welcome back loyal listeners of the stacking slabs podcast to season four episode eleven of the wnba card podcast my name is caitlin i go buy cold bunch cards on the instagram machine but on a couple other corners of the internet as well and i'm so excited to continue bringing you guys collector driven and community focused content this season this season we're getting to the to the near end of season four and you know we've been talking about the time and the eras all the way back to the nineteen twenties we talked about the birth of the league we've talked about ultra rittenhouse we talked about sabrina in twenty twenty and most recently we talked about the entrance of caitlin clark and the caitlin clark effect and that kind of brings us to where we are today today i'm super excited to have an awesome guest on we have ryan here with me today who goes by reservoir sports cards on instagram and he is a yukon fan based out of the state of connecticut he's a quote self identified day one page collector building towards the best p b five collection and i'm so excited to have you here today ryan if if the audience doesn't know who you are which they should by the way if you guys aren't following him on instagram you have to maybe tell the audience a little bit about yourself and how you got here today yeah first caitlin thanks for having me on this series you put together is amazing and i'm super excited and and humbled to be a part of it but yeah i'm ryan i'm reservoir or reservoir sports cards based in connecticut as you've mentioned big yukon fan and i've been in in the hobby seriously one way or the other i i came in during the the the covid boom in in twenty twenty and i kinda really started out i i was buying i was buying players that were on my fantasy football team you know i was like oh buy them and they'll play well and their values will go up and then i kinda got more serious into it became sort of a dealer so to speak buying and selling cards traveling the country going to shows doing local shows buying and selling on ebay and then kinda as time went on i i shifted more towards buying high end and investing in cards you know very paying attention to the values of cards to eventually sell them and then further along the line i've i've sort of transitioned to becoming more of a full on collector after i found page becker's and to say the least i've gone full into that so yeah no kidding like i was saying if you guys are listening to this episode open your instagram type in reservoir sports cards just go look at some of these cards that we're gonna be talking about today they're they're incredible i i'm very jealous and it's like envy inducing is kinda what i told you before we got on the air so i'm excited to get into it you mentioned that you started collecting cards maybe in a different lane you didn't start with page becker's top of mind i wanna ask you when did you first like discover page and maybe was when was the time you thought you know maybe this is different or this is an opportunity of some kind for yourself yeah so yeah i wasn't collecting her or even college basketball or women's basketball at first but i've always been a uconn fan being here in in uconn or being here in connecticut uconn is life and yeah and you know she was pretty hyped during the recruiting process so i was aware of her you know when she committed to uconn and she she was big she was probably the most hyped prospect since brianna stewart you know coming out of high school she was i think she was the first ever high school women's basketball player featured on slam magazine oh i remember that yes yeah i have i don't know if you know this is not video but i got one out here a little autographed copy of it you know so i was i was aware of her and she was she was definitely hyped she she had a great first year she won the naismith player of the year they made a deep run to the final four you know so yeah i was well aware of her from from the beginning but her cards hadn't really come out yet that would that would be later down the line that makes sense i guess that's a good transition into my second question i had prepped for you which was what made you kinda go all in from the card perspective of her you know i think about paige becker's and the first card i think about is that si for kids card which is interesting but yep you couldn't go all in on paige her first year it wasn't even a possibility it wasn't an option when did that when did that transition happen yeah so you know i i did have a couple of her cards kinda like early on i had that si for i i still have the si for kids card that was her first card that came out in twenty twenty one but it wasn't until twenty twenty twenty three bowman chrome that her true like flagship cards came out and that's late twenty twenty three so i had like one or two right but then the whole caitlin clark thing happened which you know at the time i was still kinda buying and selling investing in cards and her market blew up right and i had some of her stuff and you know you'd buy a card it would go up three four x after she broke the record and she went on the run and then uconn and iowa played in the final four in twenty twenty four and paige had an amazing season she was really good in the tournament and you kinda probably should have beat iowa if it wasn't for the refs but that's a discussion for another night when i think of that game i think of that like what i will deem as i'm gonna say it i think it'll be an iconic photo of like the bounce pass off the back like yeah yeah i'm sorry to bring that up but it is gonna be an iconic moment in like the two of their careers okay so if i could just like recap what you're saying you saw you were operating kind of in different lanes you saw paige becker's you were in close proximity to her being in yukon in connecticut and then you saw the explosion of caitlin clark you thought to yourself the math isn't adding up here maybe paige paige is an opportunity yeah i'm like what am i what am i doing here right i'm a huge uconn fan i love page backers look how close they just got right and caitlin caitlin's market blew up she's gonna be moving on to the wnba uconn was this close they're gonna be back here next year paige is gonna be healthy all season i think they got a chance to make a run and paige is gonna be the player in college next year so what am i doing here i need i need more i need more paige cards yeah and at that point i started to go kind of all in i love it yeah i wanna kinda bring up this term in your bio you have the term day one collector and i just wanted to ask you what do you mean by that like what does that mean to you yeah i mean obviously you know most paige beckers has been hyped since she's she since she's come in i'm not the only person who's been aware of her but just just you know being like starting to collect her when her cards first first came out and really being one of those first people to go just full on into her before she made it to the to the wnba before you know before she finally had success in winning a national championship so just being just being that early collector buying her stuff when it was still a little bit more affordable and easier for sure so i was fortunate in that but yeah i completely feel that like i talked a lot about we had like a episode talking about the idea of prospecting in women's basketball and how it's this new concept that's applied to this lane and about how rewarding it can be as a collector to feel like you have some sort of like discovery moment yeah ahead of the curve it really is powerful and it's something that you know i think drives a lot of our a lot of collectors that maybe do have that financial acumen side of the hobby where you're like i wouldn't mind making a dollar or two here or there and paige definitely screamed opportunity so that makes sense i wanna ask you you know you you said you you know you knew you had the si for cards kid or si for kids card in twenty twenty one twenty twenty three obviously she has her bowman first how has your kind of approach changed over time because i look at your account and there's some nukes sitting there that that didn't happen overnight did it like no it didn't i mean it it definitely it definitely snowballed right you know at at first it was an idea and then it kinda became a strategy you know after the whole the caitlin clark thing and then it was like then it became a pc right because it was like this is a smart investment and this is like my favorite player for my favorite team in my home state like this is gonna be my come my thing and then it became a full blown obsession and then obviously because i was in early on a lot of her cards values of a lot of them went up and i was able to sell some of those to turn it into bigger cards and consolidate a bit so it grew but you know i've been involved in the card space too for a while now almost six years heavily so i've i've built up a collection over time and of other stuffs you know you know in football and and and men's basketball so when i went all in i sold everything i sold everything else and turned it into into paige most everything else so yeah it definitely grew grew over time though wow that that's a real testament to like how much paige must mean to you and how much her cards mean to you and that that brings me to my next question on your personal collection which is what is what do these cards represent to you beyond just like the cardboard beyond that aspect like you could collect any any yukon player you could collect maybe like older yukon players like legends why page like what what does this represent to you yeah i i think you know as i've as i've said i kinda entered the space more transactional more business thinking flipping cards to make money page was that first moment where i really started to collect like truly collect somebody i think it was my first time actually experiencing the hobby from that perspective so to me for for the hobby page is everything right so always be that first pc that first true experience of what it means to collect somebody without necessarily caring about what can i resell this for or you know how much money am i gonna make it's like i'm collecting here because i love page and i love yukon and i i love being a part of that that history a part of that experience and yeah i want the best page collection that i can possibly get you know so it's it'll be everything for oh yeah i love that and and you mentioned the term which was snowball okay and like let me just say this two things it it's very addicting once you switch your mindset or once you get that flip switch of like it's nice to make money on cards but for these particular cards that i have i do not care i do not care i love them that is an addictive thing that only collectors understand and once you have that feeling because it it comes in ebbs and flows but if a player can spark that energy it is life changing as a collector i i'm not afraid to say it okay so from here i wanna talk to you about something that i find very interesting which is if you go on your page go on your page no pun intended you'll see some massive cards like i was saying and i think i recall seeing some posts from you about the fact that you may hold the record for the highest selling page card ever do you mind like telling us what that card was kind of walking us through how you got it in that moment yeah yeah so so the card is her twenty twenty three baumann u chrome true super fractor auto so for before her pro stuff came out it's in a psa ten as well or arguably her best card in in the world and so this kinda all happened with the whole realization hey i should go all in on pagebackers when i kinda had that decision started collecting her heavy my name kinda got out there on instagram that i'm going hard for pagebackers and someone sent me that card that they were looking to sell it and this was this was before the twenty twenty five season i'm like alright if i'm gonna make this play this is this is the one so i took a leap of faith i purchased the card and then you know twenty twenty season happened she played super well they won the championship and then i had a decision to make it was like okay am i am i ever gonna sell this card right or am i gonna keep this forever so if the answer was yes am i ever gonna sell this card it's like it's probably this is probably the best time to do it after they won the national championship and she's about to be drafted number one overall in the wnba her pro cards are gonna start to come out which is gonna compete with that market and golden auctions had an auction head ending like the day after the wnba draft so i ended up deciding to run it and it went for a crazy amount of money do you remember the exact figure that it went for went for thirty two thousand dollars jesus and that's just it's still like it's a massive record sale but like still i'm like but i don't know paige's best card thirty k do you think that it's gonna can do you think you're gonna hold that record through her like prism release or other so so so first of all anytime a piece of cardboard sells for that amount of money it's it's insane but within context i did think it would do i did think it was gonna it should have done more or would have done more you know caitlin clark's same card did seventy nine thousand dollars so that was part of the reason why i bought it in the first place should i say the amount i bought i i purchased a card for nineteen thousand dollars which is a ton of is a ton of money right but compared to seventy nine thousand dollars caitlin clark steel yeah absolutely absolute steel so when it went for thirty two cool big big win set the record but i thought it had more more room for sure that makes sense can you can you try to i know it's probably really hard whenever people ask me questions like this i'm always like ugh i don't know how to communicate this in orderly fashion but like can you tell me what it felt like when you saw like the hammer drop virtually i guess of like yeah okay it's sold for this amount yeah there's kind of two trains of thoughts that i would have and be like wow like that's a shit ton of money this is awesome but also i love paige becker's this is her best card and it's no longer mine what did that feel what was that feeling like yeah surreal surreal because holy crap that's a ton of money that's coming to me but definitely bittersweet because at the end of the day it is just money and hold like holding that card for that entire season and and owning paige's best card in the world while they go on a championship run and then win the championship was an experience i'll never forget it was just that was awesome so it was it's it's it it was definitely bittersweet and sad to no longer own that piece of of pagebackers but i in a way sort of traded that ownership of the card for a piece of history and fact you know owning one of she just won the national championship and is gonna be drafted number one overall and now she has the highest yukon card sale of all time which i share which i share in so that's that was kinda cool too that's a good way of looking at it sometimes i from like the opposite perspective when i you know the more likely thing that happens when i buy cards when they when i buy a card and then i sell it for less that i kind of frame as like a rental period of me owning the card except you had a rental period in which then you can't have like a really healthy return on it so that's gotta be just like the best feeling ever yeah and then what did i do with the l most of that money yeah buy more page cards buy more page cards okay did your did your like did that sale change kind of your approach to how you collected page because of either the money or just being like okay i had kind of the tip top of the mountain at the time or you know the peak of what you would con you said it was one of her best if not her best card did it change that that approach for you once that sale happened not not a ton you know like obviously i i it shifted my direction you know now we diversify a bit of of her cards but i i still have that i can never i probably will never get that card back right but i still have the draw to get some of her biggest and best cards and for me it was like okay now i've now i've got some funds to to start to chase her wnba stuff when that when that comes out right so it definitely changed my relationship with it right it felt yeah i'm i'm losing the card but at that point it was like okay like it validated sort of that that whole that whole mission that whole journey there it's like alright paige paige is my girl now so yeah we're going all in i love that okay i have a couple other questions too before we kinda get into the next segment which is i wanna ask you if it ever felt if you ever felt risk like really it felt really risky to make a move like that like you mentioned the dollar amount but like just going all in like did you ever feel like there were times that you were kinda tested like oh should i have done that was this the right decision that kind of thing yeah i mean any anytime putting that much money into a sports card on a and any prospect is super risky but i i don't know i always felt super good about paige she just checked all the boxes for me you know she's a generational player she plays for my favorite team great person big personality so you know everyone's risky to me she felt a little bit less risky but i'm obviously very well aware that any injuries could happen things could happen so yeah it's scary but i felt pretty good about her in the in the twenty twenty five season it was a little bit of a dip when they dropped like three games versus ranked teams they lost to usc tennessee and south carolina all during the regular season that was a little scary but i'm like i'm in this for a long haul i believe in paige the best players which i think she was they always they always find a way to to to work it out and they'll they'll always come back so and she always did even after her multiple injuries so yeah i was confident that she would be she'd be in good shape i love that it's just like it just shows that it was the right move it it makes sense even if even if she didn't win even if maybe the card value went down it sounds like you were confident in your own collection of her that it was it was a safe and confident decision so okay that kinda go ahead yeah i was just saying and then i didn't i didn't care as much about the values right like was at that point it was it was collecting it was i want i just want i believe in page and i want the coolest and best page collection possible if she gets hurt and the values go down whatever i'm i'm keeping these cards so yeah i love it alright i kinda wanna transition us into one of the segments that we have on each of these episodes is about state in context of the league so we've introduced ryan we've introduced what you're about what you collect the super cool page cards that you have but we wanna kinda take a zoom out and look at the league perspective from the wmba so i wanna ask you kinda your perspective on what the league the wmba felt like during page's college years like what what what was that feeling like for you it felt like it was catching fire you know like with with clark and all i mean all the other talented players coming in angel reese and then them shining a light on all the insanely talented players in the league asia nafisa collier thank you gotcha you know it it felt like it was about to catch fire and for me as a page collector like pages could potentially be the gasoline that's thrown in the next season when she comes in along with tons of more talented players in juju and sarah strong and mikaela blakes etcetera it just it felt like it just it was a fire that's that was growing and paige was about to be part of that so yeah it almost is like when you see like a wildfire burning miles and miles away and you know it's gonna get to you like it really felt like you could see it coming inch by inch inch by inch and you're just waiting waiting waiting and you're like it's here yeah it's here and i wanna ask you i wanna ask you about like paige's profile as a prospect you talked a little bit about how she was super hyped coming out of high school in minnesota she was hyped before high school i remember you know there's that famous tweet that it's like pay attention to paige becker's and it's like a picture of her from fifth grade or whatever but how do you think that paige's profile entering the league differed from other superstars whether that be clark whether that be you know aj wilson brianna stewart like what was different yeah i think there's a couple of things from like from a hobby perspective you know like aj wilson brianna stewart didn't really have didn't have college cards yeah yeah they had i know stewie has si for kids card and there were a couple of yukon dedicated sets but nothing no like true flagship yeah products so from a hobby perspective there was nothing right and then i think i think another part of it too is like this whole the the social media era like tiktok was blowing up when i agree i agree was coming up right like all of her high school highlights were all over tiktoks and instagram reels right so there's a much more attention around how insane of a count insanely talented of a player she was so attention in the real world and attention in the cards world and that she just actually had like chrome a true awesome awesome product to buy cards of whereas asia stewie all of they just wasn't wasn't there they didn't have kind of this machine behind them like paige does paige definitely has that perfect storm and i kinda wanna ask you the way that i think about paige like clark clark paige was higher rated than clark coming out of high school and going into college and when i think about the way that paige was viewed and granted i i grew up in wisconsin the state next to where paige was so like we were always hearing about paige that's the best player she's gonna be number one she's whatever whatever but felt like in the hobby that paige was the first kind of women's basketball prospect to be collected as like the future promise you know from day one whereas clark came on the scene it was a surprise to most people paige had those expectations built in what do you do you think do you agree with that do you not agree with that okay i do i do i do agree with that she i'm gonna say it she i'm gonna say it she was the caitlin clark before caitlin clark for sure you know and then it she she got forgotten about with with with the injuries it's just it's just natural she was out for two seasons pretty much you know so yeah i i do totally agree with that and then even like secondarily because her her her card collecting really didn't happen until after clark her serious card collecting didn't happen till after clark but with with with with with caitlin like her card market started to blow up toward like right at the end of her college career like after like once she approached and broke the record and then she finished that's when it really blew up and then like even from my perspective paige we went back and collected at the beginning of her season followed all the way through to the end and now it's growing into the wnba so it's like okay now we're truly we're prospecting on somebody that's gonna be the next have the next pull up like caitlin clark yeah so like before her and then after her in a way where yeah yeah that's a a good way to kinda cap off this segment and like it's funny i i named this episode like the weight of expectations like how paige met the moment and that really does encapsulate the fact that she was she was different she was a different kind of prospect that had this perfect storm brewing of both the league and the hobby and that kind of brings me i wanna i wanna dig into what we're nerds about i wanna dig into the cards and so i wanna i wanna ask you what do you think the first page cards were that people were chasing we talked about si for kids we talked about bowman are those the ones that people immediately wanted or was there anything else i i mean si for kids was her was her very first card but i wouldn't like like i had it but i wouldn't say there's a full blown chase for it she had she had the there's the panini yukon dedicated set that i i i love and i think it's gonna be a long term like historic set as it was the first time biniti ever did that for yukon but i i think it is bone i think it is bone and i think it is bone and chrome absolutely that's that coincided that's kinda where everything finally met where her career was really peaking her attention was really peaking and then yeah and bohman chrome is just such a good product that i think that's where people really started chasing her bohman chrome autos and the refractors the short prints all that you know yeah you're talking to somebody who i'm like a baumann uchrome truther like i think that's one of the products that is going to stick out for this time across sports across you know i i genuinely believe that product is so well put together maybe it's because of the fact of players like paige and clark building its kind of credibility but yeah i i agree with the bowman assessment okay the next question i have for you is early on in pages collect like are collecting of her do you think that scarcity and hype were two dynamics that were at play and how did you see that tension kind of unfold yeah absolutely i do i do think hype was the bigger factor hype is what was needed to just blow it all up because it was naturally already very very scarce so the first like bowman bowman's first ever true like college women's basketball set and in comparison to penny that has tons of different brands there just isn't much to choose from especially to like male male counterparts it's just naturally her cards are just naturally scarce yeah that makes sense yeah so the supply was already in already short it just needed the demand so once that happened it kind of caught fire yeah yeah for sure okay so we talked about sli for kids we talked about bowman but now we see this proliferation of products in the wnba i guess how would you define a grail page card these days because now you have a you have options it's not like you just have to choose one yeah it's a lot now it's for me it's a lot to take into yeah but like my my general rule is always for a grail card it's where rarity and significance and and probably high appeal all intersect so anything that hits those three for me it could be a grail card but i i think i think her college stuff or best college cards are going to last the test test of time i think those are still gonna be grail cards she had an amazing career at uconn and somebody like me that's a uconn fan that wants to remember that and commemorate that is going to wanna collect those cards so even as her pro stuff comes out i think those are there's gonna be major pieces from her bowman and you know whatever sets but now there's gonna be a lot coming coming in in in wnba there's gonna be prism you know there's impeccable which i think is the first ever true high end set for wnba panini one so any anything short anything that crosses those checks those boxes rare significant being a first of something i think will be a grill okay that's interesting if you don't mind me hitting you with a out of left field question putting you you on the spot here so you said rarity significance and i appeal can you rank them for me for your personal collection if i'm being honest and not trying to give like the correct answer i i appeal yes yeah sign sign me up there i agree i have to like what the card looks like why am i why am i gonna keep it here and look at it you know what i mean so when it comes to collecting i appeal as everything yeah i'm i'm glad we're on the same page let me say that okay my last question in this segment is do you think that paige or clark or insert generational women's basketball player here are we seeing because of their impact the creation of kind of a new category of pre wnba prospect collecting absolutely absolutely i and i kinda just touched on it but i would even say it's not even not even necessarily it is prospecting but in addition i feel like it's a stand alone a stand alone part of the hobby now like i was saying earlier like i wanna collect yukon cards i wanna remember paige's career she was there for freaking five years yeah you know and she had a great career there so i want her yukon specific cards and and bohma chrome is a beautiful product it it checks all those boxes to me i think it's one of the best looking cards full action shots amazing refractor designs you know nice chrome finish so i think it's a stand alone i agree area of the hobby in itself and in addition to you know you could collect somebody early you can you can prospect them early because obviously these these cards will probably do well if she has a good strong wnba career which is increased that demand but yeah i think it's two set two pieces of the hobby now yeah for sure if if you don't mind i'm gonna add some some of my opinion here i agree i think that the uniformity of the set as well is something that is done so well like in terms of parallel structure uniformity across sports it's just like very familiar which makes it easier for people to collect and my second point is you know i had a podcast i don't remember what episode it was but we were talking about the idea of prospecting and it feels like you know in women's basketball college basketball was kind of the pinnacle at one point because the wnba wasn't as you know wasn't what what it once was or what it what what it is today and so you almost see this idea of college cards getting a little bit more respect in women's basketball than say in men's college football or men's basketball and it's because of what you said think which is you know paige was there for five years that's that's a core pillar of the basketball community in connecticut is paige becker she wasn't bouncing around she was she was there and it was a part of you know that legacy that women's basketball pipeline i i do wonder if that will change with like the wnba now being seen as more of a credible league but i i just wanna add that color i think it's an interesting component or lens to look at the bowman u product and its its evolution yeah she was a star she was a star for five years while she was in in connecticut you know that's that's a that's a career five years is a career yeah yeah absolutely alright i wanna transition us into you mentioned the word significance and i wanna talk about it i wanna talk about impact and significance and so i wanna ask you what do you think paige represents in this this timeline of the wnba obviously this this season is all about eras and moments yeah how how do you think we're gonna look back on this moment of paige i think we're gonna look at it as a significant era and paige being a significant a significant part of it not like i'm biased or anything yeah i'm gonna be i'm gonna be the cheesy guy and cheesy guy and and relate it to the nba's big big you know monumental shifts eras in in bird and magic and then and then the jordan era i i really think that we're in that period right now and we're gonna look back on this period and look at the players in this period that had some of that impact as being significant and taking it to the next to the next level and i think i think paige will be a big a big big part of that yeah i really hope so like i i really i i think it will be i just i'm like somebody's gotta get paige out of dallas or somebody's gotta help help dallas out with paige for her to have that amount of impact in terms of just like winning like she's gonna play well she's gonna be great but goddamn somebody help her out in dallas that's all i know about yeah and obviously i'm new i'm i'm one of the newbies in the in the in the wnba landscape but it seems dallas is just one of those organizations that can't get their foot out of their mouth so i i either she's gotta get out of there or they really gotta turn it around so hopefully this hopefully this number one pick helps a little bit yeah this this podcast will release the day before the draft so by the time people are listening to this they will probably be you know a new player added to page's team to help her out perhaps easy fun should we make a prediction should we make a prediction do you want do you wanna make a prediction i'm predicting it's gonna be easy fun i'm predicting that i'm not saying whether or not i want it to be but i i think it's gonna be az fud i hope selfishly as the lynx fan in the room that they pick az fud so that i can have all of them but yes absolutely my prediction is that it's gonna be all of them for the dallas wings number one overall and there's going to be a gigantic groan in the crowd yes and it's gonna be like just one of those moments that we remember in draft history that's my bold prediction i don't know we'll we'll see we'll see okay i wanna ask you about you know we just talked about kind of how will we look back on page's moment what does she kinda represent how do you think page has changed collector behavior and what i mean by that is there's there's certain things that we talked about we talked about taking a leap that's how you described it on like making a big purchase which could be like called risk tolerance or what people value you talk about how you know her cards have the the pick of her cards the evolution of her cards have changed over time in terms of what people want i guess how do you think paige has changed those kind of collector preferences yeah i definitely think we've we're seeing more prospecting now and more risk taking absolutely after you know it sort of started with with clark but again how how we're talking about before there wasn't a full prospecting with clark it was like a clark is here everyone wants a piece of this now yeah paige was the first one okay she's gonna be the next one up and we have the opportunity to prospect her with her college cards that happened it worked out really well for anybody who did that yeah i think we have a lot of people trying to reproduce that that strategy now for lack of a better word you saw everyone going in on sarah strong and mikayla blake's or or juju walk ins all doing the same thing loading up on those bowman crove cards trying to follow that similar approach with with with how the page thing worked out yeah i wonder you know you you kinda talked about how word kinda got out on instagram about how you're like trying to build a good page collection that's how that super factor found you from your vantage point do you think that page kinda brought in a new base of collectors similar to how clark did or do you think it was mostly like already cemented women's basketball fans those are the people latching on the page or are there new kind of segments absolutely new people coming in with page and especially now too with her pro product she's she's the clark is still there of course there's people collecting her but she's the major chase in all the new pro products being like one of the top rookies yeah so yeah i think it's bringing in absolutely new people okay do you think that kind of like model or approach to like investing is only gonna work for page or do you think page page is not predecessors whatever the what whoever comes after page do you think that the the model will work for them yes yes i don't think it works for everybody though okay you know i i think this this specific this specific model works for who you think might be the that bet that top the top of the echelon the player with the most potential the player with the most success the one with accolades the player of the year the one who wins the championship i think that that approach works for that whoever you think that might might be but even in that realm i think like we were talking before paige had a lot of things that lined up pretty perfectly and so it doesn't always go that way i i mean i was watching sarah strong's market i did similar i didn't go as hard with her but it it it just it wasn't the same she didn't have some of the same increases in value same increases in potent in you know attention yeah so paige had a lot of things go right in the line it's i don't know if it's always gonna be exactly the same yeah there's always a little bit of luck in there right like in this equation there's there's always a little bit of luck okay so not to like blow your spot or anything but like i'm curious if you have an opinion on who's gonna kinda carry the torch either whether you can take it either at yukon like because you know you're a yukon fan or in terms of like this is the next great women's basketball prod prospect who's going to like surprise somebody or we're going to see people start investing dollars you mentioned sarah strong you mentioned juju watkins are there are there certain names that are sticking out to you if you don't mind sharing i mean those are those are my names sarah's i'm invested in sarah strong i'm invested in juju watkins juju's incredible she's she's a whole a whole other category of players it was unfortunate that she got injured but she'll be back she has a whole she gained an additional year of eligibility so those two will be be at the top for sure what's another name toby fornier too yes exactly speak on him yeah so i think she and she's very interesting because she signed an exclusive deal with leaf which what are we doing what are we doing yeah which is unfortunate but it forces sort of like scarcity yeah with cards so i don't know how much the i don't know if that hurts her demand at all for me personally i'm not a huge leaf yeah collector but i don't know how long that i don't know how long that that contract is for yeah i'm just imagining like a toby blue color match out of one ninety nine bohm and uchrome like that's a that's a nasty card we need that yeah we need that like give that to me please yeah here's my pitch to you in terms of like my not that you asked but like my opinion on who carries it forward my like big theory is that we're gonna enter the dunk era in wnba next that's what i think like the next we have like the hype of like the shooters we're the game is is becoming a shooters game in the women's basketball game it wasn't always like that we before the people running this league were tina charles junkwell jones you know like bigs under the hoop that were very talented very technically fundamental now we're transitioning to shooters who can spread the floor i think next up dunking it's gonna be yeah social media highlight reels it's gonna be foreign players coming over who are seventeen that can like dunk on you know your classic you know old vets like yeah and i think toby fournier is the perfect call for that because she can dunk like she can do it and like it would be nasty i just yeah i'm looking forward to that but that's one of my hot takes one of my other hot takes was that sarah strong was gonna win four national championships and obviously i didn't get that right but we'll see i was right there with you i i was screaming from the mountaintops before the season began that they would not lose a single game this season and it was almost there and you know anybody can lose anybody can lose but she's incredible you know she's gonna have a hell of a career she's the best player in college basketball right now so i agree i i cosign on that ryan okay let's move on to what i think is like one of my favorite segments that we do each week which is we talk about this thing called the canning contribution so we ask each guest to take some time before the episode to think about four cards or sets or parallels that they think best represent the era that we've been discussing for the episode today's episode as we can all tell is all about paige i guess did you have time to think about this and do you do you have a pitch for us on the mount rushmore of four cards that represent it sure yeah i'll i'll do like a hybrid approach here kinda speak set and then maybe go into specific cards but i'd i once again i had to bring up bowman uchrome so really any any of the shorter print or lower numbered refractors i think me personally that is my favorite set of all time i think it's the best looking cards it represents my favorite era of of page it represents the card that i sold her best card her best yukon card in existence and it checks checks all the boxes for me so any of those refractors either the either the autos or the non autos are just beautiful cards and then another one within the bowman universe is the bowman u best those those dual autographs i think are awesome so i have i have one which is the page and the sarah strong dual dual casual just casually i just have that that that one yeah and i think that could end up you know if sarah strong continues hopefully she wins two more at least than a few a few more accolades but that's that's two national player of the years on on one card i don't think there's any other yukon cards like that in existence like like diana and sue bird they don't have they don't have a dual no they're all like in person yeah yeah right like yeah and if you happen to get it at yeah in person auto there's no other greats like that on a card and then you also have the the paige and caitlin clark dual auto which is insane too if that if they end up being like the jordan and larry bird or larry bird magic johnson of this era you know that's a crazy card so that's one okay and then and then more on the dub so on the wnba side i fell in love with impeccable yeah which why why it they're they're beautiful cards right so checks off the i po box and then two i think it's really significant because it's in my opinion is the first true like high end high end set where you got the patch autos the on card the on card beautiful bold auto autographs with the you know the thick the thick cards you had you had rookie royalty right so i technically had national treasures and flawless but to me that was more like a penny instant set this is your your full release where you can get any player in it we're truly chasing page yeah in that and the the patch autos are beautiful it's got the full action shot of this really cool art in the background i think i think that's gonna be an iconic set long term long term just the visual appeal and the significance of it being a first true high in set yeah i remember seeing i think it was you that posted like the was it like the out of thirty five like just base page and then like a yes it was the first time i had seen like at the time just a nice nice photograph capturing what those cards look like and i was like oh i get it oh i understand the appeal here because they are truly beautiful like they're gorgeous and the the foiling on them are yeah it's just great for you nice looking cards so to me those are those are really cool and they have they do have a logo lady in that set which if you ever get your hands on that that's that's sick yeah okay round us out with your fourth and final fourth and final specific card what i think will be paige becker's biggest and most significant card once it's found is her prism black finite whatever i mean she does have the gold vinyl so that's there's there's discussion to be had what which side of the fence are you on i mean historically the black finite has has sold for more right so significance wise i suppose it gives i suppose it gives out the edge i like the look of the gold vinyl better so if if i was fortunate enough to choose one of them yep i would i would probably go gold vinyl but so with one of those two will be her will be her best card in existence because as far as i know she's not getting a national treasures or a flawless i don't think they're doing rookie royalty again no so just historically you know that's that'll be her biggest card can i ask you which which the true like the shooting or whatever her pose is or the variation which one would you say is the true the true yeah i do think her variation pose is one of the best we've seen recently like because she's actually like holding a basketball i feel like half the half the variation photos are then like standing awkwardly yeah in front of nothing so i i do like the variation one though it's nice it's just a more significant card oh the true the true rookie is always the most sought after card yeah again if you could have either one of those yeah you're very they'll be massive for sure yeah okay well that was a great four just i i agree with almost i think i agree with your entire top four they're really good yep let's let's kinda close out the episode with i wanna give you the opportunity to kind of like provide any advice to people that maybe are looking you could take it from a page perspective people that are looking to collect page people that are looking to collect high end like i would say that's an interesting perspective in the wnba space specifically or just in general like hyped when you feel this kind of conviction about a player like any advice for those kind of three scenarios yeah well if you're thinking about collecting page just do it you have my full support there reach out to me any anytime you want i got you but yeah i think if you wanna pc somebody take it slow you don't have to jump in you don't have to jump in all at once find something that you like so find something that you like the look of and and start there you if you think that card's cool buy it because you're not gonna be hurt owning a card that you enjoy that you like the look of you know so it's it's cliche but buy you know collect what you love and you'll be just fine when it comes to when it comes to doing high end again i if you're if you're if you're being conscious of values and if that matters to you like the investment portion of it you know do do your research go go on go on card ladder you know search page becker's and just just page becker's and sort by highest paid to lowest paid to show all of her sales and that helps to give you an idea okay what's in that ten thousand dollar range what's in that five thousand dollar range what's in that one thousand dollar range and then when you're in those price ranges compare those compare those different cards what to you are more significant cards or better looking cards or cards that will hold long term to get a sense of value right to me that's like true shopping right i got a thousand dollars to spend what can i get in that thousand dollar range what's the coolest card i can get that get in that range and a card letter is a super useful tool in doing that yeah and if you wanna collect page again reach out to me anytime that's awesome and and if people are looking to reach out to you where can they find you find me on instagram is the easiest i've i've respond there the quickest at reservoir sports cards awesome well thank you ryan for joining this episode was super fun i always like talking about paige one of my favorite players in the league for listeners our next episode will be all about the the new era the next players up we're gonna be talking about juju watkins sarah strong and the like but yeah like i said if you guys aren't following ryan be sure to go on instagram and check him out you're gonna be drooling looking through his feed thank you ryan so much for joining and thank you to the audience for listening each and every episode i'm so excited about this season we're almost to the end thanks for being here guys thanks caitlin