welcome back loyal listeners the stacking slabs podcast to season five episode seven of the wnba card podcast my name is caitlin i go by at cold lunch cards mostly on the instagram machine but i'm also on twitter i'm on discord i'm on a couple other corners of the internet as well but today i am super excited for today's episode i've been in and out week i usually try to do one of these once a week but i've been busy i've been sick a lot of people are busy in the in the summertime so i'm super thankful to today's guest for making time out of his day to come on to the podcast we're gonna be talking all about the dallas wings franchise the greater wnba card scene with none other than the man the myth the legend jason he goes by notjasondardic on instagram and we've known each other now for a while but this is actually the first time that we're speaking face to face even if it's virtually face to face and i'm excited to get into today's episode so jason maybe for listeners that don't know who you are could you give them a little intro into who's jason and maybe why he's on the wmba card podcast today yeah sure first of all a lot of people are busy during the summer and i am not one of them so i was very happy to get the invite and to give me something to do this weekend so thank you for having me first of all very excited to be here but yeah i'm just somebody that's been collecting wnba kind of pre caitlin clark and i think that's how caitlin and i met was just being both terminally online and in involved with the wnba collecting space and that's you know you know i guess that's how we met but as somebody you know for as myself just being a collector that was online is i guess would be how people know me and but yeah just a card collector for a long time now and somebody that has been full time cards for almost a decade and you know kind of my life is cards and as of the last three or four years a lot of that is focused on the wnba awesome cards are life i agree with that statement is that what you said no you said life is cards but same as cards are life life is cards one hundred percent we're gonna get in yeah we're gonna get into kind of your origins of collecting we're gonna get into the hopefully a little bit of the business side what you're doing in in cards and then we're gonna talk all about your i don't know your dallas wings fandom or at least collecting fandom so let's start kind of at the beginning when i was doing my research of the dallas wings franchise kind of the through line that i saw with this franchise is that it has a lot of different i don't know origins it started in detroit moved to tulsa and now it's today known as the dallas wings it won three championships in detroit in tulsa it didn't do much i still think the concept of having a team in tulsa is interesting i don't yeah why like i no hate to any listeners that are in tulsa just not a city that i'd associate with wanting or a wnba team so now taking off kind of a little bit more in dallas they've struggled to find the same heights that they did in detroit but they're led by this kind of new renaissance of the like of paige beckers az fudd and apparently jessica shepherd down there yeah exactly so they've got you know a few players down there that are looking to change the tides but i kind of want to ask you jason kinda take me back to the beginning of your wings fandom when when did you become a wings fan was it in their dallas days sometime before what's what's the origin story definitely in the dallas days i have no affiliation to detroit or tulsa whatsoever and and to be honest like i was a huge dallas mavericks fan for the longest time and had season tickets to the mavs for the later years of dirk and the early years of luca and i was not a go to wnba games guy like i enjoyed the cards from a value rip perspective right and that's kinda what got me into the wnba was truly ripping you know ripping wax and being able to buy affordable boxes of prism versus the nba you know which were ten times more expensive at the time but really the last this is my first year with season tickets to the wings game so i've been at a ton of games last year watched a bunch of games with the arrival of paige but really like i would say three or four years you know they've been on my radar and in the last couple seasons they have been a a really big fan yeah for sure i think it's always interesting in the card space to hear about people coming to fandom from different angles and what i mean by that is some people collect cards because they're fans of teams other people like you are now fans of a team because of the card collecting it's like the inverse and i find that relationship super interesting so i guess kind of when we think about the start of jason's dallas wing fandom what what players come to mind what era comes to mind when did this start was it was it paige or was it a little bit before it would be a little bit before right so again like twenty twenty is the first year of wnba prism that was a product that was big in the hobby at the time right which that was like before caitlin that was the most expensive wnba product for a long time right so didn't rip a ton of twenty twenty was familiar with the cards but really twenty twenty one twenty twenty two were the affordable prism potty boxes right and that was the beginning of my wnba fandom was like hey i can get a lot of this product as somebody who opens an enormous amount of wax like this is you know my this is a good value rep like i can sell these cards there's enough collectors out there and i'm not breaking the bank you know opening a box of these right yeah and so i really got familiar with the league and the players as well as you know i i was familiar with prism but the wnba side of it in those two you know twenty twenty one twenty twenty two product years and like you know who's a rookie what teams are you know the the good players on things like that who sells and and it really again like you said came from you know my fandom came from opening cards versus you know the inverse like you said which is you know being a fan of the players and trying to get their cards right yeah and so i did collect a lot of the dallas wings from twenty one and twenty two just being in dallas enrique stuck you know enrique stuck out to me satu stuck out to me while she was still here but really when paige got drafted that was the catalyst right like this i was like okay we've got a serious name a serious player i'm going all in right and so that's my this is my w team for sure as you know prior to that was probably just player more player focused but big time wings fan now i love that i i look at some of those recent years of wings rosters and if you had the players that they had at their peak like i'm just thinking like alicia gray you know like just players like that that have come through the franchise not necessarily won a ton but have found success later on it feels like the franchise is finally kind of hitting their stride like you said with paige before we kinda get a little bit more into wings you mentioned that before collecting wings cards you were also collecting other players maybe from that twenty twenty one or twenty twenty two class are there other players that you pc outside of the dallas wings organization yeah definitely i think more i'm still a fan of a lot of players in the league right so pc is a strong word or strong term that gets thrown around a lot i do sell cards you know what i mean yeah but i do buy non dallas wings a lot yeah yeah i'm i'm just anybody that i'm a fan of right ryan howard sticks out to me as a big one she's with the atlanta dream but again in in those twenty twenty two prison boxes like that was the that was the the chase right and so maybe twenty one i don't even remember but now twenty two for sure you know from there i've got a i've got rakia jackson right i've got anissa mora i just bought a nice card of more about the cards than the player but i definitely am a am a big fan of a lot of the players in the league yeah i feel like when i i kinda like came up with this term i don't know if i was the first person to come up with it probably not but i came up with this term or this concept of a one card player pacey which is that you only need one card and it's still like a personal collection it's still significant you don't have to have a bunch of volume and when i think of your collection and like the cards that you amass some of these cards are like cornerstones of a particular player pc or a person's player pc i'm just thinking about like the type of cards you like to collect for people that maybe don't see them because you don't post them on your instagram too much is like logo women gold vinyls black vinyls it's like these big i don't know cornerstone cards are you like when you're thinking about you said you don't pc but you're like buying cards are you doing that on purpose or is it just the fact that these are the ones that you know they show up and you find the most interest in them no they're they definitely don't just show up i do a lot of digging for them but yeah that's something i try like i guess my philosophy behind that is if i'm gonna own a player's card and hold on to it i want it to be the best card i can get right so yeah i think a cornerstone right i i totally love the one card player pc right i've got a lot of that where yeah you know courtney vandersloot i have no affiliation to i think she's a very good player and one of the all time greats right but i i won't sell her logo man right because like that's that's the one card that i have for her that like is in my pc right duanna bonner same way i just passed on to the duanna bonner that was offered to me and i because i already have one i was like listen like if there's another bonner collector out there like go for it you know yeah i've got one and i'm good like i don't need to you know start a bonner mega collection right but yeah i think definitely intentional with stuff that i wanna hold on to i'd like it to be you know a top three card kind of consensus across their you know across the hobby and i don't buy cards for what other people think about them right i genuinely right like you know the logo the patch autos or like you know the one of one prism it relates not only to w collectors but i think people that understand cards and just you know having stuff on display that is rare and cool and fun you know yeah for sure i it feels like as somebody who i don't know you're you're selling a lot of cards you're buying a lot of cards the bigger tent you can create by just like we talk a lot about how you know prism and these products that are coming out in the wnba now are much easier for people to kind of translate into from nba or nfl or similar lanes because of the familiarity aspect and i think there's no denying that when you see a origins wnba patch and it has that logo woman on there anybody understands that that's probably a top three card of that particular player and so i completely understand what you're trying to trying to say with that and what you're trying to do with it but i feel like for me that's something that's super hard to accomplish not only are they hard to track down but they take a lot of capital they take a lot of time effort and money to source was this something that has been on kinda like this approach of collecting the best of the best has that been how it's always been for you in wnba collecting or is it something that you know you had to work at to kinda upgrade to that or is this kinda just how it's been for you no it's definitely something that i've worked on and i wanna clarify like that's these aren't the only cards that i buy right right yeah these are the cards that i buy with like the intention of holding on to right the ones that like hey they're for sale but like you're gonna have to get to my number for it to move right like i'm not just gonna auction these cards that being said i buy a ton of stuff that i like just i like the look of the card i don't sub ten dollar stuff i've got boxes and boxes of and if you've ever been in one of my whatnot streams you understand like there's so much stuff just everywhere that like you know i i try to keep it you know i have fun cards right like that if i you know lose money on whatever who cares it's the lower end stuff but then i you know for this the the true pc or like you know cornerstone type stuff it's very thought out and and like in any aspect right like i guess our industry you're gonna you're gonna pay up for like the best stuff in theory that stuff as i believe in the wnba growing and like more eyes and you know viewers towards the wnba more collectors getting into wnba i think that stuff grows with it yeah collectors getting into wnba i think that stuff grows with it yeah and so whether you're buying you know rookies for five bucks or or logo patch autos for five k it's like you know that stuff is gonna inherently grow with the you know the growth of the wnba so very rarely am i extending myself right for cards i think everything's done within you know a budget or you know i you know if if somebody offers me one and they're way above price like i have no or what i think it's worth right i think i i have no problem passing on it yeah you don't wanna overextend right but i do like to have those cards just because i i think again kind of they're the best cards they appeal to people who are outside of just the wnba nba logo men are like they're bananas right like the prices are out of control and so i would actually argue that the logo the wnba logos are have a ton of room to grow and are are massively undervalued compared to like the the nba counterpart and so that kinda played along into it a little bit at the beginning but now it's more of a this is what i collect and and i like having them i think they look great and so i'm i'm after those first and foremost but again if they're not tenable right like i'll find another card of that player that is exciting and cool and you know that's basically my philosophy you know i do have a lot of cards that i buy just with the intention of grading and selling as well but these ones are are not you know not the case there for sure we'll get more into that grading part because i find it it's something that i have absolutely no knowledge of i think i've submitted like two submissions to psa in my life but we'll get into that more but i guess i'm a i'm a little curious about just like a little bit more into the wings fandom and then we can drill down there so i i ask this question to every guest that i've had on so far this season and it's that if you had to describe the fandom or the identity of the wings franchise in three words or less one could you do it and two if you could what would you choose that's a great question i would say tough they're they they've come from behind in a ton of games this this season it they were not good for a long time and they've kind of gotten over the hump here recently and so i'd say tough like it's it's gotta not be fun to like lose a bunch of games for a decade right yeah from my experience of going to the games and kind of being around the team more this season i'd say that it's a very friendly fan base really and that lends itself to being in texas i think kind of southern hospitality but everybody is in such a good mood at the games and everybody's so nice and it's such a blast so i'll definitely be renewing and getting season tickets going forward so yeah tough but friendly would be my answer and if i had to pick a third word i don't i'm not sure that i could but tough and friendly would be my would be my answer right i think tough but friendly is three words yes that's so you got it you got it right there okay perfect i like that i like that choice and i i i wanted to backtrack because i just find it so interesting you know when we're talking about fandom and cards the way that cards kinda speak a language and the way that they build identities around them when i talk to certain people of different brand bases they say words that are completely different and so whenever i i hear that about the dallas wings i i i think that makes sense i feel like it's a very inviting franchise i've always felt like there are certain franchises that feel closed off it's like if you weren't here before x y z moment we don't want you here or something like that dallas feels like anybody can hop on the the dallas wings train at any moment yeah and we want you like come on it's this is our time so let's do it yeah i i would say i'm an honorary dallas wings fan just because of paige's minnesota kind of like roots she gets a lot of love here people people really like her i think she is one of the most like liked players i've ever seen across sports genuinely so you're lucky to have her yeah yeah we're it's oh and she's a she's so good it's crazy like i i was aware of her game and knew a bunch about her in college right mhmm both from a card perspective and like hey i'm you know paying attention to women's basketball but when she's here and you watch her in person it's it's so clear who the best player on the court is all the time yeah literally who they're playing it's it's she's an unbelievable talent i completely agree and a word that you just said reminded me of a question that i wanted to ask you which is that you said paying attention to women's basketball i feel like we've known each other now a couple years and you've been paying attention to women's basketball for a long time and you were buying big women's basketball cards kind of before a lot of the quote unquote market if we wanna call it that was looking at them paying them respect at least in terms of market value what was kind of the perception of picking up these bigger kind of like cornerstone cards as i've kind of called them today what was the perception of like that before caitlin clark kinda entered the the league for you because i feel like it didn't always used to be like oh sweet nice wnba card like it it didn't always used to be like that has it changed what was it like like it's still not for me for a lot of you know for a lot of the car like a lot of people still just are like if it's not caitlin it doesn't make sense right which is ridiculous but i think prior to caitlin even existing in like the wnba space it was an afterthought for virtually everyone right and and which was great like i again can't stress enough like in twenty twenty like through twenty twenty two twenty three opening fifty cases of prism right for a fraction of what i would have cost me to do nba and so you imagine you open you know at that volume you're gonna hit some awesome stuff right and so i you know just knowing cards you know keeping the golds keeping the one on ones like keeping the the good stuff was tenable because i you know you're getting all these autos it's a hundred dollars a box like i can sell everything else to recoup my costs and still hold on to a lot of this really good stuff yeah really worked out in my favor it wasn't like a i tell people this all the time they act like i you know i was forecasting this explosion in wnba growth and like oh you knew caitlin was coming and you're gonna make all this fine i was like not at all dude like i got very lucky and i'm thankful that like caitlin you know came into the league and brought more eyes on the cards but at the same time like i can't even touch a box of prison literally it's a thousand dollars a box and prior to her it was a thousand dollars for the case so like it just it doesn't make sense to rip for for me anymore i haven't ripped wnba in quite a while but it's one of those where i you know my fandom has grown even though i you know don't still actively like open open the cards and i'm buying singles and i'm i'm actually watching the games versus just wax to open wax but yeah it was an afterthought for a lot of people i think just that didn't understand but or there there weren't fans of the wnba right but i think explaining it to card people i used to tell just kind of what i said here is like hey i can open this box for a hundred dollars get two autos and twenty numbered cars like a box of prism and you know it's gonna cost me a hundred bucks versus if i open mba it's gonna be eight fifty right yeah and i'm gonna get smoked on the w on the nba and i'm gonna you know at least breakeven on the on the wnba if not make some money so like i'm gonna stick with this versus oh i'm gonna you know gamble on the nba side of it and get crushed yeah literally it was more of a longevity play right like this is sustainable ripping at some point i think that like when i think about why people sometimes used to look over wnba beforehand before and when i say beforehand i mean like before caitlin clark before paige beckers i think so much of it i get upset when i think about it like you know i'm like oh why don't these people get it why are they you know looking down on my wnba cards why don't they wanna look at when i offer them at the table at a show why are they like oh i don't really i don't know anything about wnba but i think like it all boils down to one simple reason and i think it's just that people like lack the visibility and the accessibility to knowing about it that means that people aren't gonna talk like at shows people weren't talking about wmba you weren't able to just turn on the tv and watch wmba it's not like this secret that people were keeping or like that people disliked it i think that it was just this i don't know equation of you don't put eyes and money on the league it's not gonna result in or at least like tangibly result itself into the in into the hobby and so i always like hearing about people that kinda were braving that storm pre caitlin clark of like i exist in this space and i'm going to put real money at it or at least relative real money at the time and effort in time and it it paid dividends times a thousand so i think it's interesting to hear about kind of that growth and the perception changing because while we still have a long ways to go it's still a niche part of the hobby it's hundred percent insanely grown over the past couple of years yeah and and the the flip side of that and i don't wanna sound like a caitlin clark hater that's not me at all i'm a big i am a big caitlin fan just for the record right but now you now you kinda get the inverse where people come up and and it's again it's still it's caitlin or nothing yeah and they like can't wrap their head around that there's like other players in the league right and it's like well yeah there are yeah and in the in the same breath i think it's great that she's brought a bunch of eyes to the league for people who are open minded to be like oh damn like there are some serious talent they're like these like a lot of these players are very good right i agree i think it's almost like history repeating itself again it's like we're like oh pre caitlin clark there were all these deals to be had in rittenhouse or in twenty twenty prism or whatever yeah but then you know we didn't figure it out till caitlin came in it's like we're doing the same thing again except now she's here like the same thing is happening so this this entire lane just screams opportunity to me and opportunity is a word that i kinda grounded on when i was planning for today's episode because you capitalize on opportunity in the hobby in an interesting way which is through grading and so i kinda wanna get into what grading what what what do you do with grading what does that what are you doing like what's the strategy and where it started and where you are today yeah it's a good question it's been a long journey in cards for me with grading and not to get too deep into it but i'd say pre grading is what i'm best known for right so i was with a company that still exists the me and another guy bradley is his name bradley crenshaw a big hobby guy started dci kind of during the pandemic that was a you know a pre grading service when psa was shut down that we were looking at a ton of cards kind of assigning them a grade that was like hey like this card's a nine like this card's a ten like you should send these off or hey this card's a six like don't don't even try right and what that was is a quick raw review and kind of a an expert opinion if you will on a card's condition before you could you know then go send it off to a grading company or flip it raw at a show we set up the shows all across the country and did this it was very successful it's a service you kinda see more and more of now just kind of across the board at like every show i'm no longer with dci i kinda took some time off to go work at a shop locally and and we i was handling all of their psa submissions at the time and so went from pre grading into the actual grading and of like data entry and like physically handling cards before they go to psa now i work i started another company with a guy named jonathan it's called the card spa if you can check us out on instagram we'll shameless self promotion but good we do the same thing so it's it's prep for grading it's raw card review and then it's also a group submission for psa so if you're not gonna hit the minimum of fifty cards for a valuable like you can send the card to us we'll throw it in our order for you and handle kind of the whole psa process and so very versed on the the psa grading world and and kind of pre grading cards but i think that is a great way i tell people this all the time if you're buying the right stuff at the right time you never have to grade anything to make money grading will help you maximize the value you know if you've got the right stuff at the right time so it's a great thing to do it's not for everybody it's not a requirement by any means but it can definitely help you maximize the value of your collection have you used grading only in the buying and selling aspect of the collecting world of yours or have you have you found do you collect like graded cards exclusively i guess like i'm trying to get at if your sense of the hobby world has been impacted by kind of having grading front and and center for you i am so it really it really depends on the card for me right so like a lot of it's very card dependent a lot of the stuff that i'm buying it doesn't matter it it really doesn't matter which is awesome i'm very thankful for that but at the same time like i will send things and i know you give me a hard time about this but like i'll send cards for like an authentic grid just to like have them in a holder that looks uniform with all the stuff that i do collect that is graded numerically and so that's a little more on like the ocd side of things where like i want everything to look the same mhmm when i put it on display but it's not a again not a it's not a requirement by any means it's just a personal preference but i do buy a lot more raw cards than i do graded with exceptions you know there are cards that are low pop in a in a psa ten like there's just not a lot of tens out there i try not to take like too much stock in that as i say this but i would i would much rather be a a numbered card like a a card that there's only ten or you know ten cards made a rare card to begin with versus a card that's scarce in a psa ten yeah with unlimited copies right so true rarity will always beat scarcity but then if a card is scarce in a high grade like that's something i'd consider as well as far as like buying for value right yeah i think in like an idea or concept i've been thinking a lot about in the hobby lately is this idea of manufactured scarcity which is you know could you could say that's what grading does is it is it man yeah okay so you agree with that that it manufactures the concept of scarcity to differentiate between cards that maybe are a little bit more difficult to look for the lack of serial numbering the lack of transparency from manufacturers on print runs those types of things and i think that i see it i think we all see it front and center in vintage card in the vintage card market of like you know this is a really low pop and and whatever grade and then it goes even further into eye appeal and those types of things i think we've kind of disappeared a little bit from that in terms of the ultra mark modern market because of the proliferation of parallels and print runs and everything kind of being a case hit or having some sort of label on it already that you don't need this extra one but i do wanna ask is when when i think of a lot of cards that you have they are in those psa authentic slabs which for the record here i don't i'm not like a hater of psa authentic yeah i know but jason had a the fi optic gold that i bought from him which is like the best card in my collection and he got it authentic like a psa authentic so that's what i got and i just remember thinking to myself well i wish this was like a seven or an eight and then i was like wait do i wish it was a seven or eight like i'm kind of a little i get it but is it just the uniformity for you or do you think that these like taking an authentic approach is something that maybe the hobby underappreciates or undervalues in some way again i think it's card dependent right like i'll buy stuff now that i send for number grade right and i want that to be a nine i won't send it if i don't think it's a nine or a ten right i'm cool with nines great with tens you know if an eight comes back depending on the card i'll leave it or i'll crack it out right anything below that i think is going authentic from from my personal stuff right again i'd i'd rather have the card at all than have it in a ten or you know and then have it in in in a specific grade right or not be able to find it in a specific grade i should say that fee that i sold you just for you know i i after we're doing the prerating and all that i was like okay this is likely a five like i i could get a six right but like if i send it authentic it doesn't matter because people who know what this card is know what it is yeah exactly and there's only ten copies like there are only ten like there are a couple copies that got graded well right unfortunately this is not one of them but like it's there's only ten of them and this is you know at the end of the day you have the card versus like you can't you know i would love to have that card and i would have loved to get it gotten a ten and you paid me a hundred times what you paid me for it but you know just a chance to have the card and and then to get you know for you to be able to to have it still is awesome and to talk about it on the podcast yeah like a week later and i'll tell brett you got a smoke and deal off here and he's like oh great like sweet i i was i was nice and sold it so i cost myself there but i'm just getting it's i i'm again that's that's one of the best parts of of the hobby and the the hobby community in general but the wnba too like like you see more people in group messages or discords like trying to put you know cards into people's collections and and that's a a really fun piece of this for me but but yeah i think a lot of the stuff that i send for authentic is in such poor condition that it like it won't it won't sell for you know it won't get an eight right like i would take an eight on a lot of it but like it's just out of the question it's so no go ahead sorry no you're good and so i was just gonna say and so i've got so many authentic with the auto grade right so like authentic auto ten now that that i i genuinely look for cards that may be damaged that i can get at a lower price that still have a good autograph that i can send for authentic auto ten and just throw them up with the rest of mine they're all uniform so it's a little bit of both but like if again if i buy a card and it's clean i'm not gonna send it for authentic like i'm sending it for ten ten right yeah but yeah it's as a as a if it's less than an eight for me just as like to keep everything uniform i do send for authentic it's so interesting how like i would say me and you have very similar taste at least in wnba cards and i think by extension into a lot of different cards we i would say we have similar outlooks on things happening in the hobby you know just you know just similar types of things going on and yet for me when i hear the concept of the way that you talk about psi authentic and then i think about the fact that this week i bought a psa five and i was like i'm not cracking that out hell no you know what i mean like or like i bought a psa five and a psa seven and i'm like i like that i like knowing like yeah you know it's got character i get it it's got character yeah you know what i mean so like it's so interesting that two people that have a lot of the same takes in the collecting world you can carve out your own lane even in grading to have preferences and have things that you're focused on and so when you when i think about the psa authentic with the psa ten auto grade i really like that concept because you're you're kinda getting the best of both worlds you don't have to admit to yourself i think this is part of it you don't have to admit to yourself that it's not the best condition card but you can still say hey but it's got this really redeeming quality that i have a numerical grade for so those types of strategies to collecting are things that don't happen overnight those are tastes that are curated over years and i i've always thought that your approach to grading was very interesting and unique compared to say i'm just gonna send it and if it gets it it gets it if it doesn't whatever you know like well yeah i i appreciate that and i would say a lot of the authentic like you again you're dealing probably as much or more vintage as i do i really am not a vintage guy much anymore but i think they're you know for ultra modern cards there's very little reason to send for authentic right like most of these cards are gonna come back eight or above right right for people listening the cards specifically that i think caitlin and i are talking about are like patch autos for the most part that you know are an eight at best in most cases even from the brand new sets just the nature of the thick card mhmm and the handling process and all that so you know from that perspective like i do have some cards that like if they got an eight like i'm not cracking them out and sending them back for authentic right okay but i do think on the vintage side of things like an authentic you know if you run into a hand cut babe ruth from the nineteen hundreds like i don't you know they're early nineteen tens or whatever it is like i don't know what the hell that is yeah and so i needed to say authentic so i'm exactly find like a random piece of paper right yeah somebody who knows more about this than me authenticated this and so i trust that it's what they say right but on the ultra modern stuff especially the wnba stuff it's just more of a personal preference yeah i get it i i always like i think like the only thing i i feel like i have zero experience in grading like i said i think i got like i remember sending in a suburban color blast i'm like oh i'm gonna make so much money this is like the greatest slip ever and it got a seven and i was like shit like i'm never doing this again like i can't do this yeah i contributed to that pop report but like the thing that i i really do appreciate about a psa authentic slab is the fact that you can kind of make your own story behind it too you don't have to be like oh this thing is damaged it can just be your card if you're especially if you're just pc ing it it should be uniform with the rest of it you don't have to like acknowledge that there's like all these things wrong with it especially in wnba cards where it seems like every card these days or at least big cards has a black border or is like a black background which kills the edges yeah i i get the approach i i think i'm understanding it the more we talk through it jason yeah and the auto the auto grade is a big piece of that right like i'm not gonna send if it doesn't have a clean auto it's something i know i can get an auto ten on i'm just gonna leave it raw like it's it's a damaged rock hard with a bad auto right like i which is i've got plenty of those and it's you know not a big deal but if i can get a ten auto grid you still get the ten on the holder authentic condition whatever who cares people know that it's less than an eight but like again the stuff that i'm trying to do this on it's it's you're not gonna find another one so yeah exactly it really doesn't matter at the end of the day yeah i completely agree well let's move into another segment that i had planned out which is called the emotional side of collecting just talking about kind of you know there's a sea of cards out there i'm sure you see a lot of cards both in the wnba space and outside of it with the whole grading prep and it's hard to distinguish what's a card that has staying power for you that you decide to keep in your collection versus something that you'd be willing to move or that you'd be excited to move i guess my question for you is what creates emotional attachment for you in your women's basketball collection when you look across what you have as kind of being long term holds are there unifying factors there what what makes it kind of stay this was the part i had the most trouble with as i was reading through the sheet prior to this yeah i do i i think it's it's really tricky to be emotional about cards you it can get you in a lot of trouble both on the buying and the selling side if you're too emotional about cards and so i try my best not to be right i have cards that i absolutely love and i have cards that i swear i will never sell right but if that number comes if somebody's willing to pay the number you know or or some crazy you know amount like i'm gonna sell the card at the end of the day unless there is a zero percent chance that i can get it back or get another one right and even then like at the end of the day you can't eat your cards to survive right and so it's i wish i would i probably would yeah and so you know i love the idea of of having cards that are not for sale i'm like oh i'm the only one that has this or blah blah blah but you know there are different times in your life where you may need the money or you may not care about cards as much or you know just things happen and so trying to trying to limit the emotional attachment is something that's benefited me in the past both from a buying and selling perspective as somebody who's full time in cards and then you know i'm fortunate to not have to flip cards to like make a living in cards right like i i do have a job in cards and so that allows me to collect more than i sell which is great except from a space perspective like i've got cards everywhere all the time but it does allow me to be less emotional about stuff and and to let it go and not you know not worry if there's gonna be a a higher sale in another week or whatever it may be right that being said there are cards that i like a lot more than other cards for specific reasons right like any of my page stuff like i have a you know deep connection now with the dallas wings and so getting to watch her just in dallas and like the city where i grew up and having kind of a a true superstar like playing for our local team who's just a great person off the court as well by all accounts is a a reason for me to like continue to buy her and just to hold on to the stuff that i have prior to the wnba i was a humongous nolan arenado collector when he was with the rockies which is where i went to college and when i started collecting in twenty thirteen that was his rookie year for the rockies and so i was deeply invested into like high end low end everything in between nolan arenado and there were times where i was like so emotional about you know being a rockies fan and being an arenado fan and you know all the stuff that i overpaid on stuff that i ended up losing money on or didn't sell stuff when when the market peaked right and so by the end of that i'd been in cards long enough that i was able to do well on on aeronado before he left the rockies and then you know got into other stuff but it was close there for a little while but i might i thought i might die with a big bad millionaire auto cards oh cool yeah and so you know it comes and goes and and you can get over emotional and be too attached to stuff but i think it's you gotta find a good balance i agree with the balance one hundred percent i think that a lot of collecting and a lot of content that i listen to is so i don't know certain about taking a position on the concept of collect versus buy versus sell and i think that it's okay to admit that sometimes we grow out of cards sometimes a card that we loved five years ago you look at it one day you wake up and you say i don't know why i liked it so much but today i like the money more than this card and you're allowed to say that to yourself that's nobody in like at least the way that i think about cards you should feel completely empowered to make those those choices because cards are one of the only ways that you can have that kind of autonomy over over your belongings especially these days so i think that admitting that situations change whether it be in your mind and your approach to collecting or in the market in the way that things go maybe you bought a card for a hundred bucks it's worth a thousand and suddenly you don't want anymore even though you loved it very much maybe you like it for a thousand dollars that's completely fine and i think that the way that it's talked about today is not always in this kind of like flexible arrangement it's it's just a if it's in your pc it has to be there forever and you have to love it and you have to cherish it and if you ever sell it you're a bad person it's like no no that's not how this works nobody's nobody's making those rules except for you you know you're putting those rules in your head so i always find it refreshing even though i would consider myself an overemotional collector i always find it refreshing to hear that there's ways to operate in the hobby that aren't so rigid or you know anxiety inducing honestly like you know those those different approaches are i think powerful and when people hear them being talked about especially in spaces like wma i think it they can be really helpful so i like the way they kinda walk through that approach i wanna get into probably another emotional topic at least to me which is that women's basketball like we've noted on has exploded over the past couple years at least in market it's one hundred percent in the market value of cards a hundred percent in people watching viewing popularity marketing every single metric that you wanna apply to wnba success has grown has being kind of like an early believer in women's basketball cards made your collection kinda feel more meaningful and emotional than it used to be or does it just is it just an extra layer of external validation you know i there's very little to me there's a there's a very small part of this that's like oh this card is worth x like it means a lot to me right yeah that's not why i keep stuff right like i like the card because i like the card like i'm a card purist or like a a fan of the player right the growth is great like if i can sell my cards and not lose money that's ideal right but you know a lot of the stuff that like if a time comes i go to sell it like i'm gonna lose money on it and like i've accepted that but that's okay right and and kind of going back to the last part like there's no right or wrong way to do the hobby right like there's no correct way to collect right and i think a lot like you know what you said those rules that people make up or that you make up for yourself about keeping cards or having a forever pc or whatever it may be like you said they just don't exist and and if you're happy with what you have and you like the stuff you have and even if it goes to zero right if you enjoy it like it's gonna be better than if you don't like the card and it's at zero right yeah and then you're you're out of luck right so i think a lot of you know very very small pieces of me is like oh i bought this for x and now it's y right like it's great to make money doing this and and no hate on the people who do this just to make extra money like i think that's a grind and i'm not built for it but cards max is one of my best friends and in in cards and outside of cards and and the guy is amazing he's a machine right yeah he's making a ton of weapon he's a weapon man he is yeah he is he's there's i tell people this all the time there's nobody better at what they do in the hobby like and and i genuinely believe that but he's a great guy and and truly started out as somebody who was flipping dollar cards and and to see the success he's had is great right but that's not for me right and so which one of us is right or wrong neither right like it's what's it's what's right for both of us right and so that's the the biggest piece of that whole thing for me i guess is is like collect what you like and yeah it's it's a blast to have people acknowledge the cool stuff i have right if you think it's cool like great i also think it's cool but i didn't buy it to have you tell me that it's cool right okay so i think it's cool and like that's good for me but like i do like you know when people come in to my office for whatever reason or for work and and they wanna you know talk wnba like i think that's great and i'm happy to do it i think the league is just on fire i get people who message me that have nothing to do with cards you know wanting to go to wings games they wanna see you know local people here want to see paige beckers like like they wanna get to the game they wanna go watch right like they're hearing all these things like i'm like dude she's the she's unbelievable like we'll we'll go you know and then with cards too just people that you know see the success people had with caitlin clark as like the main example right and they they start getting into wnba and they realize oh i actually really like alicia gray i you know i was watching the fever versus toronto and saw marina mabry and like i'm now a marina mabry fan right and so like getting more eyes on and like while the wnba is still affordable mhmm quotation marks like it's it's exciting because i think people like there's still a ton of opportunity and i think like the game is gonna grow the league's gonna grow people can make money on the cards and then it's gonna continue to be awesome i completely agree i i i'm really excited because we're getting to my favorite segment of this season every episode which is where i ask the guests to do a little thinking beforehand think about a card that kinda represents your fandom wnba fandom a card that maybe you know means more than than what the other cards in your collection do jason did you have the opportunity to think this through and if so could you kinda walk us through which card you picked out the story the why behind it yeah so i have a paige becker's of panini instant all star game autograph so it's a limited print that panini did after the all star game which we've got coming up i'm hoping to grab one another one if if they do it again this year but this one is her rookie year so her rookie year all star game autograph it's number to thirty thirty copies and my copy happens to be the jersey number so it's number five of thirty which is awesome it is in poor condition and so i graded it authentic it did get a ten autograph it's a on card autograph it's a beautiful autograph and i knew caitlin would laugh at that but yeah it was probably gonna grade out at like a seven at best and so i sent it for authentic again it matches all my all my other stuff in my authentic auto ten pc and it's a it's a special card just for me because of how much i've grown to like the wings over the last couple years and then just being again being able to have a machine gun for our home team right she's paige is unbelievable and like i can't say enough about her game and so i'm just a i'm a massive paige beckers fan and i really enjoy this card yeah i love that one i remember when these came out because i was at the wnba all star game last year and i remember thinking to myself these are on card autos we don't get these every day in the wnba world like these are gonna be special was that the main draw for why this card i guess my i'm wondering why why this page over say i don't know donruss page or something like that why why the instant all star version yeah the on card is a is a big is a big addition i think the prior to impeccable one and one and then now some of these like mystery redemption stuff that's coming out they would have been the only on card autograph the don ross stuff is sticker the prison saga sticker this was really also just an early chance of getting and it's not even a it she's not even in wings jersey she's like wearing an all star jersey in the picture but this was really just an early chance for me to pick up a nice rookie autograph and then i got lucky again that it got they're hand numbered to thirty and so when mine came in the mail and it was numbered five of thirty i was like oh like awesome you know what i mean like i'd locked out there and a friend of mine who is local and another wnba collector actually just got his redemptions in from the the mystery redemptions from select which is the nt and two of his three page redemptions are jersey number as well what is this correlation that happening at i know i don't know yeah and so he got a he has a number to ninety nine or maybe maybe so yeah the number to ninety nine i don't think his jersey number but his number to forty nine and then the number to ten he got both five of ten and five of forty nine i was like dude that's like you you can never sell those and if you do sell them to me right so yeah so you know the jersey number i'm not somebody that would like go out of their way to pay extra if i'm buying like a jersey number card i just happen to be like it i got lucky right and so it means a little bit more to me but yeah that would be that would be the one that like means the most to me probably right now especially for the for the wings cards anyway yeah yeah i like that pick like i said i i think my tasting cards really speaks to that particular one because if people haven't seen it before i believe it's the it's like very white like there's not a lot going on design wise it's like photo white background on card auto it's like that's the formula that i like for me you know what i mean like i do appreciate an intricate design i do appreciate like very intentional choices i love a busy card i love a lenticular like you can get crazy with it but when it comes down to it just a white card with a nice auto not too much clean very clean and i appreciate that so i i love this pick i think i could talk all day about paige becker's game about everything that she stands for just an awesome person and i think we'll get more into the players here shortly but i kinda wanna go a little rapid fire through a couple more questions here for you because i know we got we could be talking for hours i always do this on the other side i'm like rambling you can tell me you can tell me off no you're good it's like i tell people i'm like if we could just get like an hour of your time and then it ends up being like way longer than that so we'll go a little bit more but the next segment that i had kind of outlined first was around community culture and environment and this lends itself nicely because we're talking about dallas we're talking about paige but it does feel like in the hobby right now dallas is a very interesting market with paige and az both number one overall picks being on the same team in a hub that maybe hasn't seen success like this card wise obviously you got the cowboys down there i can't believe i just said that out loud you've got cooper flag and the mavericks but right this feels kinda like another layer to what's going on down there and it feels like the fan base has a lot of momentum what has the wings collector base kinda felt like to you and i'll ask a follow-up question which is that do you think the wings fan base in dallas has grown over the past few years at least at card shows or is this that something that still feels like super tiny you're trying to find your people that's a good question so i would say if you're a new wings collector you're probably still looking to find your people right as somebody who's been around like with the wnba and collecting community it's pretty much an overlap right like right you see more and more people coming but like the people that were already wings fans like i already knew right and so it's more i i'm seeing a lot of the same people i do think the the fan base is growing rapidly i'd you know and a lot of that has to do with paige and az i you know unfortunately dallas will always be a cowboys city first right very unfortunate i'm not a cowboys fan i'm not a huge football guy if i do anything it's fantasy and then i root for the players right but dallas is a more fun place to live when the cowboys are good so i i kind of root for them to do good for like deals at restaurants and you know kind of just the everyday like happenings in dallas so i was again a long time mavs fan so i you know i'm seeing what cooper flagg is doing for the mavs and i argue with people all the time that paige is doing more if you know as much if not more for the wings than cooper is for the mavs in kind of the same year right so they're both drafted the same year or maybe not i don't even know but like they're both the number one picks like in dallas right and then to add az into that equation i think the wings have more exciting you know buzz around them than the mavs do the mavs have cooper he's gonna be great like there's virtually no doubt about that the wings have paige she's great there's no doubt about that az is very good i've been very impressed i think it's a really good fit for the team and i think they're gonna continue to grow and and build a serious contender you know as most rookies do it's gonna take some time right right i think az's got a long way to go before she's like at her potential whereas like paige and cooper both kinda stepped in and were awesome right away and like that's so rare and and i know now olivia miles is doing that for your links and so a lot of people have been asking me like hey what's what's the deal why didn't we take olivia miles and i was like if you would have asked me before the draft like if olivia miles could do this or like if she was gonna be good i would have said yeah she's gonna be good i did not think she was not that good all star starter i'm a rookie like it's pretty nuts so yeah i know there's been some you know hesitation around az i think she's got a you know she's got a extremely high ceiling and and like most rookies it's gonna like take a little while to get there yeah but yeah from a collector standpoint i think it's it's still coming yeah a lot more of the community around the wings first and then like the card people kinda figure it out i hear that i think it's interesting because when i set up in april at the big minnesota show i think my two most asked about players were paige beckers and az flood so when i think about like well obviously caitlin clark's up there too but like it was paige beckers and az fudd that is who people were looking for and i think about putting them in the same town putting them on a team that hasn't had a lot of success and suddenly it's starting to pan out in terms of wins right and i would think that yeah that's what i mean like they're doing it i would i'm just surprised to hear that maybe dallas doesn't have a stronger wings collecting base especially with such a i don't know what the word i wanna use like just fertile ground of the dallas card show too to kinda like breed that fandom i would expect this to be a zone of opportunity at least from somebody who's not in the area that's my kind of like thought on the the dallas market yeah and i do think it's growing i think a lot of people that i know like we just had the dallas card show this past weekend a lot of times again wnba is still kind of an afterthought at at the main the big shows people are looking for you know the case hits and all this other stuff like new football and new basketball but every every show increasingly so over the past decade since i've done this right i get more people asking about wnba asking about page i try not to sell right so like people don't really come and ask me for page because they know it's like i'm not i'm not interested in moving it but it's i do see people asking or like saying hey i bought this page i bought you know i i sold this page blah blah blah she's got so much room to grow it's crazy yeah so like i would buy anything that walked up to the table right but yeah i think i think there's still a long way to go for just w collecting in general and so i don't think it's anything specific to dallas i just think that like hey if you're at a big show like the w collectors is still such a small percentage of that that like you've got all this crazy opportunity before it's not such a small percentage of like the main show you know yeah i i completely agree i think that caitlin kinda operates as a measuring stick for for paige's cards in that it's clear that there's this opportunity for her to reach a different level of pricing at least in my opinion i think that paige is a generational player who's gonna have sustained success no matter what team she's on i think she's a walking marketable ad i think she just she has every factor in the equation that should result in hobby prices and i think that caitlin kind of i don't know breaking the glass ceiling in terms of wnba prices it's just a matter of time until paige i i don't wanna say catches up but has yeah closes the gap is just a matter of time so i think that you know hearing that you think that we're kinda in that that that potential phase as i i completely agree and i'd be interested to see how much more it takes to get us there because i am not a patient person so i don't have the guts to buy it now and wait but i just i think it's it's making sense to me yeah and and again i at risk of sounding like a caitlin clark hater and dealing with it online yeah they're gonna get you jace yeah for what it's worth like i'm taking paige over caitlin if i'm starting a team all day long like ten times out of ten and caitlin's great don't get me wrong but like everything that comes with it like i'm good and and you know like pay paige is just so good like i've said that ten times already this podcast but anybody that i talk to about it i'm just like if you haven't watched like you need to watch because if you're a fan of basketball at any level like men's women's whatever it is college pro like you're gonna understand very quickly especially dallas people which i related to luca all the time i'm like you remember watching luca and just they have this in intent like there's something about them that when you're watching you're like this person is special like it doesn't there's no i don't know how to say it but like you're you can you have a chance to win every game as long as that person's on your team and that's you know that's paige beckers and i i think caitlin does have that ability as well and i'm not again i'm i'm really i'm a i am a caitlin fan i think she's a great player but like i'm not i would take again i'd i'd take paige like ten times out of ten i get it i get it completely and i think that something that maybe that's a little biased as a wingstream but i don't well yeah well of course you should say that but i think that one of the things that makes paige so special is kind of the like mentality that a lot of the great players have or great athletes which is they just hate to lose oh that's perfect she hates losing man she doesn't lose like she just won't accept it and i think that kinda you can when you watch her in person or when you watch her play on tv or whatever you can just see it the it just like upsets her and i think that kinda i don't know that drive is what separates her for me at least and i see that in players that i like and like to collect so okay would you put paige on your dallas wings mount rushmore or if not who are you who are you putting up there yeah absolutely and i might put her all four times all four times okay it's times four no i'm just kidding if i had to do a dallas wings mount rushmore are we talking about cards or players like just only only up to you you you can choose because i thought about this one it was good when i was preparing earlier and i i think i'm gonna do cards because it's a little more and and i think you may be surprised but i i i'm gonna put the twenty eighteen dhanros optic gold enrique rated rookie so like the same card that i sold you but enrique right first year optic there's only ten copies panini gold got everything going for it there hasn't been a sale since twenty twenty public sale mhmm i checked that this morning but yeah that's a great card great set just impossible you know and people who were again you know around like the wings don't have a lot of written house stuff yeah with me and so it's like whatever i'll get you know we'll skip that era we're we're kind of in the ultra modern era only and so we'll start with the donerous optic gold the second one this was the one i struggled with like i was just gonna do a top three the second one i'm gonna say enrique again but i'm gonna say it's the select gold vinyl quartz side oh the yeah what photo is that it's her shooting a jump shot like a freeway and it's the reason select quartz side i would say a select courtsides don't get enough love b it's the first year of select for the wnba and so it kind of shows it's post caitlin right so it's like caitlin's in the league wnba is expanding we're kinda starting to get these new sets so from a hobby perspective like we've got something other than prism which is great and then gold vinyl is good as it gets one zero one it got a psa ten as well so like that's a sick card i don't know who owns that one but that's a an awesome piece like if you're listening and you have it like that's a that's a top wings card probably ever in my opinion and then third i would just say paige gold vinyl rookie from prism kind of the flagship you know flagship rookie card i know ben ripon has that one i believe it got a ten as well i i would have to double check that but i know he crazy yeah i know he has both both the true and the variation and i'd say the true true prism gold vinyl rookie of page and that's just a entering the wings you know hopefully next twenty years of of paige you know being being the guy so yeah those are good picks i love the enrique legitimacy here as an enrique apologizer i i can get on board with this message nice and so yeah i think enrique got you know i think she gets a bad rap she was all they had for so long and like she's a certified scorer right i'm happy for her that she's now got people around her some relief yeah and like but she's a she's a baller she can play and i think people still kinda get angry with her here for like taking too many shots and all and like listen takes a lot of shots through i'd you know yeah she does but like she had to go through eight seasons of being the only one that could shoot right and so it's you know i kinda give her a break she had a great game today and they beat the sparks this afternoon she played well so i'm rooting for enrique i love it i had some nice enrique stuff in the past i've always moved it to people who are interested but i would like to add a nice enrique at some point in the wings jersey and if i ever run into that courtside gold vinyl i'll definitely make a run at it one hundred percent i enrique is a wisconsin native and i grew up watching her as a kid so i've got way too much love for enrique but i completely understand that she deserves kind of you know in the tier ranking list when they're like okay this person s tier a tier i've seen this person makes it and they just put enrique tier and that means you're just shooting the ball till your arm falls off which is great hey like i like that name is right and to her credit like for the longest time she had to if they were bringing to win five games all season right one hundred percent alright i'm gonna close out this segment and with one question that i've asked everybody so far which is that there's this concept of the disrespect index that we talk about which is that somebody is playing super well on the court but their you know market performance isn't translated so they're not being respected in the in the market if you had to pick one wings player to put as like the highest degree of disrespected on the index who would you pick man enrique is up there are you good after we just had that conversation but i think the obvious answer for this season is probably jessica shepherd turn them turn his mic off and i don't know i haven't been watching her market so i couldn't tell you like where it started or what it's at now but like i have to imagine going from not playing for the links to all star starter has to do good things for your market she is playing like nikola jokic for the wings and seriously like that's the only comp every time i go to a game i'm like how does she it's halftime she has ten ten and five like what are we you know dude if you would i was sorry i was gonna say i was at the game versus vegas where she had twenty twenty two and ten or twelve or whatever it was and i was like who the hell is this i was like what where did we get this girl and it's and and i was you know hesitant to to think that it was gonna last all season or it's gonna be this consistent but she's been awesome every game of the season she fits great with paige so i'm gonna say jessica shepherd oh my god this is so painful like as somebody who spent way too much time yelling at the screen last year about jessica shepherd being absolutely useless down the stretch i just it pisses me off that she's doing so well i'm very happy for her and for dallas i'm glad that she's it's always good to see but just like why couldn't you have done that when we needed you the most which is the stakes were so much higher and we just needed like five rebounds from you a game and we would have been good and now she's putting up triple doubles left and right and i'm like what the hell happened everything like twelve rebounds yeah it's it's really crazy it's like twelve i it's like twelve rebounds but it's like zero blocks apparent i saw the stat she has like the least yeah the least number of blocks for somebody with the most rebounds in history you know what whatever like my whole thing is if you've got a player like that like let them do what they're comfortable with and like we'll supplement right with like the wings their big thing right now is interior defense like they if we play a competent big like we get crushed and so that's we're working on that but awak cuir has been awesome oh i don't know if you've paid much attention to the wings but she's having a great season it's a really fun team it's a really fun team and obviously paige and az like are they gonna continue to get better and and hopefully jessica shepherd stays and we've kinda got a core three for for a while one hundred percent well i don't wanna take up too much more time of your of your time jason so i will leave us here with this question which is one that i ask everybody which which is if somebody's listening today maybe they like cards but they haven't decided to pick an allegiance for a team in the wnba yet and they're thinking to themselves wow maybe dallas would welcome me with open arms what would kinda be your pitch to the undecided fan to join the dallas wings fandom yeah i think i've kinda made it all podcast long but paige beckers like paige madison beckers is the would be my start and and finish to that to that question just a just an attack dog and and she's again like if you have her on your team like you're in position to win every game just in the fourth quarter it seem seemingly even more every game that she is in control and and wants to win like you said but but honestly it's a it's a really fun franchise a lot of growth they're moving into a a bigger arena next season they've had a couple games there this season that have been great and it's gonna be really really fun i think you're still early if you're looking to get in both to collecting and just wnba fandom and i think it will benefit you for years to come to to get on the train right i i agree i can cosign on the at least the paige becker's pitch here i can't cosign on the wings but i can cosign on the page for one hundred percent jason thank you so much for taking time out of your day to come talk about wnba cards this has been a long time in the making to finally get one on the books is it feels awesome so thank you so much if people want to find you maybe they've got cards that they want looked at to grade maybe they're looking for some cool logo women to try to pry out of your collection where can they find you how can they how can they message you yeah happy to to talk wnba with anybody who is willing to listen really and i've i've got a lot of hot takes that we didn't really go over that i was hoping we'd get into but that's alright leave leave us with lauren jason no we'll save it for another episode okay i'll have to come i'll have to come back but if you wanna find me i'm at at not jason dardic on instagram i'm at jason dardick on twitter and then yeah at the card spa on instagram as well card spa t x the card spa dot com whatever you wanna however you wanna reach out i'll i'll do my best to answer awesome jason thank you so much for repping the wings this week on this week's episode of wnba cardpod and yeah we'll have to get you on for another one to talk about all those hot takes one hundred percent guys thanks for listening and we'll see you on the next one