what's going on everybody welcome back to another episode of stackingslabs your hobby content alternative i am brett fired up to be here thank you so much for being a part of the conversation today you know last thursday i talked about a double bin smash story that started off my week and it was fun it was fun to talk about some of my pickups and share the reason why i made the move that i did and take several steps back to dig into the topic of how do we know when it's a card that we deeply need or why do we decide to pull the trigger on some cards instantly but let other cards sit on our watch list and i think the buying mechanics the psychology and everything that goes into building out our collections is a very deep topic and it is complicated and it has many layers and those layers aren't the same for me as they are for you and i am finding by sharing my perspective on the way i think about building out a collection it starts some really cool conversations and those conversations lead to moments of insight for me as not only a collector but a creator here and i wanna just take the opportunity when i can to take several steps back and spend some time to talk about different purchases that i have made and talk specifically around cards and give you all my mindset and mentality around those purchases it is not to say i'm saying you have to go or you should go buy these cards it more or less is an opportunity for me to share with you how i draw and how i come to the some of the conclusions i make when i am buying cards in the hobby so we have a free space here in the stacking slabs calendar and we're going to do that today wanna shout out everybody for hitting the follow button telling a damn friend running on over to the patreon group doing all of those things there is a lot of momentum behind the scenes for stacking slabs right now and i'm going to continue to share and i'm hopefully going to continue to be helpful and we're going to dig into a specific pickup that i've been sitting on for a while and i guess now it's time to share so this week i wanna talk about a card i picked up on may fifteenth that i genuine genuinely believe is one of the best purchases i've made in a long time not because of what it is but because of what it forced me to think as a collector i acquired the twenty twenty five topps chrome wwe john cena super fractor one of one card number sixteen it was listed on ebay for ten thousand dollars i used the wharf sports cards to help make a five thousand dollar offer on my behalf and that offer was accepted now the easy version of this episode is for me to sit here and say look at this big card look how cool this is look at this score but that's not the point the point is that this card forced me to go through a very specific process about conviction long term holds pricing discipline side collections and how i want to use equity in my collection that's what i wanna get into today because i really think there is a lesson in here that applies way beyond wrestling cards way beyond john cena and way beyond me quite frankly i think there are some purchases in this hobby that are exciting in the moment and then there are some purchases that tell you something about who you are as a collector this one is the second kind the first thing i wanna say right out of the gates is i did not want to pay ten grand for this card that is a lot of money that would take significant sacrifice for me and i think that matters because one of the biggest mistakes i think collectors make especially when we get into rare cards and grails and one of ones and cards we may never see again is we let the sticker price make the decision for us we see the number we react emotionally and we either panic buy or we walk away from doing any actual thinking and i want to challenge that mindset because the ask is not the market the ask is the seller's opening position there is a ton of behavioral research and we've talked a lot about it around the endowment effect which is just a fancy way of saying that once people own something they tend to value it highly than they would before they owned it and we've talked about the endowment effect a lot sellers look at a card and they're not just pricing the object they're pricing the pain of losing it they're pricing the dream of what it could be they're pricing the fact that they have it and you do not and that's why willingness to accept is so often higher than willingness to pay for the same asset so if offers are turned on and you believe in the card and you understand the card and you have a discipline around where you want to be then offering is not offensive it is not weakness it is not low balling for the sake of low balling it is participating in real price discovery that that participation in real price discovery was the first lesson of this card i saw ten grand and i knew immediately i did not want to be there but i also knew that ten thousand dollars did did not did not scare me off the card entirely because my opinion of the card itself was much stronger than the reaction to the opening number and sure enough the real market on that listing was much closer to five than ten and i think that matters and i think if you're a collector listening that is one of the cleanest takeaways from this episode do not let the sticker price make the decision for you on a card that you deeply understand now i think it's important in these types of episodes to talk about why i understood this card the way that i did first product context matters this is not just a random one of one from a random product twenty twenty five tops chrome wwe was a major release it was marked by top tops chrome's wwe's return to wrestling cards two thousand two hundred card base set there were championship variation cards a hobby format with eight cards per pack twelve packs per box two autographs per box and if you go to the official tops odds base card super fractures in the hobby fall one in two thousand three hundred and eighty seven packs the base image variations fall one in a hundred and twenty three packs and the image variation super fractures fall in one three three thousand eight hundred and nineteen hobby packs when you convert that to hobby cases you're looking at roughly sixteen point six hobby cases in expectation for a specific base super factor so right away this card lives in the lane of true scarcity not fake scarcity not they put a print run on it and made it look special real scarcity and that alone does not make the card great but it is table stakes for a card like this the second thing that matters is this is the true base set super fracture and i want to spend a minute there because i've actually evolved on this when the product first dropped i wasn't crazy about it because of the variation structure i wasn't crazy about all the ways they were trying to theme sena in the title count story and all of it i felt like the product was trying a little too hard for me but my perspective changed once i got the base because the base is the cleanest expression of the card in the product and i think for long term holds that matters a lot a lot of times in this hobby we get extracted by we get distracted by garnish we get distracted by novelty by weird parallel by a side road by the thing that is more visually loud or more gimmicky or more immediately look at me but if i'm thinking ten years out fifteen years out twenty years out i always want to ask what is the first card a future collector is going to search when they think of this product and the subject and for me the answer here was easy it wasn't complicated it is the twenty twenty five topps chrome wwe john cena based superfractor not the version with the extra flourish not the versions with the extra wink the bass the anchor the canonical expression that distinction is huge for me and i think one of the best habits a collector can build is learning how to separate the canonical card from the decorative card because both can be valuable both can be fun but they are not the same thing now we get into the third layer which is the layer that that really pushed me into action the card sits inside a product that tops very cleanly treated as a john cena farewell tourier product in official tops coverage they highlighted cena's best twenty twenty five chrome cards in the context of his retirement tour referred to him as a sixteen time world champion built a this time is now insert around his career and even produced a celebrating john cena short print that carried the the last time is now retirement tour branding that's not a small detail that tells you the licensor the card company and the broader wwe content machine all understood the same thing if you are buying sena in twenty twenty five you are buying into final active run narrative and those narrative windows matter they really matter because scarcity by itself is not enough you need scarcity plus moments scarcity plus memory scarcity plus story scarcity plus a reason people will care later and twenty twenty five had this in a major way cena announced that in twenty twenty five would be his wwe farewell year from active in ring action he kicked off the tour at the royal rumble period which i was at the royal rumble in indianapolis which adds a layer of connection then in april of twenty twenty five he defeated cody rhodes at wrestlemania forty one to win a record breaking seventeen world championship i was there at wrestlemania forty one when john cena broke the record moving past ric flair's long held mark later topps itself published a respective retrospective marking his in ring retirement in december of twenty twenty five let that sink in if you zoom out the twenty twenty five chrome based superfractors not just a rare sena card it is a card that now sits next to an unbelievable late career narrative arc farewell tour record title retirement year packaging final final active era feeling and then you look at the twenty twenty six tops chrome wwe is already presenting sina in explicit legend framing inside the product ecosystem that doesn't make the twenty twenty six cards bad it just reinforces the way i look at twenty twenty five as the last active era chrome anchor before the whole thing shifts more fully into legacy mode that distinction matters to me a lot i know there are a lot of collectors who hear that and say that's like splitting hairs well i don't think it is i think there are the hairs that separate good buys from cornerstone buys now let's talk about the subject itself because if this were some random wrestler or a very good wrestler i probably don't do this but john cena is different for me and i'm not just saying that because he is one of my favorites i'm saying it because i think the long term collectability case is overwhelming he is one of the defining faces of wwe's modern era he announced a farewell tour that the company clearly treated as a major major event they pretty much stopped all creative plans and focused all of their attention on the year of his farewell tour he then went out and won the record setting seventeenth world title at wrestlemania forty one pops kept building product around him wwe keeps using him as a central figure in storytelling history and beyond the ring he has crossover entertainment relevance and an unusual amount of public goodwill including the guinness world record for six hundred and fifty make a wishes granted that's not normal that's not replaceable that is the profile of someone whose best cards should continue to matter and by the way the company around him is not shrinking tko says its properties reach more than one billion households across two hundred and ten countries and territories and tko's reporting around twenty twenty five showed growth in wwe's revenue associated with live events partnerships media rights netflix and wrestlemania period momentum so again i'm not buying a rare card tied to dead a dead property i'm buying one of the rarest possible expressions of one of the most culturally durable figures in a still growing global entertainment machine that's a very different position to be in now i want to go one level more personal because i think this is where conviction really came from and i actually think this is where a lot of collectors get uncomfortable because we've all been conditioned to talk about cards like we're we're mini hedge funds we want to sound rational we want to sound attached we want to sound like every decision in some spreadsheet is a result but that is not actually how the best long term personal collection decisions get made at least not for me for me the emotional piece is not noise it's part of the signal there's a there's real research on nostalgia in collecting that says meaningful keepsakes can anchor identity memory continuity and belonging collecting is not just accumulation it's self story it is curation it's identity and when i look at this sena card i don't just see john cena i see being in san antonio in twenty seventeen and watching him tie the record with his sixteenth world title match win against aj styles at the royal rumble i still say to this day and i've been attending wrestling events my entire life that match with aj styles in twenty seventeen at san antonio is my favorite match i've ever seen live and i see being in las vegas at wrestlemania one and watching him break the seventeenth record against cody rhodes those aren't fake details those aren't marketing details those are my details my memory my connection my lived experience and i think one of the most important things collectors can learn is that the most powerful long term holds are usually the ones where the market case and the personal case overlap if you only have the market case you're renting conviction if you only have the personal case you may be overpaying for a memory with no broader support but when the market case and the personal case overlap that is where some of the best pc decisions live that's exactly what this card is for me so let's talk about the real real important theme of this episode which i think is important and that is the side collection because this card is not a colts card it is not part of the primary lane that i have and maybe a lot of listeners know about me and that's exactly why i think this conversation matters i love the colts it'll never change that's the core that's the home base but i also think there's a lot of joy and a ton of edge in building a side collection around all time greats and around purchases that make deep emotional and intellectual sense to you not random detours not hobby tourism not i got bored and wanted something shiny i'm talking about a side lane with its own thesis and the thesis here is simple if i care deeply about a subject and i believe the subject has historical permanence and that card is canonical within its product context and the timing is right then yes i am absolutely willing to step outside a primary pc and and and by all means my primary pc is my colts prism collection i have other stuff but this i have another lane and this is the lane and so i'll make the move i think some collectors are too rigid here they act like discipline means never leaving the lane and i don't think that is discipline i think real discipline is knowing why you are leaving the lane and knowing what qualifies for me john cena qualifies he's an all time great got a personal connection mainstream recognition narrative relevant relevance cannacle card structure scarcity long term hold confidence and that's enough for me and frankly i think building a side collection of all time greats is one of the most fun thing you can do in this hobby if you do it with intention now we've gotta talk about the funding piece because i know there probably would be a lot of people being like well why'd you use funding what what's the reason my mindset on using a funding service is very straightforward if it is a card i plan to stash away if it is a card i view as a long term hold if it is a card i want to take all the way to judgment day then i'm comfortable using the equity in my collection to make that happen even if i could technically come out of pocket for it and the reason is because i want my money doing the hardest work possible and sometimes the hardest work possible is not sitting in cash while a higher conviction asset is available sometimes the hardest work possible is consolidating sometimes it's purging sometimes it is taking five or ten pieces that i like and converting them down into one piece that i love and believe in more there are now a bunch of businesses in this space built around exactly that i i've used nick in the past at the worst sports cards and i always have a great experience and nick is a great friend but i wanna be crystal clear here it's a tool not a toy and if you are using funding to buy nonsense then you're in trouble if you're using funding because you have no thesis no discipline no purge strategy no time horizon no willingness to say no you're setting yourself to get smoked that was not me this was my mid year pc purge environment well where i already felt the need to clean up tighten the collection and use the market from a seller side where appropriate the market itself has become more diversified in liquid in recent years the market is really hot and so i feel obligated at times if there are cards within my collections that aren't connecting back to a broader picture it makes sense to consolidate down into something bigger i wanna take advantage of the market i wanna take advantage of that and stash away some key pieces while i'm doing so the timing mattered my philosophy mattered and the target mattered if this had been a could be hot and hot for six months card i wouldn't have done it if this had been maybe someone else will like this card too i wouldn't have done it if this had been a card where i was trying to talk myself into a story after the fact i wouldn't have done it but this one was obvious to me not easy not cheap not but obvious and that distinction is really important because long term holds often feel obvious once you've done the work they don't feel obvious to everybody they feel obvious to the collector who has done the reading thought through the product instruction thought through the subject thought through the time horizon and knows exactly why the card matters that's the whole game now i wanna come back to something i've talked about before on stacking slabs it's the idea of discovery and inevitability one of the reasons i love seeing the old stacking slabs call back to other cards in what i've talked about is because sometimes i buy cards that aren't inevitable and i make the mistake and if you make the mistake and you end up getting rid of those cards you can get a good lesson and i think that's what serious collecting is it's not passive it's not just scrolling until the algorithm blesses you it's having a view and it's being ready it is staying liquid enough or connected enough or informed enough to strike when the card appears and i think that matters more than ever right now because so many people in the hobby are out there just reacting reacting to hype comps influencers whatever gets posted i would rather be the collector who is prepared for the inevitable moment when a card i have already thought deeply about finally surfaces i think that is the edge and i think one of the reasons that i like talking about this so much is because the card lets me talk about how decisions actually get made when i care not when you speculate when i care and one more big thing before i close this out i think this conversation is already a reminder that sometimes a card can change in your mind over time i said that earlier and i didn't not initially love the title win variation concept so cena's got the card that i have and then he's got sixteen variations to match his sixteen title wins and i didn't like that but i think that's okay i think collectors sometimes feel like if their take evolves they're wrong i don't see it that way i think and maybe i like those variations now because i have the anchor i don't know i'm still trying to figure that out but i think our job as a collector is to keep looking keep thinking keep comparing and keep refining my opinion changed because i got clear on what mattered most to me based on the structure of the release also what became very very important to me is understanding that cena had a super fracture in fourteen cena had a super fracture in fifteen cena had a super fracture in twenty and then in the return he had a super fracture in twenty five so this is the fourth base set super fracture fourth base set super fracture think about that so i bought this card because it was scarce i bought it because it was canonical i bought it because it sits inside a product year that tops clearly framed around john cena's farewell run i bought it because i believe twenty five is going to read historically as the last true active era chrome anchor before the market fully settles into cena as a legend packaging i bought it because john cena's an all time great maybe the greatest ever with mainstream crossover record setting accomplishment and cultural durability i bought it because i have a personal connection to his biggest light career moments i bought it because i think future collectors will understand exactly what it is in one sentence and i bought it because five thousand dollars felt much closer to the real opportunity than ten thousand dollars i think the last part matters because the whole thing started with not being intimidated by the sticker price and i think that is where i want to end this if you are listening to this and you collect seriously i want you to ask yourself a few things the next time a big card shows up do i understand why this card matters do i care about the subject deeply enough to weather time with it is this the canonical version or just an interesting version am i reacting to the ask or do i actually have an opinion on the card if i bought this would i feel peace in stashing it away for a very long time and if i need to use collection equity to make it happen am i doing that to increase conviction or just to feed impulse if you answer those questions honestly you will make better decisions and if you cannot answer them honestly then maybe the card isn't for you for me this one was so yes i am own i'm i'm i'm thrilled to own the twenty five top chrome wwe john cena superfractor but more than that i'm thrilled because this card reminded me what i actually want out of collecting at this stage i want fewer cards that say look at me i want more cards that say this is exactly who you are as a collector this one does that and i think years from now when i look back at what i bought during this period this is going to be one of those cards that tells the story best i appreciate all of you for tuning in and listening to stacking slabs i hope this episode hits home i love hearing from you make sure you continue to tell a damn friend appreciate all the support you all take care talk to you soon