what's going on everybody welcome back to another episode of stacking slabs your hobby content alternative i am bret fun episode here today that's not often where a moment that starts my week serves as the catalyst for an episode here on stacking slabs and that is what happened to me we are going to start this episode off with a story an acquisition story if you will one when i tell it might not seem like i put a lot of work energy or effort into however it is the culmination of a lot of work energy and effort that led to the decisiveness of said purchase and we are going to get into it today i hope you got a chance to listen to the flagship yesterday if you didn't make sure you check it out i love creating episodes based off of other episodes and i had a good time this time last week talking to my good friend drake about being a known buyer and operating in the private market and i thought well drake said a lot of really great stuff there was a lot of good information in that episode i think a lot about buying on the private side let me turn this into an episode myself so if you are looking for some momentum on the private side post drake conversation make sure you check out flagship the private market is something i have been trying to listen to collectors talk about how they're navigating the private market and making sure they're able to get the cards not only that they need and they want but the approaches that they are using talking about negotiation these are the fundamental things around deal making in this space that i don't think should get ignored we often see the prize the end result but what about the process that led us to those we can talk about that with collectors forever and learn something i am a big fan of trying to pull tribal knowledge out of collectors minds and get them to share it with all of you here on the stacking slabs network it is something i'm really charging towards as we approach a thousand episodes which is insane this will always be a platform to share to add value to give you the insights and information you need and hopefully at some level entertain you know i it is not lost on me that sports cards collecting is entertainment it can be passive passive entertainment or it can be active entertainment but i know as a participant when i'm not on this microphone when i'm not planning when i'm not doing outreach when i'm not in sales meetings when i'm not doing all the things that are required of me to continue to build momentum around stacking slabs and the stacking slabs network i know i treat cards as entertainment it's entertainment to me i get lost the escape and there are different avenues we can go down there are different paths we can explore and we do that here and i hope that's why you enjoy listening to my content but there's always things we can learn and i know my strategy is always when there's a topic i'm interested in digging in further and want to learn more about let me bring someone on who i know can share some perspective so we will continue to bring on people on this network to share and there's gonna be some fun opportunities ahead and if you're not already make sure you tell a damn friend hit the follow button join the patreon group do all the things you do i appreciate that and i gotta get my plugs in but as i alluded to at the top of this episode i want to start with a story i started my week the exact same way that i start most weeks and i'll say this it is getting more challenging to keep the routine i've talked a lot about my life situation i have a wonderful family they're very supportive of me and my efforts here at stacking slabs but i have a whole another job on the other side of this microphone i'm a dad and that's a priority i'm a husband and that's a priority my kids are young and sleep is not necessarily easy at this point whether it's getting certain individuals in my family down waking up in the middle of the night seeing who's in our bed all the things anybody who is a parent listening has been through it it is not unique to my situation but having three children that are four and under has been something so i overcame the adversity as i tried to do i played sports growing up i understand adversity i understand away games i understand the mental state that you have to have in order to try to achieve your goals manage your routine and win and so i was not going to let some kicks in my side in the middle of the night running over to my children's room because the pass he might have fallen out or maybe even just hearing a baby cry that needed a change of diaper maybe i was woken up three to four times maybe it was more i don't know but you know what i was gonna keep my damn routine because i am a creature of habit and i think this quality about me has allowed me to be on this path of a thousand episodes and consistency is a superpower and i do not take consistency lightly when i'm building and delivering content to all of you so what might have served as an interruption for me has really been the catalyst for this episode and i'm very thankful for being able to overcome adversity and do what i do every monday especially every monday i start the same way i always do i wake up before everybody in my house and i go down to my basement gym to get a workout in this is important to me i'm an advocate for mental health and physical health and being able to exercise especially in the friendly confines of my house is critical one we're entering indiana summer and it sucks to be outside even in the morning and i've got three kids so if someone's yelling in a monitor while i'm working out at least i can be helpful but this week i hopped on the treadmill and i'm warming up not even fully into the session yet and i do what a lot of us in this hobby do reflexively i check ebay i'm on the treadmill i got my phone in hand i got a podcast lined up and i type in colts so i can look at my pen save searches solid blue dots clicked on colts prism gold vinyl and right there at the top of the search was the twenty fifteen prism frank gore gold vinyl on the colts i nearly fell off the treadmill not because it was a cool card not because it was a deal not because i thought maybe i can flip this later i almost fell off the treadmill because i had never seen this card before and i knew instantly what it meant to my collection the listing was four hundred and fifty dollars or best offer i did not check comps i did not open card ladder i didn't sit there and act like i was running some kind of private equity fund out of my basement gym i smashed buy it now the old bin smasher and right before i did it i noticed there was already an offer sitting there from someone else the twenty fifteen frank gore gold vinyl is very important for a lot of different levels number one it's the first frank gore colts card in prism number two it is the debut year of gold vinyl which is a parallel that never left prism since debuting in twenty fifteen number three twenty fifteen prism rules it is the most professional looking brand or year of prism i can remember man first time seeing this card and i have talked of to my friends i've talked to my network around the fact that you know what i've never seen this card before but when i think about the importance of this card it was off the charts for me after i like got over the fact that i just did this i only have a small window so it's like okay i can't be this distracted i gotta get back to my workout so i i went back to my workout except at that point the workout is almost irrelevant because my brain is just flooded i'm feeling the kind of rush collectors know and non collectors will fully understand then i jumped off the treadmill again i thought to myself let me click the seller let me see if there's anything else in the store that i need and there it was the first card in the store was the twenty fifteen prism gold frank gore out of ten again i lost my mind it was listed at four hundred and fifty dollars or best offer again i smashed ben so now before most people have woken up finished a warm out warm up i own two massive cards for my colts prism collection and that moment has me has been sitting with me because i don't think that story is really about frank gore i think it's about something deeper i think it's about collector psychology i think it's about what happens when a card stops being a card you like and becomes a card you know is yours if it shows up and i think that difference is everything so the big idea for today some cards make fireworks go off in our brains some cards sit on our watch list for months it's the same hobby same collector same wallet but there's a completely different reaction what's what's the why behind this i don't know but that's what i want to unpack here in today's episode and the more i dug into the psychology behind collecting the more convinced i became that those instant buy moments are not usually random they are not always bad process they are not always reckless a lot of times they are the visible result of invisible work that has already been done there's been research done that shows possessions can become part of the self ourselves that collector identity drives engagement and that collections become especially meaningful when they provide concrete goal structure and feedback that combination makes certain objects feel less like inventory or merchandise and more like necessary parts of a personal system and i think that's exactly what happened to me and i want to be very very clear on this point because i think it matters from the outside someone can hear the story and say that sounds impulsive and on the surface sure it was fast but fast and careless are not the same thing there's been research done on impulse buying which usually describes impulsive buying as sudden urge to purchase immediately often with reduced information search and insufficient evaluation it also tends to happen more with under lower product involvement but in my case the information gathering did not happen in the thirty seconds before the click it happened in the months and years before the listing showed up the research had already been done the priorities had already been established the framework had already been built so what looked impulsive from the outside was actually prepared from the inside and that distinction is huge for collectors because if you're listening to this and you've had that moment where a card appears and you think you just know the truth is the knowing probably did not start in the moment the moment only revealed the knowing the other thing i just want to reference and this is a cool aside to this before we dig into this further i've been thinking a lot about gore on the colts actually in twenty fifteen the colts signed frank gore and andre johnson as a means for to push the colts into a whole another stratosphere it didn't quite happen the way it planned johnson faded out quickly after one season but frank gore became a staple and then this set me down this path where i've been trying to consider okay in this prism era how many colts exist that are hall of famers or how many colts exist that should be hall of famers and this exercise has been really fascinating to me because it's allowed me to stack rank certain players not necessarily allowing me to say oh i just go i'd i'd i'd feel more inclined to go for hall of fame players over non hall of fame players basically i'm going for everyone at this point but i wanted to understand just how these emotions played and made made a play in my mind and i think that's been entertaining and that probably is a whole another episode for another day but i think those types of things can result from landing cards that you have been waiting for for a long time i think the first concept that really matters in this story is identity collectors have argued for a long time that collecting is not just about possession it's about self construction some of the most useful work in this area says collectors are drawn to collections because they offer tangible attainable and clear feedback of progress collector identity becomes a more salient collectors engage more deeply and that engagement can even support life satisfaction and in sports cards we collect for reasons that include a connection with athletes a connection with our teams a connection with other collectors entertainment as i referenced before escaped education and of course there's financial motives too this means your collection is not just storage it's not just an asset mix it's not just fandom but it's a mirror when i chase colt's prism i'm not just buying rectangles i'm buying a body of work that reflects what i care about how i see the hobby and what kind of collector i'm trying to become the collection is giving shape back to me that's why certain cards hit harder than others because they don't just improve the collection they confirm the identity and the idea connects to something else from literature that i think is incredibly powerful and that's psychological ownership psychological ownership is basically the feeling of this is mine even before formal ownership happened researchers of psychological ownership have argued that those feelings develop through control intimate knowing and investment of self think about that in hobby language control means you have a defined lane intimate knowing means you have you know the checklist the holes the key years the right parallels the weird player transitions the significance of specific releases investment of self means you have poured in time energy thought money content and emotion into a project now read my story back through that lens i've spent every day researching building creating content and or searching for colts prism cards that means by the time the frank gore showed up those cards were not neutral objects entering a neutral marketplace they were entering a psychologically preloaded environment that's why i didn't need to talk myself into them in some real way they already belonged in the story that i had built in that takes us to our good friend russell belk who is the hero of stacking slabs content in twenty twenty six i've referenced belk's work more than anybody else his work on possessions in the extended self is a foundational lane here the basic idea is that the possessions are not just things we have they can become part of who we are they express values they shape identity sometimes losing them can feel like losing part of the self because they have become integrated into it so let's say this from a collector perspective or in collector terms a random frank gore card is not the same as a twenty fifteen cold prism frank gore gold vinyl or gold that fills a meaningful hole in a tightly defined collection architecture one is inventory the other is autobiography one could be replaced by another purchase the other cannot be emotionally replaced because its significance comes from the role it plays inside your private narrative that's why the body reacts that's why the brain lights up that's why i almost fell off the treadmill now add scarcity on top of that people often assign greater subjective value to scarce objects and some some even more some other people believe that scarcity doesn't just increase value in a flat way it can intensify value i think that's a massive distinction because i don't think scarcity alone explains collector behavior if it did then every rare card would create the exact same reaction but it doesn't some rare cards do nothing for us we are in an era of the proliferation of the one of ones i've seen more one of ones that do nothing for me than i've seen one of ones that excite me some make us shrug some are technically scarce but still make us feel emotionally empty so the truth is not the scarcity creates meaning the truth is that scarcity amplifies meaning so if the card is already deeply connected to self story and structure then scarcity makes it feel electric and i felt that electricity monday morning if the meaning isn't there scarcity just makes it kind of interesting that's why a unicorn feels like a unicorn and i don't give a damn if the gold vinyl of frank gore has five copies i know that there's a lot of frank gore collectors out there that collect all of this stuff i know that there is are people who pursue twenty fifteen gold vinyl specifically because it's the debut year so there might be five copies but i would much rather have this copy than almost any other frank one one of one set without saying the black finite these were cards i needed not because it's rare in some abstract way because it's rare and it still belongs in the lane that matters to me then there's decision making and i think this is an important element of this episode there is a model an expertise research called the recognition prime decision model the short version of this is that experts in familiar environments often do not sit there and compare a bunch of objects in a slow deliberate fashion they recognize patterns they identify the relevant cues they carry expectations from prior experience and they move research applying this framework shows that experienced decision makers rely on experience based intuition and recognition rather than deliberative comparison of multiple possible actions that is exactly what seasoned collectors do in their lanes when you've stared at enough listings studied enough checklists missed enough opportunities seen enough bad copies watched enough auctions mapped enough priorities your brain changes how it chooses you stop asking do i like this you start almost unconsciously asking do i recognize this as a core object in my build that's why i think one of the most important elements of this conversation is the work happened before the listing i want that to sink in the work happened before the listing before the card pops up i've already done the reps i've already established hierarchy i've decided what matters i've already invested myself in this lane so when the right card appears the action is immediate not because i'm unserious but because i'm serious enough to recognize it and that recognition gets even stronger when the card changes the structure of the collection this is where completion comes in a collection is not just a pile of items it's a holistic entity made from relevant pieces in hobby language some cards add bulk and some cards change the shape of the build that's a huge difference a filler card doesn't create urgency a structurally meaningful card sure does a card that tightens the narrative sharpens the checklist or closes a highly relevant gap feels different because it interacts with your need for order this is why when you buy a card and it makes you feel good and you have to do no work to think about it and it feels like it's a missing piece of the puzzle that's a good sign this is how i feel about those gores a lot of collectors spend too much time talking about price and not enough time talking about structure but structure is often what explains the emotional violence of an instant buy the card isn't just attractive it makes the collection make more sense and if that's true then the inverse is also true so why do some cards sit on watch list forever why do we save them look at them and maybe even admire them and still do nothing i think the answer is that those cards tend to trigger negotiation rather than recognition maybe they're nice but not central maybe they fit the collection but don't sharpen it maybe they're scarce but not identity scarce maybe you can imagine owning them but you can also imagine not owning them they don't feel inevitable and because they don't feel inevitable your brain opens the spreadsheet it checks comps it starts comparing it looks for alternatives it tells yourself oh wait that kind of hesitation makes perfect sense in light of the research if a card has a weaker psychological ownership weaker identity salience lower completion pressure and a weaker role in the collection structure then naturally stays more transferable more replaceable more market like this is also where the modern marketplace changes things when everything is searchable and available the thrill of the hunt can flatten out the collectors preserve meaning by using limitation strategies in other words they impose boundaries they narrowed the lane they gave the hunt its shape back this is a big insight i think for the hobby because there are always cards available always so if your collection has no boundaries then your reactions get muddled everything is possible which means nothing feels sacred but when you define the lane tightly enough team set year parallel era aesthetic whatever it is then the right card can hit like lightning because it shows up against an already meaningful backdrop that's what i think a lot of collectors are actually searching for even if they don't say it that way they think they are searching for cards what they're really searching for is clarity they want the hobby to hand them those moments when the answer is obvious they want the feeling of no internal committee meeting no debate no temporary thrill no fake urgency just the one is mine if i can get it and one of those moments feels so strong that feels so strong is regret consumer research shows that anticipated regret affects decision making and one study on online buying found that when people anticipate regret regretting a future worsening of the current opportunity they become more likely to act now regret research more broadly has found that over time people often regret inactions more than actions translate that into hobby language and you'll see that sometimes you're not buying the card to avoid overpaying you're buying the card to avoid remembering the day you let it get away and every serious collector knows the category that category of pain the card you passed on that never reappeared again the listing you thought would sit the seller you assured would come down the auction you decided to monitor those memories stick because they feel like betrayals of your own stated priorities so when the right card appears conviction often beats optimization not because optimization doesn't matter but because the collector understands something the spreadsheet can't fully hold there is a cost to hesitation too now i also want to put a guardrail around this chat because this is where things can go off the rails if we're not careful passion is good but not all passion is healthy in the same way there's different flavors of passion and there's distinguished or distinction between harmonious passion and obsessive passion harmonious passion is integrated into your identity in a healthy way a voluntary way obsessive passion feels like controlling it creates pressure it leads to rigid persistence and conflict with other parts of life that is really important a really important distinction for collectors because i don't want to make an episode that says if you really love it you just should smash ben now every time that's insane it's not what what i'm here to talk about that's not collecting that's surrender the point is not speed by itself the point is understanding the difference between a conviction buy and a compulsive by a conviction by says i know this lane i know why it matters i know where this fits i know why i won't care about the comp if i own it i know the card is a part of the puzzle a compulsion buy says i'm activated i'm chasing the feeling i want relief from the urge i have not actually placed this object in my collection architecture i just want the tension of not deciding those aren't the same thing and i think the best collectors get better not by slowing down all the time but by leaning when their speed is trustworthy that's a skill not being slow not being fast being accurate being able to tell when the body's alarm system is signaling meaningful versus when it's signaling stimulation and i think the strongest collections are built by listening carefully to those singles the cards you buy instantly tell you more about your collecting identity than the cards you spend three months debating the instant buy cards reveal the center they reveal what your standards really are they reveal what you have already chosen even before you consciously admit it they reveal where your passion and your meaning overlap and that overlap is where the best collections live not in endless availability not in market noise not in trying to own everything in the narrow band where your research tastes identity memory and structure all agree so if you want to use this episode i think there is a challenge i put in front of every collector look at the cards you never hesitated on not the cards you talk yourself into not the cards you buy because the comp looked okay and not the cards you buy because you're bored not the cards you buy because everyone else was posting them look at the cards that create instant clarity the ones that make your stomach move the ones that change your breathing a little bit the ones that make you forget about everything else the ones you know deep down are not inventory plays and are not temporary placeholders those cards those cards are trying to tell you something they are showing you the true center of your collection and the more you build around those signals the more coherent your collection becomes the more coherent your collection becomes the more your buying gets sharper the more you're buying gets sharper the less you need external validation to make decisions and that to me is what mature collecting looks like not just acquiring reorganizing not just owning belonging not just getting good deals knowing what is worth acting on immediately because of what it means to you and that's what happened to me with those frank gore cards i didn't skip the process i finished the process before the opportunity even arrived and when the opportunity arrived the answer was obvious so i didn't check card letter that's why i didn't care about the offer that was already sitting there that's why i knew instantly those cards were not short term resale if something shinier popped up next month those were not cards entering my inventory those were cards rejoining their home and i think that's the deepest truth of this entire chat the best cards don't always feel like purchases sometimes they feel like recovery sometimes they feel like you found something that was already a part of your collection in your mind and the only thing the market did was finally make it physically available that's the magic that's the unicorn moment and that's why some save searches are just searches while others are doorways into parts of ourselves we have already decided matter if you're building something real in this hobby pay attention to those moments those moments are teaching you what your collection is actually about and more importantly they are teaching you who you are as a collector it's just sports cards to some but man it's a whole lot more to many of us out there and i appreciate you taking some time out of your day to listen to me talk about an acquisition and get a layer or two deeper than just hey everybody i smashed ben on these frank gore cards let me post them on instagram check them out hopefully this gives you the context for how i think about purchases that i make and not all purchases are that i make are like these frank gore cards i am chasing more of the moments like this sometimes the cards come in and they leave but sometimes the cards are so meaningful and matter so much to the project that i know they're going to be in the collection for the long haul and that's what i certainly can say about the twenty fifteen prism gold and prism gold vinyl frank gorekarts appreciate all you supporting stacking slabs you all take care talk to you soon