What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to stacking slabs, your hobby content alternative flagship episode coming at you. Feeling very excited and motivated to talk about today's topic, and it is a stacking slab ism, if you will, and that's about shrinking the sea, focusing your collection on what matters most. And I felt like this was such a compelling topic that I have been thinking about and have been implementing in my own collecting that we can revisit it and share it. This is going to be a fun episode.

Appreciate all of you for showing your support for stacking slabs, hitting the follow button, telling a damn friend, signing up for the Patreon group. It feels motivating. I'm feeling very energized going into 2026. The flagship episode can't stop, won't stop, and it's episodes like this that gets me really fired up and motivated to continue to show up and show out for you, the collector here in a ever changing sports card hobby. Wanna first shout out Inferno Red Technology for sponsoring the flagship episode of Stacking Slabs.

Inferno Red Technology is the in engineering team behind some of the biggest names in sports and collectibles, like DC Sports 87, Commsea Collectors, Upper Deck, and eBay from AI powered solutions for startups to full stack platforms for industry leaders. Their team can tackle your toughest technology challenge. They build awesome software for the hobby, for leagues, and fans, and for everyone in between. See what they can build for you at infernored.com. The idea is simple.

Our hobby is a vast ocean of sports cards with endless options releases players parallels crashing over us. It is easy to feel like you're drowning in this sea of stuff. So how do we shrink it down to a manageable pool that truly matters to you, the collector? That's what we wanna accomplish today. That is our mission.

I'm going to share some personal stories of my own collecting journey from stepping, back into and evaluating wrestling cards to refining my football collection, and then dive into broader analysis on how any collector can navigate the overwhelming volume by focusing on attributes that resonate most with you. There is a lot of meat on this bone. We are going to talk a lot about lessons. You'll hear thoughts on shifts in card manufacturers. We'll zoom into the hobby at large, introspection, psychology, the things we typically bring to you in the flagship.

The goal is to help rank what matters to you so you can use it as your north star moving forward. Message is simple upfront. You don't need to chase it all. In fact, narrowing your focus can unlock more joy and even increase value you get from the hobby. When you carve your lane, your little corner of the hobby that you care about most, it's like a ton of weight off your shoulders.

You stop feeling like you need every hot card or shiny release, and you essentially shrink the hobby down to a manageable and meaningful scope. That's what shrinking the sea is all about, taking the endless ocean of cards, boiling it down to the subset that speaks to you and works. And it's important, it doesn't happen overnight. It's really hard to get there. It's challenging.

There's a lot of distraction. But hopefully, at the end of this, you'll have some sort of road map that has worked for me. Let's dive into it. I wanna start first with kinda personal reflections, and maybe before we get theoretical, I share how my collecting habits have evolved. I, maybe more than most, analyze my behavior.

I'm very critical of my behavior. I'm constantly challenging myself to make sure I'm building the collection that makes me happy. And my hope is that by hearing these stories, you might recognize similar crossroads in your journey. This past year especially taught me the power of slowing down, narrowing focus, and collecting with intention. The change for me wasn't about suddenly buying bigger or more expensive cards nor was it driven chasing some status symbol.

Instead, came from slowing down buying fewer cards and spending more time with the ones that stayed essentially pressed pause on a few things, asked myself some hard questions, and realigned my collection to what truly matters to me. So let's talk about the two areas in particular where this focus has come in, and that's with wrestling cards. And, might as well, if you didn't get a chance to check it out, book to last, new wrestling card podcast on stacking slabs. Adam and Ryan did a great job episode one. That is out.

Episode two will be coming this week, so make sure you check that out. I have shared, that I'm a lifelong wrestling fan. I have always worn my wrestling fandom on my sleeve even in the professional setting. It's just a part of who I am. And so I was buying cards of my favorite wrestlers chasing parallels just because I love the wrestling card market, and it's it's exciting.

It's different. But somewhere along the way, I hit this point where I needed to take a break from wrestling cards. I think a signal for me was there was this shift in the manufacturer for wrestling cards that shook things up. You had from a long stretch, Topps was the go to producer for WWE cards releasing a ton of prod products. '22, Panini took over, the WWE license and started pushing out shiny new cards, and they, you know, were supposed to have the license, for maybe a lot longer than they did.

And the hype when Panini first took WWE Prism set was unreal. I'll never forget it. I'll never forget the prices. And all of a sudden, everyone seemed to be a wrestling card fan. Then out of nowhere, like, throughout all these cycles, WWE terminated their Panini license, and there was all this legal discourse, and fanatic fanatics and tops took it over in 2025.

And in the span of a couple years, the wrestling card world went from being a long tops era to a flashy per knee Panini interlude back to tops again, and that felt like a lot. And as a collector, I had a choice. I could ride the that roller coaster, chase every new release from Panini, adapt to the new designs, parallel rainbow, maybe work, worry about something maybe worry about what happens when tops come back or just take a step back. And I chose to take a step back, and I essentially put wrestling card pursuit on pause during the manufacturer shuffle, and that wasn't easy. There was many a times where I had FOMO.

But I remembered something very, very crucial. Not everything that's new and hyped up aligns with what I actually want. And by taking a hiatus and my hiatus wasn't from, like, consuming wrestling card content or learning about it, but it was actually, like, building out my collection. I took a break. I learned valuable lessons and patience.

And one, I saw that many of the, initially expensive hyped up cards maybe didn't hold their price or now new areas of pockets cards were elevating in. It really if I really wanted a key card of a wrestler, I could likely snag it later at a calmer price when the frenzy died down. And stepping away helped me clarify I'm what I missed and what I didn't. And interestingly enough, I found I didn't really miss chasing everything that was brand new of the wrestlers that I really liked. And what I did miss were specific cards, particular sets, designs that I've always loved, and that break nudged me into moving beyond player collecting in a blind sense.

And I'll unpack it pack it. I used to identify strictly as a player collector for certain wrestlers. I was collecting Roman Reigns, and Roman Reigns is, you know, still I'm still a huge fan of him. But I made decisions in buying his cards early that at one point, I decided, you know what? Maybe I can sell these and move into some football cards.

And so my Roman Reigns collection, which was very, very vast, soon certainly soon became very, very limited. But trying to keep up with every card of even one wrestler became this endless draining game for me. And I understand so many collectors like this. And it just but it just wasn't for me, especially when that wrestler appears in dozens of sets and countless parallels. I realized I was buying some of the cards just because.

And do you ever have that feeling you get the card and it comes to you and you're not even excited because you're just buying it just because? That started to happen a lot. And during my time away from new wrestling releases, I reflected on why I collected wrestling cards in the first place. I love wrestling because of the nostalgia, the personalities, the childhood memories, the matches, the characters that resonated with me. When I looked at my wrestling PC, the cards that gave me the most joy weren't necessarily the newest or rarest.

They were the ones with the most meaning. It could be a old gold refractor. It could be a card that reminded me of being a kid. That is what I learned that I connected with with wrestling cards. By doing that, I began to shrink the wrestling c significantly.

I became okay with owning far fewer wrestling cards because each one I do own hits harder in terms of personal significance. And I learned to say no to a majority of cards so that few yeses started to count. Most collections you admire or that I've seen that I admire and talk with the collectors, I learned that they've said no a lot. So I've been in the business of saying no to find and to surface the things that I really like. And it it I found that really it became really powerful.

And adopting things like patience and selectivity started to enhance my enjoyment. And it's not easy. And I don't want this episode to make it sound like it's easy because it's not. It literally took me a year of reflecting on this to be able to deliver it in content form, and that's what we're doing today. But I experienced firsthand that if you resist that short form FOMO and only go after what truly matters to you, you begin to feel a huge relief, or at least that's what it was for me.

So taking a break during this manufacturer chaos helped me identify what I value most. In a weird way, stepping back brought me closer to the hobby because I returned with a clear sense of what I love about wrestling cards. And I think that is really important. You pair this with my refinement in 2025 about football cards. I've said it till I'm blue in the face about finding my lane, deciding what I really want, building a collection that means a lot.

Type matters to me. Understanding the type and understanding the rarity and scarcity and understanding the players in my team and sets. And that's where my desire to chase my Colts Prism PC came in. Now the the Prism run might not be or might not host the golden era, the golden years of the Colts. But to me, I want to collect them because I love the cards.

I love the finites. I love the golds. I love the gold vinyl. And the type became the priority and became the most important part of collecting. When I get to my case and I thumb through it, I love the consistency.

I love the look and the feel. I love understanding the gaps. I love seeing the opportunities. And what I was doing before that was just buying cards that were popping up that I just saw because they were a player that I liked or it was a set that I might like. But by slowing down and refining my football PC, my relationship with collecting changed.

It it became calmer and more confident. I stepped stopped needing to justify my collection to anyone else's stand standards. Instead, I gave myself permission to collect what matters most to me. If a card hits my personal criteria, then that's justification, and that is important. So through wrestling and football, I learned to shrink the collecting seat by being honest with what I love most, narrowing the lanes even around a specific sport or genre.

I began to practice patience and restraint and moved away from collecting for completion or hype, and the result has been a collection that feels cohesive, manageable, and truly minded. Every new pickup now feels like I'm adding a piece of the puzzle to a bigger picture, and that is what's important. And psychologically, that provides a sense of momentum and contentment that's really hard to overstate. Now I've kind of shared my own journey. I wanna zoom out.

How can you apply these ideas? What can all of us in the hobby do to avoid drowning in options instead of navigating towards what matters most. It's not easy, but let's move to a more broader hobby analysis of some practical strategies. I think strategies to shrink the sea is something I'm constantly looking for. And when we look at the wider landscape, it's no secret that today's card market is certainly overwhelming.

There's new drops, new posts, new videos, new monster hits. Everywhere you turn, we have endless options on any different, different day. And to say it's overstimulating would be an understatement. But by shrinking the c, essentially, by focusing, we begin to refine. And there are a few components here.

Introspective introspection, knowing yourself and what you love, understanding psychology of collecting so you don't fall for every impulse or trend, and then creating a framework or system to help guide your buying decisions. Within that framework, a big piece will be identifying and ranking card attributes that matter the most to you personally. I think going through this, we first need to acknowledge that this, psychological pull that makes us want to chase everything. There's definitely a why behind the feeling of needing the next card, the next box, the next mail day. Part of that is FOMO.

If everyone on your feed is sharing or opening up the latest product project products, it makes us wanna do it. There's this dopamine hit that enters our brain when we see buy it now and it's a card that we think we like, and impulse buying is part of that. There are long term ramifications that aren't so great, like realizing you spent a lot on cards that you don't even care about. Another is understanding the psychology is is just the the first step. I think recognizing the chasing everything is a trap.

If you try to collect like a, completionist without filtering, you set yourself up for burnout and likely regret. Because you're letting go of other factors, the market, other collector's choices, manufacturer hype. These things dictate your collection rather than your own passion. I can speak from experience. When I was less focused, I ended up with plenty of why did I buy these cards?

Items that were maybe attractive to me at that moment, but then ended up being cards that I didn't care about. And I think collecting with intention is the remedy. It means you be proactive in what you pursue, not reactive to every shiny object. That going having that realization is one of the most profound things we can get to as collectors. And another psychological aspect is comparison.

And, you know, comparison is the thief of joy and understanding that this there's no leaderboard in the hobby and we don't need to compare ourselves with others, especially people who collect similar stuff to us. It's important to pause and question our own motivations. And if we're able to do that, we can begin to shrink the sea. When we are introspective, we can identify what we love most. And and it's important to get practical around this.

Like, do you actually figure out what attributes or aspects of cards matter to you? This is where some of that introspective and maybe a bit of homework might come into play. I think a great exercise is to study your own collection. Take a look at all the cards that you have in your collection. What do they have in common?

Is there a pat pattern? Maybe eight of the 10 of your favorite cards are from the nineties or maybe, the cards you love most are on card autos or patches or shiny stuff. Now think about the cards you've owned and ended up selling or loo losing interest. Why what did they have in com common? For example, I noticed some of the cards I let go of were bought because maybe they were valuable or, quote, unquote, historically significant.

Sometimes just being historically significant isn't enough because my tastes are different or your tastes are different. But your collecting personality begins to emerge when you do this source of review and that deep introspective. You begin to articulate what you like for yourself. You begin to understand your North Star and what attributes around collecting that you appreciate. And allowing your collection to reflect who you are today, not who you used to be, is a place that you can get to.

Now the key attributes of cards, there's a lot of them and probably will never cover them all. But I'm talking about things like era or nostalgia. What era was a car produced and what what impact does that have? Product and brand legacy. This is really important to me.

This refers to maybe the the car products themselves and the reputation they have. Tops Chrome, Panini Prism, National Treasures, Exquisite, Tops Heritage, Tops Finest, Prism Golds, Prism Gold Vinyl, Tops Chrome Gold Refractors, like getting down into the weeds and understanding not only from an aesthetics perspective, but from the product itself why it matters. Photography and imagery. I can't buy a card that has bad photography. I need great photography.

I need the cards to make me feel something. As I think about the attributes that I appreciate and I admire, photography is important. You pair this with design and aesthetics beyond the photo. The overall design, the look of the card as a key attributes, color schemes, chrome finish. Are you a sucker for shiny refractors?

Do you like colorful parallel wells? Do you like full bleed images with no borders? Do you like foil etchings? Do you like the card back design? Like, those things need to be taken into consideration when you're going through this.

Where does rarity and scare scarcity factor in? This is more of the technical attribute, but it absolutely affects the appeal of for many collectors. How many there are? What role does that play? Do you like chasing stuff that no one else has?

Does it not matter to you? Understanding that matters. Autographs, memorabilia. To me, this is a completely different lane, almost in a different territory. While it intersects with all the other stuff I collect, I I that's not for me, but I understand it's for so many people.

But by knowing that I don't value as much as the price of autos and memorabilia, it allows me to cut that out and be something that I don't even need or don't pursue. Player or team focus. How important are the players you're buying in all of this? How important are there's the team factor, understanding that. So those are the big factors.

Era, product, brand, photography, design, rarity, autograph, memorabilia, type of card, player, team. You might have a couple others. I'm sure there are. But how do you rank these yourself? What it one how like, stack rank them.

Like, go through that process. It can be a hypothetical ranking. Give yourself points. Create your own system. I think when you write down your top few attributes on a sticky note or on your phone, it allows you to begin to shrink the seed, to begin to focus, to under map that that back to what your current collection looks like and where you wanna be and where you wanna go.

Another part of the framework can be giving yourself criteria for evaluating new cards. Does this card fit my main theme or PC focus? What are my favorite attributes does this card have? Am I buying this card because I love it or because it's hot right now? If I buy this, why am I potentially what am I potentially giving up?

Will I still care about this card in a year? If you go through these questions and the card passes the test, great. Go for it. Enjoy it. Guilt free.

If it doesn't, practice the art of the past. It might feel like you're losing out, but trust me, you're making room financially and mentally for something better aligned for your collection. Don't underestimate the value of waiting. If you're unsure about a purchase, give it a day, twenty four hours. It's always important to give yourself time to breathe.

I currently am going through that right now. There are a couple cards that I really am thinking about, but those couple cards would take some sacrifice. So I'm sleeping on it. I'm trying to understand. I'm keeping going back to the process of how much cash is this gonna cost me?

What cards would I give up to do this? And is this really worth it? One point on building a tighter collection is this idea in evaluating quality over quantity. We've touched on it, but it bears repeating. We're conditioned to think more cards equal a better collection, but often the opposite is true.

And I think that's really important to dig into and understand yourself. You might need more cards because that to you is the better collection, and that's fine. At least you understand it, but ask yourself those questions. We've covered a lot of ground so far, psychological side of why we overchase the introspective introspection of finding what we love, the attributes to consider, and maybe a framework for evaluating purchases. Let's close this out by tying it together and bringing it home with just some thoughts.

And as I wrap up this episode about shrinking the sea, I want to leave you with a powerful idea. When your collection reflects who you are and what you truly care about, the hobby transforms from an overwhelming ocean into your own personal oasis. It becomes a place of enjoyment meaning rather than just stress and noise. Think back to the imagery of the sea. At times, the hobby feels like you're adrift in an endless ocean with options, waves of hype tossing you around, but you have this ability to chart your own course and sail into a calmer cove.

By focusing on what matters most to you, you effectively put blinders to the rest of the chaos. You give yourself permission to ignore 90% of what's out there, and you can savor 10% that really lights you up. Shrinking the sea is liberating. For me, it meant I no longer felt like I needed to justify my collection in terms of market trends or other people's definitions of what cool. I collect what I love and ironically, not prioritizing monetary value or popularity, I ended up with a collection that is more valuable than it was before.

I would encourage you to take the framework and tips discussed and think about them on your own. Like, I don't do this often. I don't, like, do an episode and say, go do this. And I hate homework. It sucks.

But, like, I want you begin to think about these things, especially as we're in a new year, it's only gonna get ramped up with more hype, more content, and we don't wanna be stuck in a place six months from now where we have a bunch of cars that we don't give a shit about. Trust yourself. Trust your own taste. If you've done the introspection, you'll feel confident about what you like even if it's not what's trending up. In practical terms, maybe your version of shrinking the sea is deciding you're going to specialize in one sport or one era of cards or one type of inserts across all sports.

Maybe it's focusing on your hometown teams or a couple players you love or maybe it's a product that you love. Whatever you commit to, you can always adjust over time, but focused collecting is helpful. And I would just encourage you to give it a try. You might have anxiety and might say, oh, no. Why am I doing this?

But the more you dig in, especially when you dig into the knowledge and you'll gain more information when you're focused. And to me, I found the more insight information I have found or I find with shrieking the sea, it makes me a happier collector, and it makes me enjoy the hobby more. You have permission to ignore the vast ocean and love your little corner of it. Shrinking the seed doesn't mean limiting your enjoyment. It means deepening it.

And when you focus on what truly matters, collecting becomes less about quantity and chasing and more about quality and cherishing. In the process, you build a collection that not only reflects your identity as a collector, but also brings you this lasting satisfaction. And as a bonus, you just might end up inspiring others to do the same, to turn down the noise and collect with purpose. I appreciate all of you for showing up, showing out each week, telling a damn friend, and being here giving me feedback. We're doing a ton of cool shit on the Stacking Slabs network this year.

Excited for you to be a part of it. Happy collecting. Talk to you soon.