welcome back loyal listeners of the stackings labs podcast network to season six episode one of the wnba card podcast i'm your host caitlin i go by at cold lunch cards mostly on the instagram machine and i am joined here by mark my cohost at m j s underscore sports cards on instagram machine and we're excited to team up to deliver some more collector driven and community focused content this season as we record episode number six seven folks we're at sixty seven episodes of the wnba card podcast and whether this is your first episode joining us your second or your sixty seventh we're happy to be here today as a reminder you can find us on instagram at wnba card pod we've got a lot of fun things coming for this season but mark how are you doing today doing great happy to be here in a good mood i wonder why i wonder why maybe that jersey has something to do with it monica yeah yeah here we go let's make sure it gets to the screen there we go i love it yeah we're gonna talk all about your good mood what the result of it is we're gonna talk about round two of the playoffs we're gonna talk about the remaining awards that came out between the last episode and this episode we're gonna rip some packs some hobby packs we're gonna go over a pride product landscape overview so that folks who are you know maybe joining us for the first time understand the product that's out there and available for collectors today then we're gonna do some window shopping and then we'll close it out with some buzzer beater questions but i guess for tip-off mark i thought we could talk about what's been front of mind for you today i mean the past week or so i feel like a lot has gone on we've had high pressure games there's been awards like i was saying but there's been things going on in our collecting world as well what's been kinda like top of mind for you mark you know for me i don't do a lot of prospecting but this week i've been thinking about the rookies from the twenty twenty six class that i would like to pick up some cards of we'll talk about it soon there's been some new products that have come out and i've had my eye on a couple of rookies and i have a had a mail day this week of one of the rookies that that i am really high on for this class and i got a next day autograph from don russ of awa fam from the seattle storm awa is is one of the younger younger players in the wnba and someone that i think is really good and so in addition to kind of watching the playoffs i've been kind of keeping my eye out on the the rookies in new products and what their prices are and some some rookies that i might target a few pc cards for what about you well first of all i like that card is that an on card auto of it is these next day autographs are on card autos which is why i love them and they come out of don ross which is usually the first product that comes out last year's next day autographs were were a target for me too i'm gonna pair this with my dom malonga next day auto from last year and we will have the seattle storm frontcourt of the future i love that that's a great pickup i feel like we could talk a lot about ala fama and you know her progression that she's had i'm looking forward to seeing where her career goes especially paired up in seattle when i headed our seattle storm episode last season all i could think about was the future of that team it just feels like it's in good hands and just a matter of time before it comes together so love the pickup mark i also had a pickup this past week i technically purchased it two weeks ago but then with signature confirmation and all the things that come along with making a big purchase it didn't arrive until this weekend i i'm so excited about what i picked up i was able to check number five of six of my nafissa collier six pack personal collection with a twenty twenty three first year origins fee black one of one this was like such an exciting find i think for people that are aware of what what i'm doing with fee is that i'm limiting myself to six cards only of hers and it and it kind of forces me to be super intentional about picking up cards that are meaningful to me and if something has to enter the six pack that means something has to leave it and right now i have six cards that you know i'm chasing and i just hit the fifth and now it's it just feels like turning the corner on a pc of just like almost being there and the card's beautiful when it when i got it in hand i was like wow i i just like set it out and spent my day with it which i think is like kind of a funny thing i don't know if other collectors do that but like i like brought it around me to different parts of my house while i was working it was in the kitchen with me it like went up on the mantle for a little bit and now it's locked away in my case and i'm just so excited to to add that to my pc what an incredible pickup i love origins i first year origins as well you know a perfect fifth card for for for the six pack for you i don't know if i have mentioned this to you i think i have mentioned it to you but i have actually the twenty twenty four origins fee one of one so we that's a that's a nice that's a nice sync up for host and cohost over here yes what a great card what a great tell me a little bit like what what did it feel like when you were opening up the box like what like the the take take us through the feeling of getting a card like that in the mail yeah so first of all i found this card on facebook in like a random facebook group for wmba cards and i'm not a big facebook user i didn't grow up with facebook it's like the last app that i check when i'm going through like hunts for my pc and i open my facebook and you know how like you can it opens you to the home page and it shows this post from a group i joined and i'm like oh that's cool it's got like sixty probably sixty slabs of wnba cards and i'm looking at it i zoom in i'm like going through the the stacks that this guy posted and i'm like wait wait a second like zoom out zoom out zoom in i'm like is that it that's the fee one of one that i've been looking for that i haven't been able to find like it's never surfaced there's never been a photo posted of it there hasn't been a sale and and it turns out that this guy pulled this card at release in twenty twenty three graded it and then decided to to move on from it and you know long story short we get the deal done through probably a three message negotiation it was like number yes deal that was it he shipped it off it comes to my house the mailman delivers it to me he's like why is this lady so excited about this package you know like whatever and i set it down on my kitchen table i open up my phone i record it because i wanna like have it for insurance purposes right like i'm just so skeptical about buying from people that i i don't know and have no like i don't know who any of these people are that i'm buying these cards from and i'm like oh my god and i opened it and it was there and i was like wow like i i didn't think that card existed to be honest with you like i hadn't seen it before and i was just so confused about where it could have been because i feel like to pull that card in twenty twenty three like i would brag about that card if i had that fee card and this guy kind of just kept it in his back pocket until he decided to post it and so it kind of felt like catching like this mysterious i guess like it felt like a big catch do you know what i mean and i was just so stoked to add it and i'm so happy because i i'm also pairing it with my asia wilson one of one from the same year of origin so it creates this kinda like double win of six pack plus creating a pair so yeah it was awesome that's so great and this is probably like the first hint at the generational difference between me and caitlin i very much grew up with with facebook and that was that was my main that was my main kind of social network growing up and actually i i think i purchased a card from this same post and i was able to talk to the the seller talk to the seller brian and he had such fantastic cards and i remember asking him do you have a card instagram because your collection seems really awesome and he just responded he was like no i i i i'll show i show my cards on facebook every now and then but mostly this is for me and you know that was really kind of cool to hear and it just it just kinda reminds you of like instagram is just kind of you know the the tip of the iceberg with with a lot of collectors and so amazing purchase i i loved seeing the post with with vee and asia together it reminded me of their of their podcast together yes congratulations thanks mark yeah i'm excited about that but why don't we talk a little bit about something that has nothing to do with fia unfortunately round two of the playoffs mark but i know you're excited to talk about this why don't we start with your atlanta dream please like can you tell me what you're feeling as a dream fan and how this series felt to you so i can only imagine how long time dream fans fans that were fans of like the dream in the two thousand tens must feel because for me as someone that's been a dream fan for maybe three two three years i feel just this unabashed glee i am so thrilled i am i'm shocked really i mean i know that this team plays really hard that they have a next woman up mentality that they are just going to fight and ball out but i did not have them sweeping the new york liberty i i did not have that on my bingo card they were just so incredible they were led in score i think it was a different scoring leader each game and just all of the players showing up jordan canada isabelle borlais naz hillman like just everyone doing what it took to win all that after alicia got injured like you know ten minutes into game one and it's just it's the best kind of shock and surprise and and and and really glee i i i just i break out into a giggle every now and then just kind of thinking about like oh the team that i cheer for is in the finals and it's just you know and i haven't i haven't even mentioned her name yet angel reese and angel reese and ryan howard like these two women have just i i i'm just so in awe it it it's it's amazing it's a great feeling this is terrible analysis because it's just me being super happy and super thrilled and using all of the all of the words to express happy and glee that i have but that's what it is yeah i was stoked to see this not only for you mark as co as my co host i was excited that your team is winning but to watch the liberty get swept in such a fashion brought so much joy to my life and i had a fun time watching this series and you know as i was watching it for the first time in quite a while i have really tapped into watching the games and taking notes while i'm watching them like that's like something that i used to do especially watching the the links and i'm kinda getting back into the groove of it and i found myself when i was watching the dream it was like every single time i went down went down to write a note it was a different player's name or a different player i was thinking about which just feels so anti what i don't know basketball in general these days feels like like team basketball is so fun to watch when it works and to have a you know team that works like the dream watching this was was so fun i thought you know things that stood out to me was angel reece obviously i think like there are major hobby implications i think for this performance already but you know as the dream approached the finals and you know as they continue that i think the hobby is gonna have to face some some hard truths about the fact that angel reese is you know the first player of this boom era to deliver on any sort of hype and i think that that's gonna be really fun and exciting to watch play out i also wrote down db still got it question mark i was shocked to see her put up twenty three points in game one it just feels like everybody is clicking at the right time for that organization just feels like they're peaking at the right time and it's not necessarily like the cleanest but it just it's a lot of heart and grit and watching them was has just been a blast so i'm excited yeah i think it's you know my favorite some of my favorite wnba analyst nikias duncan and steve jones they do the dunker spot podcast and the thing that they always say about the dream is that all this season they have had to find different ways to win and they have done that and i think that that's what's coming through in the playoffs and yeah db still got it it's i get a trip every time i'm i'm watching db like do something incredible and then they pan to alyssa thomas like in the in the front row seat kind of cheering her on and it's it it it warms my heart and you know i wish i wish we could sign alyssa thomas to give us ten to twelve minutes too you know like only in the wnba are these storylines happening yeah i i think db's performance i think she really has proven to be you know a leader on that team and a veteran presence that the team has benefited from but everybody else on that team i just it feels like everything's clicking and hopefully for the finals your favorite player will be back and playing and it'll just be you know all cylinders firing but how are you kind of navigating this in collecting in their collecting world the fact that your team is doing really well but your like major number one wpc is injured during all of it how do you kinda deal with it so every every angel reese buy it now card that i had in my watch list is now gone they were they were all bought they were by you or by other people not by me not by me they were they were taken by someone else i hope they enjoy them and some auctions that i was that i was watching and going after the prices went beyond what i was ready to pay and and you know that's great i think i i think especially angel reece cards in a dream jersey i think i think those are getting some much very well deserved attention you know the stuff i can't help but buy a card or two when i'm watching and cheering for a team but they like what it's been throughout this playoff run are cards that are between like five and forty dollars that i am not buying to to flip or ever make money on cards that i am going to keep cards that i'm gonna remember this playoff run from and that's use that's probably what i am going to be doing i'm still going to be collecting alicia grey you know there are certain cards of hers when they come up i am really gonna want to make a play for those cards i try to keep my alicia gray pc to fifteen cards so i am pretty strict about what i what i do pick up so you know it's not really impacting me in terms of my buying attitudes but what it's doing is like i i find myself every time that there's a win i am looking for a dream card that's in my collection that i hadn't thought about for a little while so that i could post i had forgotten for example that i had jordan canada's rittenhouse rookie and i you know i pulled that out took a picture of it made a post of it you know so i think you know it's it's such an enjoyable time when you're a collector and your team makes it a little bit farther into the playoffs and i think for me i'm realizing that enjoyment doesn't mean it has to be a mail day it could just be like oh i have these cards and the person that is depicted on these cards is is playing really well in the playoffs and like it it it's a nice time to revisit the collection that i've already built you know if if they're fortunate enough to to win the championship i might be priced out of some of my pc collecting and that'll that'll be a tough thing but we'll deal we'll be fine it's a double edged sword when your team is really good and your favorite pc player is really good for sure i hear what you're saying i think like looking forward so i suppose before we get into like thoughts on the final matchup do we wanna talk about kinda like the other series that went down a little bit because absolutely i thought that this series was another highly entertaining series despite the fact that on paper it's a sweep it felt it felt close to me it felt like not a three o sweep so i guess when you were watching this game what stood out to you in terms of basketball but also what stood out to you in terms of how it connects to to our collecting world this was an incredible series i all it would you know that both of these series were sweeps is really shocking to me and i think in this particular series it's really a testament to how strong of a team the valkyries are i think if the aces like with their with chelsea jackie and asia i they were fighting tooth and nail for every game they were playing every game like it was their last one and the valkyries came out on top in in each one of those games and that's just that's incredible you know i think the you know i i'm a big fan of coaching matchups the coaching matchup was was fantastic but for me the the i for me the story of the series is gabby i you know i have always been a big gabby fan since watching her on france with with their olympic run it's it's like and i think it's fully translated to the wnba here right like we're seeing her take that superstar leap and that's that's a big big thing for for this team at this time right like they have they have a strong strong like a one through twelve but then they have they have this player that they can go to in in clutch moments to get them a bucket and you know i think they are they are a real problem you know and and they have so much cap space they're gonna be better in future years i have so many things i wanna talk about with what you just said the first thing being that at the beginning of the season the valkyries obviously people had high hopes for them but it's their second year of existence nobody thought they were going to make the finals and i think when i thought about the valkyries at least me personally it really did feel like an expansion team they they drafted player or you know they they drafted from a pool of players that kind of nobody else felt like they needed that they absolutely needed on their team and somehow we're sitting here and they've beat the best player in the league in a three o sweep they have two players that are unbelievably clutch i would say gabby and burton are both just like phenomenal under pressure and to that end i think when it comes to pressure it felt like the golden state valkyries fan base has completely bought into this team they've elevated not only these players and the team but it's not like they believe that they're superstars it's not just like oh we were an expansion team and we got this you know kind of mismatch of players this hodgepodge we've got gabby williams and she's playing like unbelievable or we've got kia stokes who's making asia look you know it was tough for asia out there i wrote this down i said asia wilson on shots contested by kia stokes was ten for thirty two that's thirty one percent versus when everybody else was contesting her thirteen for twenty four or fifty two point four percent kia stokes despite not showing up on the stat sheet in terms of points was an absolute game changer in this series and to see a player like that get their flowers i mean it's no joke it's no surprise that she has three championships already and she's competing for her fourth i just i found the valkyries to be a complete team that wanted it and my last point on responding to what you said was the coaching battle i i mean nakase passed out during the game gets up draws up the play and wins the game this is like levels of you know psychopath coaching we haven't seen before and i just loved every moment it felt like pure entertainment to me and so i don't know i i just loved both of these series but this valkyries team feels real and i had my doubts so yeah they have the they like you mentioned they have the best home court advantage in the league it seem i it sounds like it's a nightmare to be the visiting team in valhalla and the kia stokes thing you know i you know she was she was amazing and i was thinking about it and she was you you know she had practiced against asia for years right and they had probably gone eat at each other at practice so many times and you know and i wonder how much that helped you know or that played to their advantage or the ways that kia both in her individual defense but also talking her teammates through the defense and just knowing the tendencies of asia of of jackie and chelsea and just kind of game planning for those tendencies this team right tiffany hayes and also nat like they have an intimate knowledge of the aces and so it was to me it was really high drama and just just an incredible series and you know what we're gonna see in this final are two teams right two like two teams with like a a kind of distinctive team culture that like that play hard hard defense play super hard we have i think veronica burton and angel reese are the two people with the highest motors in the w and just to see all of these players match up and go at each other i hope that we're i hope it's going to be a really entertaining series and not not a one-sided series actually not i mean i'd be okay if the the dream swept the series but but i i'm i'm looking forward to a really competitive matchup me too i am very excited that this particular series is going to be a best of seven i think you know last episode we talked about kind of our thoughts on the best on best of three in the first round and then best in five but best in seven feels this feels real it feels like we're gonna know who the better team is coming out of these games and i would not be surprised if it goes full heavyweight battle all all seven rounds i would love to see that but i guess we'll see i guess when you think about this finals matchup we're we're talking about two teams that haven't won before two franchises with like you said very distinct identities on the court and their fan bases what do you think the implications are say for the hobby if one team wins or the other team wins that's a great question i think you know if the dream win we're going to see a lot more attention on angel reese's cards i you know i i think i think ryan howard is is a superstar the stuff that she has done for team usa she is one of their defensive stoppers on the perimeter if she has a great series it's gonna be there's gonna be a lot of attention on her cards alicia grace cards are going to stay affordable and and reasonably priced no matter what happens no i i i you know that she has a chance to pop as well with the valkyries you know the valkyries if you're wearing that purple and black jersey your cards go for a premium already right like the like they the valkyries collectors come correct right and they are they are serious about their team a win would make some of these cards just unreachable right like things i think like you know like maybe gabby williams' rittenhouse rookie it might you know it might it might pop to you know the you know the the sort of next level where kelsey mitchell's rittenhouse rookies were veronica burton's cards have already popped a a a great deal but some of her some of her prism rookies and especially once you start getting these really cool and rare parallels with them wearing valkyries jerseys those are gonna those are gonna go for a pretty penny there are several players on the valkyries i would love to collect but i'm just kinda priced out of them and i think that that they would they would get even farther out of reach if they won yeah it's gonna be interesting to see i think for me i agree with a lot of what you said i think if angel wins there's gonna have to be just some questions about her prices and her market compared to people that were in the same draft class as her or the draft class after i think with the ryan howard comment something that i had been thinking about was the fact that you know the kind of like dark ages of wnba prism was twenty one and twenty two maybe like where the it wasn't as big of a class say in twenty twenty with sabrina and then the clark class the paige class etcetera that if ryan does secure a ring and kinda has like a a big game or two that that product gets a little bit more respect from the wax side of things the same thing goes for veronica burton despite i don't think her cards have the the rookie badge on them i don't think but i i think that these types of players that have flown under the radar could see you know a massive increase in price and their the wax could as well as we see that diminish in supply so that was my thoughts kind of on what i think hobby wise is gonna happen depending on the outcome of the game my my other thought was you know a a big thing that i hear in this space when people are talking about the wnba is like you know if you grow it too fast it's gonna become watered down and like this isn't gonna be a good product to watch and i think that this if the valkyries win even if they don't win i mean they made it to the finals but like it shows that expansion teams can be competitive in the first couple years of their existence and shows that you know we have this talented pool of players and more roster spots will be beneficial to competition not detrimental and i think that would be a massive win not only for the hobby but for the wnba in general so that's kinda my thoughts on on the finals i think it's a win win either way absolutely wow you heard it here first from mark the dream fan it'll be a win win no matter what we'll check-in well it'll be sad yeah it'll be good but yeah anyways i'm excited to see what happens with that nakase's got nine days to watch some film so i'd expect some surgical plays to be run by the velocs but we'll stay tuned and keep you guys up to date on our thoughts as we kinda make our way through the finals the other kind of thing that came out between last week's episode and this week's episode is that we crowned another mvp and we gave out a six player of the year award mark what are your kind of your thoughts on who won these awards and relate it kinda to to collecting into the hobby no surprise at all and but you know five mvps for for asia wilson you know a full a full hand of rings that's that's something really special you know i think for me i i know you talked about this in your in your links episode and you had like a little bit of some conversation of goat status you know five mvps i think for me that that locks it up i i i i had a feeling it was going there we all sort of knew that it was going there but for me five mvps that's that's gonna be tough to beat and i think that that's you know an incredible and and well deserved milestone sixth player of the year also no surprise had a it was a little strange because janelle salon did not have as as big of a presence in this last in this last series so it was very interesting to kind of hear that coming out there but that just is a testament to the valkyries that you know that they have multiple players that all of them are six players of the year it's just some of them start and some of them you know some of them play different roles and you know i think you know she janelle solon could very easily have a big role in the finals yeah for sure i thought that those awards were kind of predictable i i think that they were given to the correct players i think asia wilson winning her fifth mvp you know i was watching the game with my brother the aces game and i was like i can't believe you know aja wilson really really is the goat and he's like like because you know i'm i'm a maya moore fan i think maya moore is the goat and he goes no asia wilson's your goat whether you're like it or not like she is the goat of of this time of this generation she is your goat there's not really an argument to be made and i i think it's true like i think this really cements her as a great in the league but also a great in the hobby and so like when i saw this come out came out this award announcement something that i was asking myself was this question around player resume now we talk a lot about the disrespect in the disrespect index this concept that players may perform really well on the court that doesn't necessarily translate to their prices and cards and i was thinking to myself how does asia wilson's resume stack up against other major greats across leagues and and within the w and how much does a resume like asia wilson's really matter to the hobby does it matter that she got four versus five does that make a difference for cards how do we measure that these are all questions that kinda came to my head and as a very kind of simple analysis not even that but just a simple observation i went into card ladder and i looked at you know players in the big three the mlb the nba and the nfl that had five or more mvps so they're at or above asia wilson's resume and looked up their most expensive cards ever sold and then compared that to asia wilson so for reference asia wilson's most expensive card sold in june twenty twenty five it was her platinum rittenhouse rookie and that sold for a a little over eleven thousand dollars now when you go across the list of those three other leagues you have michael jordan kareem payton and barry that's it those are the only people out there that have as many mvps as asia in those major three sports and it ranges anywhere from twenty four times the price of the highest selling card with barry bonds' highest selling card being two hundred and seventy thousand to michael jordan's being twelve point nine million or one thousand one hundred and seventy two times the price of asia wilson's highest selling card now this is not to say that you know that barry bonds is twenty four times better than a than asia wilson it's just that their cards sell for that much and it just doesn't make sense to me because when we talk about a resume being kind of the one objective thing across cards of how you know people with different collecting tastes and different opinions on the hobby can kinda compare greatness is the resume to see asia wilson sitting at just over ten thousand dollars well and these other leagues well obviously are more cemented and you know have a little bit more history it just doesn't make sense to me eleven hundred times the amount it just doesn't make sense so mark i guess when you hear these numbers is this surprising to you do you think that this is the way it should be i guess what are your thoughts on this this is i mean this is such a such an interesting topic right like this and kind of looking at the most expensive cards of players and i think right like one of the things that happens here is we're talking about different segments of the hobby right like who is buying you know michael jordan's best card or kareem's best card and that's a totally different kind of collector from you or me right like that that has you know a lot more assets at their disposal and are viewing these and and are viewing these pieces as either show off pieces or investment pieces for like a you know multimillion dollar portfolio of of some kind you know and to me part of the question is what would it take for asia asia wilson's cards to be part of like part of seen as part an attractive part of that portfolio for for some of this collector class i think you know there are some wnba cards that have been have reached these prices not of asia wilson's you know i think paige has had a few six figure cards and and and caitlin clark has had a few six figure cards and so there is like there is potential there for for some of these things to happen or for some of these prices to be reached i think you know asia has done everything on the on and off the court that would merit this kind of attention right the rest is social social economic whatever kinds of forces that that might move attention towards her cards and i think we're starting to see some more attention towards her cards i think also one of the tricky things is some of her best cards are not gonna be made available really are not like are not going to be made available for a little while i think a lot of her best cards are are locked in collections you know if i had eleven thousand dollars and i could buy a platinum rookie right now i would do it and i bet a lot of other collectors would do it right now but those don't pop up very often and so there is there is a little bit of the the selection that that is available there but i think when you when you show these multipliers right like it does also signify to me how much room there is for wnba cards to grow and i think you know part of that you know are are are for a number of reasons that we don't have to get into here but one of the things that we talked about last week is that you know the wnba collecting space relatively speaking is still early on right like compared to compared to baseball cards compared to nba cards and so there is still some room to grow will it ever fully close that gap i think i'm not sure that that's going to happen but you know i i would not be surprised if we see like a you know a six figure sale for an asia wilson card in the next in the next two years yeah the part to me i guess of what this conversation is kind of driving the thought that's driving me forward is not that i think asia wilson's card should sell for the same amount that michael jordan's card should sell for it's that the people that are buying like you said these massive cards that they view kind of as investment vehicles or show off pieces obviously they have the income to purchase them right like they they understand that you know these are collectible what why not take on the super minimal risk of eleven thousand dollars which is like ten dollars to some of these people buying these massive cards and say to yourself wow asia wilson has you know this resume it's kind of set in stone right now that she is the greatest of all time and if i could spend ten bucks you know this is like buying a coffee for me then like why hasn't that happened that's where i don't i the the narrative doesn't make sense to me i understand that the lane isn't as mature because of the lack of history well the league has only been existence for thirty thirty years products have only been coming out for so many years but it just does the gap does not make sense to me and the lack of kind of like participation from those types of people it just feels like they're asleep at the wheel so i'm glad that they're getting picked up by people that are more like wnba collectors that are passionate about this space but i think like it just when i look at these prices i just think to myself at at what point is this gonna give how much more does asia wilson need to do for you to understand that that card should be worth more than eleven thousand dollars like i think anybody you ask would agree so it'll be interesting to see kinda what happens obviously she's not going for another title but no doubt she'll be back next year and fighting for that so it's just an interesting conversation that i find comes up in every single like anytime i watch asia all i can think about is how undervalued her cards are and it feels like i've been saying that for two years three years four years five years i think there's like you know in at at the heart of your question to me there is this kind of question of what dry what really drives prices in collecting right like is it you know is it like super wealthy investor types starting to pay attention to something does that drive price velocity or price movement or is it like you know everyday collectors that are just like that like that are buying more and more volume and you see like the the volume of asia cards that are flying off of the the like flying off of watch lists on ebay does that drive price movements or is there some sort of combination here that we need to that that that needs to be better worked out not you know i think it's a great question because i can't i can't quite figure out what i think the answer is i lean towards that it is probably for better or for worse big time buyers that you know that that draw that move attention into into and move attention and move prices but you know i would like i would like it to be you know like a lot of a lot of wnba fans picking up you know like their first like black velocity parallel prism parallel of of asia wilson and and the the attention to her cards being driven from more of a ground up perspective but i the truth is i'm just i'm not sure and i think as we watch as we watch the w card space grow i think we might get a better insight into that question because we're going to be watching it grow and we're going to be able to see what are the what are the factors that that that that contribute to that growth at particular moments of time and i i think as we as we bear witness to that we might learn a little bit more about what causes price movements in cards sounds like a good research paper mark that somebody should work on to figure out i yeah somebody not me that's for sure but somebody maybe i think like it'll be interesting to see how it plays out i think you're right you hit the nail on the head that we're gonna see what happens it just feels like i can see the future and it's that asia wilson cards are worth more money like it's not that big of a breakthrough to me so stay tuned i guess maybe when we're on our hundredth episode we'll finally be saying that asia wilson cards are worth what they should be alright well i kinda wanna move us out of we just talked about playoffs talked about asia wilson talked about the market i had some exciting news come up this week which is that great lakes trading cards in saint paul my local card shop run by two of my buddies chris and spencer are back sponsoring season six of the wnba card podcast thank you guys and as part of that they've donated some wax some product from their shelves of saint paul for us to open up and so as part of this segment today we're gonna rip open some twenty twenty six donerous hobby packs we'll go through kinda what the product is i think mark's gonna talk about maybe what the product landscape looks like today and where donris falls and then we're gonna give away these cards through the instagram at wnba card pod and as we go through the cards we'll call out some of them that stick out maybe there's a parallel that you know really speaks to mark and i or a player or just something that sticks out and this should be kind of a way to randomize what we talk about instead of you guys having to listen to this talk about fi alicia gray and asia wilson every episode we can talk about some other players so mark while i kinda get the box ready do you mind kinda talking about the configuration of what we're opening and what exists out there today let's do it and thanks again to great lakes trading cards what we're looking at is a hobby box of donrut panini donrut's wnba from twenty twenty six the box has twelve packs per box they usually go i i think they've been going at around two hundred and fifty two hundred fifty dollars a box and you get eight cards per pack i think three autos or memorabilia cards per box so one in four packs and about two parallels a pack so that that leads to about twenty four parallels throughout throughout the throughout the box dawn russ is has i i guess for the last two years been the first product like first mainstream product that that is released each year so it's the first look at at cards for some of the rookies of that year and so it it it's a really kind of fun rip i i as a nba collector as well i kind of equate it to the the hoops product that came out of nba cards just the first thing that you can rip first rookie cards that you can get but there's also some really great parallels and inserts in don russ how we doing are we ready to rip we're ready i got a pack open and folks breaking news first card nafissa collier so i suppose we have to talk no i'm just kidding we don't have to talk about nafissa collier again by pulling nafissa collier we got lexi hull alana smith alana smith man what a year what a year for her i hope she comes back back well next year this was a a tough year for her it's like her and jessica shepherd traded bodies i don't know what happened there we got sammy whitcomb a killer against the links hey how about this this is a player i'd like to talk about just pulled a rated rookie of cody mcmahon mark i saw cody mcmahon come to the barn where the golden gophers play because cody played for i believe ole miss and when the gophers were somehow in the sweet sixteen or something like that we beat ole miss but cody mcmahon is an absolute unit who i am a fan of since then because something about her i don't know i don't know what it is about her but she just likes to win and i really enjoyed her play i think she transferred from ohio state to ole miss at some point if i'm remembering correctly now on the washington mystics and just seems to be another player that they just keep stacking up mystics have so many cool young players and my memory of cody mcmahon was from the first the the first series when she was like just an absolute bowling ball and running through the dream players on her drive and like the just every dream player like leash just bounced off of her like off onto the sideline she is so strong she drives so hard you know i i i'm excited for her future what i i like her yeah i i have one more thought on cody mcmahon which is one thing that i nerd out about in sports i don't know how you feel about this mark is like player aesthetics like how they look on the court and cody mcmahon with the headband the way that she wears her jersey just a fan of me i i've got i'm a fan of cody mcmahon speaking of people with just off the board aesthetic how about your oh georgia state of the art that that like we got a state of the art insert which has like a which has like a like a little bit of a map and like the outline of the of the state in which the player plays on and so we got ryan howard's state of the art card representing georgia over there i have found with the state of the art cards that they kinda stretch the state out and it looks a little weird sometimes so that that one looks good but i've seen the minnesota one and it's it's kind of strange so we'll see next pack we've got a bria hartley dantes oh courtney williams of course we've got ari mcdonald how about this can you tell us a little bit about this rookie mark who do we have here we got gabriela haquez out of ucla you know just a a great motor kind of player that does a lot of the little things got a little bit lost on the sky this year after coming back from an injury and you know lost minutes i think justifiably so to sydney taylor who was having an incredible rookie season hopefully she can come back next year and show a little bit of the like show a little bit more development but a fantastic fantastic player that i had a lot of fun cheering for when on her championship run at ucla i knew you'd like that one and here we've got one of our hits mark this one we're gonna give away at wnba card pod this is a nice looking card right here this is signature series marina mabry numbered at a forty nine very nice some nice little money mabry we should have like a crash out jar for for the show what a fantastic looking card that that's a that's a fun one the only thing that kinda irritates me about this i love it but i wish it was in the tempo jersey like we're we're in twenty twenty six right we're i feel like we coulda got maybe a a tempo jersey photo on there panini but other than that it's it's like shines really nice i haven't seen this parallel on hand before and it's it's really beautiful actually that's the one thing i would wanna see change with don russ and just have you know just having the players in their new jerseys i think that would that would make such a difference but that's a really cool card i i should i'm sorry i should have yelled let's go next yeah start screaming into the mic for this britney yes sir or whatever whatever we need to yell that's funny no there will not be any screaming yeah we won't be screaming the last two cards of these packs and for this episode we've got a raven johnson rated rookie like hollow i think or whatever they call them in donerous and then a hailey van lyth tunnel vision is hailey van lyth still playing basketball i thought she was playing like overseas or something no she ended the season on the connecticut sun she was on their team and then and then got waived but then signed for a development contract and and played a few games at the end of the season you know hopefully she'll catch on with with the squad raven johnson though i am i'm really high on raven johnson just a great perimeter defender i i i was disappointed to see her fall out of the rotation a little bit in the second half of the fever season i think she's i i i think she is a lot of what they need on the court so you know i i hope she gets some playing time next year me too and i think she will it'll be interesting i think the fever are exploring perhaps a new coach i've kinda seen like the rumor mill talking about stephanie white and i don't know if that's just fever fans upset with how the season ended for them or if that's real but i'd be very interested to see how raven kind of shakes out then if there is a new coach because i agree with you i think raven is a fantastic defender we saw that in college it just seems like south carolina continues to produce pro level players that come out in their first year and they look great so yeah we'll give away all these cards via at wnba card pod on instagram i'll post it the big hit here today was obviously the money mabry that's not bad i love marina mabry and hopefully one of you loves her too and you can have those cards so thank you great lakes for that rip so that was don russ mark but i suppose one thing that i want to talk about today as part of episode one is like what's available right now we're in we're in the finals we have don russ out we've got a couple other things out what's kind of like the state of the product available to wnba collectors right now so you know i did say donruss was the first product but really you know there are some instant instant panini instant stuff that you could pick up before don ross one of the ones that i think are actually pretty cool is the instant wnba draft night those are always really fun i think they're actually pretty good looking cards and they have they have autos that are available for those so i always pay a little bit of attention to that i thought the olivia miles one looked really cool for this year and i think you can get those for about sixty bucks for the full set if you if you ordered it off of the website probably a little bit more now if you're trying to buy it buy it from from someone that that hopped on early on them then we had don ross come out early september i think early september was it yeah i think so and then a few weeks ago prism first off the line came out and now prism prism hobby seems to be available and so that's a lot of what you can get right now in terms of in terms of w stuff we're starting to see a lot of prism listings on ebay and just like you know i i'm starting to kind of look at the different parallels start my saved searches for different things that i i would like to get some of the parallels i have to say look really really nice there are the first off the line there's a cherry blossom and a lotus blossom parallel i think one is out of twenty and one is out of eight i usually don't pay a lot of attention to them but the but they look really cool and i i do wanna get one in hand just so i can hold it out in the light and just see all of the reflections on there anything else that still stands out to you about what's available right now well i'll say this about the cherry blossom because i have to tune in here with this as part of my fee six pack i actually have a cherry blossom of fee and i think that most people would be surprised to hear that that made the cut but it's from the first year of the release and i'm so big on this like first appearance or first first time this came out and to me it feels like cherry blossoms have stuck especially in the wnba world and if i was i'll say this if i was a mystics fan in dc and where the cherry blossoms are like that would be the chase for me like i think that would be the winner so to see kind of these you know they're they're obviously experimenting with a lot of different parallels and trying to put out as much product as they can i think there's going to be a few that they throw out the wall and they stick and one of them is that cherry blossom so that one's been fun i haven't really been chasing anything yet i think i'm trying to wait for olivia miles prices to settle like just get a little bit further away from release let give it a little bit of time to breathe and then make my decision on how and if i'm going to collect her because it's just so complicated when you buy so close to release yeah it's it's tough to kind of figure out whether you're overpaying or or or underpaying yeah or underpaying i think you know that that's part of the tricky sometimes fun but also the you know the the the part of it that a lot of people wanna wait out and and avoid for a little bit i think that's you know i i think that's that's that's probably a wise approach yeah and i think something to be said about that is that when we get these products you know almost at the end of the year in terms of the season it's a completely different complexion than if than if the cards the products came out before we started because then you would have been underpaying on olivia miles and overpaying on player xyz so as we kind of are in this new brave new world of collecting where products only come out later than what we expect it does kind of give you this safety net i suppose to kind of let the dust settle that being said i think there's a couple more products at least like on the release radar mark i saw that panini impeccable is coming out hopefully sometime this month later this month and that in november we may be seeing crown royale what are kind of your thoughts on this i think impeccable has released before for wnba but i think crown royale is making its first appearance as a standalone product so i'm kind of i'm kind of meh on on on both products like i do like the on card autos for impeccable that came out last year those are you know i i'll i'll target a few of those for players that i really like but you know for me i'm glad that there are more products available for for wnba collectors but you know aside from don russ and and prism and you know a a few other products that were one offs or two offs before i i am not really like those those are not products that i pay a lot of attention to but you know like this is you know something that can bring in a little bit more crossover for collectors that might be fans of impeccable or crown royale how do you feel about them i feel the same way i i feel like i don't collect impeccable and crown royal in other sports so it's harder for me to be like excited about this compared to say if we reintroduced revolution or we reintroduced origins like these products that have already kind of had some sort of like history with collectors i think i'd prefer that that being said i think what you're saying about just availability and widening the audience this casts a wider net if it was my if i was running panini these wouldn't be products that i would prioritize i think i'd take like impeccable crown royale and xyz and just get rid of all of it and put like a flawless product like a real flawless product not like a redemption out of a certain product and ship it in and then you'll maybe get a flawless card like a real flawless that i would i would sacrifice these kinds of products for that with that being said i do understand that there needs to be a ramp to that and this is kind of that ramp i think so all in all not something that i'm going to be collecting unless something like really cool comes out insert wise from these but i'm excited to see them hopefully reach new collectors the other other thing on my mind about product release mark was and this is kinda like out of left field is allen and ginter came out this past week which is one of my favorite products and you may all be wondering why is galen talking about allen and ginter on wnba card podcast and i was so curious to look at the checklist this year because for those of you that may not know allen and ginter is primarily a baseball product but they also have pop culture icons chefs comedians i don't know nfl players like other leagues incorporated and when i looked at the checklist this year at least my like skim over of it i didn't see any wnba players in there despite appearing in past releases of ginter and i was just kind of like oh this feels weird like with the growth of the wnba why not toss a caitlin clark chase in there like similar how to how they did with wemb a couple a year or two ago in ginter but that being said it put me down this like rabbit hole this week of looking at wnba stars in ginter and i i like kind of did an inventory and i was just surprised to see we got names like lisa leslie as far back as two thousand and eight sue bird and dt in twenty eleven swin cash in twenty twelve kelsey plum in twenty eighteen and then dawn staley nancy lieberman gino and donovan it just feels like i would expect as the wnba continues to grow and as this lane continues to grow that they would be included in some capacity in this checklist so i just wanted to bring that up as kind of something that i noticed in twenty twenty six is that we're we're not getting that so i guess mark did you were you expecting a cw represented in ginter or is this a surprise this is a this is a good thing to bring up i wonder if this is maybe related to the licensing kind of stuff like the the sort of licensing division between fanatics and prism i'm not sure but i have always loved ginter is also one of my favorites yeah favorite absolute favorite products precisely because of all of the interesting and idiosyncratic things that you could pull from a pack of ginter you know i i think i was looking at the recent things that i have bought from ginter i bought a frederick douglas card nice i just bought a kelsey whitmore autograph from one of the best women's baseball players right like that used to pitch for the savannah bananas pitched for i i think it was san francisco this year in the inaugural women's baseball league and then like i i do a lot of my filipino pc collecting because they have they had cards of national heroes cards of national flags it's just a really fun fun fun set and i do wish you know that there were i i'm i'm disappointed to hear that they're not women's basketball players in the set because those are always fun to pull the dawn staley i think it's the framed mini autograph is one of my favorite looking ginter cards it's like a it's just a really cool it's a those those framed mini autographs are just really fun cards to collect and put together and to hear that we're not gonna get something like that or even a coach of some kind that's a bummer yeah and if anybody's out there that's a ginter head and noticed something in the checklist please let me know because i want to buy it because i did not see anything but i don't know that's just something i want to talk about as we think about the product that's available today kind of went over what's available what how we're thinking about chasing or skipping or waiting out on prices to settle down i think it's just interesting to see you know as we're rolling into the finals kind of the the end of the season is when we're gonna get these products so it'll be interesting to see how it plays out mark we're at about an hour of recording here and we've still got like so much that we wanted to talk about i think we'll probably push our next segment to next week and it's really exciting a little teaser for you guys is that we're gonna do some window shopping so talk about some cards that maybe aren't worth a million dollars but they're they're worth being represented or talked about on the podcast we'll talk about that next week but i suppose before we leave you all mark i think what we're doing to close out these episodes this season is we're gonna have a buzzer beater a question to kinda like just get us thinking as we get off the mics today so what's kind of our our buzzer beater today oh this is a good one what is this one thing that you're watching as we head into the finals a player a collecting trend or just a question that you have that you think this finals is going to answer mine is like bright red flashing lights angel reese like like what what's gonna happen i think if angel reese wins the finals we better see some sales happening and i'm excited to see who's buying those i'm excited to see how the market reacts if that doesn't happen that's if she doesn't win you know this is obviously something that will become unanswered but that's really top of mind for me is thinking about you know we're finally getting one of these these young players that came up in the caitlin clark boom right of prices and of attention and all these things and we finally got one in the finals so let's see what it what's all what this is all about i'll be watching that very very closely what about you mark i think i'll pick a player on the other team just to be fair and i've mentioned her before but for me it's gabby williams i you know i think a finals win where she plays well and potentially gets a finals mvp is going to do so much for the attention to her cards i saw i think recently that one or maybe one of her gold vinyls were pulled from twenty twenty six prism and to me i i was wondering what the what the what the person that pulled it is going to do if they're gonna try to sell it if they're gonna auction it but that would be an incredibly fun auction to watch just to see what that fight over like a gabby williams in a valkyries jersey gold vinyl prism would go for and if they won i i think that that would do that would do silly dollars and you know just just paying attention to what her cards do over the next couple weeks is going to be fun for me and just like overall just kind of seeing who collectors start to notice just during this finals like some of the supporting cast players like who gets their moment is caitlin chen gonna caitlin chen in in a game is you know is tahina pow pow gonna hit like three threes and get a steal like what what kind of what kinds of spikes in card attention are we gonna see throughout the finals that's always fun to watch i know i know a lot of times we try to avoid the impulse buys but sometimes they're really fun and it's like it's really it's really kind of a thrill to see players get some get their moment in the spotlight one hundred percent i'm looking forward to it and and we'll be here throughout the entire finals mark and i hopefully we're gonna be doing weekly episodes for all of season six so this was episode number sixty seven of the wnba card podcast and i thank you all for being here whether like i said this is your first or your sixty seventh and as a reminder we're at wnba card pod on instagram and tap in there because like i said we're gonna give away all the cards that we hit in this box so far so we've got a marina mabry that'll be given away hopefully to a tempo fan and we'll have just as a reminder we have video episodes if you guys want to see our faces as we talk about these things those are available on patreon a day early on the stacking slabs network's patreon but that's it from me and mark this week and we will see you guys next week