Alright. Welcome back to another episode of Passion to Profession. Today's episode is going to be fun. We are going to continue the topic of talking about Pokemon.

I know that's been on a few of these recently, but I am excited. I am joined by James. James runs ZNG Emporium. We got to talking ahead of this, and he's not too far away from me geographically.

So, we're recording this in the great same state, great state of, Indiana, but I'm excited to dig into his story and just journey with building the business. But without further ado, James, welcome. How are you? Good. Good. Yeah.

We're, you know, we're at one of the the doldrums of, the cold, cold Indiana winter and joined some weather here. It's nice to go to the, you know, shipping all our stuff, go to a post office and not having to go to the the the snow.

So it's nice. It's nice. Yes. It'll it's I feel like I was on a walk for lunch, and it you know, no sweatshirt, nothing.

It was just, like, very comfortable. But I'm I'm I'm trying to take advantage of that because probably in a couple weeks, it'll be so unbearably hot.

We'll be be sweating through the shirt and, only get a few few days of that. But let's maybe we'll let's start with just the category in Pokemon TCG right now. Dude, I can't turn anywhere whether it's TikTok, Instagram.

And my Instagram community is mostly sports card collectors. Twitter, x, whatever you wanna call it, it just seems like there's just this tremendous buzz going on with Pokemon right now.

I I'd love to maybe just start there. Like, there's a lot going on in the space, a lot of new people coming in, new people come coming back.

What is that been like for you as a business owner who primarily, sells Pokemon? Yeah. I mean, it's seen it's definitely the biggest thing is increase for us, like, increase in the, like, the average sales price.

I mean, it's been it's been absolutely crazy. Like, we, you know, we can sign people's, graded TCG. We don't do sealed or ungraded, you know, raw cars. We don't do sports.

We just do graded TCG. And, you know, like, probably the last last year or the year before this, you know, our average selling price you know, we we sold, like, I don't know, fifty, sixty thousand items, you know, in the previous year.

And, you know, the average selling price is gonna be, like, $70. 80 dollars. Right? And it was you know, we do auction and fixed price on eBay. But this year, I I think I just looked at it, like, a week or two ago.

You know, this year in 2025, our average selling price is, like, $350 or something instead of 70. So, you know, it's just a enormous increase, in the price of everything from modern to vintage to the low end.

You know? Even though, like, the the stuff that used to, like, get 99¢ bids, you know, it's it's like now they're $10 because people can buy them and put them in mystery products and sell them for 15, you know, or 19 you know, whatever.

It's, it's just a different dynamic with, just just the amount of demand that's out there.

And it's not like there isn't a lot of supply either. I mean, like, PSA graded 900 and I think it's, like, 950,000 TCG cards last month, and that doesn't include CGC, SCC, BGS, all these other companies. I mean, that's just PSA graded.

Almost a million trading cards. Right? That doesn't even include, you know, sports, obviously. But, so, you know, there's a lot of supply going out there, but the demand has just obviously outstripped that.

And, yeah, it's just been, it's just been pretty pretty crazy. And I don't think you know, I'm I'm pretty deep into this, and I know a lot of people who are pretty deep into this. And there's no, like, there's no real, like, hey.

This was the cause of it. You know? There's no, like, hey. This is what happened, you know, versus you know, I've seen a few a few booms. You know, I came in during the Pokemon Go boom in 2016.

You know? I remember vividly, like, I actually proposed to my, well, then girlfriend, that wife, in September, you know, Labor Day weekend of twenty sixteen. And it was just like, we were walking.

We've lived in Arizona, you know, drove out to Los Angeles. You know, I drove out to Los Angeles to repose. So we're down there in, like, like, Santa Monica, you know, walking around the the promenade or whatever it is down there.

And it was just like everybody was on their phone, like, looking up and looking down and look like, literally everybody. The whole like, actually, it was that was the craziest I've ever seen it.

Not 2020, not today. It was then. It was like everybody was doing Pokemon Go. I was like, what is going on? Because I've you know? So that that's when I came in, just after that. I was like, oh, you know, wow. That's that's insane.

But, yeah, it's it's you know, we could point to that kinda boom was like, oh, it's Pokemon Go. And then 2020, obviously, COVID hit. Everybody's set aside. Nobody's spending money on anything, any travel or anything, entertainment.

So they spend it on, you know, staying home, opening packs. Now nobody really actually has, you know, like, hey. It's because of this. And it's so it's very it's a strange time, honestly, that that we're in.

But, you know, we're we're we're here. You know? Okay. So you just said so so much, Sarah. We're gonna get into the grading side of things. We're gonna get into, like, the selling formats that you touched on.

I'm glad you brought up Pokemon Go. You're the first person to bring that and bring that back into my mind. And as you were talking about that, I was I've I've seen back 2016. I was waking up going on long runs in the morning.

I'll never forget, like, running on the canal, and there would be groups of people at, like, 05:00 in the morning. I'd be like, don't fall into the canal because everyone would be staring down at their phone playing it. I know.

You you you said something there that I mean, it's like for any business owner to see, like, the the sale average sale price increase from, like, 70 to 80 to 300 in such a short period of time is, like, we we're all looking for those kind of that kind of growth.

When you're you're you're a part of that growth and you're seeing that growth every day, you're seeing the sales, like, how do you think about, the the the reinvestment of those funds back into your brand and what you're doing?

Or how how do you think about just that as an opportunity and just using it to help, grow and scale ZNG? Yeah.

I mean, we we're definitely, you know, investing in, you know, infrastructure more, you know, to try to you know, because this stuff takes storage and security and, you know, manpower, you know, getting, you know, we've we've hired a new person within the last, you know, you know, earlier this year.

You know, my my wife used to be more part time, and now she's, you know, full time doing all the the payouts to consignors and finance portion and some of my customer service and and whatnot.

So, you know, just just scaling up people and, just trying to get, you know, everything more efficient.

You know? It's like you can't when when stuff gets, you know, when when you're starting out, it's like, oh, kinda what you know, you can't think at this scale, like, hey.

What kind of box does this go in? Right? You just gotta have it you gotta have it all ordered. You gotta have it all set up. You know, efficiencies, also go a long way.

So, you know, you know, investing in, you know, kind of research of and taking the time to figure out what's the best practices of of actually doing the the operations of self is is where where is where that's going.

Yeah. So you mentioned 2016 as maybe a time stamp and Pokemon Go as a kind of this period of time where you got interested.

Were was did that 2016, was that the starting point of your relationship with Pokemon, and how did that lead into, trading cards? Yeah. Well, I was big into the trading cards in the video game in 1999 through, like, February.

So, you know, I was I collected the trading cards from base set through, kinda like a legendary collection. So past, you know, all the first editions through, you know, Neo Destiny.

I think I kinda stopped around the e series even though I did have a little connection of the Game Boy. Like, I was probably one of the few people on Earth who swiped the things through it and, kinda saw how it worked.

It was a big Game Boy fan, and, you know, I like the games. And, so around 02/2003 when Pokemon Ruby came in, I I stopped I I I played that game, and I was like, well, that's it.

I was in high school, and it was like, I just, you know, focusing on more things, trying to, you know, get into college.

You know, you kinda focus on other stuff, then. So, you know, it was a good run there of, you know, three or four years of of being pretty deeply heavy into it.

And, you know, I had the whole binder thing full of all these cards, and the, you know, the Game Boy games. And then fell out of it. And then, you know, I just kinda moved on with my life, and then 2016 came.

And, you know, I think around then, I started getting into I was like, oh, what you know? That is still like it's like, oh, well, they they never stopped. You know? There was a sets every year and video games, you know, every few years.

Like, they just it just never actually stopped, you know, when I stopped. So just looked into that, asked my parents actually, I asked my parents. I was like, do you guys still have my old cards? And I think at the time, they said no.

Like, they they were gone. But then, like, a few months later, like, like, early twenty seventeen, they're like, oh, they actually found it. So that was kind of the starting point for the business because then I got those cards.

I knew you know, I'd gotten deep into it and, like, went to e four, which is like a a a forum that's, like, deep into, Pokemon and stuff and and figuring out all the stuff that I had I had missed and learned about grading.

So graded all those cards, you know, probably made a few hundred dollars, you know, off of those, you know, grading them and selling them. And then, kinda used that money to start buying and selling collections.

And in 2017, that's when I started the eBay. It was in July of twenty seventeen and, you know, just just just went from there. What were you what were you doing before you kinda got back and got your binder graded and sold it?

What were you doing professionally before that? And, like, what was, like, the crossroads where you had to make the decision of stopping what you were doing and going all in on the business that you were building?

Yeah. The, so I was an accountant, during that. My my wife actually is accountant too. But But I was you know, it was just kind of a a job. I was good with numbers. I had, you know, a finance degree.

So it was, you know, it was kinda like the obvious safe choice, just into that. But, you know, we started you know, we were flipping cards, like buying collections locally off Craigslist or OfferUp or LetGo.

Not really much Facebook marketplace, at the time. But, you know, it it's interesting. Like, different cities have different, like, go to places. Like, some places, like, there's nothing on Craigslist. Some place, there were ton.

You know, just it was just kinda depending on on the area, but it was a lot of just local fines and, a few things on eBay and and selling in person and a lot of meeting people and, a lot of time spent with that.

And then moved into a few years later in 2019, started a YouTube channel, like, talking about investing or or buying and selling Pokemon cards. Just a lot of it was like, here's what I sold on eBay today.

And it was just like, here's the stuff, and here's the price it sold for. And, about a year into that, got a lot of traction. I kinda started YouTube at the right time. It was 2019, and I, you know, got the following.

But then 2020 happened, and then just a rush of people came into, like, search for YouTube comments or YouTube, content, you know, on Pokemon and Pokemon investing. You know, I so, you know, I did that.

And then with that following, it's like, well, now I can get into you know, built this business over a few years, built the the the the trust. You know? It's like, well, we could just just start selling, like, unwed packs.

We sold vintage, unwed packs. There's a lot of stuff. You know, packs can be weighed. So people would, like, try to buy packs to get a chance at a hollow, and then it'd be light packs.

So we sold that. And then once we built that, we got into middleman grading. So people would send us their raw cards, and then we would get them graded a PSA and then, ship it back to people.

So that was about when I I was still an accountant at that time. That was 2020. But now, like, October, November '20 '20, we were doing tens of thousands of cards a month, and it was just ridiculous.

Like, why why am I still doing forty hours a week? This accounting job is this is taking just, you know, hundred hour week.

So what what did we do in here? So we, so I quit my job there, and it was also the height of COVID. So it was also a very weird time. We also had a baby in June 2020. So it was just a very you know, that was booming.

That hit. It was just it was just a whole lot of stuff happening, at once. But yeah. So it kinda became a full time middleman. And then sorry. This is kind of, like, a a long winded answer that.

But, February and March of twenty twenty one, PSA shut down. I can't remember what it which one. I think it was, like, March of twenty twenty one. PSA shut down, so then we just then all of a sudden, there was no job.

You know? There's there's no grading. There's no middleman. So yeah. So I was basically kind of, like, a stay at home dad for six months, because then I just I didn't have really anything to do.

But to just to wait on these submissions to come back to ship back to people, from PSA because it took years for PSA to get those cards back.

And I started consignment in, September of twenty twenty one, and that's what we're, me and my wife. And we have three other full time employees, and we're, selling on eBay, people's cards people's trading cards.

So, I love the detail and, all the storytelling. You said something in that about trust, and I I I find it very interesting the fact that it was like, you started a YouTube channel, and you built this audience, and you built this trust.

How important was the content and the education, and you just showing your face and showing up consistently?

How important was the content behind what you were doing early to kind of the keeping the momentum rolling even during a time when PSA had shut down and you were, you know, playing the role of stay at home dad, but also have this this aspiration and this goal that this business was still going to continue?

Like, looking back, how important was those early days of just getting on YouTube and kinda putting a face, behind kind of the brand? I think I think it was, like, basically everything, honestly.

And that's the biggest thing with like, it took probably, I mean, 2017 to I mean, '20 I mean, it took, well, 2016. Took probably, like, four years to gain people's trust to, like, you know, have them trust us with on way path.

Let us trust them, send them their raw cards, and then get them graded. And now, I mean, people send us, you know, millions of dollars, you know, of their stuff to people they've never met before, right, in the mail.

It's like, here you go. You know, so it's just a level of and I I've I've told people this before.

It's like, nine out of 10 people are trustworthy. Like, not like, it's just you know, like, if you send it to nine out of 10 people, they would probably do the same thing.

It's like not I think there's a lot of like, people see a lot of scammers and people see you know, those are the people that get the headlines. And the same with, like, scaling business.

Like, there are a lot of I know a lot of people who are doing a lot of big numbers in this industry, but they just kinda refuse to hire employees because they just are afraid that, what if they steal my stuff?

Or what if they, you know, what if I can't try it's like, well, you know, like, nine and ten people are you know, it's it's a it's a fallacy that people kind of, you know, will hang them up on scaling their business, I think.

And maybe that's because I come from the corporate world of accounting to where, like, a ton of people had access to, you know, accounts with hundreds of millions of dollars in them, you know, and it just it doesn't you know, it it it's it's what happens, you know, especially as a business group.

People are gonna have, you know, a lot of, you know, access to it, and you just have to you just have to go through that.

But the biggest thing with, like, growing, like, especially a business like this is that it takes if nine out of 10 people are trustworthy, like, you've got to separate to where you've gotta convince people that you are that that source.

Because even though most people are, like, you have to put yourself out there and build, you know, years of of of that track record for people to actually believe it.

You know? So, yeah, it was it's it's definitely the biggest the biggest thing, especially in what we're doing is that we don't have our own inventory.

It's not like I'm buying our own stuff and then selling it. Like, we have other people's stuff. There's, like, a different level of trust, in our possession, and then we sell it on their behalf. So, yeah, it's definitely everything.

Did you did you know in those early days of making YouTube videos, you were were you was your intention to do it to set the stage, to build trust, to so people would send you, you know, thousands of dollars worth of cards because they trusted you, or did you do it because you just were super passionate about Pokemon and what you're doing or a combination of both of those?

No. It was honestly just I just kinda created the content. I I I didn't see. I was like, there were some guys in the YouTube sphere in that time, who were, there was, like, Magic the Gathering.

There's, like, Rudy and Magic, you you know, Alpha Investments. He did mostly Magic. And there was it was just very there wasn't much content on it, and I was like, even though I don't you know, I'm not I honestly don't like talking.

I'm very I'm a very you know, I don't really like talking. If if if I'm in, like, a a social situation, I'm kinda the one not, talking much.

So I didn't really like going in front of the camera or doing any of that, but I was like, well, they're just there has to be someone talking about this because it was, like, ridiculous, like, how much potential was out there to buy and sell this stuff, you know, grade this stuff, you know, sealed I was big in a sealed boxes back then.

Just the the difference in the value of what was inside the box versus what was the box cost, just how much potential there was to, like, buy collections, sell off x, y, and z of it, and you just basically keep what you wanted for free.

And, also, it's basically like, hey, guys. You could if if you wanna get into this, like, you can do all this for free.

Like, you just basically have to put in the time and work, and you have a collection for free. You know? You don't have to because there were some definitely some still big collectors back then.

You know? Collectors were you know, their stuff was worth a million dollars. Now their stuff's probably worth, you know, $10,000,000. But, you know, but it was like a lot of people.

I I feel like we're kinda daunting. It was like, oh, that's a lot of money. It's like, well, you could just you could literally just do this for free. It just takes it just takes a lot of time.

But if you're passionate about it, you know, who cares? You know? I mean, what's you know, just, just do it. So that that's that's why I did it. It wasn't anything to be like, oh, let me grow, you know, to do x, y, and z.

It was basically just put out the stuff that I wanted to see. No no doubt. Let's talk just on the consignment side. Let's spend a second and talk about just your use of eBay just in terms of as a marketplace.

You've sold I I it's I'm looking at your page right now. You have a 80,000 items, 28,000 followers. You've been spending a lot of time selling Pokemon cards through eBay.

Talk a little bit about just that the, you know, you the the your use of the platform, how you're using it, and just, like, you know, eBay in terms of the partnership with CNG Emporium.

Yeah. I mean, we, you know, really most of that a hundred and whatever you said, hundred and eighty, hundred and '80 thousand, that car is probably within the last, you know, few years.

So but, yeah, we just, you know, our what we really like here is, upgraded cards, and that's, you know, really all we do.

Yeah. There's there's been opportunities to where it's like, oh, let's do raw card. You know, like, raw cards, sealed car a sealed product, sports cards.

If you do have, like, a a couple sports cards, that's just because people, like, accidentally submitted it. You know? I'm probably actually gonna be removing those soon just to, like, send them back to say, yeah.

We just don't do this anymore. But, you know, those are sealed, ungraded, and sports are, like, each $3,000,000,000 industries on in and of themselves.

But we just feel like we just if you really focus on the stuff that you like, number one, it makes, you know, the day just go by easier.

But number two, you can just become way more efficient in, you know, listing, selling, shipping, you know, the item, you know, the operations operations part of it.

Because I think too many people, you know, they get into it and they're like, oh, I'm just gonna sell everything.

I just it doesn't matter. If I can make if I can make a dollar on it, I'll sell it. You know? And they're selling huge bought premium collection boxes.

They're selling dice and coins, you know, Pokemon coins and sleeves and credit cards and boxes, and that it just you know, it becomes a it becomes a huge operation just trying to think about how the difference is to list those.

We'll see the versus the title of those.

The versus the categories you gotta put for each of the item description, how to ship those. So scaling wise, I think it's you know, that's that's really why, you know, our eBay, you know, looks looks the way it is.

Well, talk take us take the listeners into, like, your typical day. Like, you wake up, you're getting going, like, stepping into your kind of daily workflow.

What what does it look like? Well, at this point, you know, a lot of my, time is spent just kind of reviewing stuff and and customer, you know, facing relations.

You know, I I run the the Instagram. Obviously, we have a a business email, you know, that people talk to people. It's like, oh, I have this collection.

I have these cards. You know? Was this stuff, you know, paid for? Because a lot of times, you know, it's like, even though an item sells for an x amount on eBay, it's like, was it actually paid for?

You know? And talk about, you know, the market in the general. A lot of it's like reviewing, you know, if our person puts the actual, you know, listings up, you know, making sure price are correct and and the stuff is correct there.

You know, people when we do our operations of, you you know, scanning and pulling and and shipping the items, you know, I'll, I'll be there to actually, you know, make sure they actually, you know, are are correct, and they're mostly correct.

But a lot of it is just kind of you know, the biggest thing is that when you start out, you're kind of just in the operation of you're doing kinda everything.

And, you know, I I would guess the goal is of of running a business like this is kinda get to a point where it just kinda can run itself.

And at this point, like I said, I'm, you know, reviewing the listings, reviewing answering questions that that anybody has.

And, you know, the biggest thing I do that I haven't taken off plate, though, is that I will do the intake inventory.

Like, all the boxes that come in, like, I open it. It's not like a trust issue of, like, I don't trust other people that open it, but that's just kinda, like, enjoyable to me. It's like it's like it's like Christmas almost.

You know? It's like, here's a box that I have no clue what's inside. You know, like, you you have it could be a $50,000 card or a bunch of $5 cards. You have no clue what's actually inside.

So it's like, oh, but I was like, oh, here's a gold gold stars or first edition tens or, you know, here's a whole lot of modern, you know, all tarts or whatever it is. So that's kind of a a fun part for me.

So that that's that's most of my beginning of the week, maybe, like, Monday and Tuesday, because I'm opening everything, inventorying it, putting the consignor's names and all their information and, putting their cards.

You know? So nobody's obviously mixed up since we have thousands of cards. But that's because I just really enjoy it, and the rest of it is just kind of reviewing and and making sure everything runs smoothly.

I I think I saw a video that you posted maybe, like, three months ago, and you were talking about hiring or looking for someone to hire.

You kinda move from this doing everything to offloading tasks to, new employees and kinda giving up some of what you've done before as you scale.

Maybe I can that, like, talk about how you're able to manage that, offloading of tasks from it being something you've primarily done to kind of working with someone else and making sure they're up to speed with how you having the new people help kinda scale the operation.

Yeah. I mean, a lot of it is just kind of, you know, showing them what you do and just, you know, just accepting if there is. Because, you know, I I make mistakes, you know, obviously, you know, all the time. Everybody does.

You know, I think I think a lot of it is, you know, here's what it is. Here's kinda like, here's what we're doing. Here's why you're doing it because, you know, it here's the finished product, and we have to go through this.

A lot of a lot of the operation is, like, controls because it's like, you know, one person, you know, might, you know, pull the cards, but then the next person reviews the cards and then they ship the cards.

Like, there has to be kind of some level of separation so that there's kind of a review process there between one person sees it, and there's another eye set of eyeballs that see it.

And that's just kinda from, you know, the corporate world.

You know, I could've but, like, accounting, like, you could you could get through, you know, p and l or balance sheet from, you know, the the accountants that reviews the, you know, the a AP people to the senior accountant to the assistant controller controller.

It could get all the way up to the, you know, the the CFO and they're like, oh, this I think this should be looked at and this and then it goes you know, it got through, like, six eyes, and it still was not, you know, correct.

So, you know, the corporate world, even even with that many, you know, stuff happens. So, you know, in our big thing about us is that, you know, mistakes are gonna happen, but we have controls in place and, you know, just just move on.

And we, I think that's a really good mindset to have because I hate I've I've been in I've been in some places early on where it's like the the managers are, you know, miss make a mistake, and it's like a big a big scolding.

And it's like, what? You know? It's like, I don't really wanna work in a place like that, especially at, like, volume and scale. So, yeah, that's that's kind of the biggest thing with my style of of of here.

I think one of the things I've observed in just in talking with you that I find interesting in terms of you as a a Pokemon seller is that you're very focused on the graded card aspect of it. You're not taking on raw or sealed product.

What also too in you telling your story, it it seemed to me that you that's where you've zeroed in on. That's where there's opportunity and there's space to build a business is with graded Pokemon.

And, obviously, you know, I'm looking at the PSA data that's scaled and, you know, PSA is not only putting out their collector magazine, to sports card collectors, they've created a new one for TCG collectors, that goes out monthly.

So it's like the demand is their, you know, TCG Pokemon collectors want to buy graded cards.

They wanna sell graded cards. Maybe talk about just, like, your your relationship with PSA graded cards and why that became kinda the central point of ZNG Emporium.

Yeah. Well, I I think it's more of a well, you know, I got on this, like, grading my collection and, you know, actually grade.

It was kind of the start of it. Right? The biggest thing with it, though, is, like, a a few things with the business.

One is, like, it's very like, a slab is a slab. Now it might be a very expensive slab, which means you gotta box it up differently compared to, like, a a cheap slab, but, you know, it's it's kinda the same dimensions.

It's it's very easy to scale with that that kind of, way. It's easy to scan the same way. So, like, operationally, it's it's a nice thing to have.

You know, we tried a couple times to do sealed product, and it was like, you know, you have product that are huge, small, and dense, and a lot you know, it's it's harder to you know, you gotta photograph it versus just on a scanner bed.

You know, you do multiple slabs on time on a scanner bed. It's like one at a time. It's just, scalability wise, it just made sense. And at the same time, it's just like, here it is.

Like, it's a PSA seven. It's a PSA seven. Right? It's PSA nine. It's a nine. Now granted, there are weak nines. There are strong nines. There are stuff that's overgraded, undergraded, whatever.

But selling a sealed product, unless you got it straight from distribution, there's always gonna be, like, the thought of authenticity. You know? Whereas graded slabs, anything over two fifty goes to email authentication.

Now I think it does for raw too, but it's like, it goes there and then it's done versus sealed. It's just kinda there, and hopefully, they don't rip open the products and they're mad.

They didn't get any hits, and then they open an item not, you know so more of a headache with seal that's don't really wanna go into that as well as, bulkiness.

And then raw cards, once again, what's near mint, what's lightly played to you, to me, what's a mint it's it's a much different thing as well as, you know, I got I got burned one time years ago.

Bought a whole collection. It was a really nice collection.

It is, and it got them graded and then, like, I don't know. I don't know. Half of the cards came back. They couldn't grade them because they were inked. And I didn't even know. I didn't see I I couldn't even tell.

You know? I guess if you put it under a black light, every single card, and you look at seeing that someone put some, blue ink on the card. So that was just a total loss on that. So I don't wanna be you know, it's nice to have it.

It's like, is this am I have to look at every single card under a light and take however much time it is to not only tell say what a near mint card is, like but also, like, is this authentic?

Is this not inked? Is there you know, whatever. So it's just much easier to sell slab, but, also, you know, that's kinda what I started in. And, you know, that's kinda what what interests me. The the that makes a makes a ton of sense.

I know I look at the listings and see raw cards sometimes, and it's like, you know, near mint or better. And Yeah. The it's it there's some vagueness around that. So your approach, resonates with me.

I wanna maybe dig into just some of what is on the store, what is been sold through the store, any, like, over the last, you know, I don't know, six to twelve months, or even currently, any cards that, are up for sale or have used you have sold.

Kinda those moments of you opening up the box and being like, oh, wow.

Like, it gives you it makes you feel something. Are there any particular cards that stand out in your mind? Yeah. I mean, a lot of like I said, I grew up with the the the WOTC.

So any, like, first edition, hollow tens, like, even if it's kinda, like, the lower end the the lower end stuff, you know, it doesn't have to be worth $1,020,000 dollars. Just kinda brings back, you know, nostalgia of that.

You know, I know there's one package that just came. We just sold I think it was last week. It was PSA three first edition base charger. I think it went for, like, $404,600 dollars. It's a PSA three.

I think it was a PSA three. But, you know, the guy reached out and he said he showed his card on Reddit, and they're like, oh, you should get that, graded and then sold with, you know, z and g help, you know, suffer this.

And it's then he was just it's one of those stories of, like, he just found it, like like I did.

You know, just, found his, you know, childhood binder, and there was a precision based charger on there and a grade of three, which is, you know, the beat up copy, but it still went for, you know, nearly $5,000.

And, you know, you have to ship this package, and then for whatever reason, FedEx shipped it back.

I don't know why they ship it to I I don't know. FedEx is sometimes weird, but then they shipped it back. So it was like, oh, there's a loss because it's supposed to be there.

And I was like, I I don't have it. Let's check tracking. And it was, like, sent back to him, but then it came back to us. But it was just kind of, you know, those stories of people still finding in 2025, you know, their stuff.

It just kinda reminds you that, like, that's probably just never going to end. You know? Like, it could be 2050, and somebody's gonna find their old base set or Team Rocket, Jungle Fossil, whatever, binder of stuff and you know?

Yeah. It's just pretty pretty cool. You you you mentioned the, Reddit post and someone saying, you know, you should, you know, send it to ZNG.

How how important is are those, like, existing customers as a referral channel for you? And how how do you like, is that something that just happens, or do you think about, like, operationalizing it at all?

Like, maybe talk about that for a second. No. Just a lot of our stuff is word-of-mouth. You know, we don't have a fancy website at all. It's just something I made, honestly.

It's pretty much just a landing page. It's actually pretty unoptimized. We're looking at getting that changed to it's it's honestly shocking that we get this much stuff with how with how with how that looks.

But, yes, it's basically all word-of-mouth and people, you know, once a consignor actually uses us, I mean, like, it seem that's a very it's a very sticky service.

Like, people use it once and they're like, oh, well, that was easy. Well, I'll just, you know, do that or, refer somebody else.

So a big thing of us is just eBay. Honestly, people see a whole lot of listings. Like, people look at comps of graded Pokemon, cards, and it's probably probably you'll see us on there.

Like, honestly, like, you if if there's a graded, you know, Pokemon card, at auction, it like, the comps, the sold, it's we're probably on there.

So that's, you know, kind of a a great selling tool. Obviously, I think I've seen that we, in the past thirty days, have, like, a hundred million, impressions.

So, you know, there's just a whole lot of people that are just seeing it's that's not click into, but it's just actually just seeing it and seeing our name.

And then we have Instagram too, which, you know, I'll just, like, report sales that happened. You know? This was paid. These cards are going, you know, seeing an increase of of price or whatnot.

And, yeah, that's, I don't know, usually two, three, plus million views a month on that, and then we'll get, you know, people who will see that and then be like, oh, well, I have that card, or I know somebody else that card, or I have a collection, you know, to tell me about it.

So, it's not it's not like not like paying for ad for ads or, like, trying to get sponsor people.

You know, I have occasionally done that on Instagram before, just to test it out. But, yeah, a lot of it is just kinda the word-of-mouth. Is is, we we talked about the category just exploding.

I'm sure it like, there's a lot of change, probably rapid change month over month. Are there like, what sort of trends that are happening in the Pokemon space, whether it's from the buying or selling side, product side, anything?

Like, what is catching your attention right now, and what is something maybe you're tracking?

You know, a lot of it is just kinda like seeing where and it's like, obviously, there's an increase of flow of capital into the space overall, but it's it is interesting seeing where stuff kind of clumps into it once and then dissipates and goes into something else.

You know? You know, three or four months ago, I would have said, like, there's just a ton of money in, like, illustration rears of modern.

You know? It's like stuff's going from a hundred dollars a card to $300 a card, and all these, you know, all these things are just kind of ballooning.

And if he wants for that, it was like all tarts, like modern stuff, modern all tarts from Sword and Shield that were $500 and now $1,500, you know, and it's, you know, moving there.

Now it's vintage. You know? People have moved from there to you know?

It seems like the the modern stuff is kinda keeping stable, but, like, kind of the growth right now is kind of those grail cards that, you know, we're selling for 3,000, 6 thousand, and 12,000 now and this exploding, in price of that vintage.

So right now, it's definitely I'm seeing, like, the high end vintage, kind of explode, which makes sense because a lot of these modern cards, it's like, oh, these you know, it's a pop of 15,000, you know, modern card.

That's $3,000. And then you have a pop, I don't know, seventy first edition hollow card that's, you know, 5,000.

Like, that doesn't make sense. Right? There's this it just does so, like, that card going from 6 to 16,000 is is, of course, that's ridiculous.

But at the same time, if you're just, like, if you're just in a bubble and if you're not thinking of anything else, you know, you're not thinking about food or shelter, you're just thinking about you're just in this collectible space, if the modern card is that much pop times that the market cap, you know, if you're talking about just price times the amount of them out there times that, you know, there was there had to be either modern had to crash because it's just a ridiculous amount of money in that, or vintage had to, you know, go up.

And right now, just with the demand and the the actual environment we in, we're in, vintage has definitely taken that that lead on that. I love it. I love looking at the data and saying, you know what? This doesn't quite look right.

And when you look over in the other side there, it screams opportunity. So I I love, hearing about that. Maybe kinda as we're rounding the corner on this conversation, what what keeps you curious and motivated to keep growing z and g?

You know, at this point, you know, I'm in my late thirties. So, really, I'm just still exploring how to, you know, run a business, how to scale. You know?

It's not like I'm 65, and I've seen it all. And, like, I'm I'm still just kind of exploring how a business runs, how to, you know, have employees, have a have a work life balance when you're when you're running your own company.

Right? Because it's like you get Instagram messages asking about it all the time. You get emails all the time. You know, it's not like it's just like you clock in and clock out.

It's a much different, you know, environment, as well as having, you know, a a team here to work on, you know, their schedules and, you know, their, you know, of course, they have their own lives.

You know? They have their own kids or vacations or stuff that comes up and and and and and working with with that.

So, it's just a whole it's it's still just learning process, you know, learning how to do this. And, you know, I I think there's still a whole lot to learn.

So, just just just keep learning as a whole of how how how businesses run. That's that that's kind of the that's kind of the why, you know, keep growing and and see where that goes.

The there's a lot of individuals out, there listening who, are selling cars on the side, maybe going to shows, selling on eBay, having success, very passionate and motivated about what they're doing, but also have that, you know, full time job, and they're trying to balance the two, kind of a world you've lived in in the past.

What advice maybe would you give to any listeners who are kind of thinking about turning their card business into their full time business?

Yeah. The biggest thing with that is that, you know, there are a lot of people passion about cards.

Right? I mean, they're even the sports cards, TCG, whatever it is. I mean and passion only goes so far. You know, there are a lot of people passionate about going to gym in January. Right? And then most faith.

It doesn't you know? Passion doesn't really it it'll it can lead you to it, but it's just a lot of discipline and wanting. If you're going to just like, I'm just talking about just a business, you know, a collector or whatever.

Like, your your point has to be making a profit. Right? I mean, that's just what a bit you know, you're you're not doing it to to lose money and go bankrupt and then be homeless.

You know? That's that's the point. The point isn't to collect cards. The point is to make money. If you don't wanna just collect cards, you're collect you're not you don't wanna start a business.

So, you know, if your passion is cards, you you know, the discipline side of it and actually the business side of it, you have to wanna just be a a business person. You know? You know, like like I said, with, like, the gym example.

Like, the people who actually stay there and people who get, you know, you know, ripped or skinny, what whatever kind of, you know, motivation you have there or the disciplined people.

Right? The people who wake up and probably don't wanna be there.

You know? That's that's that's a lot of it. You know? A lot of this is, you know, yeah, you open a box and it's cool cards or maybe you're you're selling sealed or or you're flipping stuff and you're buying it.

But at the end of the day, most of the operations is, you know, scanning cards, customer service, you know, shipping cards, post office, you know, tape, bubble wrap, labels.

Right? I mean, it's it's very, you know, I don't wanna say, like, mundane, but it it's just it's just a it's just a business.

You know? So I I think I think the biggest thing is that passion is is great, but you also have to have that disciplined business long term mindset if you really want this to to actually grow into something.

You know? Amazing conversation. Z and g Emporium. This was James. We'll put the link to the Instagram, to the eBay store so you can check out the awesome graded Pokemon cards that are selling through that marketplace.

James, this was a ton of fun. Appreciate it. Looking forward to maybe doing this again down the road. Thank you. And, yeah, thanks for, thanks for having me.