welcome back to another episode of stacking slabs this is your hobby content alternative i'm brett i run the network here i collect sports cards i do what i can to continue to bring my passion for collecting in this industry to shows like this one appreciate you being here enjoying the thought process on putting each and every one of these flagship episodes together they definitely come through inspiration observations in the industry what i'm hearing what i am seeing my own experience maybe a little peek behind the curtain when i drop a flagship episode which happens on wednesday the process to start the new flagship episode begins the morning the previous episode drops so we have several days in between episodes where we dig into the next topic and i've never really shared that and never really talked about it but there is a lot of thought and planning that goes into each and every one of these episodes i've gotten a lot of questions on how do you produce this much content how are you able to continue to scale and deliver new episodes across stacking slabs every day my response is number one i am a creature of habit i'm very consistent that is something i prioritize in my life and then also it's the systems you you build the systems around your work so you're not coming in without a plan so every day i come in to do my work there is a system designed to help me get to where from point a to point b and the system has been developed around the flagship episode and it has taken me more time to produce each of these episodes but because this is the anchor i think that is something that is warranted and i'm getting a lot of good feedback each and every week these episodes are resonating so we are going to continue to march on i have a fun one today about the hobby you have now and why i think this era we're in in the industry in collecting rewards the proactive collector if you're enjoying these episodes make sure you hit the follow button tell a damn friend run on over to the patreon group i've been fighting some sort of vicious daycare cold the last week plus so excuse me if i sound a little stuffy on this episode i will march on i will get through it and gotta shout out my good friends at inferno red technology they are the engineering team behind some of the biggest names in sports and collectibles like dc sports eighty seven comsea collectors upper deck and ebay from ai powered solutions for startups to full stack platforms for industry leaders their team can tackle your toughest technology challenge they build awesome software for the hobby leagues and for fans and everyone in between see what they can build for you at inferno red dot com there is a sentence i've heard in card shops card shows podcasts across social media and it is something you might have said before and that is i miss the old hobby and i get it i miss parts of it too i miss walking into a shop and seeing a card sit in the same showcase for months i miss the feeling that a card might wait for you i miss prices that gave a collector more room to make mistakes sometimes i even miss a hobby that felt a little slower but when people say the hobby used to be better they often have reasons prices were lower in many categories there are fewer people chasing the same cards every release did not feel like an event every sale did not become a piece of content and every card did not arrive with a debate about what it meant for the market those costs are real i'm not here to talk anybody out of missing the old version of the hobby i'm not here to to tell you everything is roses and better now because it's not necessarily i wanna talk about the half of the conversation that receives less attention what has this version of the hobby given us what can a collector do today that was hard slow or impossible before and why do some collectors seem to find cards information and opportunities while other collectors see the same hobby and feel as if every door has closed i think the answer starts with a change in the type of collector this hobby rewards the hobby many of us remember was built for the reactive collector the hobby we have now rewards the proactive collector that does not mean good collectors did not do research twenty years ago because they did it does not mean shop owners controlled every decision they didn't it means the infrastructure placed most collectors in a reactive position information arrived on a schedule that kit came once a month product releases told you what rookies mattered the shop owner told you what was moving the show dealer told you what was rare the cards in front of you became the cards you knew existed you reacted to the information inventory and opinion that reached you today the raw material is available to almost everyone sales history population reports checklists card images auction archives save searches marketplace alerts collector communities long form conversations like this one right here direct access to people who collect one player one team one set one card type at a level few people knew existed the collector no longer has to wait for information to arrive the collector can go find it that change matters it also creates a new responsibility information is no longer the scarce resource attention is scarce judgment is scarce curiosity for sure is scarce the advantage no longer belongs only to the person who has access it belongs to the person who knows what to do with that access before we talk about the upside of the hobby we have now we need to respect what collectors are grieving nostalgia is not stupidity it is not resistance for the sake of resistance people miss a hobby that match the way they learn to collect they build a strategy around a set of conditions their budget bought a certain level card their local shop gave them a a dependable source of inventory and information their knowledge of one category gave them an edge the pace left room to think then the conditions change more money entered the hobby more cards entered the hobby more platforms entered the hobby more people started publishing opinions about the hobby the collector who felt fluent began to feel behind that's not a small loss when somebody says the hobby was better before i often hear a second sentence beneath it i knew how to operate in that hobby there is also memory effect at work research on autobiographical memory has found that the emotional weight of negative events tends to fade faster than the emotional weight of positive events researchers call it the fading effect bias that does not mean our memories are false it means time can soften the inconvenience while preserving that feeling we remember the pack we opened with our dad we do not remember every empty trip to the the hobby shop we remember buying a key card for a price that feels extremely low today we do not remember how little information we had when we made the purchase we remember the fewer people competed for the cards we wanted we forget that fewer people were visible to us the old hobby was slower it was also more dependent on geography timing and gatekeeping your access often depended on the shop near your house the shows within driving distance the dealers you knew and the inventory they chose to bring that system had its benefits created trust created repeat contact it gave a local shop owner a role that went beyond a transaction it also meant that a collector in indianapolis and a collector in los angeles were not seeing the same pool of cards or learning from the same group of people today they can that does not make the hobby warmer it makes the hobby wider and that question is whether you know how to use the with without letting it bury you think about what is available before a collector makes a purchase today on ebay you can narrow a search by condition price and listing format you can save that search watch items receive notifications and new inventory appears psa provides a population report and certification verification those tools do not tell you whether a card belongs in your collection but they give you information about supply and authenticity that required calls catalogs and trust in the person across the counter card ladder says its database now holds more than one hundred million historical sales across sports cards trading card games non sports a collector can study sales across marketplaces compare cards and see patterns that were once scattered across auction houses and old notes the trading card database has built a crowdsource archive with checklists galleries collection tracking trading forums you can search a player and see cards you didn't not even know existed the last point matters more than i think it sounds discovery used to be accidental you saw a card in a case saw it in a magazine another collector showed it to you discovery now can be intentional you can study every card from a player you can trace the parallels from a set you can compare cards across eras you can find images of cards that haven't sold in years you can identify the owner of a card through a collector community and start a relationship long before the card is for sale this is more than just convenience it changes what a collector can know it can change how early a collector can know it it changes how prepared a collector can be when a card appears the old edge often came from the possession of information the new edge comes from connecting information a sale price is one fact a population report is one fact checklist one fact a conversation with the collectors one fact the proactive collector connects them them they ask whether the reported population reflects true supply they ask whether the sale was an outlier or part of the the a pattern they ask whether the card is important to the player set brand or only to the sellers description they ask how often the card becomes available they ask who else cares they ask whether a lower sale price represents an opportunity or a warning the tools provide pieces judgment turns those pieces into a decision this is where the new hobby creates its own problem more access gives you more cards to consider more data gives you more numbers to interpret more content gives you more opinions to filter more communities give you more collections to compare against your own researchers who study choice overload have found that more options do not harm every decision the effect depends on factors such as how complex the options are how hard the decision feels how certain a person is about their preferences and whether they know what they are trying to accomplish that that describes collecting to me if you do not know what you want access becomes noise if you know what you want access becomes leverage the collector with no plan opens an app and sees an endless stream of cards the collector with a plan opens the same app and sees a filterable inventory one person experiences temptation the other person experiences search this is why i do not think the algorithm is the enemy i also do not think the algorithm is your research department the algorithm is designed to keep presenting items and ideas that earn your attention it learns from what you stop to view it responds to what you people like to view it gives weight to what performs that makes it useful for exposure it also means it will feed you what is visible active and engaging it will not protect your budget it will not understand the purpose of your collection it will not tell you what the best decision is to wait when it is to to wait if you're collecting plan begins with what appears in your feed you're still a reactive collector the delivery mechanism changed the behavior did not beckett once arrived once a month the algorithm arrives every time you unlock your phone both can tell you what other people are paying attention to neither should decide what matters to you the new hobby is full of people and platforms that can help you they can also pull you away from your plan the answer is not to distrust everyone the answer is to understand the role each person plays in the incentive attached to that role start with the content creator a creator can introduce you to a card a set of collector or a way of thinking a creator can give you context that a sales chart can't provide a creator can help you understand why a category matters to the people who collect it and that's useful the creator should be an input not instruction take the question from the content then do your own work if somebody says a card is rare it check then check the checklist the print run the pop report the sales history if somebody says a category is growing ask what growth means is that more dollars is that more buyers more transactions higher prices more participation across the category don't borrow conviction from a microphone use the microphone to find the questions worth answering now think about the dealer or the shop owner a good dealer has a pattern recognition they see inventory move they hear questions from buyers they know which cards look liquid until it is time to sell one they know which collectors pay when the right card appears that knowledge matters the dealer is also the market participant they own the inventory the margin they have risk their opinion can be informed and interested at the same interesting or interested at the same time you do not need to reject it you need to place it in context ask what they are seeing beyond the card they're trying to sell you ask which cards sit ask which buyers return ask where negotiations break there's data platforms data is evidence it is not the verdict a platforms data is evidence it is not the verdict a chart can show you what sold it cannot tell you why two bidders needed that card on that night a pop report can count graded examples it cannot count raw copies crossovers cards sitting in unopened product and every duplicate submission a sales database can help establish a range it cannot make two cards equal when an i appeal providence timing or card importance separates them use data to reduce ignorance do not use it to avoid judgment then there are other collectors this is one of the largest benefits of the hobby we have now you can find people whose knowledge runs deeper than any price guide the person who has chased one player for fifteen years knows which cards never surface the set collector knows which checklist errors really matter the team collector knows which player has demand that never appears in the broad market index the collector who watched a card trade privately three times knows more than the public sales record shows treat those people as peers not price oracles share info ask questions give before you need something do not enter every relationship with the card request relationships are part of the infrastructure now they are not a shortcut around trust this is a very important part i've talked about this a lot over the years there are a lot of people that are very self interested in this space on the collecting front and on the business front make sure if you're interacting with them and you have something of value and can provide something of value and the person is reaching out to you for something make sure they show value first that is important you got to give to get you gotta use reciprocity in order to help someone out something that's on my mind a lot the last thing i wanna talk about is the marketplace the auction house the seller their job is to create a transaction that does not make them bad it means urgency promotion and price presentation are part of the environment your job is different your job is to decide whether the card serves your collection at the price you can accept the modern collector needs to separate the source information from the source of judgment creator supply context dealer supply market experience platform supply data and access collectors supply category knowledge sellers supply the opportunity to transact you supply the decision being proactive does not mean spending every night in a spreadsheet that sucks no one wants to do that it does not mean turning a hobby into unpaid work it means building a small system around the cards you care about so you're ready when the opportunity arrives the first part of that system is a collecting thesis that phrase sounds formal it does not need to be your thesis is your answers to three questions what do i care about what belongs in my collection what am i willing to ignore the third question does most of the work the modern hobby will place more cards in front of you than you can own if everything has a chance to enter your collection the market will make the decisions for you your thesis creates a boundary it might be one player it might be cards tied to moments that you remember one of one sets errors it might change over time the point is not to make the boundary permanent the point is to make it clear enough to guide today's decision the second part is a source stack most collectors have sources sources matter fewer collectors decide what each source is for you need a place to study checklists you need place to study sales supply live inventory categories you need a place to record what you learn no single platform will have every answer that isn't a weakness it is why the collector who connects sources earns an edge suppose i'm looking for a rare wrestling card or a low numbered colts card the live listing gives me the opportunity the checklist tells me where the card sits inside the product the population report tells me what has been graded the sales history tells me what the market has paid for that card or nearby cards images from prior listings help me compare condition and presentation a conversation with another collector helps me understand how often the card has surfaced and who else has chased it my collection tells me whether the card solves a real need my budget tells me whether i should act none of those sources can replace the others the third part is the question you bring into research curiosity becomes useful when it has direction research on curiosity often starts with an information gap you know enough to recognize what you don't know and that gap pulls you towards an answer that is a strong way to approach cards don't begin with should i buy this the question creates pressure for a yes or a no answer begin with what would i need to know before the price makes sense to me now the work has shaped how many examples how many have sold how long have the listings lasted were there public private or auction or fixed price sales did the same copy move more than once is the card scarce or the supply stayed off market can i replace it if i pass would i still want it if nobody posted the sale the last question protects protects you from buying visibility instead of meaning the fourth part is monitoring a proactive collector does not need to search the internet every day they need to make the internet report back to them build safe searches with spelling variations use players' names card numbers product names parallel names and common listing mistakes track auction houses that handle the category keep watch list for cards that the interest that are interesting but might not be ready follow collectors who share knowledge around the lane record private sales with the information is credible this is where the infrastructure returns time to the collector the tools keep watching while you live your life that matters for the people i speak with every week they have jobs they have kids they have practices dinners deadlines and responsibilities outside the hobby the proactive collector is not the person with the most free time it is the person who designs a process that uses time well the fifth part is decision record write down why you bought the card write down the evidence you trusted write down the risk you accepted write down the price that would make you walk away you do not need a complex system a note in your phone works just fine the goal is to preserve your thinking before the result changes the story if the card rises you might be tempted to call every part of the decision smart if the card falls you will be tempted to call every part of it wrong price does not grade your process a decision record lets you review whether you followed your own plan used sound advice and bought for the reason you intended this is how judgment improves that last part the last part is patience technology makes action fast it does not make action wise the buy button is always present the auction clock keeps moving the alert makes every listing feel like news a good system creates room between seeing and deciding you can set a price before the auction ends you can identify alternatives before you lose the card you can decide what you would sell or stop chasing before you make a large purchase you can let a card go without turning that loss into judgment about your collection the most valuable function of research is to not is not giving you confidence to buy sometimes it's giving you confidence to pass none of this means the current hobby is easy better infrastructure does not remove bad information it helps bad information travel too sales data can contain unpaid items mislabeled cards altered cards and transactions that require context populations can rise too private sales can be impossible to verify images can hide flaws certain numbers can be copied which is one reason verification is a step rather than just a guarantee content can mix education entertainment sponsorship and inventory promotion communities can be echo chambers algorithms can make a small group of cards feel like the entire hobby and higher prices remain higher prices no research process can force a card back into your budget the current infrastructure gives the collector more power it also gives the collector more ways to create a false sense of confidence ten data points do not help it if all ten data points came from the same flawed source a chart does not remove the need to understand the card a large audience does not make the opinion true that's a big one for me it doesn't it does not matter how many people are following an individual who has an opinion on a card at all it's it it actually might move me in the other direction i don't think a low population does not create importance a rare card without a committed collector is still a rare card without committed collectors this is why the proactive collector is not the collector who uses the most tools it is the collector who knows the limits of each tool the goal is not certainty you will never have all the information the goal is the decision you understand the word edge can sound financial i mean something broader an edge is finding a card that fits before the rest of the market notices it it is knowing that the card matters even when the last sale is old it is recognizing that a low price reflects weak demand instead of an automatic bargain it's building a relationship with a collector who owns a card for years before either of you wants to transact it's knowing which cards to ignore it's protecting satisfaction from whatever receives attention that week the hobby has not removed gatekeepers it's changed them the shop owner once filtered the inventory you saw the algorithm now filters the inventory and content you see the price guide once compressed the market into just a number the data platform now expands the market into millions of sales the collector's job is no longer to accept the filter it's to build one that is where curiosity matters curious collectors do not stop at a card that was fed to them they search the set they search the player they search adjacent years they ask why one card has demand and the other doesn't they look for categories that have a history but maybe less attention they study what sits they notice what never appears curiosity compounds one checklist leads to a parallel that you didn't even know existed that parallel leads to a collector the collector teaches you about the set the knowledge helps you recognize the right copy when it surfaces the purchase becomes the end of the work not the beginning of impulse this is the opportunity inside the hobby we have right now not cheaper access to every card better access to the information that helps you decide which cards deserve your money time and attention i wrote last week about the hobby you have now the point was not to forget the hobby you had before you missed the lower prices the slower shows the local shop that shaped the way you learned how to collect you can question the amount of product the pace of releases the incentives of platforms and the way money changes behavior you can hold all of that and still recognize what sits in front of you you have access to more cards to more history to more collectors you have tools that can monitor the market while you can handle the rest of your life you have the ability to investigate a card before somebody else's conviction becomes your own that access does not promise a deal it does not promise a return it does not promise that the card you want will fit in your budget but it gives you agency the old hobby asked many collectors to react to the information that reached them the new hobby ask you to decide what information is worth reaching for that is a better environment for a collector who knows what they care about it's a better environment for a collector who asks questions it is a better environment for the collector who's willing to wait the hobby you remember is not coming back ever in the same form that does not mean the best collecting years are behind you your old strategy might not might no longer produce the same results your purpose can remain you do not need to approve of every part of the hobby to learn how to operate inside it you do not need to stop missing the past to use tools for the present and you do not need the algorithm to tell you what matters next you can go find it my name is brett i host stacking slabs your hobby content alternative appreciate your time appreciate your support hit the follow button tell a damn friend we'll be back next week with another one take care happy collecting talk soon