that stands out as something maybe unique and different, as opposed to other, similar businesses, as you that I I don't necessarily see.

So maybe talk about just, like, the emphasis you all have on on content and education and it and the role that it plays for you with the audience that you serve.

Sure. I can talk about that. So to be totally transparent, a lot of times, you know, content's good for a website just because it helps bring traffic to your website.

So on one hand, we'll want to provide content, but we also want that content to be relevant to the different collectors.

You know? Rather than have, like, the top 10 cards from 1988, you know, kinda like junk junk content, We wanted content that would actually be meaningful. And one thing that as a collector, you see a lot of fraud in this hobby.

And, you know, one thing that always is very difficult to see is you get very passionate collectors come into this hobby, and then they get burnt buying a fake card.

And it completely kills any sort of passion they have, and they end up jumping out of the hobby.

So if you look at a lot of the content on our website, we have a lot of different guides for detecting counterfeit cards, fake cards, kind of helping new buyers navigate the vintage landscape.

Because if you don't know the material very well, you can get burnt really fast. Such a such a good point, and I couldn't agree more.

I I alluded to this earlier, but just like the different chapters and evolutions of the hobby and trends and things that are going on, I'm curious, right now, like, as you look at the landscape, what excites you the most right now within the hobby as a whole, and maybe what are where are some areas where you can you wish or hope that there's some sort of improvement?

Yeah. I can speak to that.

So I think what excites me the most is you're seeing a lot of growth in the hobby still to this point. And I think one thing that really is is has changed is maybe ten years ago, the people within the hobby were primarily collectors.

You had a few call them flippers, dealers, whatever. But now I think what you're seeing now is, like, collectibles are now kind of being seen as an investment tool.

So you're bring you're seeing a lot of guys come in more with an investment mindset. And to me, any you know, anything that grows, the amount of people coming into the hobby is a is a beneficial thing.

And I think one thing I mentioned earlier is you see you're seeing a lot of other small segments kinda start to flourish. I mentioned, like, photographs. I mentioned the nonsports side of things.

So to me, it's like you know, it it gets a little bit boring sometimes for Aaron and I just to be dealing with cards all day. So it's like it's exciting for us to kind of start dipping our toes in these other segments.

We get to learn about it, but it also kinda opens us opens up new business opportunities. In terms of, you know, opportunities for improvement and we talked about it this year just a second ago.

But and I think eBay and PSA have done a great job in facilitating this, but providing a a safe platform where people can buy stuff with confidence. You know, eBay provides a great platform where people can buy things.

They have their authentication program where people can get you know, they're not half they're not at risk for buying fake cards. Obviously, with PSA, they provide kind of a standardized grading system, to the hobby.

So those are things that are beneficial, but I think they're also things that could improve. I think the other thing that could improve is having more competition in those areas.

EBay and PSA, they do a great job, but they're kind of, you know, the the big players in there. You know? And whenever you see new competition come in, you know, it it provides a better product to the end user.

So I think, you know, those systems and those competitions, I'd I'd like to see more of that improved, I guess. Do you have, I always like to ask this question maybe just thinking about your eBay store.

Is there over the last year, is there a card that you have sold that has been like a moment that you won't for you won't forget, whether it's the car that sold, the price, anything, any sort of story that you have that you can share with the listeners?

No. I I've I've got a good story there, Brett.

So when we go through and list a batch of cards, you know, one of the last things we'll do is we'll check for errors and variants just to see, you know, and before we list all these raw cards in the store, do we have a rare variant?

And we were listed 1969 baseball, and I think it was card number 576. It was a rookie star that there was a variant where the black border around the rookie stars didn't exist.

And, you know, I I could see on the PSA census, there was only, like, eight cards, and it's like, is it even worth the time to go through this? Well, I did. Lo and behold, we had it.

And it was we had it graded as an eight. And Kurt and I are like, well, let's send this thing in. So it came back from PSA as an eight, highest of the census, and, you know, no recorded sales. We're like, what do we sell this thing for?

That was kinda two to three thousand. Kurt's like, no. I think we can get 6,500 for it. Like, woah. So we put it up for sale. Within the first hour, we had a guy nibbling at it, wanting to know if we'd lower the price.

And while we were discussing his offer, it sold outright. You know? And so we're like, hey. Wow. This car that was kind of thought to be a common went for that, and we were talking about how great of a deal it was.

Well, about a year later, I was nosing around on the heritage archives, and I see the card that we sold was turned into heritage for auction.

It went for 24,000. And so, you know, here we were we were pleased and then the human nature comes in.

It's like, well, we didn't squeeze all the value out of that, but, you know, it's just kind of a good story about a car that was sitting in our inventory that no one really knew had any value till we discovered it.

I love the story. I wanna kick it back to you guys because you mentioned about how you don't really do auctions now.

And I'm I'm I'm curious because, obviously, like, it this is one scenario, but this scenario Yeah. Exactly. Based on the market demand, you there's money being left on the table.

Maybe talk about just like I'm always curious on, like, the buying formats and the decisions dealers make, whether it's auction or just buy it now with an offer or without an offer.

Maybe just dig in a little more about your decision making on how you all sell your cards on eBay. Go back.

Yeah. So I I think one important lesson we learned there was two things. If if there's a card that we're selling that has very little to no sales history, we either jack the price way up or we do consider sending that to auction.

I would say for the most part, you know, what we're selling is gonna be anywhere from the early nineteen hundreds all the way up to the eighties. The vast majority of of it has a very established sales history.

Mhmm. So, you know, I used to do a lot of auctioning of cards, and there are there's times you're gonna have an auction, and you're like, wow. I I think sold for way more than I would have sold it for fixed price.

You know, the problem is that happens maybe 5% of the time. The vast majority of the time, that stuff is gonna, you know, underperform in an auction format versus a buy it now.

So and that's kinda when when we made the decision where for the vast majority of our stuff, a fixed price makes the most sense. We're gonna get the best return for that. We may miss that big home run occasionally. We understand that.

But, you know, we don't have a crystal ball, and we can't predict when that's gonna happen always. But we did learn there's certain items. Is the best way to go. Yeah. No no recent sales within the last, like, five to ten years.

Maybe good idea to throw that baby up on auction. This has been this has been such a fun conversation. May I just have a a couple more I wanna dig into before I let you guys get out of here.

You know, we've learned a lot about BBC Emporium just like your mindset mentality, how you think about the, you know, marketing your business, delivering the your core values.

What what do you think in since 1999 and all the experience you have with this business, what do you think separates successful businesses from every other business in the hobby? I I can address that, Brett.

This is my opinion, obviously, but I think if you look at what Kurt and I are doing, we're we're both passionate about the hobby. So I think that's a a critical thing is you've gotta you've gotta have a passion for the hobby.

Aside from a desire to run a successful business, you gotta be interested in what we're doing. And then number two, I think be willing to put in the sweat equity and the what we call the grind.

Not just flipping expensive cards, but, you know, hours of labor. We we probably are working harder in this job than we were in our previous job.

We're enjoying it. But, you know, there's hours of grading, there's hours of polling, hours of shipping, the stores, you know, running twenty four seven stuffs, you know, questions are coming in all the time.

It's like just really being willing to devote the time and the effort and the hard work and to make sure that hard work is going towards value added time.

We we could fritter away hours on things here that won't have a return. It's like, you know, that's why certain collections will stay away from. It has to be something that makes sense for us to invest the time into.

Kinda like doing chores on the farm, I consider it. Every day there's a set cadence, a set rhythm, we're gonna list this many cards, we're gonna get everything shipped. We gotta do this, that and the other.

And, Kurt's got the same rigor when it comes to buying. He's gotta be buying at a certain rate to match what we're selling. It's just kinda focusing on those fundamental drivers and and having a passion for what we're doing.

What is your feedback maybe for any listener out there who is, you know, doing cards on the side, going to shows, buying, selling, trading, and, you know, has maybe had some success and have thought to themselves, you know what?

I I might be able to do this, full time.

I might be able to go all in on this. Like, through your all experience, what what would you share with anyone listening who's thought about jumping in and and making the hobby their own business?

Yeah. When I was when I was when I lived in Colorado, there was actually four guys that I kind of helped get their passion off the ground, and they wanted to start a card business.

So I helped all four of them. Two of them succeeded. Two of them failed. And here's and here's what I can tell you.

Here's my feedback for someone that's interested in doing this. There's a lot of important factors, but there's two that I consider the most important. One is you have to have a knowledge of the product.

If you don't understand the market, if you don't understand principles of grading, pricing, things like that, you can you can get burnt pretty quickly. It's going out, buying a collection, overpaying. So knowledge is is is key.

The other thing Aaron just mentioned is is you have to have a grind mindset where a lot of times when people think about doing this full time, they automatically automatically kinda go towards the sexy part of the hobby where you go out, you buy the cards, you buy the collection, you discover the treasures.

You know, that's that is fun. That's that's a fun part. But then 90% of the work is getting that stuff processed, listed, and sold. And it's a grind. Like, the the scanning, the listing, it's it's a very monotonous procedure.

And when you're starting out, you're gonna be doing most of that yourself. So a lot of guys that I saw failed, they had the knowledge, but they they couldn't sit there and and list cards.

It's it's they got they got too bored too quick. So if you're not cut out for those two things, it's probably not the right fit for you. But if you are, you have a good shot of making it.

Make sure you understand how the sausage is made before it hits the plate. I love it. This has been such a fun conversation. Aaron, Kurt, BBC Emporium, had a lot of fun learning about you building, scaling, and growing your business.

Looking forward to maybe catching up with you guys, on the road or having another conversation like this sometime soon. Alright. Appreciate it, Brad. Great. Thank you, Brad.