Welcome to the first episode of the staging area presented by DC Sports eighty seven. Excited to launch this brand new show.

It is going to show up on the stacking slabs main feed, every other Tuesday. And so there's been a lot of planning around this, digging into format. But maybe just to kick things off to give you kind of a a big reason why.

I think there is a opportunity here to, fill a gap in the hobby media space. This show specifically is going to be for collectors and sellers who not only care about the sale price of a card, but the the full life cycle of the card.

And so what we're gonna be doing is giving you a behind the scenes look and listen, to what's happening with one of the biggest consignment operations, on eBay.

Stacking Slabs is always looking to create awesome content for collectors, and I think this show will focus in on that digging into the operational side of the house.

If you've been a listener of Stacking Slabs for a while, I we hosted this year, Tory, DC sports 87 on passionate profession.

I just looked at the stats, Tory. 6,300,000 items sold on eBay, 99. 8% feedback, a 109,000 followers on eBay. So you all are doing a lot, running a lot of volume, and I think there's going to be plenty to talk about.

But that's the setup. Tory, welcome. Excited to be doing this show with you. How are you? Thanks. No. Appreciate it. Doing very well. And, yeah, excited to do this. We, you know, we've grown so much. We've had so much go on here.

It's been quite a ride for all of us who work here, but definitely excited the opportunity to, like you said, peel back the curtain a little bit, give a little advice, give a little look behind the scenes, and just talk about what's going on in the hobby.

You know, as the one selling the amount we are, we're doing about fifty, fifty two thousand listings a week now.

We're up to about 7,000,000 a month in sales. And so, things have really taken off, but giving a talk about some of the day to day stuff is is fun to get out of the business side for a minute and just yeah.

Let's talk about it. So maybe before we get into the format for anyone who is unfamiliar with you, or unfamiliar with DC Sports eighty seven, again, we'll point people to the episode that we did.

I'll put a link in the show notes, but maybe give everyone a high level on, who you are, what you're about in DC Sports eighty seven.

Yeah. For sure. So we've been around for, jeez, almost ten years now. My brother-in-law, Zach Cameron, actually started the business when he got out of the coast guard, and I was kind of employee number one.

Started helping him right at the beginning. And at the time, we were just breaking. We this was back, you know, 02/2015, doing all sports. We was kinda breaking at night at his house.

It was kind of a side job for me, and it was a a business that he was really working hard to grow. And we kinda saw the need of all these people getting in our breaks, but people didn't wanna keep all the cards.

A lot of it was just about community, about the fun, about the chase, you know, seeing stuff and and just kinda hanging out.

And so we started offering the service of, hey. We'll sell your cards for you if you want. You know, we've got an eBay account.

We've got the time to do it. And so we started doing that for our break customers, and they absolutely loved it. It. So, you know, that quickly turned into them wanting to send us their cards to sell.

And then as time went on, we started putting so much time. The consignment just skyrocketed, that we ended up moving out of breaking completely and just making this our bread and butter in the whole business.

And so it was a family business in the early days. Zach, a couple of his sisters, myself, we've added more family since and then started hiring outside.

So, we now have about 35, 40 people, in total, including some people remote and located with us here in Richmond, running the business every day and, just, yeah, enjoying it.

It's been crazy, and it's always fast paced, but it's a lot of fun.

That's that's amazing. If you are not already following DC Sports eighty seven on Instagram, like, I've been enjoying the kind of the behind the scenes look at what's coming in.

And, really, my hope is that we will get an opportunity to talk about, some of those cards.

But I wanna maybe kick off most of these. I know we're we're we're working the format on the fly. You know, there'll probably be some refinement, but I think a good place to start would be maybe, like, what's on your mind?

Like, what is the number one thing right now at DC Sports a seven this week that you're thinking about working on digging into? Yeah. Sure. So, you know, number one is the national.

It's one of those things that you think it's really far away until it's, oh, shoot. It's like it's tomorrow. You know, so we've been obviously planning for a while, but we're, jeez, you know, less than two months.

I think we're, like, seven or eight weeks or something like that from the show now. So, really excited about that. And for us, it's all about, just getting ready for that right now.

So that means a few things for us. That means getting as far ahead as we can in imaging cards, processing new mail we get, getting uploads ready so that we're ahead when national week comes.

But it also means planning out all the logistics. You know? Who from our team is going? There's a lot of travel involved. You know? We're in Richmond on the East Coast getting up to Chicago. What kind of promotions we're gonna do.

We do a lot of networking with dealers and other companies we work with, but it's also that one time a year that we get to walk around and just see faces and put faces to names of people who have been you know, they'll come up and say, I've been buying from you for three years, selling with you for the last year, and I've never seen their face before.

And I wish I knew everybody's face. I wish we all did. It's just not practical.

You know, we've got about 15,000 people who have consigned with us now, and so you just can't do it with everybody. But it is so fun to go just set up there. We've got a nice big booth this year in the corporate area.

And so, yeah, a lot of it is just getting ready for that, you know, everything here from a logistics standpoint and then all the planning for when we get up there. I love this thread. We're already talking about the national.

I know it's right around the corner. When you think about the national and you you've got a you're you're planning with everyone who's gonna be there. You you've got your space. You're planning all the logistics.

Do you set, like, a goal for the national? Like, I think it'd be interesting to kinda get inside your brain on how you like, what is success at that show for you? Like, how are you thinking about that right now?

Yeah. So so two big things, really. You know, number one is, obviously, it's a business for us, but we don't really put our goals in quantities. Right? It's not I wanna go, and we've gotta get a 100,000 cards this year.

For us, it's about what's something we can do for people that somebody else might not do for them that makes us stand out of the show a little bit because those are the opportunities to work with people we haven't worked with before, to meet some new people.

And so, one thing we'll be going heavy on this year is same day listing. So we'll be announcing soon the details of that, not completely ironed out yet, but for national exclusive products.

So think people who are getting silver and gold packs at the national or you exchange your redemption for a white or black box from Panini, offering to list that stuff for you the day of. So come by our booth, get it to us.

It goes up that night on eBay. So just offering something like that that's really cool. It's immediate and it's exciting, and you're selling before the market gets flooded with that stuff. So that's one.

Just kinda standing out in that way. The other for us is we have so many people that talk to us over our website, emails, support messages, but it's a lot harder than when you're in person, and you can just have good conversations.

And so what might be a quick message day to day right now that says, hey. Do you guys do buy it nows? And we say, yeah. We do, but only for cards $5,000 and up. That's just kind of our policy.

In person, that can be talking through why do you wanna do a buy it now? Is buy it now really best for you? Why might an auction be better? How do we handle buy it nows? You know, what's the reason we don't offer them on $20 cards?

And so it's really just you can have a lot more color and context, those conversations, and getting to have those interactions with people at the show is just way more fun, and it just kinda reinforces that community aspect than just kinda going through it every day when we're back at the office and just, you know, getting through as much, as we can going on eBay, which is important.

Just the dynamic there is so unique. So those are really the two kind of big things we're thinking about when we go into the show and get set up. Final one for me on the national, and this is more logistical because I'm curious.

Like, with an operation, like, DC Sports eighty seven and all the logistics and everything and all the people that you have to, you know, bring to the show, like, what what's are you is there airplanes involved?

Are people driving? Like, how do you how has this worked in the past of getting everything that you need to from Richmond VA to, you know, Rosemont, Illinois?

Yeah. Sure. So we have, two brave souls who have signed up and agreed to be our drivers. They have agreed to be our round trip drivers. So, they have all our love and respect and praise and all that, leading up to the show.

So they'll go up in, you know, one of our big cargo vans. They've got all the, you know, two row boxes for us and our big fixtures for the show, the extra supplies.

We're gonna give away a bunch of T shirts this year. So they have all those t shirts and everything like that. We have a much smaller group of us who will fly up early, myself included, for the actual setup.

So that's just taking up our our banners, you know, laptops, getting ourselves online, things like that. And so I think we're running with a total of 11 people this year.

But that is two driving each way, and everybody else, you know, will be flying in and out, in kind of a staggered schedules. Be sure we have the right coverage around, you know, meetings and busy days.

And, you know, as consignors, we get blown up at the end of the show because it's a lot of dealers who try to sell, try to sell, try to sell, don't wanna take it home, come by and drop it off, which is great for us and great for them.

But, yeah, that's kind of the that's the rough arrangement for, for getting up there and getting ready to go. That's awesome. And I'm sure just as these episodes continue to trickle out, we'll be talking more about the national.

But when I get into the first segment, which we're calling most watched, I think it's fascinating on eBay to, look at the watch count of cards right when we're buying and when we're selling.

And I figured with an operation is robust as DC Sports eighty seven, it'd be cool to maybe dig into for this week, like, what is a card that is up for auction that is the most watched.

So I'm gonna for if you're watching this on the Patreon, I'm a pull it up on the screen right now.

Tory, maybe talk to us about the card that I'm showing, what it is, and maybe let's starting off, why do you think this, card is getting or maybe it it is a card, but it's also maybe considered something else like a booklet.

So maybe why is this getting the sort of visibility that it is right now? Yeah.

Sure. And I will say, most of the time, I'm not a huge fan of booklets myself, but this one, love. So this is a 2025 top Sterling, which just came out last week. Shohei Ohtani, Mike Trout, dual one of one, game use bat barrel book.

So we're checking every box in the world. Right? It's one of one. It's two of the biggest names in the sport. It's a product that just came out. And I think that's the reason it's the most watched.

So this is our number one watched item. I think we're up to about a 160 watches on it. It went up two days ago, as of the time we're talking right now. Already at about $3,000, but we still got four or five days left on it.

So, yeah, just whenever a new product comes out, the bigger cards we get really quick. You know, people wanna sell them fast. It makes sense. Things are prime pricing at release.

And so when this one got hit, this actually got hit by Sports Cards Nonsense, who's a breaker that we work with, handle all the consignments. They've been great partners of ours. They hit the last week, got it right to us.

We put it up same day. We're running a one week auction on it. And, yeah, anytime you get the big names, you know, I think with watchers, you've got to think, you know, what's gonna be a buzzy card that people are interested in?

Because it's two reasons with a card like this. You know, number one is I wanna buy this, so I'm gonna watch it so I don't miss out.

Number two is I'm a fan of baseball cards, and this is a wow card. And I wanna see what it sells for, so I'm gonna watch it. And so you kinda get different angles, and we see that a lot with our watchers.

You get those watchers who are the ones actively bidding, and you get those watchers who never place a bid the entire duration of the auction, but they're just so interested in the card.

But that helps it too. They're sharing it on social media. They're putting on their story on Instagram.

They're sending it to their friends. And so, yeah, I think it's just one of those that it checks every box to get a lot of attention, a lot of eyes, and so not at all surprised that this is our our top watch card right now.

So I learned something new here, which was the fact that this product was just released. How much of a role does that play in the work that you're doing when a new product launches?

How quickly do you see obviously, this was a week. Like, how is it a regular and routine that, like, the volume increases with your business based on the the new release cycle of, new product?

Yeah. It does for sure. So especially now that we're working with breakers directly, and that's a program we're really working to grow.

So we're working with the guys at Bluzz, Filth Bomb Breaks, Sports Cars Nonsense, like I mentioned, and a few others. And so getting that off the ground, we get they are breaking product obviously on release day.

Some breakers tend to break it first, and then they're shipping that stuff to us immediately. You know, there there are times we are getting cards twenty four twenty four to forty eight hours after the product released.

And so we've got it in our hands quickly. When stuff comes in from our breaker partners, we list it same day or next day.

We don't charge anything else to do or anything like that. It's just we realize the value of, like, these cards sell best right away. And I think we see that across the board.

Anybody who buys cards knows, like, often if you're, you know, PC ing a player or something, a new product comes out and you really want it, you're kinda caught in that awkward spot because you know pricing is at a premium right when the product comes out.

But you also don't wanna miss your chance to grab it and maybe not see another one hit the auction block.

So that really does drive a lot of interest. And so, you know, for us, we typically get that quick rush right away, whether you broke a box at your local LCS, you got in a break and you asked them to rush it to us, something like that.

And then there's, like, a week or two low, and then we get a bunch more.

And whether that's you know, people are, you know, they got in a break and they got it shipped to them and it was kinda slow or they hit it early on and couldn't decide if they wanna sell it or not.

So, that's usually the way our flow kinda goes. But it's always exciting because being some of the first sales on eBay, it's just cool to see.

It's cool to see what the reaction to the, you know, kind of buying community at large on eBay is to the product and, how different sets go, especially things like short prints or new insert sets they introduced that you don't really have a great foundation for, like, price expectation on.

It's kind of seeing where those things shake out. It's really cool.

I wanna maybe spend a a moment talking about the two players here because they're obviously so tied together, not only from, like, a on the field baseball perspective and the fact that they were teammates, and, you know, the baseball classic head to head against them.

I I that's a moment that I won't forget.

But, also, I think from a hobby perspective, you have Trout, which is kinda like pre pandemic, icon when it comes to the hobby, was the guy. And now post pandemic, you've got Ohtani, who is the guy.

Maybe we'll start with Trout. Like, what have you seen? And I know there it hasn't been all roses, and there's been injuries, and things haven't been just great for Mike Trout over the last few years.

But, like, what what have you seen regarding Mike Trout and his cards? I can imagine, you know, throughout the ups and downs, you've seen a ton of his stuff come through, your shop just based on his popularity.

Yeah. For sure. And I think, you know, no surprise to anybody. As Mike Trout's knees go, so go Mike Trout Karts. You know, I think he's, he's one of those guys where he's done enough that it's not like his cards is gonna bottom out.

Right? Like, it's not the buzz of a Zion in 2019 where all the eyes of the world were on him, and then between health and performance and whatever, it is kinda like who knows where the floor is.

Right? Like, I think Mike Trout's floor is insanely high. Mhmm. But we're certainly way off the peak.

And it's one of those things where you just hope you can stay healthy because, you know, we're on what is thirteen, fourteenth year in the league, whatever it is, and the guy is still an incredible talent when he plays.

Just you hate to see him go down. Like, I think the baseball community take this out of collecting for a minute. Like, it's almost like an emotional response.

Like, no. He's hurt again. So you can see it on his face so much it pains him not to play. But, for us, what we've really seen is cards like this, newer sets, big autos, bat barrels, knobs, one on ones, things like that.

People are still kinda quick to sell. I don't know if that's some you know, it's gonna sell well. And even though you know it might go up in the future, it's taken the safe bet right now.

What we don't see anymore is I think if you rewind a couple years before some of the injury issues, you know, we saw his o nine Bowman Chrome first autos, and we saw some of the early, you know, rookie cards and things like that.

We don't see nearly as much of that.

And I've got to imagine that's you just don't know which way it's gonna play out the rest of this season and the next couple. And so people are a little, you know, hold pattern. Right? It's I got something new.

It's gonna sell well. Get liquid on it. Get my money. Put that money into whatever I wanna go buy for my PC, my next break, whatever it is. But I think on the big stuff from his early years, it's just wait and see.

And, you know, like anything in this hobby, that's a gamble to some extent. But I think Trout's a lot less of a gamble than most guys because he could probably play never play another game.

And is the market gonna go down? So I'm sure. But there's enough respect for what he's already accomplished that, you know, there's a there's a pretty safe value that he's holding indefinitely.

Alright. Let's move over to the Ohtani of it all. I I can't remember a baseball player, capturing the hearts and minds of this many collectors, in a long time.

Also too, like, as a non baseball card collector, I have had moments based on Ohtani's position, what he's already done, and what, you know, his limitless potential can be to say, you know what? Maybe it's time to buy an Ohtani card.

I think he's one of the most fascinating sports figures we have. And, honestly, I think just for baseball cards in general, like, he is a huge piece of what's happening with the success in in the market, right now.

How how did like, summarize, like, Ohtani and and what he's meant based on the volume and what you're seeing to collectors in the baseball card market.

Yeah. It's it's interesting because I think he's he and Trout are are opposites in a way.

Right? You know, with Trout, guy drafted out of high school, went to Los Angeles, but it was the Angels. Obviously, the Angels aren't as big a market as the Dodgers. Trout has always been a phenomenal player. I think we've covered that.

Don't need to beat that to death. But he carries himself kinda quietly. You know, Trout's not really a a loud guy. Then you look at Ohtani. Right? This is international phenom, was already a star in Japan before he came here.

He's on the Dodgers. So the marketing and the marketing of him for a league and for the team is just out of this world, and then he just continues to do things.

Right? It was first, oh my gosh. This guy's the one of the best pitchers in the league and hitters.

Then it was, okay. We create the fifty fifty club. Then it's you win the world series. And it's like, there's it's one the kids just keep coming with him that it's like there's been no reason for his market to slow down.

And so, you know, it's crazy to even we'll see sets come out. And, you know, I I know we had a Topps Tribute Baseball came out not that long ago, and you'll see a star.

You know, it's a Derek Jeter auto, and it's 3 or $400. And then there's Judge who's hot now, and the auto's maybe up to a thousand dollars for a similar card. And then we sold, like, an Ohtani auto out of 10.

And don't get me wrong. That's a huge hit. But it did, like, $4,000, and it just the the relative value to his peers is just it's almost like an MJ thing. Right? Almost like what you would see in basketball cards where it's like, okay.

I got a bunch of cards from this year. Are they worth anything? And you you got some names you can pick out, but then there's Jordan's just head and shoulders above the other guys.

And it almost feels like that sometimes, and, you know, you hate to think it's gonna slow down, but it's like this is with him not even pitching, and that's gonna come back here at some point.

So, yeah, it it's an exciting market if you've got the wallet for it. And for a lot of other people, it's just exciting to pull one of his cards and capitalize and turn it into something you really wanna own.

How important is a player like Ohtani for not not only his market, obviously, but, like, elevating the rest of a category? Like, what like, yeah. How important is is Ohtani for the rest of baseball cards?

Yeah. It's definitely important. You know, I think it it depends on who you are a little bit because in in one sense, it's amazing. You've got this superstar who's a huge chase, who adds a ton of value in any product he's in.

I think at the same time, it can be tricky because we can start looking at products where the price just goes up and up and up and up. And it's like, if you're trying to get into those, the entry point becomes a little tricky.

So, do I think it's good? Yes. I I think the most important thing about it is having guys like Ohtani. And we could go across, you know, other sports and look at other players too, but it brings eyes to the sport.

And I think if you just look at the way things are going nowadays, so much attention in the hobby comes from attention outside the hobby.

If you're on the cover of Sports Illustrated and you're being covered by the ESPN and you've got, you know, Instagram reels from everybody on you and TikTok videos about your game last night, like, that stuff drives eyes.

And when there's so many new people coming into the hobby, having something like that is a nice quick hook to give them a little something that makes them go, hey.

Yeah. I collected cards as a kid. Wow. This card sell for how much? And it just it kinda brings people back.

And so, I think it is always healthy to have these superstars performing like superstars because it is the easiest way to get kind of the Venn diagram of sports, I love the game, and sports, I love the hobby to overlap and create that place in the middle, and you need the big names to do that.

And I think that's where, you know, what Ohtani is doing is is probably the most valuable. I love it. I'm excited. I didn't even think about the new release of it all and the impact that has on a business like DC Sports eighty seven.

So I'm excited to be sharing kind of a bird's eye view of some of these cards, every time we show up, and that's a a it's gonna be hard to to beat that one.

The booklet, bat, two just great players. Let's move over into the next segment, which is we're calling hobby intel.

And I think so much of what happens with collecting, it's impacted by what's happening with sports, and I think this is a great opportunity to dig into something that's happened happening currently and how that impacts, a business in the hobby.

And, I'm a little bit of a homer, and I might have manipulated the agenda here so I could just spend some time talking about the Pacers.

Although, by the time this goes live, I could be sad. That's the the nature of this, but right now, I'm happy coming off of a a win. So we're gonna I'll take it that we're recording while your Pacers are up.

So at least you're on cloud nine and in a great mood. And then, hey. If this gets released and you guys are all of a sudden down three two, I don't have to deal with you when you're down to the dumpster box.

That's totally fine. You you know what, Tory? I was I was looking at everything and planning it out and, like, when this was gonna go live, and I I was like, okay.

At least we can talk about it because no matter what happens, the series will can still be going on by the time this episode goes live.

Yeah. But let's talk about the finals. Obviously, like, we don't have a LeBron or a Curry, and there's the narrative about, you know, no major market.

However, I think if you're a basketball head, you're enjoying this series. It's been very competitive. There's already been moments.

But but we'll start here. When you have a moment in sports like in NBA finals, what is the impact of that on a consignment business? Like, how does what's happening with sports influence what happens with a business like yours?

Yeah. So anytime there's a huge event, and that can be World Series, the NBA finals in this case. So we focus on the finals here. You know, a a draft in a major sport.

It usually means two two things we don't see every day happen. One is you get a lot more smaller submissions. So for every, you know, ten, three hundred card submissions, we might start now seeing 310 card submissions.

The reason that happens is somebody looks and they go, oh, wow. I got Halliburton's and SGAs and a couple of these guys and Chets, and I wanna sell them. But, oh my gosh, like, the final is already going on.

So they rush to get those 10 cards to us. They're not building up a box for a month, and then go, okay. I wanna liquidate this stuff. The other thing that happens is we get our quicker services used a whole lot more.

So the way we list our cards is we have three services we offer. One is standard, which is just first in, first out, and it depends on volume, and that usually is roughly a two week wait about.

Then we have express. We do that for cards worth $25 or more. You can send up to 20 at a time, and we'll put them up in three business days.

So a little more speed. Our fastest, we charge $5 a card for it, but we call it premium. You can send us the card. You say, I want it listed on this day for three days, this day for seven days.

We'll let you pick all that. Or if you don't tell us anything special, we just put it up within one business day of receiving it. So you get it to us on Monday. It's live on eBay by Tuesday at the latest.

So we see a lot more of that stuff because it's I wanna get my card to sell before the finals is over because once a series ends, that could be really good or really bad for your card, and you wanna take the sure thing.

So that's really what changes the most is just indexing a lot heavier on those time sensitive, like, turnaround guaranteed services we offer and just getting a lot of small packages because it's I got these cards, and I gotta get I gotta get rid of them right now.

I gotta wanna wait and risk it. So we'll dig into this deeper at a later date, but, like, how you just described all of that from a a customer perspective, and then what you all have to do on the back end to make sure it happens.

Maybe just, like, at a high level, knowing we'll dig into this further at another time.

Like, what has it been like building out the operations and all the processes that go into doing what you're doing with all of these options for customers? Yeah. Yeah. It's it's been it's been fun. It's been an adventure for sure.

I think the big thing is when you're starting out, it's all about, quality. And while it's still about quality for us, as you grow and grow and grow, it's about how to maintain quality while adding efficiency.

And so, you know, in the early days for us, it was just a couple people doing all the listing, and everything was super hands on, and we didn't have a lot of tools or anything.

And so as we've started using more efficient scanners, as we've, we work with a company called Haystack now, who's been a great partner for, software for card recognition to make our titling more efficient, and also help with some of our imaging.

Hiring people and getting them trained so we have a broader, you know, bigger sized team. That's really been what it's been about because if you wanna be able to scale, you you can't be closed off to new ideas, new technologies.

And I think, you know, one of the things that we thought was really happening in, like, the consignment space as a whole was people really married to the old way of doing things.

And, look, we're not perfect at all. We still make mistakes, and every week is about figuring out what those are and trying to address them for next time.

But finding ways that we can continue to get efficient and list more. And so, you know, when we think about we used to list 3,000 items a week, and then it was five, and then it was seven, and then it was nine.

Now it's 12 you know? And, like or a day. Sorry. Not a week. How do we do those things and make that possible? And, you know, you have to add and get creative and and be willing to invest.

And so that's what we've been doing, you know, all along the way and just trying to find ways to make that stuff happen so that we can offer things like next day listing.

And, you know, you can offer it without losing time, or losing attention to customers somewhere else. That's amazing. I wanna dig into the, like, players and players cards and what you see.

I think when, you know, it was solidified that it was going to be Pacers and Thunder in the finals, I would imagine, like, there was a flood of SGA and Halliburton cards because when people think about, those, two players, like or those two teams, those are the two first players that people consider or think about.

I guess that's the the the obvious, but maybe before we get into maybe more niche players, maybe talk about just, like, Halliburton and SGA.

It's like, is is that a normal thing like star players when there's a moment like this you're gonna naturally receive more cards of them? Yeah. Yeah.

For sure. And so, like, if I look, you know, I was looking at it earlier. I think in the March, we had a Halliburton. It was a rookie Prism auto, and it was a PSA 10 sold for, like, $200. The exact same card sold last week for 409.

And so there are just these huge jumps. I would say the the big difference I see is on the big, big names, it's more about big, big cards. I think I think the that's where it varies a little bit.

It's because people are always chasing Prism Color. They're chasing NT and immaculate RPAs. They're chasing one zero ones. Like, there's all this stuff, and so we tend to see a lot of those come in on the SGAs and the Halliburton's.

I think you you games. I'm trying a good example. So TJ McConnell, Aaron Wiggins, Andrew Nembhard, Siakam, all these guys on both teams.

It's kinda interesting because even with what I just gave an example of, a card doubling over the course of a couple months while the Pacers have been hot, I think a lot of times, you see appreciation in the big names.

Absolutely. Those guys trend straight up, with their team's performance.

But on a in a absolute dollar sense, that's true. But in the percentages, you see just as much, if not more, on the small guys. Because if if you and I go had this conversation three months ago and I asked you, hey.

Who's the, you know, who's the second or third guy you'd buy on the Thunder? You're you're a basketball guy you'd know. Okay? That's a bad example. But there's a lot of casual sports fans who might not know.

But now you get them in the finals. There's so many eyes on them. There might be a $1 check card that somebody's gonna buy for $5 today because it's still so accessible because the price point's lower.

And so while we see a lot of the big big hitters, on high end cards, There's definitely also a lot of people trying to capitalize saying, hey.

I've got 30 cards of Jalen Williams. I got 20 cards of Aaron Wiggins. I wasn't really having any luck selling these guys a couple of months ago, but now they're in the finals.

I can move those. And so, there's definitely a lot of different strategies you can take depending on who you're holding and what point. But, yeah, it's kind of all over the map. I mean, I guess it you know, good good question to you.

If you weren't a Pacers fan and you had a bunch of big Halliburton, like, when are you moving it? That that's a good question. I think a hard question about people to answer. Like, would you be selling okay.

They're in the finals. I'm gonna sell now. Are you gonna hope they win and sell after the finals? Are you gonna wait till they have a lead like they do now and sell? I mean, what's your what's your move there?

What are you thinking when you've got a big card in one of those guys? So I you know, it's interesting question, and I it's a topic that I have I'm exploring in content that'll be coming out later this week.

But Halliburton, specifically, one of the interesting observations I've made, and I'll put a I'll, like, toggle between, Pacers fan and collector and just hobby participant.

One of the observations I've made is that a lot of his bigger cards are are selling right now, Halliburton. So people are saying, okay.

I'm cashing out. Now is the time regardless of if he makes the finals or wins the finals or not. Most I think most people just don't don't couldn't envision Oklahoma City losing, so they're getting out of his cards.

But it's interesting. I've noticed the cards that are selling right now are his king stuff, the rookie stuff. And the cards that aren't selling are the high end one of one Pacer stuff.

So I think it's just interesting because I think a lot of the the more liquid rookie stuff is moving, and I think the Pacer stuff is in Pacer's collector's collections.

And they have no reason to move it because this is the time you wanna hold those cards.

So that's just one of the observations I've made, not only as a Pacers fan and a Halliburton collector, but just someone who loves to observe what's happening in the hobby.

Yeah. No. That's totally fair. And I think it is, it it is one of those things that's interesting, especially because the two stars on each team, their rookie stuff is not with their current team.

You got a clipper stuff for SGA and King's stuff for Halliburton, and yet those are, by high standards, the most desirable cards, but you lose a little bit of connection to the current city now that they're there.

So, yeah, it it'll be interesting to see how it plays out, and I think a lot of it too will matter where their careers go from here.

I I know we're talking about the moment and capitalizing on the finals when you're selling, and that's what we should be talking about.

But just looking at the future and seeing how that stuff goes, you know, I was trying to remember back, and I'm I'm a huge baseball guy into basketball, but not to the extent where I would remember this is, like, with LeBron stuff.

What was the difference in the reaction on his market when he finally won one with the Cavs even though he went back versus winning his first one, but it was in Miami.

And at the time, how were big Heat cards selling versus Cavs, rookie cards?

And yeah. It's a it would be a very interesting study, but I can't say I've done all the analytics on. But maybe one day I'll I'll pull some numbers and we can have a good deep dive conversation about it.

I've often said, like, I could do an entire show and series on LeBron James prism cards because it walks through the heat starting with the heat, then winning the first championship with the Cavs, and then moving over to the Lakers.

And there's so much data and stories and information, and maybe we'll save that for a later date.

I wanna maybe hit on a player like Benedict Matherin. And so as Pacers fans, we will we will forever remember game three as the Benedict Matherin game.

Twenty two minutes, 27 points. Cool, calm, and collected off the bench. Interesting character because he was recently a rookie. And with rookies, you've got people who buy in rookie rookie year and and wanna hold and see what happens.

And Matherin was hurt last playoff run, out of the playoffs with the shoulder, back this year, trying to find his footing with this team that's already been kind of, solidified in terms of rotations and the way the ball moves.

And there's been naysayers saying, Matherin's really good, but I don't sure I'm not sure Matherin fits what this Pacers team is and wants to be.

And then you have moments like last night happened last night happened where the Pacers don't win the game without a performance like Matherin.

So I I after, like, my fandom and the dust settled, I couldn't help but think of Matherin from a hobby perspective where you have all of these people who've been prospecting into Matherin and perhaps holding his card since his rookie years salivating and waiting for a moment.

And Matherin not only do I say I Pager fans might disagree with me or basketball heads might disagree with me, but I think what we saw in game three was Matherin's best NBA game and performance on the biggest stage.

So I'm curious. A lot transpired there where you've got all these dynamics at play, and then you have a player delivering when it matters most.

What do you anticipate happening with Matherin and Matherin cards in light of his performance in game three? Yeah. So I'll say, I think it's he's a tricky one, because he was a rookie so recently.

And I think, you know, I look at this I look at him kinda like I would look at a, a super hyped prospect in baseball who comes up and has a really underwhelming debut and hole for season and then catches fire late in season two.

And it's like, you know that whole, like, post hype time trying to recover in the card market is so hard.

Like, if you've got if you're trending up, they would rather you stay in AAA and hit nine home runs a week because then the buzz is on you than have you come up and just be a solid contributor but kinda unexciting everyday player, maybe battle injuries, whatever.

So, with him, with Matherin, I think it's a will this give him a boost? Yes. It it puts some eyes back on him, and it's that great reminder of why was the guy such a high draft pick?

Why have people held his cards? But at the same time, to recover from the last couple years where people kinda fell out of love with chasing and investing in him a little bit, I think we'll take more.

So will he get an increase from this? Absolutely. All eyes are on the Pacers and the Thunder. He's one of those guys who people I agree with you have held, and so there's gonna be some of that.

But I really hope we see one or two more games like that. And then if we go into next season, obviously, there's gonna be a little cool down in the off season. You see him start the year off right and keep going.

So I think that's what it really needs to get back on a upward trajectory that's not just a blip of, wow. Remember how good he was in game three, and for a week, everybody was buying him again, and then, oh, yeah.

We're not in move anymore. And I think that can just happen so easily because we are such an instant gratification community in cards that when we lose any of that, we just kinda forget.

I'm I'm hoping for a couple more good games before this, season closes out, and I'm okay with overpaying for mathering cards as long as he keeps doing what he's doing.

Oh, if if you wanna bad enough overpay now when you say overpay and combine our last two topics, I just am still haunted in my head of all the people who in 02/2019, I know it was Zion Prism year, and I'm changing topics on this here.

When LeBron had his first card in a Lakers uniform in Prism, and we were all COVID crazy.

And I remember us selling base Prism PSA 10 LeBrons for, I think, like, 450 to $500 a piece. And I just know I could probably pull up eBay and hit a buy it now at $16. 99 right now or something crazy.

So, you know, again, not we have to be wary of the overpays, but, I I think he's one of those guys where if nothing else, if you're collecting him, be it for PC or as an investment, at the very least, it was, yeah, that guy is still in there, and there's hope that he's gonna come out more often.

And you're not thinking, hey. The lights got bright, and he faded away. So, you know, there's there's stuff to there's encouraging things there. I was alive and well and remember vividly that LeBron 2019.

And it was I remember when the conversation started, it was like one person was like, it's his first Lakers card Prism Lakers card, and it was, like, gangbusters. And in fact, like, 2018 was actually his first Lakers card.

He was just in a Cavs jersey, but Yeah. I remember those prices, man. That was insane. And it was one of those times when, you know, I remember the first couple we sold, and I would, like, look down at the orders that was going out.

I was gonna, like, did some idiot here type that this was a a blue prism or this was a number of fast break or something crazy?

Nope. Just a base card and just the the world got crazy. We got too much money, and that bubble was nice and big. And a lot of us rode the high until it popped.

But, yeah, good. That'll that'll always be one of my, like, I guess, in the history of the card market. Like, that's the card I, I anchor to when I remember COVID and just how nuts stuff got. But I know. Yeah.

I think I think that 2019 Prism product, whether you you love it or hate it, it's always gonna be very nostalgic to a lot of people because there was a lot of, fun moments and maybe more, not so fun moments when it comes to that product.

Maybe a couple more before we before we get out of here on this topic. I'd love to, like, there's obviously, like, finals is happening now, but there's it's like the cycle of moments is endless in sports Yeah.

In sports cards. Do you all do anything differently to prepare, like, behind the scenes for stuff like this, or is it just kinda business as usual? Yeah. Not not a thing.

And I and I mean that seriously. You know, the the trick is at the volume we're trying to do and in doing 50 right now, I think soon to be close to 60,000 auctions a week, and I keep saying that number, but, like, that's where we're at.

It's it's a ton. We can only do that by putting some of the when back on our customers. Right?

And so the reason we offer three different service levels with different timings is so that you can make that choice. Do you wanna only send up to 20 cards and they have to be a little more valuable and you get them up in three days?

Are you willing to pay $5 a card and know they're up the next day, or do you just wanna send them standard and they go up when they go up?

And the nice thing is as long as we plan our staffing and our processes and our uploads and all that stuff to keep up with volume as a whole, we already account for the fact that there's gonna be a little more rush stuff during the finals.

There's gonna be a little more rush stuff the week of the Super Bowl and things like that. So from that standpoint, I guess, yes, we know it's coming, but it really doesn't change the how we do things.

Or are we imaging things differently? Are we listing things differently? Are we having to get guys who know basketball in here?

Like, we've already got a diverse enough team that we don't really have to make those changes. It's just kinda keep cranking and keep going. And, if the volume spikes a bit, our day might get a little longer.

Might be a few more hours to keep up with stuff. But it's nothing crazy. You know, as far as the way our process goes, it's pretty much, just keep doing what we've been doing, and and it's kinda built to work for us.

Last one here is just maybe I'd love for you to offer feedback to anyone listening who is thinking about just selling. I think so often in this hobby, we we hear collectors talking about timing the market on stuff that they have.

And, you know, like, we're talking about this series right now. And I'm happy right now, but I could be sad the the next time we talk and stuff moves and changes so quickly.

I guess, what what advice do you have just based on your experience for any collectors that are, you know, maybe trying to time the market on something?

Yeah. So I think, you know, number one is I don't think you will ever regret. You I'll change that. You shouldn't ever regret selling when someone's hot and their prices are up.

Don't be the guy that says, I've got $20 into this card. It's worth 200 now, but what if it's worth $220 next week? Be the smart guy that says, I got $20 into this card, and it's worth 10 x what I paid.

Good for me. So be be smart in that sense. Two, don't think about just the week we're in. Yeah. It matters a lot, but I'm not saying that as don't sell now because just because the finals are on.

I'm saying if you've got cards of these guys who are in the finals and they're at peak prices right now, keep in mind that when the finals end, even if they win, often if you wait a month or two into the off season when eyes aren't on basketball anymore, you very well may be able to reacquire some of this stuff at less than you can sell it for right now.

I think as the hobby's gotten smarter and everything like what you're doing, Brett, like, there's more and more content out there all the time to make people smarter and more knowledgeable, build up their strategy of when to sell and how to buy.

I think some of what used to be the case where when in the off season, certain sports would just tank isn't as much the case anymore. I think it's flattened out a bit.

But I do think when we go from finals week to a month after the finals, the parade is over for the Thunder I mean, the Pacers. Sorry. You know, I I think on some level, you're gonna have those opportunities.

So, just keep in mind, learn the market beyond right now. Don't be afraid to lose out on 2% more if you can make 10% today, and just things like that, that's your smartest thing.

And then just be smart about how you time stuff. You know, we have people who will send us a 50 card premium package. They're willing to spend $5 a card to get listed quickly.

And I'll look at the cards, and maybe 25 of them are NBA finals. I get it. And 15 of them are baseball prospects like, you know, they just called up Roman Anthony, you know, to the Red Sox, stuff like that.

And then 10 are, like, $20 cards. And it's up to every one of our customers how they do stuff. But just think about that stuff. Like, think about your cost that go into it.

If there's something worth paying to get up fast, do it. But be sure to look at the market and say, I know it's up now, so I'll pay to sell quick now, or I'll accept a different price now, or I'll I'll wait to sell or not.

You know, don't rush too much. Kinda work within your budget. Plan your funds out.

You know, we've all gotta do that. And I think if you kinda can take one step back from just that individual car, you you tend to make better decisions. This was a lot of fun first episode of the staging area in the can.

Appreciate everyone out there who's listening, Tory. I'm pumped to do these. I think just in that episode, there's a lot of fun angles and stuff you say that I'm like, wow. We this is a whole another topic for a whole new episode.

Before we get out of here, especially since it's the first, episode, I would love for you to maybe share, if anyone's interested in learning more about how to send their cards to DC Sports eighty seven.

Like, what's the best course to action? Yeah. Absolutely.

So, you know, our website is dcsports87. com. Not not a hard one to guess. You can find us on eBay pretty easily. If you go to our website, we've got a submission right there on the main submission form right there on the main page.

If you click the login and you don't have an account, you can create an account with us. So it's a pretty easy process. If you got any questions, there's a little support link in the bottom right of our web page. Send us a message.

We're happy to help. And like I said, our website has an FAQ page. It has the submission form, how do I send, how should I package my cards, what services do you offer, what will you list in lots or not, will you buy it now or not.

Like, all those details, we can get into those at a later date, but it's all right there if you need it.

And then one of our other more exciting developments that I mentioned earlier, we are actively building a native app for DC Sports. So, coming this fall, we will have an iOS and Android app that will make everything a 100 times easier.

So, all custom bill notifications just about your account, you know, the second your stuff goes up, snapshots of your sales for the day, all that.

So very excited that's coming. I think that'll make everything we do a lot more accessible and just easy for people.

But, yeah, like you said, super excited to talk about this stuff, sports, cards, eBay, not eBay. As we keep doing this, I think it'll be a good time. Already excited for the next episode. Thanks everyone for tuning in.