alright we have a good topic today one that has been on my mind and i sense from today's guest it's been on his mind at some level as i've often called him the ultimate question asker whether it's on the football card podcast the crossover or something else drake is always asking questions and so today i wanna talk to drake about the good badly bad and the ugly of being a known buyer in the hobby because drake whether you like it or not i feel like you are a known buyer so i wanna talk about some of your experiences today and it's been a while we've talked privately but the first time publicly in a while first of all welcome back how are you brad i'm doing great thanks for having me back on yeah i think i sent you something not too long ago it was like the five year anniversary of our first time on the podcast it's always neat going back and looking at your memories that pop up on social media of you know cards that you acquired and you know most you still have some you don't have and just kinda remembering those stories and you know remembering those times on the podcast so thanks for having me back on i'm excited to excited to have this discussion today yeah and i'm excited to see you at the national kind of the annual trip i feel like i guess maybe like this is off the cuff a little bit but you typically are a guy who is plotting early around deals before the show have you started to have those conversations around potential cards you might buy from someone else at the show or is it still too early well i've started having those conversations just there's a few folks i've been talking to and they're not gonna be at the national so i'm just kinda weighing my options now of like what's gonna be my national but not at the national pickup for this year you know because you you kinda have to have at least one or at least i do and so just trying to figure that out but also keep in the back of my mind that you know you may stumble stumble onto something at the national that you weren't expecting so but yeah i'm looking forward to it it's hard to believe it's it's next month now so it's wild and you've been on this show as you alluded to a lot of different times over the course of the history of stacking slabs and i i would say you have evolved as a not only collector during that time period i mean you you you always kinda have your lanes that you collected and you know what you like but i would say you have maybe your level of aggression on buying cards that you need for your collection has gone up as you've found your focus and i think why i wanted to talk with you is because we've been talking a lot about the private market and i think i would classify you as a known buyer of specifically like really high end peyton manning cards and so like i want this conversation to dig into your experience and hopefully we can help some other collectors who are buyers who are trying to navigate kind of the private side but maybe we start with maybe your your kind of reputation or your perception of your reputation like as a collector has your reputation as a collector do you think changed over the years yeah i think so i mean you know when i first got back you know really hardcore in the hobby in twenty nineteen i was buying everything else and you know what other people were telling you to buy and all that sort of stuff but i realized it wasn't bringing me joy because i was just i was thinking of it from the lens and what the content was telling me as you buy this card and it shows up in your mailbox and it goes up in value and you sell it and that whole sort of thing and that that that just wasn't for me i know it's for a lot of people still you know people like to flip cards and that's fine but it's not for me like i wanted you know to to get cards of a player that i was attached to and so i'm a very nostalgic person and so so peyton manning was that guy right he was the guy i collected in the late nineties and early two thousands was a fan of helm even though i wasn't collecting helm during his entire career but no whenever i got back into actively collect collecting helm back in twenty twenty i was really just another collector looking for peyton manning cards right i'm just another guy but over time as i consistently like bought traded and shared my collection on instagram i think i created my instagram account in like late twenty twenty and people across the hobby started to recognize me as someone who is real serious about getting the high end manning pieces and it kinda it kinda kick started it was funny you know sharing it from the football card podcast last week where he asked you know to share cards that have been in your collection for over three years and you know it was a twenty twelve prism gold that kick started it all i think i think once i got that and we've we talked about this on the podcast before like once i got that i mean that was just the rocket ship to like oh my gosh this card is you know an amazing piece for peyton and where can i find some other other amazing pieces and i'll never forget the twenty thirteen and twenty fourteen prism gold just sitting out there and i was able to get those like bam bam so i got the twenty twelve to twenty fourteen prism gold in just a couple months and i was like man this is easy but i've learned that you know it's not as easy as that when it comes to acquiring those rare and scarce pieces yeah i think i remember when you got those cards and thinking to myself man that seems very very expensive although amazing cards and then it was like some of our other friends acquired the some other mannings in that kind of lane and the price went up the next year and then i feel like the next year was like well i list i missed my window on these which tends to happen with some of these cards but when you did when did you start to notice maybe the people bringing cards directly to you was it a result of maybe you posting some of these high end mannings like i remember in wrestling we were in this this was years ago and we were spending pretty serious money on cards and maybe serious money that some people hadn't really seen before and so i remember like you dm me and you'd be like look at what has been brought to me today should i for this price but like when did that moment happen when you realized like people started to bring cards directly to you yeah i think i think back it was probably in that twenty twenty to twenty one time frame you know where people kind of saw that i was buying those types of cards you know the important to the hobby important to me kind of peyton manning cards you know when they became you know whether it was public or private right and so that's when people started started coming to me because i they saw me as a buyer of those cards and they saw me as a collector right there were some people other people and and and again right wrong whatever that would buy payton but they were also buying other stuff too and so i think when people see someone who's buying a mixture of players they may be a little bit more hesitant to sell them a card because they're saying well what's the person's you know what what is their intention behind buying that card right is this gonna be like just another card for them or is this going to be the card for them because they are a collector of that player and so i think people saw that you know for from me because i started doing the manning monday post right and so every monday i was posting a pay an a a new manning card for for my collection and so i think when people see that consistency with you that's what makes them want want to bring those types of cards to you so you think that and i say this a lot and maybe i just need you here to confirm what i say and you can deny it but i've been on record of saying post your damn cards because the more you post your cards the more it creates kind of signals to other collectors that you might be a certain collector of a player and you might be a place someone wants to go sell a specific card and not have to worry about that card after the sale being kinda flipped around and entering kinda the the flipper vortex so so do you think that like manning monday for instance created visibility to your page that you were not just someone who bought peyton manning cards but you were someone who was like likely stashing those peyton manning cards in your collection because you're a collector yeah it's just like i i said it said just a minute ago you know consistency is what you need there and i've actually been thinking about that lately because you know as cards get rarer and scarcer and harder to find that consistency of just like the routine of every monday posting something kinda goes away and so you kinda get that urge of a collector of like oh shoot like i need to repost a card or i need to go find something just so i can post something right but then you have to step back and kinda slow down a little bit and say this you know does this fit fit in my collection but you know just to answer your you know your question the more visible you are within your niche whatever that is whether it's you know football cards or peyton manning or like you as being a cult collector or you know in wrestling cards or something like that you know the more likely people are to think of you when a significant card surfaces you know but like conversely and we'll probably talk about this more visibility can also create opportunities for sellers to hang cards you know kinda over your head which can be very very frustrating but it's nice to know you know i probably get a new dm once every couple weeks from a collector that says hey i saw that you know you collect manning cards you know would you be interested in this or hey you know i'm i'm going to keep an eye out for you and so on and so forth and so it it's just nice to to feel full of right yeah i wanna get into maybe that flow of private opportunities you said maybe once every week or so you'll get something i guess when you get you get those dms are they mostly cards that you aren't interested in but might be of your subjects that you collect and you it's just like a nice solid where you're just you like thank them for for sharing but no thanks like you're not interested or are you in fact getting like at bats on a routine basis of cards that you need and you're highly interested like what's the ratio of like those messages coming in your inbox yeah i would say like today it's pretty rare that i get something that i'm like you know surprised by or like oh my gosh i've been looking for this card forever you know there's a lot of nice peyton manning cards that maybe a few years ago that i may have wanted in my collection and probably you know and probably would enhance you know if you're just an average collector's collection and things like that but i feel like i've gotten so far down the road of like rare and scarce and my list that i've wants has gotten so very short you know finding those cards will be like finding a needle in a haystack but unless you keep you know keep active and you keep consistent and you stay visible right you certainly can lose that opportunity and you never know the person that presents you with one card you never wanna just kinda shut them down or whatever because you know the fact that they know that you're in my case a patent manning collector you know you wanna thank them and be pleasant with them and just say hey you know here's kinda like maybe this isn't the card but here's kinda what i'm looking for or hey if you happen to see this let me know and that sort of thing and that's always helpful so it's always great to just expand your network as much as possible because you never know that while that person may not bring be bringing the card that you need they may know somebody who has the card that you need or they may see somebody at a show you know it's all about multiplying yourself because i can only be one place at one time i'm not a guy that goes to a show every weekend or something like that i typically just go to the national once a year and maybe a regional show kinda here and there so it's helpful to have eyes and ears kind of out in the wild that are helping you find those cards you're looking for maybe this is a good time to talk about some of your recent pickups because i was curious on like what what what type of private message or opportunity like makes your ears perk up and you're interested in i know it feels like it was you know several weeks ago maybe a couple months ago we were exchanging some text messages and you started sharing with me some cards and i said okay yep these aren't cards you see every day and yep i understand these are definitely cards that based on your narrow list and maybe these cards were out not even on the list because they were such unicorns but maybe talk about some of those recent pickups and how that all had taken shape oh trust me i mean these these cards were on the list there was no question these cards were not on the list so i'll just i'll just share them real quick and then we can kinda go how does that sound sir yeah let's go so the first is the twenty fourteen topstrome superfractor of peyton right so that was one and then then you get into the twenty fourteen tops finest superfractor peyton and then we'll end with the twenty thirteen prism black finite which i know you're you're a huge fan of brett yes beautiful so these are these all happen to be with one one seller and and i'll share the quick story about that so i was on facebook one day and there's a a quite a few like peyton manning card facebook groups and i was just happen to scroll and you know how your feed you never really know what's gonna show up on your feed and there was an individual on there that said hey i'm i i i have some rare peyton manning cards i'm not sure what the value is you know does anybody you know would anybody be able to help me and something just nudged me like hey i should message this guy and just say hey like i also collect rare paint manning cards i'd be happy to help you know it didn't even pop in my head of like oh i wonder what he has like maybe i can make a deal i was just i was felt compelled to be nice and so we exchanged direct messages and he said yeah like i've been collecting peyton you know since he was a rookie i've got over like four thousand peyton manning cards and i'm like oh my gosh you know and i said well like what are your best cards and maybe we can start there and i can help and he sends me a picture and that was the three cards in the picture and i was like oh my gosh and so i just you know we had a long converse again this was back in like late november early december and we exchanged lots of dms and he you know i had to kinda you know he he was only on facebook he didn't have an instagram so i had to share with him some pictures from instagram of my collection of like here's who i am here's who i collect i shared the psa magazine article that i was with like i felt like i was just validating yourself just validating myself to the guy that had you know didn't know me from somebody else right and so we we we finally talked and he finally agreed that he would sell them we agreed on the number and i said for you know a number of that price let's meet up and so we live probably eight and a half hours away from each other and so i said well let's meet halfway at some point and and we weren't sure when it was gonna work out and i really wasn't in a rush to get them other than i just wanted to get the cards but it just so happened in spring break we were in a hot springs area there and he was coming over to west memphis arkansas and i said well let's meet about halfway in between just east of little rock and so i met him in a restaurant parking lot and we did what looks like a drug deal to most in the parking lot exchanging you know a a cashier's check for some cards and he was very happy and i was very happy and he you know explained to me that he'd he'd gotten those cards back in you know twenty thirteen and twenty fourteen and what he had paid for them which of course made my jaw drop and that whole sort of thing but you know we're we're just overjoyed to find stuff like that so you you know just to go back to the topic there's you know there's few times that cards come to you but i think to get the cards that are really rare and scarce in what you want like you've got to put in the work to find that type of stuff and make those connections you can't just really sit back and wait on things to come to you because you're probably gonna be disappointed more often than not that's such good advice and i think we as a hobby typically are very reactive right we all live and die by our saved searches and when you think about it and you're like a card pops up on your saved searches and you get that dopamine rush and you feel pressure to buy the card and you might buy the card and then realize you know weeks later i had not really for this it was just that moment i wanted to buy the card and that that's like the normal operating of the hobby not saying you can't land a card you love that way we all have landed many cards we love but it feels like that the unicorns the cards you've never seen typically are stashed away in some collector's collection who in this instance might not necessarily know how to navigate and by being proactive being in those communities groups and actually responding to help someone it might lead to kind of a a deal where you land three cards which i would imagine are at the kind of the top echelon of your favorite manning cards in your collection so i don't know like does going through an experience like that does it make you think a little bit differently about like it's hard to like reorchestrate something like that again but does it cause you to maybe think a little bit differently about like how you spend your time trying to navigate the hobby and and find cards that will likely sit next to those cards as being some of your favorite cards in your collection yeah it does i think you know i think you you you know it's it's i'm kinda one of those guys with every premier auction or elite auction or whatever fancy term that they use right i'm i'm always kind of like like stalking those and seeing what's up there and what's out there but generally i i found that you know through we'll just call it six years of hard research i kinda know where most of the cards that i want are located at or if i don't know who has it or whatever or something like that then i know someone who knows someone and so i think it's it's just maintaining those connections and just knowing that hey you know like you may look into something every once in a while like scrolling facebook or you know staying a part of those those facebook groups or some other form of social media just to make sure that you know you're staying engaged and you're seeing what's out there because there are there are a lot of collectors that aren't active on social media or like they may not even have social media right one thing i learned a long time ago that i thought was interesting and i think i'll share is i was going to card shows i was going to the dallas card shows at the national and even some local shows and i would talk to dealers and i would say hey i'm looking for peyton manning and like almost all of them would say hey like i've got a couple of few ones it's probably ones you have but all my nice pieces i keep at home because i collect them right and i that always really stuck with me and i know like the wharf did a poll recently about you know the top collected football players and all that and peyton manning finished number two and people got all you know bent like like wound up and bent out of shape about that but i think i think it it goes back to my own research that i did of like going to all these card shows and people weren't putting their nice patent out because they wanted to collect them like they wanted to hold on to him now now that the market is kinda done gone in the bull run and all that you've seen a little bit more come out than you did back then but but but but i think it was just it was an interesting i guess my own research kinda paid off and there's certain things that i think of because i've done you know i'm not not i don't wanna sound like conceded or anything like that but i feel like i've done more research on him and his market and what people are doing than most so i feel i guess qualified and educated to say that like there's a lot of collectors out there that keep cards at home and just because somebody else has transacted more frequently or has higher dollar sales or things like that doesn't necessarily equate to a a stronger or larger collector base so yeah the i'd love to get your reaction to like manning as a subject in card collecting because we haven't talked about this i haven't talked with anyone about this but if anyone has an opinion on this i'd it's probably you but you know when we first met we bonded over peyton manning and cards and we met other people who liked manning cards like us but it it it wasn't like publicly there wasn't droves of people you know flocking demanding cards it it it felt very small and through this bull run it feels like there has been a lot more outside interest a lot more people classifying themselves as manning collectors and i'm not here to judge if they were or not or if it's based on prices or whatever but i would love you as someone who every day for as long as it's been for as long as i've known you you have i'm sure done some sort of research you've certainly done some sort of safe search checking you you've evaluated manning every day for a very very long time like what is your observation on his interest from the hobby and how you would classify the individuals who are trying to obtain his cards right now it's interesting it certainly has increased right since six years ago there's a lot more people that are interested in him and you know it was like way back when people would talk about how he's he's undervalued right undervalued compared to to still a line from our friend chris you know compared to the rest of the hobby but you never really saw money flowing into him like you would think it was like well this guy's undervalued then go buy his cards and then the when supply dries up coupled with increased demand the value is gonna go up but you never really saw that happen and i think you're starting to see that a little bit more now but i but i still also think there's a lot of prospecting that goes on in the hobby as well where people wanna get into the more active and modern players and things like that because they can watch them and can flip and can kinda go up and down but but i've noticed more that when you know these rare and scarce peyton manning cards come to market they're getting snatched up and with a few rare exceptions like there's a shield that's sold that's been flipped around between a few different guys lately and that that gets popped up and you know that whole sort of thing but it's like these cards disappear and you don't see them again for like a a you know large number of years whereas with other players i feel like you know they go into the premier auction and then it sells and then you know three to six months later you see it back in a premier auction let's just say and so it's just it's interesting how the cars disappear and you just feel like there's more collectors that are coming out of the woodwork and folks that are willing to pay you know these big prices for his cars which you know in my opinion they're very strong prices but when you look at it at the end of the day there's still not a lot of peyton manning cards that are over six figures i mean which is great for me because i wanna keep collecting him and you know i i like to win an auction as much as the rest you know as much as the next person so yeah it's an interesting thing and just knowing in the back of my head that peyton is also collecting his own cards is kinda cool just hope we're not competing for the same cards so anyway it's it's bound it's bound to have happen or have already happened there drake yes i wanna talk about maybe the good the bad and the ugly about being being a known buyer in the private market we'll start with the good what are maybe some of the biggest advantages you've seen with operating in the private market well certainly it's kinda two things i think about right it's it's access and timing right because you often get a chance to buy cards before the rest of the hobby even knows that they're available right so we go back to these three cards that i just shared right of of like excuse me just a minute ago right no one knew that they were available when i talked to the owner they weren't available right but if this guy had thrown them straight to ebay or whatever right then everybody knows they're out there he's getting hammered with dms with folks getting to sell and then i have to compete with a whole bunch of people whether they're a collector flipper or something like that to try and buy these cards that i just want for my collection like i'm not trying to buy them to make money off of them you know sure i sell them for more one day that's great right but that's not that's not my why for for for wanting the cards and so i really think the access and timing piece is probably the two biggest biggest advantages of working in the private market i it's hard you're you've got a wonderful collection of paid manning cards anyone who knows you or follows you understands that and as i'm thinking about not all of them but i'm thinking about some of your bigger manning cards like would you say what percent obviously private deals are harder to accomplish because there's so much ambiguity around it and timing how would you would you say if you looked at your cards and you made like the pie chart like and had to decide like where these cards came from like what what is the ratio between maybe private and public because i know you've acquired quite a bit of really good cards privately yeah i would say probably like seventy thirty private to public right you know it it it's interesting as i think about it and i like to go through my instagram page a lot and just look at cards i've had for a while or open up the case and think about it you know and but but but several of my cards came from collectors who contacted me directly like a few that come to mind are the ninety eight pmg psa nine most of the super fractures all of the prism black finites that i own came you know from private relationships the twenty four karat gold ricky card psa nine o five and o six finest gold factors the credentials future out of seven psa nine i mean like it's more than i thought now that you're saying through all no and there's there's like so many more brett like like and and and i thought like maybe someday i should write a book because that's my favorite part of the card is going through and not looking at a card and saying like well this is a cool card oh you know like what is this card worth i can remember the details about who who like who had the card before me maybe who had it before them like what the story was like the whole story with the acquisition the process the dms you know did i meet meet them in person was it a card that was shipped you know was it a card that was funded or whatever and and that to me as i've stated before on your podcast and some others like i value relationships over transactions and i love the story of acquiring a card and knowing who owned it previously knowing the story of the card and and i just think it's cool like they took care for took care of it for a while and now it's my turn to take care of it for hopefully a long while do you i love that drake do you do you feel like when you are given the opportunity at an app bad at a card and it's a card you need i know like on the bad side we're gonna talk about like people you know putting you bidding you over because they have the leverage and try to make you pay more but like if it's from a trusted person and they're giving you an at bat at a card doesn't it make it sting a little less that of of like the the money you're paying to that person like no matter if it's more than you expected or not like i've always found like getting the opportunity it's like if it's someone i know and trust and like and they're giving me an opportunity at bat i almost like don't even question the price because i feel like because they're giving me the opportunity and because i feel like they're not screwing me over like nine times out of ten i like don't even negotiate i just say yeah thank you so much for giving me access and it'll get done but like what's your experience with that when you're getting those amazing cards in your dms yeah it's great i mean i i i just love the aspect like i said before there's a more conversation and like relationship involved right you know and it's it feels good just knowing you're working with another collector and you kinda understand where they're coming from maybe maybe from a price point right you know you're trying to agree on price and you're trying to you know understand where they're at where you're at you know and that whole sort of thing and i and i just i love that whole aspect and conversation piece back and forth of trying to work out a deal where you're both happy right in in an auction right you get the dopamine rush and the adrenaline of you know ready to hit that you know last second bid or maybe if it's a premier auction is it a marathon of see who falls asleep last to win the auction you know that sort of thing but you know it's just it's great when you're dealing with another collector versus a bunch of other bidders who you don't know what their intention is with the card right and and these cards are have turned into assets and people use them for capital and you know and that's fine and dandy or whatever but you just don't know what's going on in an auction right there's there could be shield bidding going on there could be nonpayers there could be something like that when you're dealing with another collector it's just direct direct to direct there's really no countdown clock or timing or something like that it's just whenever the two sides can agree on a deal that makes sense for the both of them and i think that's that's great and that's why i value relationships over transactions let's talk about maybe the bad or some of the challenges i think i just think about the fact that you were very public talking about your private deal of the ninety eight essential credentials future manning out of seven that story was told here and elsewhere private deal and then the the deal was documented and minted in cardladder as a public sales and it's very well known that that was a six figure sale when you get associated with someone who is willing to spend or consolidate into a six figure card i just think about all of the sellers drooling when they see manning cards because they know they've got someone who potentially will pay big money for it so there's that perception there so oh drake bought a six figure card like he's going to i'm gonna be able to get in squeeze any penny out of him if i've got a card that he needs maybe talk about some of those challenges that you have seen since you have been known to be a bigger spender when it's on a manning card that you need in your collection yeah i think you kinda hit the you know hit the answer a little bit in the question but like people assume you're interested in in every peyton manning card and so they'll bring you any card and then you'll ask price and they'll tell you this price is way higher than what the market value should be and it may not even be something that i'm interested in and so you know i think they just people start to assume that you want every card and then when you don't want the card you're not that interested in it like they're confused you're like but you're a paint manning collector like you should want this card right i'm going well maybe at one point in my life i did but i i got to where i valued like quality over quantity and and and wanting to stay married and not just have a huge house full of cards but i had to kinda consolidate and narrow down my focus a little so that's kinda the the first thing and you know the second thing is is is is people assume that budget is not a factor right they just assume well you know if he spent six figures on that then he's got more six figures to spend you know and maybe i could if i wanted to right but budget for me is a factor right if you if you don't believe me just ask my wife budget's a factor like every purchase before i do i i make sure to run a buyer and just say hey here's the cards here's you know here's what i'm spending you know just wanna make sure that you're okay with it right and so i think it's important important to understand that is like people you know money flies around the hobby all the time right you can see youtube videos it shows and people you know dropping huge stacks of cash on the table and all that kind of stuff and i'll tell you that's like the point one percent of the hobby when you look at the whole hobby as a whole that that happens right and sometimes you even question if that's if that's real or not too and so i think you just have to take that into account and just know that while people may spend big money on cards that budget still is a factor and and or or or at least it's a factor for me so my impression you just talked about your budgeting and having limitations and running it through your quality checks i e wife which is a very important trait to have as a collector who's spending money big money on cards do i guess like you are someone who has been buying big cards but you're you're not just buying because you have endless stacks of cash and not doing the work like you're you're you're methodically understanding the values or perceived values and you probably know them better than most because it's the lane and the hobby you're spending a majority of your time so you're making yourself known as a visible high end peyton manning collector but i would imagine that creates unrealistic expectations for the sellers who are trying to approach you with cards like it's fun for me sometimes because you'll text me and be like you won't believe like this and i get a kick out of it because i'm just like yeah this is what happens you have to deal with some crap in order to like land those three you know amazing manning cards but maybe like i don't know like those unrealistic seller expectations like how do you navigate those you you mentioned a little bit like someone will come to you with like a crazy price but like how do you how do you like do like navigate those in a way that you're not like being disrespectful or potentially burning a bridge but you're maybe educating the seller that or telling them in a subtle way that they're they're crazy and you're not playing ball like that yeah you you know the first thing we hit on this a little bit is like some sellers assume that because you're a known buyer that you're automatically going to pay a premium they're like well he paid a premium for this other car and so he's probably gonna pay a premium for this card so i'm gonna try to squeeze every nickel that i can out of him right and so i think you know sometimes and sometimes you're talking to like a brick wall but sometimes just trying to educate folks on what they have and like here's where i'm at on my offer and here's why i think it's fair you know and i try like like i'm a data driven person that's what i do in my career that's i'm just it's the way i think i use data and some people just use feel like well i like screw your data screw what cardbutter says like i feel like this card is worth this and i'm like i'm sorry i i i don't as much as i want this card like i'm not your guy you know and so it's it is funny on that type of stuff where you know when you tell people that and you wait it out i've had some instances where people come back around and they're like hey would you still pay such and such right because they they tried to shop it around and and they they come back to me and they're like well shoot well drake drake will pay me more than anyone else will and i'm like well that's what i was trying to tell you on the front end and so it's just it's getting people to to understand that you know and if i and if i happen to to miss out on a card for whatever reason i just always tell myself that it happened for a reason and something better is just around the corner and that's actually some advice i've tried to share with some friends you know across the hobby because some people would get disappointed that a card on their ebay watch list maybe they were saving up for it disappeared or yeah we're trying to work out a deal with with a seller and didn't work out or they thought they had put in this huge max bid for a car that was in an auction and they lost out on it and i just i have to go back to him and i'm saying like that happened for a reason right something better is around the corner and so just be patient and see you know and that will come to pass right all things happen for a reason i think that's true in any facet of life to remember that so you know and like i i wanna say nine times out of ten but i'm it's probably ten times out of ten something better comes along and there was a reason that you lost out on that car or lost out on the auction because there was something better that was coming along so that's why it's important to stay patient and not get frustrated and not do what i used to do which is you feel like you have to get that you know reactive buyer like i lost it on the card so i gotta just go buy something just to scratch that itch you don't wanna do that are there any warning signs that you've seen that you could potentially share when you realize that maybe a deal isn't being approached in good faith anything that you've experienced over the years of private doing private deals yeah i would say a couple of them are like you know the artificial sense of urgency right it's like hey man i wanna offer this to you but i wanna let you know that that i'm gonna offer it to somebody else or if you don't want it i'm i'm gonna send it to auction this afternoon right or you know like that that sort of thing where they're bringing you terms that sort of thing or you know you make an offer and then they say hey you know i've got a higher offer can you match it right and you wonder if it's bogus or not or whatever so it's just it's all that stuff trying to upsell you and that whole sort of thing if they don't wanna provide details of those types of offers because sometimes i've asked them like hey we'll we'll prove it right and they're like well the person asked me not to share they wanted to keep it private right you know that sort of thing it's like and then you get folks that you know come into like changing terms of you know they're like well you know like let me sell you this you know but then i don't wanna sell it and they're just kinda i'm trying to think of a good example but just where they you know they they kinda go back and forth on the card and you know like they won't respond to dms or something like that that's that's that's just a few things that come to mind where you're just going like you know is this really a person that i wanna do business with right like i told you i'm a relationship type person and when i feel like somebody is way too focused on the transaction it it's just a turn off to me yeah i think that the the individual like one thing i would suggest to any sellers anybody who's buying cards and spending thousands of dollars on cards like there's a lot of cards no matter what you collect that are coming your way regularly our way regularly and to me like the the most important quality maybe even more important than the card is like just being easy to do business with like love it when a sell a seller a dealer someone who's making money off of selling cards for a living i love it when there's a card that pops up that they have and i've done business with them before and i know what to expect and i know the negotiation how it typically goes and it's it's done and i'm able to get the card pay them and it's over with but then we've all been on the other side of it where we have been a part of a terrible negotiation and we have a certain perception based on what we've seen these this person done in the past and it's a small com it it feels like a smaller community than is we get feedback everywhere and so i don't know about you man but like no matter what like no matter how great the card is no matter how bad i need it i have i can probably i've got a list of people on a on a list that no matter what i will not do business with because they've either wronged me in the past they've done something to someone else i know or i just don't like how they operate because i don't wanna waste my time getting into that rabbit hole of changing terms and this and that so like do you do you feel that way like you have maybe a a list of people that whether i've screwed you in the past that you just like no matter what like you're just i i i don't have any intention to do business with them again because i just don't wanna go through that yes no for sure and the whole time you're talking to that brad i can't get the chris jericho you just made the list fine and so yeah there there there's people that just turn you off and you're like you know this person i just don't wanna do do business with them because of whatever reason and it doesn't matter you you you know it's it's tough to say right because you say it doesn't matter but it's like gosh what if one day they pulled out you know the you know the the two thousand six find a super fracture and we're like would you be interested in that do you you go back on your i'm not gonna do business with this guy sort of thing so i think it it really does just depend on the level of you know if they if you know if they said they were gonna send you a card and didn't send it and took your money or something like that you know that's just a nonstarter there's just there's there's no business for that but if it was just a troubled transaction let's we'll say but everything ended up like working out in the end then that's probably okay but yeah there's just there's some people you know that are out there that are just trying to you know nickel and dime you and squeeze everything out of you and that just it just makes you reluctant to wanna even have a relationship with that person yeah i'll i'll also say like inversely there has been people who other people have or their perception of that individual has been like they're tough to do business with they're just a flipper or whatever and then i've engaged with them on a deal and it's been very very pleasant so i think it's like there's a part of it of like experiencing each individual yourself and trying to figure out if that type of operating is for you or not but just wanted to call that out i wanna get into maybe just maybe skipping ahead a little bit on the agenda just managing reputation do you think based on your experience that collectors should intentionally build a reputation as a buyer do you think like how you've done it is been important to getting kind of the cards that you might not have known existed or where they existed yeah i mean i think it's important but i think you should build a reputation for being trustworthy and consistent right the buyer whole reputation part kinda follows that naturally so you wanna be consistent in there they want you to you know like sellers wanna know that you know like people can trust you and that if you're going to acquire cards like what your intentions are with them and it's not going to show up on an auction block or on an instagram story or something like that the next week so you know i think it's important to you know build that reputation and then that buyer piece will just kinda follow after that if you just build it as a buyer first and all you are is just you know buying buying buying buying and then you're selling selling selling that's not the reputation i think you should wanna have as you know as a collector or at least that's not the rep reputation that i want as a collector what misconceptions do you think people have about collectors who are spending a lot of money and buying significant cards i would say people just assume that they buy everything they see right you know most serious collectors are very very selective you know and i also think the other misconception like we talked previously is that you know people who buy significant cards have endless amounts of money right which is not the case with me at least or that they're only into buying significant cards of like oh the only reason drake wanted that twenty thirteen prism black finite is because he wants to he wants to sell it someday and retire and things like that and you know gosh if i'm able to do that that'd be awesome right but that's not that's not why that's not why that's not my why right and so i think you know it's just important for people to understand people's why they want those significant type cards and i think everybody has a different reason and there's not a wrong reason but i think it's just understanding at least from my perspective like why i want significant cards right so if i if i'm sitting there and i'm only after super factors like i'm not buying them because i'm like oh i hope i can make money off of them someday i'm in my mind thinking like gosh i've already got you know this many super fractures if i get you know like one more then i could complete the bronco's finest super fracture run and wow now after that it'd be great to kinda start going down that colts super fracture and try to get that and so it's just you know it's understanding that that's that becomes your why and why that is which is great but then also people who hold those cards we talked about before and the bad and the ugly they can hold those kinda over your head and say hey i've got this and you want this and if you really want this card to complete that run you're talking about you're gonna have to pony up that that can be difficult sometimes maybe as we're rounding the corner on this chat drake what have doing private deals taught you about collecting certainly you know the hobby we talk about all the time it's about cards but to me it's all about the people right and you know cards matter a lot but the relationships to me are you know what the best opportunities lie and because of this i've learned that many of the best cards are hidden collections that aren't public and then many of the collectors i've gotten cards from have held them through several bull market cycles right like the guy i got the three cards from there had been a bunch of bull market cycles there were opportunities for him to sell and he didn't he just wanted to hang on to the cards because he loved the cards and so i think i think that tells me that the cards that i've gotten the private deals from are largely in the hands of you know you know true collectors who value the cards over money and i respect that so very much alright final one to close this out drake just a piece of advice you'd give to anyone out there who is in the middle of a private deal thinking about doing more private deals private deal curious like what what sort of feedback do you have yeah i would just say you know the best collectors don't buy every great card that they see right they position themselves through relationships through making the right financial decisions whether it's saving money you know selling cards to consolidate you know waiting that sort of thing so that you're ready when the right card appears and so i think that's just it's so important to always be ready you hear it a lot and it's like what is being ready look look like it doesn't mean that you have to have this bag of cash in the corner of your office just ready to walk out the door and make a deal it's just when when a card comes along that you you know that you want to potentially acquire you have to be ready in your mind to say okay does this card fit in my collection like where would it rank in my collection and then what would i you know if i'm not drawing from my checking account and wanting to keep my entire collection what would have to replace this card in my collection and then just say okay i think this card or i know this card is going to cost this much you know is it worth giving up these two three four five whatever number of cards to acquire that and if it is then you make the decision and i think that's just the part of being ready you know when the right card appears you can follow him at drakes underscore p c drake it was great to have you back in the saddle tons of wisdom we'll do it again in a shorter time frame than we did between the last two i can promise you that sounds great brett thanks for having me on