Welcome back loyal listeners of the Stacking Slabs podcast to season two episode six of the WNBA card podcast. My name is Caitlin. I go by at cold lunch cards on the Instagram machine and everywhere else on the Internet.

And I'm joined by my co host, Brett at stacking slabs, and we're excited to deliver more collector driven and community focused content to your headphones each and every week.

Brett, how are you doing today? You know, I am well. Although, I am fearful for walking out of the front door of my house because I might trip and fall and get an injury like the rest of the players on the team that I cheer for.

I mean, it is like, who is playing anymore? So, yeah, dealing with the injuries. But the, you know, the fever have won in light of the in injuries.

So, yeah, that's been it's just been, like, to get McDonald and Colson, like, out for the season last week in the same game, who obviously you know, her Kaitlyn Clark's backups and Clark's not playing.

I was at a wedding, so I didn't get a chance to see the, Sky game, which the fever won, Sophie's running point. It's like, what's happening? But I will say this. And I I I just feel like I owe it to everybody, and I owe it to myself.

And just saying the fever would be on the other side of the league standings in a big way. If it weren't for, of course, Aliyah Boston who's having another fantastic season, but Kelsey Mitchell.

And I know it's crazy. Like, I'm here to elevate her, but she she's just been wonderful. Like, without her, we would suck. She's third in the league in scoring right now.

She's she's crushing it. So I just wanna give her her flowers. And also, I'll final final, and then we'll kick it over to you is, you know, the hardship contract, the fever are bringing in Journey Woman, Odyssey Sims.

I mean, it's like, Sims is played for everybody at this point. And what's funny about that is I instantly went to eBay because there was a 2019 Odyssey Sims forever gold vinyl, from Don Ross Optic, on eBay.

It was sitting there forever. And I was like, I wonder if that's still there, and I looked it up. And, of course, it's it's running at auction right now.

Oh, so I moved it from buy it now, to auction. So I don't know why I'm publicizing that because I might have a reason to buy it now, but, yeah. It's been a wild road. But how are you doing?

I'm doing good. I'm kind of in a similar injury boat over here as a Minnesota Lynx fan. I'm awaiting my goat to return to the court. But even despite her absence, the lengths continue to dominate at the top of the standings.

It's getting a bit lonely up at the top. I'll say that. The the distance now is really pulling itself apart, especially as we, defeat the Liberty on their home court.

That is a a great sign for me. Nothing brings me more joy. It's comparable, I would say, maybe a little bit less, but comparable to the Packers beating the Bears every year, is the Links beating the New York Liberty.

So I've been good. I've been good. It's a good sign that the Lynx are playing at a high level without, your best player.

Just a solid team. I'll just say this, Caitlin. Don't fly too close to the sun or you might get burned. Right? We've been flying off for what matters right now.

Playoffs are what flying close for two years, Brett. Like, we are I'm all in on this. There's nothing I can say that makes I'm not I don't get, like, superstitious about, like, the jinxing of it all.

I've been waiting for my chips since last year when Kathy took it for me, so I'm gonna keep talking about it till we finish the season.

I I haven't noticed it all. Alright. Before we get into the topics of today, which I'm super excited about, why don't we shout out our sponsor?

You may have noticed, on the Instagram page at WNBA card pod, we, showed off our sponsor, our local LCS here in Minnesota, Great Lakes Trading Cards Co, great partner of the Stacking Slabs WNBA card podcast.

And we're super excited because, each week, we highlight something going on in the shop. And this week, we'll officially have a WNBA card podcast poster hung on the wall in the shop in the retail space.

So shout out to Chris and Spencer, the owners, for letting us do that. And if you're stopping in in Saint Paul, Minnesota, feel free to take a picture and tag us and, show your support for the podcast. Love that. Shout out Great Lakes.

This is a this is gonna be a fun episode, Caitlin. We've got a lot to dig into, so I'm excited to get going. Yeah. I'm gonna I'm gonna hand it off to you, Brett. Why don't you bring us through our first topic today?

Okay. So this the spirit of this topic really came from a lot of, like, high level conversations I've, been listening to regarding collecting in the hobby and reasons to collect and the ways people go about collecting.

And I wanted to bring it to the WNBA card podcast and bring this topic, which is player efficiency rating.

And, hope you all like to get really nerdy and in the weeds. But what I wanted to do is explore, like, PER, which is is what I refer to it by as we kinda continue this.

But I wanted to see if the PER of a player had a positive impact on their overall collectability. And, obviously, like, it's very complicated and complex, and we likely won't solve or answer all of the questions in this episode.

But I think it's an interesting way to, get started. So I'll summarize kind of PER for everyone, and then maybe we'll get into some limitations of PER, and then we'll just get the conversation going.

So, PER, player efficiency rating, is the summary of a player's positive and negative statistical contributions into a single per minute pace adjusted number. The calculation is a formula.

It's complex. It considers many factors, like field goals, free throws, three pointers, assists, rebounds, blocks, steals, positive contributions, and then also negative contributions like missed shots, turnovers, and personal fouls.

The rating is adjusted for minutes played and team pace, allowing for comparisons across different sports in seasons.

I will say this. There are limitations. There are limitations. I don't think it's the a silver bullet. I don't I don't think any statistics are silver bullets, but we have these stats to have these conversations.

I think there's a little bit of an overemphasis on box store score. I think it's really challenging to compare use PR to compare across eras based on just trends, the way the game is played.

I also think it in a way, it provides maybe a little bit of an oversimplification on a player's performance, where you're, like, literally boiling boiling a player's performance down into one statistic.

When you think about the highs and lows of the season, players getting injured, all of these factors, I think that can be, rough.

But at the end of the day, like, if you look at, the player efficiency rating in the WNBA or the NBA, like and you look at the list of the highest performers, it's usually pretty straightforward in saying, like, these players are, you know, some of the best players are having some of the best seasons.

So, Caitlin, I wanted I guess before we, like, get into the questioning in the conversation, like, do you have any general overall perspective on, player efficiency rating and how you think about it?

I don't think I'm as much in the weeds of the stats here as you are.

And I think it's because I just get so into winning that that's the only stat that matters. And so, I'm interested to kinda explore this for myself and my own collecting to see if it aligns.

And I'm also just like let me just put this out there. It's it's not always been the case that the WNBA has had advanced stat reporting available online. So it's just super cool to be able to dissect this and really get into it.

Your comment there is, like, the, I think, the perfect opening for this conversation and collecting, and it's I think the way the your response, to me is more of the norm where I think we collect certain players because we view them as they're on our team or they're winners.

And I think it's less likely that collectors or listeners of the show are evaluating a player's efficiency rating when, thinking about opening up a new player PC or, you know, maturing an existing player collection.

What I want the audience to know is just like this like, what we're gonna talk about, I think, is an is an, option.

It is an option to view the these stats in order to kinda open it up. But I guess, first question is, how much do you think stats or advanced stats impact the way, WNBA collecting decide on how they collect?

I I just mentioned, I'm not sure. I I haven't really noticed anybody in the community, like, getting in the weeds talking about these things, and posting about them, but I don't know. Do you what's your perspective there? Yeah.

I think it's more of, like, instead of framing it kind of as an option of a way to, like, decide what to do with your personal collection, it's a lens that you can put on and then start looking at what you have and and just comparing.

I think it's a really good tool to implement, but it might not be a a framework to live and die by.

And I don't know personally of anybody that is living and dying by this framework saying I'm only collecting players based on advanced analytics and advanced stats.

But I do think there are people out there that once they're introduced to that topic, it could become very compelling, not only because of the fact that it kind of cements your feelings as a collector.

It gives you something to rely on, but it's also something that is objective. Like, you can say, Aja Wilson or whoever has the best, PER this season or whatever it is, and you can say you can tie that back to your collecting.

And it can be used kind of as a justification in your arguments of why you think a card or a player's value is undervalued in the market.

So I think the original question is, do you see people doing this? Not really, but I would love to, and hopefully this conversation can at least, like, kick start and spark those ideas for some of us, including myself.

Because even looking over these show notes before, I found myself being like, the players I collect don't have a great PER or they do have a great PER.

What does this mean about my perception of how basketball is played and what kind of players I like?

I'm I'm not sure this is like mutually exclusive to this individual collector, but, like, this idea really came to me via being friends and following the collecting and content from Chris McGill, of That is the first person I thought of with this guy.

So he's built a brand around this. Yes. And I and and this will give the WNBA card collecting community some a cross comparison, but I re I really started to, think about this when Chris first started collecting Jokic.

He out of the blue, he was a Luca collector, and he just started collecting Jokic.

And in my questioning and conversations with him, he would dig into the advanced stats, and he would point to p r, which Jokic is PR is I I don't have it up, but just insane in the grand scheme of the history of the NBA.

And what has happened since then? Like, you know, more MVPs. He won a championship, and his collector base has has risen because of his on the court performance.

I think if you take one player in the NBA out of a team and see what happens to that team, likely the Nuggets are going to be terrible if Jokic is it on the floor.

And I think PR kind of summarizes his overall importance to his team, broader league, and overall collectibility.

So that's kind of where I'm coming from or where this was inspired by. I guess, is PR a leading indicator, do you think, for future growth?

That's the example in the NBA. And if I would have listened to Chris and started buying Jokic, I'd probably be doing pretty well. But I we both talked about how we haven't seen this necessarily in WNBA and WNBA collecting.

But I'm curious, like, do you think this could be a leading indicator for future growth? Or is this just some, you know, biased advanced analytics stat that the collectors in this community shouldn't be paying attention to?

Well, I think we should be paying attention to it. Let's start with that. And and when we talk about growth, I can I think you can take that question from a lot of different angles?

I think the clear cut yes from me, as an outsider looking in is, yes, it's going to lead to growth of the player. If you have a higher PR, you're going to have better performances. I think that's, like, kind of undisputed.

I don't know how much weight, collectors, especially WNBA collectors, put on the idea of just being the best but not winning or being the best and not getting an MVP or these types of, conversations where I don't think one statistical category or a combination of statistical categories necessarily beats out what stays has staying power in the long run, which is hardware.

And I I do believe that. And and I think it's very important to recognize that these stats don't aren't always a one to one of if you're the best player, you win, the championship and the MVP.

That's just not how it works, because basketball and sports aren't perfect. The the numbers don't always lighten up.

But I will say, I I do think that it it is a good indication of, you know, better play style, better better playmaking, which I think leads to more winning, which I think leads to higher collective collectability.

So I think it's more of a correlation, instead of a a causation, and I think there's a couple steps in between the PER and the collectability.

I love it. That's that's a great summary. I wanna highlight some of the active players currently playing who are in the top 20 PER, ratings of all time in WNBA history. And so I just looked there in the top 20.

There are six active players currently playing basketball that are considered by Advanced Stats, you know, six of the best PR players of all time. That's pretty good. Right? That's what I thought. I was like, that's outstanding.

Like and I that's maybe a whole another episode to, like, dig into, like, why is that the do you have any do you have any, like, before we get into the players themselves, do you have any ideas or thoughts on why that's happening now?

Well, I'm a this might ruffle some feathers, but, like, I am a believer that players and athletes are only get better over time.

Like, I just think that's true across sports. Like, what you know, who was playing in the NFL in the thirties against some plumbers and electricians could not play against the the men of the NFL today?

And the same goes for the WNBA. I think just as players, mature more and the as the as the game matures more, as more resources are pulled in, players just inherently get better and better.

So I think over time, you'll see that number kind of creep to take up more space in the top 20 list. I love that. The the order of these, I'm gonna read them in descending order.

And I would say, like, I'm looking at them right now, and I'm just trying to map them with collector base. And I'm not shit like, it's not like a straight line, like, oh, these players have strong collector bases.

So but I love your point you made, like, the more they play, the the better they get. And that's a good sign for, a player I cheer for who is, eighteenth all time on this list, and that's Aliyah Boston, at 22.

12. Then you have, at 15, Jonquel Jones, twenty three seven seven. You have NECA 12 all time 24. 46. You have BG at 11 all time, twenty four point four seven fifth all time.

You have Stewie at twenty six point one one and second of all time, Asia Wilson at 28. 48. And we'll get into the who's number one of all time. I I have a feeling Asia Wilson will be passing her, in the coming years.

But, yeah, what's your reaction, I guess, Caitlin, to to that list of players? It's a very strong list. I love all of these players, and I it's very exciting to see them. I I it's interesting.

My first thought was that Aliyah Boston is the outlier here, and I don't mean that in, like, a talent way. She's very talented. She was a number one overall pick for a reason, but she's definitely the youngest and by a lot.

I think the closest to her is Aja, which was 2018 rookie year. So when you put it in perspective, my first question is, can Aliyah Boston keep this up? And that's not, like, a doubtful question.

It's just where my mind goes immediately. And and the second place that my mind goes is what we kind of previewed is the collectibility of it all. And like you said, it's not a straight line. It's not, a straight line.

But I do think, at the top of the active list, AJ Wilson does have one of, if not, the the largest and strongest contingent in the WNBA hobby outside of, like, the new, hot and fresh rookies that everybody has their eyes on.

So, I do see that correlation as well, and and I'm kind of stumped by the fact it it makes me think that we're getting into the idea that we dissected in a previous season two episode about the disrespect index.

And so now I kind of wanna see how PER interacts with the disrespect index, because I see NECA here, and I think there's not enough people collecting NECA.

Great observations. I'll say this about Boston. If what you say is true, about the player gets better over time, and Boston is already top 20 on this list. If if I'm the if I'm the fever front office, I'm like, let's sign her forever.

Oh, yeah. Number one. And number two, like, if I'm collecting someone or looking for someone to collect, not saying Boston's prices are necessarily cheap. But to me, she seems like a good place to to a good player to buy some cards.

I also thought, like, one of my observations, Caitlin, is the fact that most of these players are bigs. Yes. And so maybe that goes into, and we'd have to get, like, spend way too much time digging into this.

But, like, turnovers are a negative impact of PER, and, you know, it is really hard to be a an efficient point guard for a long period of time that doesn't have turnovers or missus if you're on a bad team.

Like Bad team missed threes, like, those things. So that was kinda that was kind of an observation I made. That's interesting too because, generally, in basketball collecting, I'll say basketball, meaning all genders of basketball.

Bigs don't command that premium. And and here we see the stats saying they should. So that that kind of contradictory point is very interesting to try to try to make sense of those collectors.

What's crazy is though you go back to the Jokic example, and no one was buying him even though he was playing so well early on in his career because he was a big but then he showed everyone that, like, he is highly versatile, highly important, and then his PR continued to improve and more collectors came in.

So that that I just can't lose sight of.

I'm thinking about him in that cross comparison, just something notable. But I wanna I wanna maybe give some space since we're mostly talking about active players to Mhmm. Call out the number one, the PR goat, I guess.

And it is Cynthia Cooper. She's at 28. 72. I mentioned Wilson is at 28. 48. So not too far away. And I I was looking at her cards, and so her highest selling card of all time, Cooper, that is, is the 99 Flare masterpiece.

It's sold 10/14/2024 for $6,900, which is a big sale. But if you scroll on card ladder, there is No way. What was this sale? What was that?

I don't know what this is. Pull that up. Pull that up. That that is a real sale. Oh my gosh. They they did these people were set up at, the National, Brett. We're for our audio listeners, we're showing the 2025 Bo Jackson Battle Arena.

That is the second most expensive Cynthia Cooper card ever. What are we doing? What are we doing, folks? Well, so I I, like, disregarded that because I was like, what is that?

And I just looked back. So she's got a 2022 prism gold vinyl auto post playing days that sold for 650. And that's that's the next one. So it's like, you've this is where it's crazy where it's like and it's an heiress thing, I think.

You've got, Cooper where her cards are at. It's it's just wild. And so I think if you really wanna get into the weeds on this, it's good to not just look at active players, but to look at previous pair players and then say, okay.

Well, are any is anyone buying their cards? And it might be an opportunity to buy something of a all time great for for for on the cheap. So I don't know. Cynthia Cooper wasn't the first player who came to my mind when thinking of Nope.

Number one of all time. But, yeah, I thought it was notable. Note notable. Yeah. That's super interesting. I'm, like, shocked by seeing that Battle Arena card.

And at $1,500, I I know we didn't plan on talking about that, but just to see, like, a non WNBA license card being her her second strongest sale is absurd to me. I I'm just, like, shocked by that.

Is there anything, like, on with Cooper, PER, v sales, anything that, I don't know, we can learn as collectors from this? I think the the big thing is, like, the recency bias of it all, which we love to talk about.

Like, I I think, like, everybody knows that rookie hype and, rookie everything is the mainstream, and definitely whatever is right in front of our eyes at the time commands our attention.

And it and it kinda reminds me I had it written down of this this Gino quote that I once heard, where he said, if you did something and I'm paraphrasing him here.

But if you did something great for, like, ten years, that's that's great. That's really nice of you. But if you did something great last night on national television, you're the best to ever do it.

And I I think that's, like, a good demonstration of how collecting, kind of puts a premium price on what's happening now and ignores what's going on in the past.

And I think, a mature collector, recognizes the history and and kind of understands that opportunity, the gap between greatness and maybe price.

And I think Cynthia Cooper is a good lesson for, for all of us. That's a great summary, a great punctuation point to this.

But then maybe I'll extend this one question further, and we'll move on to the next seg. Does learning about this, going through this exercise for the first time for you as a collector, does does it I don't know.

Does it change or anything about the way you're thinking about building your collection influence at all, or is it just way too early? I think it's well, one, it is early. This is the first time I've really thought about it.

The first thought, Brett, that I had was defensiveness that Nafissa Collier wasn't on this list. That was, like, the first thing that I thought of was I watch this woman play every night.

How is there how is she not on this list? And let me just say, because I have to plug Fi wherever I can. This year, her MVP season, hopefully, her PER is 31. 1.

So if she keeps that up, I could see her climbing into the ranks and obviously having one of the best seasons ever, which I looked up because I was curious of the highest WNBA player season, and it's Lauren Jackson in 2007 had a PER of 35 o four.

And I thought to myself, well, nobody's collecting well, some people are collecting Lauren Jackson, storm collectors are, But, like, that's another player where I just feel like this stat kinda opens my eyes to those players that maybe I didn't get to watch when I was younger that I can look back on, and it's kind of a good tool to see who the who the greats were.

What was the what was the Jackson year you called out? 02/2007. Okay. Which is I I I knew she had multiple MVPs. She won MVP that season. So there you go. Makes sense. Makes sense. That was fun. Let us know what you think.

I'd love to if you think about this at all, I'd love to hear from you. Obviously, this is new to the both of us, and influenced across other categories. But, yeah, I thought this was a good discussion. What are we doing next here?

What are we doing next, Brett? I think I think it's time for you to take over and spew your propaganda of prism gold. Goodness gracious. If you didn't, know, I like to collect prism golds, which I'm not the only one.

Most people around here do. I wanted to dig in, and we I've been having fun, like, using card ladder to dig in to some data regarding kind of, different things regarding, comparison from year over year.

And by the way, I'll say this, and I promised I would would course correct. I had, Kevin Kevin m Cormier reach out to me about, some of the stats I was spewing off last week.

And I'll just say this, I underserved the growth in the WNBA market. I wasn't doing my calculations. I told Kevin. I was like, I'm not a math guy. Thanks for calling me out. And, Kevin, I know Kevin very much is a math guy.

Doctor Kevin. Thank you very much, Brett. Yes. Doctor Kevin. So appreciate that. I'm not here to give statistical advice, although I try to use stats in some of what we're doing. But I'm having fun with this.

So I wanna talk about Prism Gold's, the impact they're having, year over year. And here's some stats just out of the gates. So in the first seven months of 2025, there have been a 127 sales of WNBA Prism Gold's over $500.

I'm gonna compare this to there has been a 109 total sales over $500 in the entire previous four years of WNBA Prism combined. I'll also put a disclaimer on this. I ran filters in card ladder, taking out gold vinyl, taking out, select.

I tried to do my best to filter this down to be gold prism out of the prism product, not just base stuff. There are gold prism autographs in there and some inserts, but I think this is notable.

And I don't know if anybody knows that that's happening. And I keep using the $500 threshold because I feel like in WNBA collecting, like, in any collecting, $500 is a lot of money.

It is a lot of money. In WNBA collecting as this market is maturing and forming, I feel like it's probably maybe even more money than it seems like in other spaces.

So 127 sales this year, Prism Gold's, a 109 sales in the last four years combined. Caitlin, what's your what's your reaction to this?

Oh, this makes me so happy. I love Prism Gold's, and it is a it it is a relationship that I've had now for a while with Prism Golds. And, I'm just excited to see them growing, with and we'll get into this.

We'll get more into this. I know we're planning on talking about this, but it's it's the growth of sales over $500, but it's also the fact that you can still get some great cards of Prism Golds for an affordable price.

I just love, the accessibility of the Prism Gold while it's still being limited in fashion.

It's just everything about it makes me excited to be a collector. This you said a word there that as I was preparing for this episode, I kept debating whether to use it or not.

And you used it, and I'm gonna use it. But you said accessible, and it's wild. This is the flagship parallel of this era across multiple sports.

I think you can say w, NBA. I think you can say NBA, NFL, even WWE, like, the gold prism is a standard. And you and there's only 10 copies though every year, and you said accessible.

And what's wild about that is it's like, in a way, gold prisms are accessible because the the price continues to elevate, and some collectors decide, well, I bought this for $200, and now this is worth $350 I'm getting out of it, and this card becomes available.

What I what I found in other categories that these cards only become as accessible for so long. So I just think that's an interesting word choice that you use, and I was thinking about it, for a while.

I guess, I just I just said these are the officially, like, the the the flagship parallel of this era, but, it do you agree or disagree?

And if you disagree, it's completely fine. But that's that's how from my perspective, that's how I view and honor the gold prism.

Yeah. Let me just say this, like, just to be transparent with the listeners. I think I have maybe four gold prisms in my collection across sports. So I don't have a ton of them. I don't own a ton of them.

And so that does that in I think to me, it means it's not the flagship parallel for my PC, which I think is the distinction we're making here is that it's the flagship parallel that the manufacturer is putting emphasis on and therefore collectors are buying into.

And I do think that is the case, is that the gold prism is one of, if not the most desirable parallel in ultra modern sports card collecting.

That doesn't mean it has to be your favorite or the card that occupies the most space in your collection, listeners.

It just it just is how I perceive kind of, like, the mainstream of collecting. I I love that. I would say I would add some additional feedback and also disclaimer, like, Gold Prism.

Like, if you look at my collection, across all sports, the number one parallel is Gold Prism, so I'm a fan and a believer. Wanna make sure that that's super clear to the audience.

I will also say, like, you said manufacturer puts emphasis on, and I don't think it's like like panini's like hitting you over the head year over year with the fact that gold Prism like they are with kaboom now.

Right? I think it's more the fact that the gold Prism is consistent. It is in all of the sets year over year and it is from start to finish in every category. There's never a prism set without gold prism.

And I think that consistency indirectly, like it might not be vocal, but the manufacturer like is in a way, like, nudging you, letting you know, like, this is what matters because we're always putting it in.

I completely agree. And I I think that that lineage and legacy and consistency is what collectors really value, and I think the manufacturer realizes that. And that's that's exactly what I was trying to say.

So thank you, Brett, for that. Yeah. All good. So I wanted to highlight, in 2025, just fly by some of these, sales just to give you all all some context. So we've talked about a lot of these.

You've got the Clark 22, PSA nine, highest selling gold prism this year for 63 k. Sheesh. Big card. Then you have the biggest non Caitlin Clark sale is the PSA 10, card one forty seven Angel Reese rookie gold prism.

This is not her action shot. It's her, you know, studio shot. This sold for 3,700. You have the, I I looked at the biggest non 24 class gold prism sale this year. It's $1,500, and it's Aliyah Boston's gold prism rookie PSA nine.

I need one of these, Caitlin. I don't have one. I need one. And then finally, the biggest non rookie sale of this year is Sabrina's 21 PSA 10 for $620. And I just see that, like, under a thousand bucks.

It's a vet parallel, but I'm just like to me, like, when I talk about like WNBA and like, I'm not saying six twenty is nothing, but like a PSA 10 of like a player that a lot of people like to me that just says like, okay, these prices are they're high, but they're still within striking distance, I think, for me as a collector.

But your your reaction on some of those 25 sales or any thoughts you have there?

My reaction is this Sabrina, holding the biggest non rookie card sale is probably gonna get blown out of the water by Caitlin Clark's second year when that comes out.

I'm very curious to see where that lands and how collectors respond. That was, like, my first thought since we ended here, but I'm just impressed by, like like we said, the lineage.

I just with the WNBA card market feeling so or card catalog feeling so broken up into eras, it's finally nice to see some some consistency across years with the Prism Gold.

And I think, I just love them so much. I I just love all the sales, and I think that, we'll continue to see these prices rise. I think if this Sabrina went up again, you know, this sold in May, I think we'd see an increase in price.

Do you think the '25 boom is purely on the golds is like a Clark driven thing, or are veterans and legends finally getting some gold prism respect?

I think that Clark is driving prices up for everybody. I think that's a fact, and it's undeniable.

And I think that gold gold prism, cards of veterans and more legends still aren't getting the, quote, unquote, respect that they deserve, especially considering the conversation we just had about PER and just how good some of these players were.

You can still get probably a Lauren Jackson post playing days gold for, like, under a $100. You could probably get the entire Minnesota Lynx roster minus fee for under a $100 a pop.

I think that they're still very affordable, which means there's room to grow. But I also kinda like that affordability aspect because it does promote accessibility.

So when we talk about Clark's role in these prices, I think she's definitely helping them out and bringing them up, but not at the same rate as as her cards and as, the rookie classes continue to to come through.

I'm gonna move forward to just talking about some opportunities and risks with Gold Prism.

And I think what's great about Gold Prism and WNBA, like you mentioned, like, you can go buy a player you really like who is really good, and it can be their second or third gold prism for under a $100.

And it's, like, not breaking the bank. And that's actually, like, a really fun way to collect. Mhmm. There you can go on gold prism runs, and the rookie will always cost you more.

But I don't know. That that seems like a nice spot. Even if you wanna spend, like, 50 to $75, like, you can get one of your favorite players gold prism in a lot of cases for around that.

So I guess, like and and I we try to be cautious, and I'm like, we're not it's hard sometimes when you're talking about something you love to not, like, over hype it or overstate it and get everyone to say, go out and run, buy gold prisms.

Like, that's not the objective of this. But I I'm curious, Caitlin.

Like, do you think now is a good time to buy WNBA gold prisms because you believe, like, the market is only going to continue to mature around them like we've seen in other sports, or is it maybe not a great time to buy it because the market seems higher than it has before?

Honestly, in my I'm gonna take this question as a PC question because I don't like giving financial advice to other people.

And so for my PC, I think it's always a good time to buy gold prisms because I like them and I want them. It doesn't matter what other people have to say about them, and I I really do believe that.

Like, as, wishy washy as that might sound, I really truly do, and I think that, I've understood for my PC that prism golds are one of the premier parallels that I want represented in my collection, and it's just about finding the ones that I really like.

So for for me, it's like it's just it's just about identifying the ones that stick out because you can you can narrow a collecting segment from all these cards exist to an era, to a set, to a parallel, and then you still have options within there.

And I think that's the point that I'm at, is is figuring out is it the time to buy the twenty twenty Prism Golds right now, or is it the time to buy the twenty twenty four Prism Golds?

And those are the type of questions that I'm asking myself right now. Good questions to ask. Prism golds. What do you have, everybody?

If you have them, post them and tag, WNBA card pod. I'd love to see them. I always love seeing, prism gold. So maybe on WNBA card Wednesday, you can share your golds. Caitlin, I'm gonna kick it back over to you, to talk about pickups.

Yeah. I had an amazing, time at the national. I've we've kind of been recapping throughout the episodes, and I wanted to showcase, one of my favorite pickups that I made.

I made the pickup of a a Liberty card. Oh, yeah. Oh my gosh. This is weird. Whenever I hear you talk about her in such high regard, I always say to myself, does Caitlin know she plays for the Liberty?

We does she ignore that? Okay. So that's part of what I kinda wanted to talk about just for a a minute or two here.

Let's introduce the card. It's the 2024 Select Marine Johannes gold vinyl one of one. It's the, premier level, I believe, of the card. Yeah. I'm checking here. Yes. It is. And and this is a one of one. I I just okay.

Let's start with the story. I had been sitting at John's booth at the National, and one of my friends had a a very, unassuming, like, paper or or a box, like, a a one of those graded boxes, and they were all unsleeved graded cards.

And this was in there. And I looked at her, and I was like, Ty, you didn't tell me you had this.

And she was like, I had no idea you liked Maureen Johannes. You're a Lynx fan. Why would you like her? And that's the first question I get from every single person when I tell them that I like Maureen Johannes and I collect her.

And I think it's it's kind of what I wanted to talk about, which is the fact that, you know, you're allowed to have these rules in your collection, and so there's a rule for me. Like, I I've never had, like, a select WNBA card.

I wouldn't prefer the premier level. I'd prefer a different level. I love Black Finite. I, love the links. And all these things kinda contradict these imaginary rules I've set up for myself, and it's because I just love the player.

Like, I love watching Maureen Johannes play basketball. Whenever she's on my screen, I'm immediately drawn to her style and her play. Even when the Liberty were playing the links, and I guys, I hate to admit this.

When the Liberty were playing the links and Maureen makes, like, a one legged shot from the corner, I'm like, you know what? That that was pretty impressive, Maureen. Like, good for you, and I I get a little excited about it.

So I just I love this card. I will say, I I also love the back. The the first sentence I'll just read the first sentence on the back is, Johannes is purely a perimeter scorer, and that is why I love her.

Is I love watching her chuck it up, and it somehow gets in there. I think, Maureen Johannes is one of the most entertaining players in American and European basketball.

And, despite the fact that she plays for the Liberty, I I don't care anymore. I wanna collect your cards because I like her. I love it. Awesome card. I'm glad we gave you some space to explain yourself and talk about the card.

Very, very cool. I think we got a collector spotlight moving back here. Yes. Let's do it. I'm excited to highlight at storm fan nineteen ninety four on Instagram. I wanted to highlight a newer or smaller account where possible.

So they have, quite a few number of followers. I think it's under a thousand somewhere, but a very, very cool collection. As you see by the name, it's storm collector 1994, a Seattle storm collector.

And one of the cards that just sticks out immediate to me immediately to me on this page is the twenty twenty prism gold, which is just so awesome, of Sue Bird.

And I think that, that's one of, like, the key cards of any storm collection, and I'm sure as this collector posts more and more cards, I'll I'll wanna talk about them more because, there's white sparkles.

There's one of ones. There's golds, just a super impressive collection all around. You know, Caitlin, I was, I'm trying to get this share button here going on this, and I'm just I'm here we go.

Let me just do this for all you Patreon. There you go. And this doesn't I'm trying well, there's a whole deal with me in getting signed on on multiples accounts with Instagram.

So we're trying to do it via screenshot, but you can see Storm's fan's page. And anytime you have a gold, Sue Bert, prism, there's so many followers.

Everyone go follow. Right? Yeah. Literally go follow. I said, oh, under a thousand. It's under a 100. I mean, this this page for that Sue Bird alone, deserves more followers.

Plus, the Sue Bird one, White Sparkle, Gabby Williams, White Sparkle, Jewel Lloyd, Black Finite. I mean, come on. Like, these are just, like, awesome awesome cards. You know what I love about this, though?

Because it reminds me of most of my football collecting is I just love the team collecting component where you just love your team so much, and you're just, like, buying all the stuff, all the cool stuff.

So a great page. Storm fan 1994. Everyone, go follow. Alright. Let's let's round out today's conversation with some of our favorite parts, which is the mailbag.

We have some exciting questions. Brett said before, which I I I can't believe he does this. He doesn't look at the questions before we we post them.

So, let's start. I'm excited to hear what you have to say. There's some some tough ones in here. The first one is from at a rod period one. Aside from Caitlin Clark, AJ Wilson seems to be holding her own in sales.

Do you think she's undervalued? If you if you are a believer in the PER of it all, and you match that with the hardware, and you think about all time great players, and you look at ages prices, probably, yes.

I I feel like if I said no, then that would be me that I would be shorting the entire WNBA market.

And I just think, like, in this era of WNBA basketball, to me, she is clearly the best player, and she's got the accolades to do it and statistics to do it.

And I think we're just starting to see some of those sales go down. So, yes, I do think she's a bit undervalued. What about you? I'll keep it short and sweet. Yes. She's undervalued, period. Okay. Question two from at tall card guy.

A lot of questions around rookie royalty lately, understandably so. In the long run, do you think the crazy high prices these cards are selling for will bring up the value of other WNBA cards of the same players?

Second part to the question here, will there be another rookie royalty set next year? Man. I would answer the second question first. I would imagine yes because Really? You've got I don't know.

You've got this think about it. Like, I know Clark and even Reese have a massive audience that they're bringing in. This year, like, you have Paige and you have two other all stars. You have three players. So it just I don't know.

It just seems like based on the conversation that has been had that I would probably bet that we would see it again. I could be wrong, and it could be, like, exclusive to Caitlin Clark thing, but only time will tell.

I think these cards are, like, on their own island where I'd I'm not sure that these sales based on the segments of collectors buying these or buying everything else we've talked about in this episode are one in the same.

So I'm less inclined to say that, like, just because rookie royalties going up that, like, a gold prism card is gonna go up.

I I it's way too early, but I just I don't see there being the a straightforward connection, like, there might be another sets.

What about you? I agree with your points you made there. I disagree with the do you think there'll be a rookie royalty set next year?

I think it's just a Caitlin Clark release. If somebody at, Panini would like to enlighten us on what the plans are, I will be glad to to listen to that. But I just think it's a Caitlin Clark only release, but we'll see. Maybe.

Maybe is the is the answer. Okay. Question three from at Ram Jam Sports Cards. What card do you regret selling that you wish you still had in your WNBA collection? You know, nothing really jumps out at me in that I regret selling.

It my regret is more on cards that I I, like, missed out on. Mhmm. A lot of those are, like, better player Black Finites of this year where I was, like, really close and missed out on those.

Yeah. I can't think of anything off the top of my head that I really regret selling. What about you? I had one, which was the 2019 Donrus Jonquil Jones Gold Optic, which I bought 09/01/2024, I think, for, like, a $100.

And and, like, looking back, I'm like, well, that would have been nice to keep. That would have been nice. I guess you live and you learn. We'll we'll not dwell on the past too much.

Let's move on to one of my favorite questions we've been asked, I think, may I say ever throughout mailbag from at card collector, start bench cut 2004 2004 Ultra, twenty twenty Prism, twenty nineteen Donerous.

Oh, god. Prism Simp. I'm gonna start twenty twenty Prism. I am going to bench.

I'm gonna bench twenty nineteen Donerous, and I'm gonna cut o four Ultra, and it's no disrespect. It's just I don't collect it. It's not in my wheelhouse not saying I wouldn't, and I know the historical significance of the set.

It's just not mine, and I you gotta cut one of them. So that's where I'm going. I had the same answer written down, and apologies to our two thousand four Ultra folks.

I I love that set, and and I'll echo Brett. I understand the significance, but there's no Nafissa Collier in that set, so that's why I cut it. That was the main reason.

Okay. We have two more questions left. Let's let's get through them. Five, question five from at n y c hoops collector. Who will have the best career from the twenty twenty five draft, and why will it be Dominique Malonga?

I'm just gonna be really boring and say it's gonna be Paige Beckers. Okay. I, for the sake of not saying Paige Beckers, I'm gonna say I agree with this listener and the person who submitted this question.

Dominique Belonga, at the time of the recording, just had two back to back, like, 20 double doubles. And I think at 19 years old, once the storm kinda, like, loosen up that leash a little bit, she's gonna be an exciting player.

If Paige wasn't in that draft, I think Dominique Malonga would have been the most talked about player in a long time besides Caitlin Clark, and I think she deserves some more respect.

And it'll be interesting to see how that translates to cards given that, you know, she's so young and she's not American, and there's all these factors about Dominique Malonga. But, excited to see her mentioned in the pod.

We gotta talk about her more. I know this one quick comment. I know the storm are, like, super good, top of the league, but I'm not sure there's been a a a good team that have has lost more close games this year. Yeah.

They get the short end of the stick on a lot of those games. Yeah. Shout out to Sparks. Okay. Number six at m j s sports cards. This is interesting because we kind of talked about the NFL a little bit throughout this, conversation.

What's the current balance of your hobby attention between WNBA and football? What was it like during the NFL offseason, and how do you anticipate that will shift during the WNBA offseason?

Great question. I tend to collect all my favorite things all the time. It's seasonal. However, it's hard not to when your team is about to play or seasons to start to get more geared up in that lane.

And so it's kind of for me, it's always like a just toggling back and forth. Like, I collect WNBA. Generally, I collect a lot of Colts, rare and scarce stuff. I collect, Halliburton and some Pacers stuff.

And those are, like, my three primary lanes. And it's just like this con like, last week, I bought, unexpectedly, I bought two Pacers cards that popped up that my mind wasn't really with Pacers.

But so, yeah. It's it I have no rhyme or reason. I will say, like, in season, it's fun because you're, like, watching it, but I'm generally buying everything year round.

What about you? I would love to say that I have this calendar built out that says buy WNBA in the off season and buy NFL in their off season because I think my bank account would appreciate me more, and I think we've seen that.

The ebbs and flows of the market, definitely, you get discounts, when the players aren't on the field or on the court.

That being said, it brings me so much joy to be like, I just picked up this fee card and she just went off, or she just won the MVP.

That that's a certain kind of collecting that I think is scary because you have to take some risk, but it can be so rewarding, especially if, the team that you're rooting for is winning.

That being said, as a Green Bay native, it is so tough to turn off the Packers side of me.

I feel like we get one ounce of training camp, and I'm like, oh my god. Oh my god. This is the next we're winning the Super Bowl, you know, like the classic the classic, Green Bay mindset.

And and for me, when it comes to collecting, I'm kinda in the same boat where I'm just trying to handle all of it as much as I can.

That being said, I definitely think the main factor for me and what indicates my buying habits is the winningness of the team. Very true.

I think if if the links are winning, I'm buying more links cards, and that's not that's probably not the smartest decision from a financial standpoint, but that kind of is what drives my collecting is, okay, if somebody's playing well, if we're winning, I'm gonna buy your card so that I can remember it in the moment.

But I wish I could. Maybe I'll improve that a little bit and try to be smarter with my purchasing decisions.

This is such a great topic that I think it might find its place in a future episode, collecting WNBA alongside other collections and how you go about it.

Really good topic. And, Caitlin, this was a I had a lot of fun this episode. This was This was awesome. Thank you guys for listening, and and we'll see you next week.