We're back. Smashing Ben. This is gonna be a fun one. Although I say they're all gonna be fun, but this one, especially, I think it's been a long time coming. I've really enjoyed all of the conversations I've had with today's guest.

I'm joined by Chris, Cardi c Sports Cards, also building the smarter collector. We're gonna talk about a bin smash that he had that I have a ton of questions about.

But before we get into that, Chris, welcome back. How are you? Hey, Brett. I'm doing great. Thanks for having me back on. I would love to before we start, talking about cards, let's talk about the smarter collector.

We had a conversation about it, right around launch time. I would love to maybe learn based on I guess, I'm losing track of time with kids and content and everything else.

Don't even remember exactly when that was, but maybe, like, for anyone who's not familiar with the Smarter Collector, maybe brief the audience, and then I'd love to learn about how things are going, kind of what's your focus.

Sure. Yeah. So I launched the smarter collector.

It's a website really built to help other collectors shorten that learning curve. You know, that awkward learning curve, like the first two years of collecting where you really don't know what you're doing.

Every piece of content I put out on the website and on my Instagram at the smarter collector is really geared to help people work through that that awkward two year period and really get experienced collectors to think about their collecting habits a little bit differently.

So we have collecting guides that answer those tricky questions and, player profiles that explore the top 15 iconic cards a player has in their catalog, and the reasons behind them.

Not just here's the pyramid. Have at it. You need to ascribe to this pyramid, but, here are some cards to explore, and here's the reasons to explore.

We want to encourage you to, like, be introspective to figure out if those reasons check off your boxes and whether that's a card you want to explore.

So, putting a lot of time into just building that out and working on a couple projects that, I'm really excited about, but can't really share publicly yet. That's awesome.

I I don't wanna, like, maybe sidetrack us too far and open up this can of worms, but you've mentioned something, and I would love to get your perspective on it where I think everybody who's been back into cards or just getting back into cards now goes through that period where you we reflect and look back on what we were doing right when we came back.

I believe when we first talked, it was like you bought a box of cards on Amazon, and you were just ripping packs. And I can remember buying, you know, base PSA 10 prism stuff, and it's like, man, like, why were we doing that?

And a lot probably a big reason is because of content and, you know, whatever you're seeing, it's like you thought that's what we were supposed to be doing.

And I, like, evaluate what's happening on the industry side, and you see all the, new participants coming in because of, you know, big business, pushing for more connection between sports fan, betting, cards, all of that comes into place.

And when I I like I don't have all the answers. I just analyze. I spend way too much time, and I just see all these, like, new people coming in, the reasons why they're coming in. Often think, like, yeah.

It's really fun and exciting out of the gates, but, like, the way people are being pushed is to likely take a lot of risk and a lot of chances, and there's very, very little connection that is being, publicized at the top, and a lot of connection comes from, like, content content like you're creating at the Smarter Collector.

So I see what you're doing, and I I there's a a need, I think, for for more of that. I think it's part of what I'm trying to do with content here.

How do you see that, and how do you see, I guess, collectors do you think it's it's best that there's, like, the self discovery phase where, like, collectors make all these mistakes and then eventually make this decision.

Well, that's not for me. I'm gonna dive deeper in what's for me, or I'm just going to leave because I lost all this money.

Like, how do you see that all playing out and maybe just like the smarter collector's role in this ecosystem that we're currently operating and where a ton of new people are coming in, and, you don't know if they're gonna stay or not.

Yeah. So to answer your question directly, no. I don't think that's, like, the right of passage that everyone needs to travel down. I think there's a way to build an experience in collecting sports cards that avoids all of that.

We run into, like, misaligned incentives where, the biggest companies have an incentive to sell the most products, but that isn't necessarily what would bring the collector the most fulfillment.

I view collecting as, like, a journey, a journey of, like, personal and self discovery and a vehicle to accomplish amazing things that you never thought you would be able to.

Taking that message and distilling it in, like, down to a one sentence message that hits and strikes the same chord as when someone says, oh, that's a really cool card.

How much is it? It's like it it's a problem I don't think anyone has solved yet, because I don't want you to fixate on the value.

I want you to ask me about the process that I went through, like, the the journey, the introspection that I did to figure out who I wanna collect, what cards I like, what errors I wanna collect.

And then I wanna go head first into that and really challenge myself to to get cards that I never thought I would be able to.

If you can provide people with some sort of, like, guided discovery road map to fulfill your collecting journey, I think you're gonna have a lot more satisfied collectors, at the top of the funnel coming in rather than the churn and burn.

I'm gonna spend a thousand dollars on blasters at Walmart, end up with a bunch of cards I don't care about, and then move on to collecting watches or shoes or something.

I I love this. That that, man, that, idea of I even think about my nephews, and they're younger, and they're into cards.

And the fur they know what their uncle does, and their first questions always which is this I was doing the same thing when I was a kid.

Yeah. My first question's always like, hey, uncle Brett. Like, what's the most expensive card in your in your Mhmm. I'm like, let's not talk about expensive cards.

Let's just talk about the cards I enjoy the most. But Yeah. It's I I don't know if, like, it's like pushing a boulder up a mountain to try to, like, solve that, and I don't think we're gonna be here to solve that.

But I think for me, the way I look at it is I'm like, I can get a few people to think a little bit differently about what makes them happy and how collecting is involved in that.

Like, typically, the money thing goes out the door, and those are the types of collectors that I found stay for the long run.

Well, what's ironic is if you really lean in it into it that way, that produces the most financially successful collectors. The people that are just chasing the value get birthed out, they make bad decisions, and then they're gone.

The people that are, like, buy and hold for a long time, collectors that are just enjoying the process, those are the ones that, come out with the the best and brightest collection you see out there.

No doubt. Excited to get into this card. And I think maybe a good setting up of this card is the fact that I went through your Instagram page preparing for this episode.

And I I we've talked plenty. We've interacted plenty. I, for the most part, know what you're about, who you like to collect, why you like to collect those players.

And part of your collecting that resonates with me is I there's a lot of similarities where, you collect of not exclusively, but your teams, your players from your teams.

You're obviously a big Red Sox fan. You can see that in your collection. And the card that we're gonna talk about is the 2014 blue refractor Mookie Betts, Bowman Chrome, and I'm excited to talk about that.

I wanted before we got into the card, I wanted to maybe this is a collector topic that's been woven throughout a lot of different conversations I've had recently.

Like, Moogie Betts doesn't play for the Red Sox anymore, and but Moogie Betts did have a lot of success for the Red Sox. He's had maybe even more success in LA.

How do you think about, player collecting and your team and knowing that some of these players aren't always gonna be a part of your team, how do you process spending money on players that maybe moved on and had success in other areas too.

Yeah. I think you need to decide if, like, what you want to collect at the end of the day. I am not gonna buy any Mookie Dodgers cards, and I am still upset to this day that the Red Sox traded him.

It was one of the worst trades of the last twenty years, not named Luca Doncic going to the the Lakers. But I'm not like, my memories of Mookie, the cards that I like of his are all in Red Sox stuff.

I'm also a Nomar collector. I don't have any cards in Nomar, not in a Red Sox uniform even though he went to the Athletics and the Cubs and eventually the Dodgers.

Like, he's got some pretty good early two thousand stuff, not in a Red Sox uniform, but it it just doesn't resonate with me the same.

I think, there are some people that are fiercely loyal to the player and will follow the player to wherever they go.

It's just not the way that I collect. So, yeah, I think it it's gonna vary by person for sure. Gonna bring up the card here, but I I know maybe a fraction of the current baseball card market than you probably do.

But this is one observation I've made, and I'd love and this isn't me, like, trying to gas up your card before we we share it, but it's more like I'm curious, and I want you to help help someone who doesn't know baseball card market as much.

But I look at Mookie Betts, and I think about this era of players. And to me, he's one of the most accomplished, certainly has the most the hardware in comparison to others in this stretch.

Just a phenomenal player. But when whenever I hear a conversation about, players, current market, what's hot, all that stuff, like, I never hear Mookie Betts' name brought up. And it's always a question back in my mind.

It's like, why isn't he brought up? Like, he's so good, and he's won so many world series. And, people say, well, world series don't matter that championships don't matter as much in baseball, and I can just never make sense of it.

So I don't know. Is my assessment even though maybe elementary, like, is that sound? And if it is, why do you think that is the case with a player like Mookie Betts? Yeah.

I think in collecting the mainstream narrative for baseball players is always the prospects. Since So to, Acuna, and So to in 2018, baseball's really entered this weird period where, like, players have been very successful early on.

Like, you never saw that. It always took, prospects a couple years to season before, they actually had success in the big leagues.

That's why what made Mike Trout such an anomaly because he had success so early on in his career. So you see a lot of conversation these days about the, like, the James Wood, the, the CJ Abrams, the Paul Skeens.

Like, the rookies are second or third year players. And there's a a big portion of the hobby that has forgotten about the superstars of, like, the mid teens, early twenties.

So you can get, like, a Mookie Betts, a Bryce Harper, a Lynn Doerr, like, a a really solid rookie card or, like, really solid second or third year card for the prices that people are speculating on for these rookies.

And you take a step back, and it's like, Mookie has 50 or 60 something war in his career. He's like a surefire hall of famer with his resume at this point.

And you have, like, a locked in value, future value for this player. And you have all this, like, emotional attachment, this memory, these memories of his success on on your team.

Why would you not go for that versus spending what I spent on a blue refractor to go get the same card of a Roman Anthony who is number one prospect in baseball and newly promoted, to the big leagues.

But, that's just never been a way that I collect. Like, I'll give it some time. I'll rather pay the premium if it turns out that player does pan out.

And instead, just focus on, the cards I've gotten to spend some time with, the cards I've gotten to research around the players that I have some sort of connection with.

I I love this thread. And so, you know, wins a world series with the Red Sox, then you have the pandemic world series, with the Dodgers, which feel like everybody has forgotten about for whatever reason.

Yep. And then you have another world series, but, you know, it's just Ohtani mania.

Like, that's the focus. So it's I mean, I can't even winning a championship's impossible to begin with, but this guy has three. Do you think, like, in terms of players now and just, like, card collecting, like, I don't know.

Like, if you are a Mookie Betts collector, it's almost advantageous now that he is playing in the shadow of a player like Shohei Ohtani. Maybe talk a little bit about that, and then we'll get into your card.

Yeah. It's funny. It like, he was always a tier below Trout. Like, Mookie was runner-up to Trout. He has one MVP. Some people say, like, the year Mookie won MVP, Trout should want it.

And then he had a a runner-up finish in the NL. But because he's always been in, like, that second tier, he hasn't commanded tier one prices that make him affordable and, like, approachable to a collector like myself.

And I think that has been further emphasized when he went to the Dodgers and, like, Shohei gets all the money.

If you look at some Shohei prices, they're astronomical. It's, like, astounding looking at what his stuff sold for the year he got Tommy John versus what it sold it sells for today.

But I I look at I look at it slightly differently because because all the money is going to Ohtani, it means that I I still get to pick up Mookie Betts cards, and I can collect a bunch of different stuff.

And my entire budget doesn't need to go to this one player, versus someone that collects the, like, the top of the top. You might only have one or two purchases a year. And it's just a different way to engage in collecting.

I like the the mail days on a more frequent basis rather than one or two pickups a year. Totally. Alright. We're putting up the card for, Patreon users. You can see this card on Chris's page. He posted it at Cardi c Sports Cards.

I want you I I mentioned it once, but maybe walk listeners back through what the card is and then just dig into the moment of you smashing Ben, why you did all the things involved in it. And if you I'm just gonna let you go.

And if you haven't if you say anything, I wanna ask a question on it, I will. Yeah. So this is the 2014 Bowman Chrome Prospects blue refractor auto. It's in A BGS9510. Gorgeous blue frame, bold blue autograph.

You can see Mookie, some Mookie cards have streaky autographs, but this one is actually pretty clean. It's been a card that I've wanted ever since I got back into the hobby in twenty seventeen ish.

I I think red is, like, the true grail for me, but, like, assuming that is out of touch because I don't wanna spend six fingers on a card nor have the means to do so.

This is, like, the next best thing. I like the idea of a a red, white, blue color scheme here, and I wanted to to get it.

So my collecting went through various iterations over the years. I picked up a base version of this this card, probably in 2019. At the time, it was the most money I'd ever spent on a card.

I think it was, like, $250 or something. But I was really proud of it. Like, that was the first time I had taken this the step to extend myself and really it helped me build conviction in my collecting and my collecting process.

But the blue refractor auto has had always been on the list. And when I say it's not particularly rare, there's a 150 copies of it, and I checked out card ladder shout out card ladder last night.

I counted eight copies that are currently available on eBay or Fanatics Collect, and I I'd say one and a half of them were priced to move.

So this is not a card that is gonna enter collections and never come out. There's been 20 sales of this card across various grids in the last year, which means it sells one and two thirds, copies every month.

But, like, did I actually want it? It was on my want list. I had opportunities to get it at a thousand dollars, $2,500, $3,500.

Price just kept going up and up and up. And I decided to prioritize other cards over picking this one up. So at some point, you either have to remove it from your want list and say, I've had opportunities to get this card.

I always kick it down the can. Do I actually want it? And through the Smarter Collector, I'm always advocating for people to take a fresh look at their collection, and I know you do the same, Brett.

And I saw a bunch of cards that, like, were missing partners or they didn't really fit in my collection anymore.

And I was like, I have card equity here that I can just turn into this Mookie Blue refractor. So that was sort of nested in the back of my mind.

And then one day, flipping through Instagram stories, and someone's got this huge sale that looks like they're they're selling their entire collection, and they have this gorgeous copy of, of this card.

I was like, this is it. I'm going to pull the trigger. I reach out to the person. Hey. I can do this. Like, where should I send the money to? No response. Two hours later, hey.

Like, this is the card I've wanted since 2017. What what's it gonna take to get it done? No response. Okay. They're not they're not they're not interested in selling, or maybe they're not interested in selling to me.

The story expires, and I say, it wasn't meant to be. It's not gonna happen. The next day, they post the same cards up for sale on their story again, and I reach out two or three more times saying, I wanna buy the card.

I wanna buy the card. I wanna buy the card. No answer. And I was like, you know what? Screw this. Let's see what's on eBay. And lo and behold, I saw this copy on eBay, and it was a card that I had funded through, Fund Your Cards.

So I had asked Mark to to put a, a bin in for me there, and then we worked out, like, how I was gonna pay for it, the cards that I would sell, in order to cover it.

And roughly two months later, this card showed up in the mail. But it was it was funny because I thought I was gonna have a really nice copy of the card, through this Instagram deal that never actually ended up happening.

And lo and behold, the card that I actually wanted was sitting there on eBay all of that time. That's amazing. A few things I wanna dig into.

You mentioned the color scheme and how important that was, and you mentioned the reds. Obviously, the reds, I couldn't I don't even need to look at card ladder right now, but just to know I I they've gotta just be outrageous in price.

So you're going into this blue and you're like, okay. There's a 150 copies, but this blue is maybe, like, second behind the red. The red's just completely unreasonable.

You're having this, like, you're analyzing this card of this player that you really appreciate, and you're doing it from the lens of you're looking at the colors and probably the design and all of that.

Like, why why are you doing that? Like, why does, like, the color of the parallel matter so much to you when you're, you know, making a purchase like this?

Yeah. So I think if you were to rank his parallels, I think you start with the super fracture, then it's the red refractor out of five.

You have an orange out of 25, a gold out of 50, and then you have the the blue. In 2014, they had, like, the wave color. So you have blue wave, black wave, purple wave, green wave.

You have a bunch of different wave colors. Baseball collectors tend to be purists around the, like, the true color. They don't tend to mess around with any of the wave. So I have naturally, like, drifted towards adopting that mentality.

I think the look is just cleaner. I think a lot of collectors in my position would also trend towards, like, opting for the gold. It's more expensive than the blue, obviously, from a print run perspective.

But I just I like the look of the blue better than the look of the gold. There's something about the red, white, blue combination, like, the match of the border the blue border to the Sharpie that he used to sign the autograph.

It just, like it had always resonated for me. If you were to do, like, a value analysis and say, hey. What's gonna have the most of the growth and upside?

Like, you're probably not picking the blue, but, I just really enjoyed the way it looked. And this card specifically was chosen because his rookie year stuff is, like, pretty underwhelming.

The 2014 was a really weird year for for Topps Chrome. They were inserted into, the regular Topps update products, I think, as, like, inserts.

So you had, like there were insert subsets within 2014 tops, and he had a a gold parallel, a black parallel, and the gold parallel was numbered out of 250.

So if you wanted, like, a somewhat rare Chromium based card of Mookie, you're really just looking at the Bowman Chrome. So, yeah, did that answer your question?

Yes. No. I love it. And then you said something there about, you know, you were looking at your cards and collection, and you mentioned cards that you kinda let go of were cards that are missing partners.

And that whole process and the way you probably went about what you're doing is almost and how you thought think about the moves you're making is almost identical to how I think about when cards go.

But I don't know if the audience really understands from your point of view, like, what you meant by missing partners.

Maybe talk about the missing partners of it all and why maybe some of those cards were, victims of this consolidation. Yeah. I'm trying to see if I had ever posted about this on Instagram so you can flash it up.

But, a very specific example is the 2001 SP authentic future watch rookie. I had an each row and a pool house, and those were, like, the two pillars of the set. Both graded PSA nines numbered out of twelve fifty.

Well, I had sold the pool house at one point to pay for something, and I just had the Ichiro in my collection. And whenever I took them out of my case to look at them, I had both of them together.

It's like, these are these are the two cards that complete this collection. If you have these two cards, you can, like, successfully show someone what this set was about.

When I just had the each row, it felt like it was missing pool house. I I felt like I couldn't keep the each row without needing to go buy the pool house.

So do I sell the each row, or do I go buy the pool house? I think I'm just gonna put that towards the Mookie, and then, like, if if I feel inclined to, I'll buy both copies back, at some later point.

That makes a ton a ton of sense. Why do you think we we do that? Like, why do we is it is is it just based on collecting, we need some connection point from one card to the next, because I do the same stuff.

Like, do you have and this may be digging into a little bit of, like, the psychology of the collector, but why do you think we do that?

Honestly, I don't know. I I think about the inverse too where, like, Nathan MacKinnon's year of, the cup is also the year that, like, a former Bruins guy, was a rookie, Charlie Coyle.

And you can buy a, like, Charlie Coyle cup RPA for $45, $50, and then Nathan MacKinnon is, like, thousands and thousands of dollars.

You're talking, like, 5 figures. But if you just just pick both of them up, the MacKinnon feels less special because I feel I have more history with the coil card, and they're the same design.

I feel like it has something to do with that. Like, you go into looking at 2003 Topps Chrome basketball with, like, LeBron in your head.

But if you get, like, a Darko, are you do you feel better or worse about that card? Because you're you're bringing the history of, like, your relationship with LeBron, and this is a low an iconic LeBron card to the table.

I don't know. It's a good question. We should, get a sports psychologist on it. Yes. That next step. Yeah. We're gonna move into some bin smashes.

But before we do that, maybe closing the door on this Mookie card. Does this Mookie have a partner? Does this card have a partner, or is it kinda sitting on an island in your collection and you're okay with that?

It needs two partners, actually. So I I think I talked about this the last time I was on the pod, but I'm working on a lifelong project I'm calling the 100 player PC.

And the whole concept is you you collect three cards of a 100 different players. So I've collected one Mookie card so far. Now I gotta find two that pair with it. Maybe it's, like, different parallels of this card.

Maybe it's other rookie cards. Maybe it's a, like, a powerful image from stadium club or something in in a later year. But, it definitely it's missing its partner. So stay tuned, for what I pick up to pair with it.

I love the reminder about this way you approach your collecting. Does do you find that most of your pairings that you create on these other players that are part of this, project, does it happen from planning?

Like, you orchestrate, alright. Here's the list. Here are the cards they're gonna pair. Or is it more like this card pops up in my eBay save searches, and I wasn't even thinking about it.

But, man, this card would be great with the card that I already have. Like Yeah. How much of it is organized? How much of it is impulsive?

Yeah. I think when you have space for 300 cards in a project, that gives you a lot of leeway to, like, swap things in and out. And I'm thinking about it as, like, wanting representation from different important sets in my collection.

And oftentimes, it's like late nineties cards that have a bunch of different players that are in the 100 player PC. So it it's weird. It's like a three-dimensional game of pairing because it could pair, with the player.

Like, you could have two versions of a card that features the same player, or you could have, two cards from the same set, but you have different players.

Or you could even have, like, a dual autograph, and that you get, like, the pairing concept satisfied that way.

But I don't know. I think it's it's more dynamic. You have to be, opportunistic rather than just waiting and and methodically acting. That's amazing. Awesome card. We're gonna move over to some of these bin smashes.

I'd I picked these based on I had to pick a Nomar card out of the gates, and then the other couple, I just looked at the profiles you had build out on the smarter collector, and I figured it'd be fun to talk about some of these players you spent a lot of time on.

The the first card is a o two leaf fabric of the game, Nomar Garciaparra, game worn patch out of five. This card sold in May for $250.

I'd love to learn from you kind of what you what do you think about this card? What do you think about fabric of the game just such a in this era, such a kind of iconic patch set that I know many collectors, really appreciate?

Yeah. I think baseball collectors specifically are sleeping on leaf fabric of the game. I love the back of the card that has the full picture of the jersey that they took the swatch from.

I think that's, like, a unique element here. I like the embossed stamp. $250 for a pretty important Nomar card is a a steal. Like, for for context, this is his first patch auto.

Like, this is his first patch auto that he had. There are people in other sports that would pay many multiples of this for a similar caliber caliber player. But I think what it has working against it is, like, it's after, February.

There's a lot of Nomar collectors that stick in the the '96 to '99 range. And then after February, his performance slipped a bit for the Red Sox, and then you just enter a different era of cards.

And if everyone is shrinking their own hobby c to just focus on '96 to '99, well, then you have really cool cards that just slip under the radar like this one. It all makes sense. What you said there, I I've I find so interesting.

And the easiest example I have in my mind is regarding, like, one product that means a lot in one category and then and then another category people think less about it and think about, like, contenders, rookie tickets, and Yeah.

Football. It's like on card first auto, football collectors love it, basketball collectors not as much.

I think about fabric of the game, maybe football collectors appreciate it more because Brady has some of his earliest patch stuff in there and Manning's in there, and those are kind of iconic kind of players from this era.

Why why do you think that is from, like, sport to sport? Even in the big sports, there's so much variance on, like, what one what one category appreciates, than what another one appreciates.

Yeah. It's a great question, and I think that's what, not to throw, Warf under the bus, but I like, I know he he does a lot of cross sport comparison when he's trying to, like, estimate what the value of a card is or future value.

But the reality is, like, different collectors bring different things to the table as it relates to a a certain card.

Like, if if a set is super popular in one sport, it might be because it's anchored by a, like, iconic hall of fame rookie that might not be present in the other sport, or it could have some sort of history or lineage with one sport that doesn't exist and wasn't built over time in another sport.

Or it could be just, like, across the cards that were released in that year, collectors view, cards from that set as, like, more important than other sets.

Like, perfect example is the Star Quest gold, for hockey is like a top five insert. It's number at numbered out of a 100.

But if you asked a football collector, a basketball collector, or a baseball collector, it's probably not gonna crack the top 25. It's literally the same exact card, same exact design, and everything came out the same year.

And it's just different collecting communities bring different backgrounds to the table and, like, this different history when they're they're trying to price out a card.

I love it. Moving over to a a Randy Moss, one of the most interesting I find collecting communities just so passionate. We've got the 98 tops Chrome, refractor and a PSA nine.

This is his rookie. This sold for $900 in on April 16 via Binsmash. Maybe talk to us about what you learn from Randy Moss collectors, especially as, you know, Moss has a, has placement and a profile on the smarter collector.

Yeah. So I didn't have a lot of background or history about this era of football cards going into writing, the, the player profile.

And when I was talking to collectors, the thing I realized very quickly is that the Randy Moss and the Peyton Manning, because they're from the same rookie class, their collecting communities are not monoliths.

There are a lot of different ways to collect these players because they had such rich and storied careers in an era of cards that, like, threw something different at collectors every year.

So, like, this is it. This tops chrome and, like, the '98 Bowman Chrome refractor are, like, iconic cards in their their own right.

However, there's there's a bunch of Randy Moss collectors that look at this card, and they're like, I would I would not want this for my collection. I I collect something very different, and it only started in 02/2004.

So I think I've gained an appreciation going through writing these player profiles that, like, people are so different in how they collect, and what is right for me isn't necessarily right for you.

The, this is such a fun topic. So Randy Moss, for example. Okay. So he's a Viking out of the gates, and then he ninety eight's a great year of cards, and then he's got the '99 stuff, which is you're in the nineties category.

And then you move into the February where the it's kinda like no man's land, 2002 2010 where you've got some of the this is, like, the prime of so many great players, but there's, like, not a ton of great organization around football cards.

Then, you know, eventually, Moss goes to the Patriots, and he does everything with Brady that was just it was if you were on the other side of it, it was terrifying to watch.

But then so that brings on, like, a whole another segment of collectors. And you got shiny collectors, and you got patch collectors.

Moss played forever. It's, like, exactly the same with Manning. Even Manning might even be more extreme. You can't collect everything no matter if it's your favorite player or not.

Do you find, like, with a player like Moss, that's what it comes down to with these collectors? It's like, I can't collect everything, so I just gotta zero in and focus in on the stuff that makes me the happiest.

It it depends. It depends on who you talk to because there's some people that are driven by, I wanna collect the best cards, in this particular category for this player. It might be a certain parallel from a set.

It might be, like, an insert. It might be all rookies. But then there are other people that are like, I want to dip my toes in a little bit of everything, and I'm willing to accept, like, condition issues.

I'll I'll grab a PSA six of a card that has a dent supposedly that I can't really see to the naked eye, and I'll save the money so I can pick up a patch, from, like, the first year of national treasures and throw in, like, a little bit of exquisite in there.

It just it depends on the player. I I don't think we can say one way or another, like, what they would would lean to more. Awesome. Moving over to a hockey card.

And, you know, I know I I know less than I do about hockey than I do about baseball, which isn't saying much, but I I have learned a lot about, Ovechkin collecting and cards because I interact with a lot of people who like to collect his stuff.

And this is the, 2022 upper deck premier, premium mega patch, commemorative logo out of four.

You've got the autograph up top, hand serial number at the bottom, but you're just like if you're a chunky patch collector, this is the type of card that I think you'd appreciate.

And this card sold in March via BINSMASH for, a little over 1,500.

Maybe the card itself, like, I know the cup is kind of like the the product that most hockey collectors kind of run towards when we're talking about this sort of stuff. But maybe talk about just this card and what you think about it.

And then also just same thing, like Ovechkin collectors. Like, what what have you learned from the Ovechkin collectors? Yeah. How it maybe shaped the way you think about hockey cards? Yeah.

It to be, the the listeners that don't know anything about hockey cards, the ten second intro is it's sort of like the cup as a product, and then you have sort of tier two, that would include SP authentic, ultimate collection, and some people would put premier in here.

And then you have, OPG platinum, which is really, like, the only chromium based product that upper deck has.

So it's a much, like, smaller pool to choose from than you have with, with tops and panini. But Premier is known for their mega patches, and then they have this this parallel called Ice Premiers. It's, like, a base card number data 99.

But the mega patches are awesome. If you just, like, go on card ladder sales history or browse through eBay, there are so many sick patches because hockey jerseys have so much more, threading in different colors to work with.

It's it's amazing when you pick a card and you look at the price history and you see, like, two to three x differences in pricing just because of the difference in in patch quality or the number of colors.

And then you flip to the back, and it's like, this is not affiliated with the player. This is not Gameborn, and people are still paying thousands of dollars for it.

So highly recommend if you're a hockey fan to to go down this rabbit hole. But to answer your question about ovechkin collectors specifically, I've talked to a handful of, like, very high end ovechkin collectors, and they are cutthroat.

Like, they are they want to be the best Ovechkin collector on the planet, and they will, like, move move the Earth to to make that happen.

So it it's it's been interesting to interact with those people and then see the purchases that they've made and sort of, like, the the ebb and flow of when those collectors are competing against one another.

And they firmly believe that, like, Gretzky might be the great one, but Ovechkin is the greatest goal scorer that hockey has ever seen.

Oh, that's awesome. Alright. Let's move over to the last part, which is, where I just pick a card on eBay that is available that, I'd love to just get your perspective on.

So I'm sure I don't know if you've seen this card or not, but we have the, Nomar 99 Skybox molten metal titanium fusion out of 50.

Cool. $1,500. Buy it now, right now. But I think this is cool, because this to me is a set I hear so many basketball card collectors talk about.

And, also, like, it it it fits within that sweet spot of no more collecting that you you said a lot of no more collectors like to operate in.

So maybe I don't know. Talk about this card, what you think about this card, and then, like, price point, all of those things. Yeah. The, the price point doesn't seem crazy.

Like, Nomar's market has gotten warped because there's, there's been a a guest on this podcast that's that's picked up a couple of Nomar one of one of ones that has, like, really skewed the high end of the market to, like, multiples we haven't seen before.

Shout out, Andy, and bye bye baby cards. I was gonna say, I I was racking my brain. I was like, who is he talking about? But okay. Yeah.

Yeah. But, like, there was a world where, like, a 98 PMG Nomar was, like, 800 to $1,200, and this would be a tier below that. And now people are asking, like, 5 to 8 k, like, as a starting point for discussion in on that type of card.

So, like, $1,500 doesn't seem crazy. I would wanna probably try to make an offer down on this, but it's such an iconic card. The, the laser etching on the player here is, like, phenomenal.

I actually have a copy. I I picked it up off of someone that tried to crack it out of a slab and made a huge divot in the top of it. And it's, like, now a p a PSA six, but I have a copy of the card.

If you flip it to the back, you actually, like, can see a much clearer picture of Melmar. Yeah. Yeah. It's cool. You can't really see it from the front, but it looks great in the sun. It's a great card.

I I didn't actually see this, so I'm glad you popped it up. I'll I'll pass it along to my Nomar collector friends. Yeah. Do you spend enough time, sleuthing around on Yeah. EBay. You see some cool cards every now and again.

This was a ton of fun, Chris. I always enjoy, the conversation digging in. Definitely, whether it's this format or another one, we've gotta do another one, down the road sometime soon. Absolutely. Thanks for having me on, Brett.