Alright. Excited to, bring this collector conversation to you today. I think this is gonna be a a a really fun chat.

I have been following, today's today's guest page, j d nine cards, Jonah on Instagram for a while. I love the way he curates his vintage baseball card collection and just the stories and everything that goes along with it.

And we got to chatting in the DMs, and there's a lot of fun, journeys that I think we can talk about in order to get some of the cards in his collection. So we're gonna dig into that today.

But without further ado, Jonah, man, how are you? Welcome. I'm doing great, Brett. It's good to talk to you. I, you know, listen to your podcast probably a few times every week when I walk outside, so excited to be on.

We have to start here because I had no idea about this. I had no idea about, kind of, you know first of all, the vintage category is one that I don't collect in, but I certainly love learning about the different collectors.

And we, in the hobby, kinda create these profiles in our head of these categories and what the individuals who collect on in this category are typically like.

And, you know, we all have a perception of what the vintage baseball card collector looks like, and and how old they are.

And you certainly break the mold on that. You mentioned to me that you're 25 years old and you're collecting this stuff, which I think is atypical. So may maybe let's just start there. Like, you're 25 year old, two years old.

A lot of 25 year old who are in the hobby are, you know, collecting case hits or flipping case hits and doing all that stuff that we see on YouTube, but your strategy and what you're passionate about is certainly different.

Well, maybe let's start there. Like, being 25 years old, collecting vintage baseball, how did you get there?

Well, like you said, it's not a typical collector in this space, but vintage is something that I've always been interested in. I was collecting vintage pretty much right when I first started collecting cards.

I think maybe my mom bought me, like, the standard top series one baseball when I was 10, like, once. But then I really just went to eBay at that, you know, 10 to 12 years old, and I was searching for, like, 1958 tops baseball.

I've always had, like, a appreciation for the history of the game. So I would talk to my dad about who the best players of all time were, and then his favorite player growing up was always Willie Mays.

So I think just learning about the players and, like, the curiosity to learn the history of baseball pushed me to vintage. And then I just always have kinda stuck in that area ever since I got into collecting.

So, you know, vintage is such a broad category, but I think oftentimes, those of us who don't collect vintage just try to, like, throw it all in a category and just say, here's vintage baseball.

But there's, like, so many different segments and pockets within vintage.

And I know you collect in different types of pockets and segments within vintage. Like, how would you describe kind of what your lanes are within the vintage category that you go after?

Yeah. I would say my where I started was, I think, personally, the best era of vintage is nineteen fifties baseball. That's where you have, you know, all the stars like Hank Aaron, Mantle, Jackie, Maze.

I think that's where the majority of collectors start. It's pretty easy to learn that space too because there's just tops for a lot of the years and then Bowman and tops in the beginning as well.

But you don't have to learn all of the modern day you know, there's a ton of different releases and products.

And then back even further in the beginning of pre war vintage, there's a lot of different sets, as all the different companies were making cards kind of off products.

Is there is there a one particular card that stands out in your mind? Maybe if it was just, like, the most sentimental or maybe the biggest purchase you made where you realized, like, okay.

I'm all in. This is where I'm gonna go. Like, what was that kinda crown jewel of your collection out of the gates as you first kinda got found your footing within vintage?

Yeah. When I first started, I would say, like, the 1958 All Star Mickey Mantle, that was always my first Mantle card, and that's the one that can be found really affordably even now.

I think they quadruple printed it, so there's, like, a huge supply which keeps the price down for a a great nineteen fifties mantle.

And then just being from Atlanta, I've always had a passion for Hank Aaron. So his rookie card has always been, like, my that was, like, my first dream card.

So when I started working out of college, that was, like, the first huge card that I bought, and I think that's why I really, like, cemented myself on this is definitely something that I'm passionate about, and I wanna continue collecting in this space.

So you mentioned to me that which this caught my attention, and then you sent me some photos and you said, hey.

You know, I've I have been on, like, three trips to Puerto Rico making deals on cards. And, like, my I was just, like, my ears perked up, and I was just, like, okay.

These are the types of stories that I love sharing. I love having collectors tell. And once you shared that with me, I was like, alright. This has gotta be an episode.

I feel like there's so much I I don't know the full picture. I don't know the full story, but I got bits and pieces from you. And I was like, this sounds, very interesting and cool. So take us in, you as the collector, to your trips.

What it like, how did this happen? What were you after? Why'd you keep going back? Talk about your your your expeditions to Puerto Rico to get some cards. So I would say it first started just I had one of my hobby friends.

I had always, like, talked to him about, you know, the key, like, grail vintage cards. And one of those for me, and I'd say the majority of the the vintage community is the Tola Taros Josh Gibson.

So we were just chatting about that, and then he sent me a profile of a collector on Instagram who posted that he had the card. So, instantly, you know, that sparked my curiosity, and then I reached out to that account on Instagram.

And we were just chatting a bit about the different Tola Tarot cards because there's three different sets from those years, and there's, you know, hundreds of cards in each of the sets.

It was never really I never really dreamed of owning the Gibson. I thought it was, like, you know, way out of my price range and not something that I could ever pull off. So this was about March of twenty twenty four.

And so I reached out. Actually, I sent this profile to another one of my hobby friends to see maybe he could come to a deal with for the Gibson, with this collector, but he was not able to come to a deal.

And I think, you know, enough time had passed. I just stayed in touch with this collector off and on. I'd probably, you know, respond to his stories.

I'd send him some cards that I was buying, like, probably, like, once a month for the last nine months. And then I bought, like, a lot of just, like, comments like, 30 comments off of eBay of, and I sent them to them.

And I think, like, that's where I started to get even more curious and, like, might let my imagination run on, like, could I get the Josh Gibson? Could I at least get some other of the key stars from those sets that he had?

Because he had, you know, all the complete sets of every player. So I started chatting with him even more and just kinda feeling him out on what he was willing to sell, you know, what his price would be.

So then he he said he wanted to do a trade for another, like, key vintage card, the nineteen sixty eight three d Clemente, which is a a pretty rare card.

And Clemente is a huge hero in Puerto Rico because he was, you know, the best Puerto Rican player of all time by far, and he is idolized there.

So he wanted that card plus, you know, a lot of cash on top of it, which I don't own that card. And it's probably, I think it's, like, a $4,550,000 dollar card already.

And there was one coming up at auction, and I was kinda scrambling to see if I could even find one. And there was one in Heritage that was gonna end in, like, three weeks or four weeks.

But it it just seemed too complicated to me to try to, like, win the card on Heritage, hope the deal doesn't fall through, and, like, just the whole like, combining the trade and the cash with something I didn't already have just seemed really hard.

So I eventually talked to him, and he gave me an all cash price. And, you know, it's something I didn't really know how I was gonna fund the money.

I did a lot of, like, kinda consolidation math in my head. What else can I sell? What can I, like, just not buy for, you know, the next year or two, and see if that money could be pulled together?

But I felt like if if he gave me a price and it seemed reasonable, like, I pretty much had to say yes if I was serious about this.

So I think I thought it over for ten minutes before I told him I agreed to the deal. So then, you know, with this kind of trip Let hey, Jonah.

Let me pause you there. I love where this is going. Help us understand maybe who who Joshua Gibson is, why he's important, why is he the the the the player of the set that is most desirable.

And then also give us some context on the set and why this set matters so much. So Josh Gibson, he is, I think, without debate, the best Negro League hitter of all time on his, like, hall of fame plaque in the MLB.

You know, it says he's alleged to have hit 800 plus home runs during his time playing in the Negro Leagues and all the exhibition games.

I think and then the real big change with the MLB and the how the Negro Leagues work is the MLB and the, like, Negro League researchers, they went back through the statistics of official games in the Negro Leagues, and they compiled, like, true stats on the Negro League players.

And this is something that took, I think, decades of hours of research to do. I know it's never been done before because they didn't have great record keeping in the Negro Leagues.

And MLB officially recognized these stats in May of last year. And when they did that, Josh Gibson became the all time MLB leader in batting average.

He passed Ty Cobb in that. And then he also became the all time MLB MLB leader in OPS, passing Babe Ruth. So, like, he clearly is one of the best baseball players of all time.

Whether you want to say he's the best of all time, I'll leave that up for debate, but there's no arguing that he was great, and he just wasn't able to show his abilities.

Because And then I I love it. That's great. You're painting the picture for all of us.

And then the set itself, why is this set with this Josh Gibson card import? So just to give a little history on, like, the Negro Leagues and cards, there are zero sets produced of Negro League players in The US, like, period.

So a lot of the players, they also played in the winter. They played in Cuba, in Puerto Rico, and Venezuela because they had more freedoms there and were, you know, treated like equals.

And Cuba, the Cuban sets, they released some Negro League cards. And the same as in Puerto Rico, they're cards from those seasons that have a ton of Negro League players.

And so the sets are important because, like, a lot of times, these are the only cards that are ever issued of these Negro League players.

So they'll have one card for their whole career, and that's the card. There's not you know, like, today where there's 500 rookie cards of Trevor Lawrence or whatever rookie you wanna name.

Like, they have one card for their whole career, and that's it. So okay. You you the deal you had the verbal on the deal.

You knew you were taking a trip. Like, what was going on in your head? And, like, talk about the planning. Were you nervous? Like, what was going on as you left your home to head to Puerto Rico to acquire this card?

So, initially, I didn't know that I was gonna even travel there. You know, it was a lot of I'd say I I was nervous, and it was a big risk to do that large of a deal, you know, in a foreign country that you've never been before.

But the seller, he really wanted to do it in person. I think he you know, knowing what I know now, he really wanted to meet me and share his knowledge on the cards with me.

But at the time, I was super nervous about doing that deal in person and, you know, hopping on a plane and, like, just taking a bunch of money with me and hoping for the best, essentially.

So I I called my dad, actually, and he went on the trip with me down to Puerto Rico.

So to give me some, you know, extra protection. I don't I don't know what would have real you know, it would have still been bad if something woulda went wrong, but nothing went wrong.

The seller was incredibly nice. You know, they picked us up from the airport. We went to his house on his patio, and he just invited us into his home.

So I was I was super nervous leading up to the day, and I was you know, we done I talked on the phone with the seller outside of Instagram, and he had given me, like, his information.

And I had kind of searched him up and verified everything to make sure I wasn't walking into some, like, dangerous trap.

So I had set, like, some parameters to make sure, you know, nothing was going No smoke alarms are going off in my head that I was being set up, so I felt comfortable going down there.

And so when when the moment came where it was like, here is cash, give me card, like, and you had the card in your hand for the first time.

Like, what was what was going on in your mind? I would say, like, before I had the card in my hand, like, we were at his house for at least an hour before I even saw the card.

He was really just talking to me about the history of baseball in Puerto Rico, and then he was showing me his collection and all the sets that he had.

I think he really wanted he wants to pass down that knowledge to the next generation, and I think he wanted to make he was kinda, like, vetting me out as well to make sure I'm not just there to buy the card and then sell it tomorrow.

He wanted to make sure that, you know, I have the passion that he has for these cards.

So I looked at his collection, and he was just it it was kind of overwhelming, all the the information I was giving, which was it was absolutely great learning everything.

I I did a ton of homework myself going in on the card. I have, like, a 60 page document where I tracked, like, all the images and sales and just did my own history on Gibson.

So he finally he brought out the card, you know, and then he just let me have my moment with it. And I got to hold hold it and, you know, it's kinda like the holy grail, the lights coming down.

You know? I got the card in my hand, and I just couldn't believe that, you know, I had come all this way, and it actually was in my possession now.

So I think this is so, contrary to the way so much of the hobby is, shared and marketed to us collectors. So it goes really fast. It feels transactional. People are buying cards and instantly selling cards. The story here is different.

You've taken your time to research, prepare 60 pages of research to get on a plane with a lot of money, and your father's protection to go into another country to meet a collector whose intention was to share his knowledge.

And, you know, all of this culminated into this moment where, you know, you exchange and you have the card in hand. I understand, like, all of us can't recreate that moment for ourselves, and it's likely that, like, that's not normal.

That's like a once in a Yeah. Maybe lifetime type of a deal. But going through that experience that you went through, and you just look at everything else that's happening and the way the hobby is presented, like, I don't know.

Like, what sort of thoughts race in in your through your head knowing that, like, yeah, there's diversity in the hobby. It's it's there's many different neighborhoods.

There's many different pockets of interest. But it it just seems that so much of the hobby right now is is about just the the quickness, the transaction. And what I heard from you is, like, this is, like, very thoughtful.

There's planning involved, and there's a lot of work involved to make this deal, which I would imagine you probably appreciate that card more than a lot of people appreciate cards that they're buying and then quickly selling.

I just say all that to just maybe just get your reaction. Mhmm. Yeah. I'd say, you know, a lot of the hobby is fast moving on, you know, what card can I buy cheap to sell tomorrow for hire?

And I don't have I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I did the same thing myself to kind of build my collection up to be self sustaining.

I'd say when you're truly collecting just the research on what cards that you want to own long term, like, doing your due diligence on why you want to own this card forever, I know, you know, you and Josh and Chris collect a lot of the modern gold prism and one of ones, and those all have rarity in common.

And that's something that you don't see every day.

It's not readily available. I think those, at least for me, also are the cards that I want to own long term. I don't wanna just be able to go on eBay and and buy you know, see 60 listings of the same card at various prices.

So I think true collecting is doing your research and identifying a target for what you wanna buy, which is it's really hard to stay disciplined and, you know, you might not be able to even ever find what you truly want, but you can kind of at least know what it is and go down your list to see where what you can actually find for sale.

So you you get this card and maybe help us understand. I know there's a photo involved.

I don't know. Is the photo is your photo on this trip, or is this on a different trip that you took? The the photo where we're in the stadium? Yes. Yeah. The photo where it was in the stadium, that's the third trip.

Okay. We'll we'll get there. So you leave you leave, but you return two more times. Like, what what was the reason? Like, was there another card or cards? Like, three trips to Puerto Rico in a short time.

Like, help us understand the reason behind it. Yeah. So the first trip I got, just one card, the Josh Gibson. While I was at his house, his friend came over who was also a collector. So he showed me his Josh Gibson.

So we had that one, and then he has his friend had other Tola tariffs cards as well. So I when I went back, I actually bought the friend's Josh Gibson card plus a few other hall of famers and Negro League stars in that Tola tarot set.

So when I went back, then I had two Josh Gibson cards plus, you know, about I think it was 10 other Negro League players that I didn't have before.

And then third time, which was the craziest to me, is I got an email from him, and he had just found in his collection another Josh Gibson card that's raw that I have now.

That's this one. So he sent me an email that he had, like, the whole entire set from 1950 to '51, which is the year that that Josh Gibson's in.

And he sold me the entire set, including this third copy of the Josh Gibson, plus there was, like, 60 other Negro Leaguers that we was initially what the third trip was gonna be for, which was not gonna be another Josh Gibson.

It was just sixteen year leaguers from the other two sets. And then he just, like, dropped the bomb on me that he had another one, and he found the whole additional set just raw in his, like, archives.

So okay. You've got all the the travel expenses. Obviously, you know, we don't need to get into numbers here, but I'm I'm anytime you make a trip to acquire a card, typically, the cards aren't gonna be cheap.

And I've learned enough about these cards just through this conversation to know, like, it's probably a pretty expensive trip.

To do it three times, like, how how how did you prepare for this financially? Like, was it, consolidation effort? Did you have reserves stashed away just in case another Josh Gibson popped up?

How'd you make this happen? Yeah. So the the first time, I personally keep a really, like, light, true PC. Like, regard besides these cards, I would really say it's three other cards.

I had built the equity in my collection and kind of buying some other cards that I could sell off that I knew would bring me maybe, like, half of it, what I needed to buy.

And then I knew I could put together, the other half, and I would just deal with the I had enough money to do it, and it was something that I knew I couldn't do again.

Like, I can't pass on this opportunity, so I I took it. The third time is where I knew, you know, I can't own all three of these and and pull this off.

So what I did is I reached out to, Tony Southern collector that you've had on, and I knew you know, I he had bought some other cards from me, and, you you know, he reached out to me and said, if you ever sell this, obviously, he would be interested.

So I did a deal with him to sell one of the Gibsons. So that gave me enough money to go back down and and complete the third deal. So there is, like, buying and selling involved.

I can't just continuously buy as much as I wanna keep everything. It's just not not possible. Oh, wow. Alright. So we got a with the third tray, I I'm Patreon members will be able to see this.

This is a photo you sent me. For everyone listening, which is a majority of, individuals listening, share the two photos side by side in in what we're seeing here.

Yep. So, fortunately, we do have the original image of the car the, like, the image that they used for producing the Josh Gibson card is taken in the El Sysco Escobar Stadium in Puerto Rico.

And on my third trip, the seller took me to the stadium that's still there, where they took the the picture, and we kinda went to the spot where we thought the picture was taken and kinda recreated that image.

So the you're, you know, you're not only traveling. You're getting to experience this, full throttle. Is there is there gonna be a fourth trip to Puerto Rico, Jonah, or are you good for now?

I think I'm good for now, but, I know the collector will be at the national. I'm gonna meet up with him there again. And then he still has other cards that I'd love to own. Of course.

I know he's he's not interested in selling them at this moment, but, you know, we've built that relationship that I know when one day, if he ever decides to sell them, I'm sure I'll be one of the first few people that he reaches out to.

Alright. So you sent me some other car photos of cards. I wanna bring these up and kinda get you to run through, what we're seeing here.

So I think these three are good because you can see each of the three sets. So there is three sets made in Puerto Rico. The first one, which is that kind of brownish looking card, it's sepia colored.

So this was 1948 to '49, and this is the inaugural set. And the card pictured is Willard Brown, and he is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. He's for MLB wise, he did not have a good career.

He was the second black player in the AL. He hit the first home run-in the AL, and his nickname is Willard home run Brown. And what's cool about this set is the back of the cards, you would play, like, a baseball game.

So if you turn these cards over, see if you can see I don't know if you can read this here, but they have, like, baseball plays. There's 84 different plays on the back, and, like, you and your friends would have them all over.

And you would just kinda pick up the cards, and there would be, like, no strike one, strike two, base hit, and you would just play, like, a baseball game till you had three outs.

And what's cool about this Willard Brown card is on the back of it, it says home run.

So it ties into his nickname. You know, there's only a one in eighty four chance that it would even say home run on the back deck to begin with. So that just makes it, you know, even more special for me.

I'll skip to the one on the right. So this is the second set. It's a all black and white set. And this is Leon Day. He also is in the MLB hall of fame. He is, I think, most known for winning the Negro League All Star, the World Series.

He pitched against Satchel Paige, straight up, and he led his team to victory versus, you know, the most well known Negro League pitch pitcher of all time, Satchel Paige.

He also was a hitter, so he would play he would pitch, and then he would also play in the field. So that's why he is in the hall of fame, and he was I think he was better known as a pitcher, but he could play both sides.

And then the third set, which is the Josh Gibson that we've talked about, which is in the middle of the photo, it's so this one, I think I like these the best because these are in color.

The card's slightly bigger, and you get the full color image of the players on these cards. Awesome. Cards and good context in stories. This obviously, this card is very recognizable.

Non vintage collectors know what this card is. I think, certainly, this is a special version of this card, but I got a 1954 Topps Hank Aaron pulled up that's in your collection. Maybe share with the listeners why this copy is important.

Yep. So just being from Atlanta, Hank Aaron has always been, like he was my first idolized baseball player, and he was always, you know, the hometown hero. And I always looked up to him for, you know, being the the real home run king.

You know, Barry only beat him by, I think, seven. So I think the the Royds helped him get just seven more home runs. Barry was a great player nonetheless, but Aaron's my my true hero.

So this is his 1954 Topps card, which if you go if you really research all of Topps' rookie cards in baseball, this is the best Topps rookie card ever made. You know, the 52 mantle is not a rookie.

'52 maze is not a rookie. So Aaron is the best Topps rookie card every ever made. And then this particular example is autographed by Hank Aaron. He has a nice vintage autograph going up the left side of the card.

And I really like this autograph because it's in pen. The and Karen signed a lot because he lived, I think till 2018, so he signed a lot at card shows. But often, you'll see his autograph on these in, like, this big blue Sharpie.

And, you know, he was older in age, so his handwriting was a little shaky. And his autograph just you know, I don't when I think about, hey, Karen, I don't think about him, you know, signing at card shows in the February.

I think about him playing baseball in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. And I talked to, you know, a friend of Hank, and he looked at this card, and he said he thought this one was signed around the mid seventies.

So it's it's possible it was signed when he was playing. But if not, it was, you know, just after his career. So I still I value those kinda playing days signatures over the later day Sharpie signatures.

Amazing. And final one here. Let us know what we're looking at. Yep. So this is the 1958 Minko Jackie Robinson. What's special about this card is there are, I believe, 11 copies known to exist total.

So, you know, this was a super special card for me to get Just due to the rarity, I love collecting things that you don't see every day, and, you know, most people have never probably even seen an image of this card at all.

This card has a a big history behind it. There's a YouTube video if you wanna search it up, but the essentially, the Dodgers played in Japan and after their World Series in 1956.

And then so the the daughters were over there, and the fans kinda idolized Jackie Robinson for all the things that he had done, you know, not only on the field but off the field.

And for some reason, when they created this set, they put Jackie Robinson's image on the card.

But if you actually are able to read the kanji on the right side, it says Chico Barbone, who is a, like, African Latino player who played in Japan at the time.

So this card is supposed to be of him, and he was the only black player in Japan at the time.

But they put a photo of Jackie Robinson in a daughter's hat and uniform on on the card. So no one knows why that happened, but I'm sure glad they did it.

Oh my goodness. There, talk about stories and cards. Wow. That's incredible. What's next for you? Like, what what's on like, how you you know, you are very intentional with what you're collecting, what you're buying.

Like, in between these trips, in between these big rail purchases, like, what keeps you motivated and interested in the hobby?

Mhmm. I think what keeps me interested in staying around the hobby is I really enjoy the research side of the hobby.

If you go on my Instagram page, one of the things that I really love doing is taking the card and finding the original image that they used to make the card.

So I love seeing, like, the additional details that you can find on the original image that, you know, the artist changed or didn't use when they created the actual card.

So I have I have, like, a big archive on on my camera roll to where I sorted all of these images, and I love sharing those with the hobby because it's not any kind of content I I see other people doing, and it's something that I enjoy and I know others enjoyed as well.

And then as far as collecting, I think, you know, good collecting, again, like I said, starts with research.

So I'm trying to learn more about other Negro League cards back. You know, I I mentioned Cuban cards. I don't know a ton about them yet.

I'd say I have a kind of a surface level knowledge there, so I'm trying to dive deeper into those Cuban stats and the Negro League stars who are in them that played, you know, in the early nineteen hundreds through the nineteen twenties.

This has been such a fun and motivating conversation, Jonah. Before I let you get out of here, I'm curious kinda what advice would you give to other collectors who maybe wanna go deeper in history and significance with their cards?

I would say if you wanna go deeper with your cards, I think trying to find the stories behind the cards is a great way to start.

Like, even on the modern side, if you can figure out, you know, what game that they used that image of and try to map it to you know, you can see the resulting play. If you can find the video, you can find the date.

So it's really just trying to connect to those stories within your cards. And I think that if you do the research to find those stories that no one's ever discovered, you really connect to your own collection even more.

And then you can also continue your research in the cards you don't own, and it can make you appreciate other cards and kind of excite you for your next journey.

You can see some incredible cards on his page, j d nine cards. Jonah, appreciate you coming on the show, sharing your passion, sharing those stories, and most importantly, sharing your cards. Thanks, man. Thanks, Brett.