Welcome back to Vaulted, a limited time series in partnership with the PSA team.

Excited for today's conversation. We are going to be talking about the top 100 items graded at the national twenty twenty five with Nat Turner. We did a version of this last year.

I learned about Nat's process, how he built the list, and was very fascinated by it. And when I was planning the next episode or two, I reached out to my friends at PSA and collectors team to see if Nat would be up for it one more time.

And luckily, Nat dropped his list, and I couldn't be more excited to share this conversation with you.

It always fires me up to talk with business leaders in this space about cards. Yeah. Business is cool. We can do that anytime. I enjoy that too, but talking about cards is why we're all here. I think you're all gonna enjoy this one.

Definitely, you all know where I grade my cards. Shout out PSA team. They've been fantastic to work with. If you wanna show your support for Stacking Slabs, make sure you hit the follow button, tell a damn friend.

Just drop the book, Collecting for Keeps, Finding Meaning in a Hobby Built on Hype. It's digital. It's free. Link is in the show notes. But for now, top 100 items graded at the National. This is Nat Turner. Alright.

We are back with another episode of vaulted, with my friends at PSA. I've been we this is the second year we've done this, and I'm excited to go back to it. And the list just dropped. We are going to be talking about NATS top 100.

These are the cards that came through PSA's booth and got graded. And we're gonna talk about the process. We're gonna talk about some cards and, really looking forward to this. But without further ado, Nat, welcome.

How are you? Good. I'm actually pulling the list up again. I've already forgotten it. No. I'm kidding. Yeah. I'm doing great. So I read kind of the brief you had as the list was posted. You referred to it as a labor of love.

When we talked about it, last year, you got into your process of kind of, like, what you go through to make this happen. I'm assuming not everybody who's listening now listened last year, and I'd love for me us to maybe start there.

Like, what is your process to go through all of these files and make your selections and whittle it down to a top 100? Yeah. Yeah. So it's really fun as well. So it started I don't know.

This is four or five years ago when I first got here. I was basically working the booth like everyone else, you know, mostly on the front of the house, like, with customers, and I was just seeing, like, really, really cool cards.

And it it never I mean, obviously, I hadn't worked at the company prior to that, and so I didn't appreciate that the concentration of awesome cards is that intense at the national.

I just assumed it was, you know, a representation of the cards we see on a daily basis at the office.

But it turns out, you know, people wait the whole year with their most prized possessions or or whatever it is, and it's like a pilgrimage to the national.

I mean, I had been to the national, to be clear, many times prior to that, but not hanging out at the PSA booth. And so, yeah, it started with just like, wow.

I'm seeing really cool things. And someone on the team, I actually don't remember who, but basically suggested, like, you, you know, you you should write, like, a little blog post about, like, the coolest cards you saw.

And so the way it works is I basically asked the team, you know, we take images actually starting that year, which is the only reason it was possible.

Prior to that, it was not possible. We take images of every card we grade both before and after it's graded. And so I asked the team, and and this is in 2021. It was, like, really hard then because we had hadn't done this before.

But I was like, you know, I think it was 10,000 cards we graded that national. It's roughly the same every year because we don't we bring the same number of graders and, you know, the booth's roughly the same size.

And, yeah, I was like, give me a Dropbox folder of every image front and back of every card we graded.

And yeah, it turns out that's like 25,000 images because we grade 10,000 cards roughly and then tickets and there's like all sorts of things. We also grade autographs.

And so it's not as simple as just the cards. But then also there's reholders, and I have to exclude those. And, like, you know, I was like, oh my god. We granted a PSA 10 Mickey Mantle, but no. Never mind. That's a reholder.

So I I I tried to limit it to just the new cards that came in either as crossovers or raw. And, yeah, I just I go through I get a folder from the team, and it takes, I would guess, fifteen to twenty hours to go through those images.

But, you know, my wife and family think it's crazy because I just I go into I do it on a weekend, and I sit in my office for, like, an eight hour stretch for two days in a row is basically what I did.

And and I have a folder where I move, like, the candidates, and that ends up being about 250 cards, 200 cards because I'm just going through and I'm like, oh, that's an awesome card.

Many of them I remember and I'm looking for, but I just go in sequential order through the cert numbers and, and then I take the two fifty and then I whittle it down to a 100, you know, 150 then, you know.

I cheated this year and last year. I I merged certain cards together to end I noticed.

Yeah. So so so the the final deliverable of this is a blog post on PSA site, but I I would imagine, like, you're not like, there's gotta be some more, from you to be like, I'm gonna spend fifteen or twenty hours to go through this.

Like, maybe talk about, like, the why behind is it is it just you're so curious and you're just so interested in cards that you feel you you can take the time to to do this?

Or or may yeah. Just maybe talk about that. Well, it's a learning thing for me. Like, I I really do get a lot from being so embedded in the hobby and seeing these cards.

Like, I'm learn like, we talked before the show started about, like, the Josh Gibson the two Josh Gibson cards that were submitted, like, prior to being here. I'm not a collector of that era.

Like, I don't know anything about that card. And, you know, so it's it started, you know, like I said, four or five years ago as a, wow, these are really cool cards and kind of a curiosity to see what else was in that.

And then like I said, a friendly suggestion. I don't usually have the instinct of like, hey.

What I'm thinking, people care about Mhmm. You know, as well. But, like, someone pointed out, like, oh, no. Like, people, like, what's in the grading room, which is kind of a thing we've done with social.

Like, that's actually when you when I think about what I enjoy about my job, it's that's actually, other than the people you work with, might be the most like, the biggest thing, which is just you get to see really cool things.

And I think as other collectors out there that don't work here, that, you know, kind of feeling of of us what's the right word?

Of of, like, living a little, like, through that those posts and stuff, I've gotten a lot so that first year, basically, I got hundreds of messages from people being like, wow. Like, didn't know that that card even existed.

Oh, wow. I didn't even know that, like, that card hadn't been seen before. Like, I got that this year with the game Jersey auto that we created at the NJ. Like, that's one that the hobby hadn't seen in thirty years.

And, like, had we not made the post, like, no one would have seen that card potentially. And also what's so funny is after that first year, the second year, I started getting people ahead of the national basically saying like, hey.

I'm gonna make the top 100 this year. I'm submitting this card. And, like, you know, and and, like, trying to, politic, you know, for the or campaign for being on the list.

I was like, we'll see. I don't know. And this year, you see social posts too, like, the last few years of people, Eddie's funny, where they're like, I made the list, and I'm like, I'm not trying to, like yeah.

It's not a competition. It's just these are the coolest cards in my opinion.

And it's heavy, the stuff I collect, which I'm biased to basketball and vintage baseball. But, yeah, I mean, it's just started with the curiosity and and then someone recommended that actually other people might enjoy it too.

So The the you put out in your tweet. You you called it out. You're like, I'm I'm biased. It but it's my list. Yeah. I don't know anything about football cards and stuff like that. Yeah. You said this is my list.

So you're you're also using it to educate yourself. This is heavy on Jordan, undeniably. I feel like anybody's list is gonna be heavy on Jordan. Chicago National. Yeah. Chicago National. You're gonna see Jordans you don't see every day.

When before we get into, like, some of these great cards itself, like, a 100 spots isn't a it's a lot, but it's not a ton. Did you did you, like you you mentioned, like, 250 cards was, like, a group that was First half.

Yeah. Yeah. How do you, like, make those decisions, when you're, like, having to make cuts? Like, is it mostly, like, personal bias? I think these are cool. Or is it, like, I think this card is important to the hobby?

Like, how do you push and pull those factors? Yeah. It's a combination of that population. Like, is this, like, for example, the Yogi Berra Bowman nine, I think it was. I can't remember if it was 50.

I think it was 50, 50 Bone. Like, that's an example of a card where, like, you don't see nines that often. And so, like, the fact that that's so, like, scarcity population pricing, like, every, like, certain cards.

Like, I don't really care about the value of these things, to be honest, but, like, you know, if we grade a $100,000 card like a Kaden Clark one of one, that's important just because, you know, whether we like it or not, people in the hobby, you know, that's an interesting card.

You know, it's it's this is an asset class whether we like it or not, you know, at the end of the day, for for most people, for many people.

Yeah. And it's that. I try and, you know, have some diversity in there. Like, in my head, I'm like, you know, I love tennis as a sport.

I'm like, we did we did get some really cool tennis cards. I included a couple of those. Soccer, you know, we got I don't know a ton about soccer, but we have a person who works here who actually sit near when I'm in California.

And, you know, while at the show, I'm like, this looks like a big soccer card. Correct me if I'm wrong. And so I included, like like, 15 soccer cards, and I got a little help where I'm like, what are your favorite five of this list?

And thankfully, they were similar to mine because I I couldn't include all 15. But, yeah, I'm trying to like, TCG, we don't get a ton of TCG cards at the National.

We do get some. They tend to be really big cards, just because that like I said, people are waiting to to like, pinching up to the National so they don't have to ship the stuff.

And so, yeah, we did get a couple big those are pretty obvious to me. But, yeah, I try I try and have some diversity in there as best as I can.

But at the end of the day, it's it's it's gonna be the stuff that I personally know a lot about and, like cause remember, I'm going through tens of thousands of images.

I've gotta be able to very quickly be like, that's a big card. You know?

I probably to be fair, I I absolutely glossed over cards that are probably very valuable and very special to parts of the hobby. And I frankly, like, in a five second glance at the image, had no idea what the card is. And so yeah.

And that's what like a, you know, vintage football card, like, I would have no I mean, if I see a 10, I'm gonna do some research, but, you know, there's some big cards in there I know I missed, in some sports I don't know anything about.

So Yeah. I remember last year when I when I asked you, like, what was the most impressive card or what card you'd want the most? Like, he pointed to the exquisite PSA 10 base Jordan.

You just thought card crazy card. Yeah. Yeah. Which that was a lot it was alarming to me, not because it wasn't a cool card, but there was all of these cards and that was the card that you picked.

But I found it so fascinating that I'm still thinking about it today that we all have all of these different interests, and that card means something to you in a special way.

And I I think that's fun to, like, just bring up to the table as we're getting into the cards itself.

But I wanna start, like, the 100 cards, but, like, let's just break this down into few categories and maybe starting with, like, the per the personal grails or, like, these are the cards I saw at the national, which I would love to have in my collection.

Like, what are some of those cards that you would call out and why? Yeah. I mean, I have the list in front of me.

I mean, honestly, the one that, like, probably people didn't realize because it was a little far down the list, they're not necessarily in order, is the Jordan, official FLIR buyback from o six FLIR.

It's a serial number to 23, hand numbered, real Jordan buyback rookie, autograph, pack inserted, like, big deal.

Yeah. Like, that I don't think it got a numeric grade, doesn't matter on the card, but, like, that's a card that's a crazy card. And, you know, another not well known card is the collector's choice blow up auto of MJ, the baseball card.

Mhmm. I believe is the first pack inserted autograph card of Michael Jordan. I've seen three of those in my entire collecting career, and we happen to have one at the national.

Like, I think it's actually listed on golden. I don't know. I didn't compare it to see if the cert numbers are the same. The Jordan game jersey auto out of '23 was nuts to see because the patch was so cool.

It's the all star jersey. It's the blue version of the patch of the jersey. You know, a lot of those are single color white patches. I've owned a few of those in my time.

I own one now, probably five of them at various times. Like, that that is a card that you just it was the most important card other than maybe the PMG green when I was a kid and as a basketball collector.

And, you know, that card had been sitting in from what I understand, I didn't talk to the submitter, but in a bank deposit safe deposit box for thirty years, or twenty seven years.

And so, like, the fact that that was unearthed there's a card, unfortunately, that's not on the list.

We we we were asked not to include it on the list, that I can't talk about yet either, but, you know, would would be super special at some point when it's public.

You know? Yeah. I mean, the the, you know, tickets were crazy. Like, we had Mantle. You know, we had debut tickets of, like, you know, Pete Rose, Nolan Ryan.

Like, we had Mantle's first home run. Like, just crazy Yankees tickets. I'm a Yankees fan. Like, just that was fun. But, yeah, the FLIR if I had to pick a single card that I didn't expect to see, the Jordan FLIR buyback auto.

When when you like, the Jordan baseball card, which that I'd never sold in our yeah. The blow up card. I've seen obviously the the that card nostalgic, that image growing up, and everybody had that in their binder.

But when you saw, like, the buyback or the blow up card, which I can tell are cards of interest to you, did you discover those through the process of just going through the images, or did you have you tipped off that they were I I when I went through the I knew so certain of these big MJ cards, like, the way this typically goes on these really big cards, the PSA sales team typically, not always, typically will have a heads up because the person, it's a huge card.

They're not necessarily they're not standing in the line unsure. Like, you know, they've got an appointment. Like, it's it's you know, they wanna make sure they're not wasting their time or money.

Is it real? Is you know, like, there's a there's a personal thing there. And, like, sometimes I'm involved with that. Like, I I really wasn't this year.

I wasn't really working. I had my family there this year. But, like, you know, people reach out ahead of time. Like, I'm bringing this to the show. No. But, like, there there are some cards not with MJ.

Like, I I'm pretty versed with MJ. But on, like, baseball cards, like, we were talking about the Gibson card, like, yeah. Like, maybe the first or second time I've ever seen those cards would be through this process.

One example of that, which we got another one this year, was the Ichiro, collector's choice, basketball card. I forget what year it is, but, like, that's a card very few people know about.

And I I didn't know anything about it a year or two ago, and we got one at the show. We got another one this year, and it's like a player promo card they made of each other holding a basketball.

Like, you know, that's I mean, it's a huge card. It's worth tens of thousands of dollars. And yeah. That's a good example of, like, a esoteric, very special card, but I I didn't know what it was.

Totally. I find this interesting where on one side, you mentioned at the beginning of this conversation, there's individuals who are more or less politicking or jockeying for position where they wanna be on this list.

And then you just mentioned, like, this I can't I like, my head is spinning thinking about, like, what is this card that Nat is talking about that he can't talk about, that this collector didn't want as a part of this list?

Like, those two sides of the spectrum, like, I don't know. It there's so much I think that goes into showing your cards or maybe not showing your cards.

Like, what do you think about when you hear those two sides of, like, wanting to be on the topic? It's very rare that someone wants to be private about their stuff.

I mean, one of the fun parts of card collecting, like art collecting, is one of the primary reasons anyone owns a card or piece of art is because they want other people to know they own that card or piece of art.

Like, it's there there's it's a community. It's not a it's, you know I mean, you know, we all sit around our rooms, I'm sure, opening packs in silence, you know, and and enjoying it in a in a solo way.

But, you know, most people enjoy, you know, the that's why Instagram and these places are so big for cars.

They enjoy the comments and the the thumbs up and the fire emoji. Like, it more than ever, it's it's a it's a social, you know, social kind of process and yeah.

So it's very rare that someone is is asking us to, you know, to do that. But I understand why there's security concerns, insurance concerns, whatever.

I mean, you know, I I don't really ever get into it. So Are you are you someone who is, collecting tickets or buying tickets of games that interest you? I collect tickets in golf. I have a lot of tickets in golf.

I I love kind of old, you know, Bobby Jones related tickets. I don't own very many baseball related tickets. I probably will at some point because I find them really, really cool, but I don't know enough yet to, like, take that plunge.

They're very expensive, too. I owned a just because I went to the game, like a LeBron when he broke the scoring record, that was cool.

I I own an Aaron Judge debut ticket, just because my son's favorite player. Nothing nothing of significance. The the the golf stuff, though, is not they're not necessarily that expensive.

I mean, well, one of like, some of the early masters tickets certainly are, but, like, you know, I'm collecting, like, 90 signed masters tickets signed like, you know, those are a couple $100.

You know? I'm try I'm trying to get one of every masters ticket is is is my goal. So Talk about the Tiger cards that were on the list.

Yeah. So the buyback, the SP authentic buyback, I happen to own one of those. I'm a huge Tiger fan, Golf fan. We did get a Tiger Woods upper deck well, SP authentic buyback that was put into upper deck, I think, the year later.

I mean, it serial number to 18, if I'm not mistaken, hand serial number, that's the, number of majors Jack Nicholas won the Tiger was trying to break, which I think is why they did chose 18.

Yeah. I mean, that's I've seen that's the third one I think I've seen since I since I've been collecting cards. That was really cool to see. I didn't see it in person. So that's another example where I was going through the folder.

I'm like, what? Like, that card came in? You know? Like, the FLIR the FLIR buyback. I'm like, well, I can't believe these two cards showed up. Yeah. The you know, there's people have a little weird thing with buybacks.

Not everyone's into them. I think an official buyback of a rookie card is very cool. I wish that was something the manufacturers did more often while these players are alive.

You know, like, I just think I just think it's so cool to have an official manufacturer rookie buyback autograph card, serial number to some significance. So cool.

So I think about May maybe the Gibson cards falls into this category, but just thinking about, like, cultural impact and some of the cards on the list that maybe can tell a story beyond, like, all the nerdy stuff we talk about with sports cards.

Were there any just in the group of, like, maybe having a cultural impact that stood out to you that were on the list?

One that I don't know. I don't know anything about values of autographed cards. We had a '50 Bowman Jackie signed in a ballpoint pen that stands out in my head.

Didn't I get a 10, like, the auto 10? I don't remember. Okay. But, like, that was, like again, I don't know. You could tell me that's $5 or $500. I believe you.

I have no idea. But, you know, just I seen a kind of, like I don't yeah. I don't know if it's up period or not based on his style. I I don't even I'm embarrassed to say I don't remember when he passed and, like, all that stuff.

But, like, you know, seeing a ball I just think Sharpie on vintage cards, I don't know, just, like, it makes it seem like it was signed yesterday.

Mhmm. Seeing an old school ballpoint pen autograph on a on a card from that era is just so freaking beautiful.

Like, I think of the uncle Jimmy Fine. We didn't see any of those, obviously, but, like, the Babe Ruth Goudis and stuff, like, that's just crazy to me.

It's so cool. I'm getting into it a little bit with 52 tops as a personal collection. I think we saw Hank I yeah. I think I included a Hank Aaron rookie.

It was totally beat up, but it was ball pin ballpoint pen signed by Hank Aaron, 54 tops. Again, could be cheap. I have no idea, but it's super cool. Oh, yeah. And I don't know if I included it or not.

I'm pretty sure I did. We had, like, Cracker Jack. I didn't even recognize the player at the time, but I just remember being like, how the hell are my, like, like, a nineteen fifteen athlete sign a 1915 card?

Like Yeah. Did he live to be a 120? Like, I I don't know. Like, again, like, you could tell me that's a $500 card, but, like, I just thought that was crazy cool to see. That was the oldest card I'd ever seen signed.

That's why I included it. Yeah. I I wanna share this just to get your thoughts here where you're talking about the autographs, and it led me to thinking about your list and the three examples of the Jordan 84 star autograph.

Like, as a Jordan collector and someone who's seen his autograph and collected his stuff, like, how do you evaluate, like, the his autograph when you see, like, these three examples side by side on, like, what you like and what you'd prefer as a collector?

And you're right. I just found it.

It was a, the jack he got a 10. That blew my yeah. When I was going through this list, I was, like, stunned by that. I'm like, I don't know a lot about this category, but the fact that his auto got a 10 on this car that Yeah.

By the way, I I think I was right. The the cracker jack didn't it was in my initial list, but I don't think made the final 100. But we graded a a cracker jack common card signed by the athlete.

Like, that yeah. I'm actually bummed in hindsight. I didn't didn't put in the top 100. Yeah. So, like like, I would pick the one on the left from my style. Like, I like thin blue ballpoint pens.

I'm not a this is again, like, everyone has their own opinion. This is not a PSA official thing. Like, I just think beautiful blue relatively thin Sharpies where you can make out the intricacies of the autograph like the buyback.

If you pull it up, I think it's like oh, scroll down. But, like, these are all these are all nice, the ones you just had, right there.

Oh, keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Sorry. Sorry. I was wrong. All good. Where's the tag right there? So, yeah, the one in the middle. So, like, that that's the style. Yeah. All three of those, you know, where it's like a blue.

That that's the and part of it's just because that's how upper deck employees, I presume, you know, wanted Jordan to sign these cards and and hoped you know, probably hopefully guided him to do it like that.

You know, I'm not a huge fan of the black autos or the, like, thick thick Sharpie. I well, in the old stuff, again, this is all personal preference.

Like, ballpoint pens are just like for the old baseball guys, it's it's if you go to, like, the Jackie and the Hank Aaron, which is probably further down, like, the that look is just so cool compared to, like, a '50 4 Topps card with a Sharpie like this.

So, like, the card matters. The error matters. You know?

Everyone has their own opinions on autos, which is actually kinda fun. I've learned that, like, that's a whole new world. You know? People some people care about auto grades, some don't. Some care that, you know, what color the pen is.

Some care how yeah. Is it an of period signature style? Is it not? Like, Mickey Mantle's signature kind of evolved, so did Jordan's. You know? Like, there's so many things once you dig into autos.

It's actually kinda fun. So I I wanna get your thoughts on this, Kobe, the the Yeah. Black black prism. Like, I I I this one was like the pattern interrupt for me. I just, like, stopped and looked at them.

I'm like, no. Look how like, this card literally just got put in a holder. I know. Like, that to me, that that card is a is a I I'm not even a Kobe collector, but this card that card spoke to me.

What were your thoughts when you saw that thing? So I actually preferred the two on the right and left because of the grade. You know, thick cards basically have eight corners, and they're so tough to 10 with PSA.

And, you know, I don't see him very often. And and seeing two Kobes signed, which is just to me very special, obviously, because he's passed and, you know, I think they're just those to me actually were the ones that stood out.

The black, I kind of felt compelled to include. I I love black prisms.

I think I collect super fractures from Topps Chrome o nine and earlier till o four, and the black prism obviously is kind of the the thing that took over as far as basketball one of ones, you know, for for, when Panini took over.

And so it's really special. I'm more of a prism guy than a select guy.

Again, I'm not a huge collector of, as I said earlier, of of modern cards anymore, but, forever. But, yeah, I mean, this one of one black prism Kobe, I loved the yellow and the the contrast of the card.

You know, we actually saw quite a few, remembering black prisms from both well, prism didn't have Panini Prism didn't have a black one of one in 2012.

And so we saw some black prisms from 2013 and beyond, which were wild, but, like, none of Kobe, so I didn't really make the list, or LeBron.

We had I think we I shouldn't say because I didn't include it. But, yeah, we we had some really cool black prisms from later years of other players, that were may unfortunately got cut in that final down to a 100.

So What about, the fat like, I thought it was cool, like, in going through the list, like, the there there's female representation here. Right? There's Serena card. There's Clark cards. There's a Juju Watkins card.

Like, especially, like, the the two super factors, Bowman Yu, the Clark and the Juju, side by side. Like, I don't know. It just seems like there's definitely a a lot of interest towards women's basketball cards specifically right now.

Like, how how do you think about that process, like, that emerging trend as you're making your selections? I'll be honest. I actually have the opposite opinion, which is, like, I wish there was more.

Like, we I I, like, I didn't see a ton of other than Caitlin Clark, WNBA cards. Juju is amazing, by the way. And so I I actually follow her career, and, like, that was an obvious one because supers signed is just like yeah.

I mean, like, first of all, the Caitlin Clark card is very memorable because that's that was the the first set that featured her and, like, that was the card that, like, would if you I'm sure you remember, like, PSA tens of the base were going nuts and, like, before she had played a single WNBA game and the super has finally surfaced.

It's not signed, but, like, that's the memorable like, I remember opening cards with my daughter and stuff.

Like, that's the that the base card is the whole thing we were chasing. So, yeah, I mean, I think, I would have liked personally to have seen more diversity in the players that were submitted.

It was, like, 95% Caitlin Clark. That's fine. I mean, that's I mean, from what I understand, that's how viewership's going too with the fever and everything as far as, but hopefully with pay I was hoping to see more Paige Beaker cards.

She I'm a big fan of hers too. We we got a we got a bunch of hers, just nothing on the really high end.

We got a bunch of the, like, you know, those, like, standard, you know, base, you know, refractors and stuff. But I'm trying to think what else. We have a few Serena cards. I think I included one Serena.

You know, last year I'm trying to remember if I included it or not. You know, there were some women in the old Sport King sets, and we got a a few the vintage cards, we got a few of those. We didn't get any this year.

Yeah. I I know very little about hockey cards, but I saw the the one of one, shield of Connor Bedard. And Oh, that was cool. Yeah. I I mean, to me, that has to be from the cup, one of his best cards, and that came through.

I don't know if you follow or collect hockey at all, but how how do you like, when you see something like that, like, what's going on through your in your head?

I I know hockey just because my son loves hockey cards, but, I have a few stuff.

I collect wax hockey boxes and packs. Yeah. So I look. I follow NHL. Like, I included it because Vidard is still kind of like a hobby darling. I was a little fenced because he's yet to, you know, really have a breakout.

Like, oh, he's there's a reason he was the number one pick. You know, you watch him. Like, he's one of those guys you watch and you're like you you kinda get glued to the TV to wait for him to do something special.

But, you know, his you look at the box scores, like, you're not impressed, right, or his season stats. And so I'm personally hoping he actually has a, you know, a better year.

He needs a better team around him. But, you know, I was personally looking for Connor McDavid cards and some of the more proven guys. We had a we had a really high end we had an Ovechkin, SP authentic 10, which was awesome.

And we had a really cool Crosby card. I can't remember if I included it or not. I might have cut that one. But, yeah, I mean, I'm I'm hoping hockey picks up more in collecting because it's an awesome sport.

You know? And actually, there's tobacco cards and all, like, well predating football and basketball. You know, you can go back and and find hockey cards from, like, the early nineteen hundreds, and I don't think people know that.

So yeah. It's I think that's actually, to be honest, just a little sidebar, one of the most undervalued cards is Vinta talkie.

So What about a card like the '87, Topps Tiffany Bonds PSA 10? A card that's, like, very recognizable. Yeah. There's the pops I don't know what the pop is, but I'm sure I think it's, like, 2 I think it's, like, 300 or something.

I looked it up, but something like that. Yeah. Well, I chose that one because, I'm a junk wax era kid, and, you know, we fantasized about Tiffany as a kid. Like, I remember, like, you know, you can't pull them right.

They were in these, like, boxes of work. Right? They're, like, only certain people got in shops and, you know, just having a Tiffany card, let alone a graded one was was you know?

And I didn't even know back then how to tell. You know, we as kids, you'd be like, this is a Tiffany, and, like, he'd have no clue if it actually was.

Like, it's classy. You see? And, like, yeah, I remember having those debates, but, like, I didn't know the asterisk thing at the time and, like, all the little ways for the ways to tell.

But, I just thought it's cool to see a a, you know, very iconic thirty, forty year old car 40 year old car. Oh my god. Daniel. That, you know, is, is, you know, gets a 10 and and, you know, hasn't been graded before.

So it's it's, you know, maybe that I'm assuming someone cracked open one of the Tiffany, you know, sets and brought it in. But, yeah, that's that's pretty I I just thought it was cool to see one.

We we actually had a Bo Jackson Tiffany 10, as well. I don't think I included it. It probably got cut. But, that was that I love the Bo Jackson Tiffany card as well.

So I have to ask you because I feel like part of your brand is, you know, green PMG and there's the Any PMG we we get on and include. We got the Van Horn, the Barry Sanders. But first of all, the Iverson okay.

So, like, I I can talk to for hours about these cards. Yeah. Let's The Van Horn is a big card because in 1997, you know, he was, I think, the second pick. He was a big deal. He obviously didn't work out.

But, like, as a kid, like, he was on the box of a lot like FLIR Ultra, I think. And, like, yeah, he he was he was supposed to be good. Right? And then, that was a cool card, but also iconic photo, like the skyhook, whatever.

Like, these are rookie shoot photos, I think. Like, that's not an end game photo. Skipping Barry for a second. Iverson's enormous. I've seen three of these since 1997. And I own one, and I've seen one other and then this one.

And I didn't know that this was a crossover, I think. I don't I might have that wrong because I saw the guy in the line. And, you know, this card is just the I wish it got a numeric grade. I don't know why it didn't.

It's probably too small, but, maybe the guy didn't want the numeric grade that it got, whatever. But, like, the red green combo on that is just awesome. And it's Iverson. Look how young he is, like, hall of famer.

It's just, like, top three that's the third best card in that set. I take that over Duncan since it's blasphemy to some. But, like, Jordan Kobe Iverson, that's that's my order of operation for PMG greens.

And then the Barry Sanders is probably the biggest football green. You know? It just I think that card or a similar one sold recently for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Mhmm. A lot of people would say Favre or Jerry Rice, but, like, no. It's Barry Sanders. You know, I'm not a football expert. I didn't collect football then. I don't collect it now.

I kinda collect this set, but not really. Like, I pick them up as they're cheap when I see them. But, that's the biggest screening from football as far as I'm concerned. Wow. As someone who's Jordan from the set. So yeah. I agree.

When as someone who's been working on building out this green set and you knowing, like, where certain copies are and you have been doing this for years and you said this is the only only the third copy of the Iverson that you've ever seen.

Like There's there's more out there. I've just never personally seen them.

You've never seen them. I don't believe there's only three that have survived. I think there's more, but I've only seen three. Yeah. You as a collector, when you see another example out there, what's going on in your head?

Like, it's it's like it's like a community feeling a little bit. It's like freaked out. I mean, I I for all the Iverson, I'm like, this is you know, people like, I I have spent so many hours of my life chasing this guy.

And, like, I can tell you exactly probably of all 123 of, like, how many I've seen in the wild. Like, I can promise you that. Like, I've I know which one I've seen the most of, Charles Barkley.

And so and I know that which one I've seen the fewest of. Right? Robert Pack, which I've seen a photo of one, but I haven't seen in person. I've seen photos of one Laettner. I've seen photos of two Stockton, so on and so forth.

I've seen one Garnett, which I own. Many of them, I've seen only one of. That doesn't mean there's only one out there. It's just that's the only ones I've seen. Jordan, I've know of nine.

Right? Kobe, I know of four. I know there's more out there. I've seen pictures of two more, so maybe six. So, like, you know, I could go through literally every single one. And the Iverson, you know, was so special when I found it.

I found it through this forum. I think I'm having this right. It's called Hobby Kings. Like, this is old school. But, like, you know, I paid for it in cash in a bank lobby in Tribeca, New York.

A guy flew in from overseas to do like, these cards are so special, at least to me. So, yeah, when I see them, it brings that back, the nostalgic, like, the memory of when I acquired it.

You know, and, and usually, it's it's got a story behind it as far as I'm concerned because most of these were not on eBay or somewhere.

Like, these were like because, you know, what we have to realize in basketball, especially, probably the same in baseball, football, like, there's PC collectors of these random players.

Like, you know, like, there's a what's a good example?

Danny Ferret. There's there's guy in Selman collector on Instagram. Like, there's guys who obsess, and the PMG Greens, unfortunately, is the pinnacle of every single player's PC from the nineties.

So, oh, the beg the one that was the hardest for me at the time was Sean Kemp. There's these, like like, hardcore Sean Kemp collectors. And, like, I had to beg the guy, you know, to sell me his Sean Kemp.

Larry Johnson, another good example. You know, and so, like, it's just you have like, usually, it's a negotiation and, like, years and years of just like, hey. You know, any chance any chance?

You know? Ron Mercer. A lot of the Celtics have these, like, weird PC followings. And so yeah. But Iverson's obviously one. There's a lot of Iverson PC guys out there. And, yeah, this one, I think, was from someone in Asia.

The thing about the middle card is that there's a lot of fake football cards. They're well, they're not fake. They're like sheet cut with bad serial numbers on them. And we're very good. PSA is and we put a lot of time to this.

We own many, many, many samples of the bad ones, and we have lots of good examples to compare to. So when we see these cards, especially football, there's a lot of authentication work that goes into them.

Because if we get it wrong, it's a hundreds of thousands of dollar mistake in the case of the Barry Sanders. And thankfully, this one was good. But, I mean, for every real one we see in football, there might be two or three bad ones.

So, you know, it's a majority fake set. Fake's, again, the wrong word. Backdoored is the term we use. You know, the card's real, but the serial number's fake.

Is there anything on this list as you're putting it together or maybe fell outside this list, but anything about the submissions this year from a hobby perspective that surprised you in any way?

I wouldn't say. I mean, you kinda said earlier, I I was I'm I shouldn't be surprised, but I I was surprised at at two things, how much how heavy Michael Jordan was submitted, how much soccer we got.

That would be another takeaway. Like, even though I mean, I bet you on a percentage basis, I could have had twice as many soccer cards first like, proportional to what was submitted.

I mentioned the WNBA thing. Like, it was basically all Caitlin Clark. You know, surprisingly, there wasn't a ton of, like, ultra modern, like, within the past year or two, football, basketball, baseball.

I think that's pretty usual for the national because the really expensive stuff tends to not be the stuff that was just pulled.

It tends to be the stuff where the players have developed a career and, you know, like, the prospects in baseball are not selling for you know, you're not paying $200, $300 to create a card from some prospect unless it's, you know, one of one or something.

But, like, you know, we saw a few big debut patches, but they didn't make the cut. They weren't like, I think the biggest one I saw was, what's his name, the, Brewer's kid.

Anyway, yeah. I mean, we did the the new new new stuff, there it's it was a bit light, very heavy on, like, nineties, early two thousands, 2010 through 02/2015.

But I think that's I I I'm just using my head. Like, I I don't know. I don't have data to back that up. It just it's like a observation. Do you you've been doing this for a minute now.

Do you do you after you get done and you put this to rest and it's out in the wild, do you think about, like, year over year comparisons with the group? Like, 2025 was way better than 2024 or 2023 was way better than 2025.

Do you have any, like, macro opinions on, like, the group of submissions, like, this year versus the rest of the years you've been doing this? I wish. I wish. Had you asked me that a month ago, I could have done the the homework.

But, no, I I I do know I do vividly remember we had crazy baseball vintage submissions the the year in AC Mhmm. That he just because I just vividly remember some of the the fines that showed up, you know?

But no, I wish I could help you there. I certainly could do that, but I'm not smart enough to remember the list from all five years or whatever, four years.

No worries. It's always fun. I like the presentation. It's easy to digest. We'll put a link, in the show notes if you haven't already seen it.

You can go check it out. Nat, before I let you get out of here, would love to maybe spend a second, talking about just, like, the work PSA has been doing this year and just, I don't know.

Like, the the big story for me and part of the reason why we're having a lot of these conversations is just, like, the vault in the marketplace of it all, and there's just a lot going on.

And I know PSA is expanding and just a lot of exciting offerings happening. Like, maybe share some perspective on just all the big products and services that have dropped this year and kind of areas of focus.

Yeah. It's all blending together, but I'll tell you, we we we had two big milestones in, one this month and one last month. So last month, we crossed a million cards. Graded cards have been vaulted in our PSA vault.

So that was really cool because our team has been let's see. We launched the vault maybe two years ago, two and a half years ago, probably. I'm thinking January 23 sounds right. I might have that wrong. So not that long ago.

And then we launched our partnership with eBay last June and so to provide liquidity to folks on top of the vaults, but also connecting them through grading. So we crossed a million items sold on eBay. Obviously, none of them are ours.

These are all customer cards that we're facilitating the sale of. I think that was yesterday or the day before. And so that's a million times we've helped a customer of ours get liquidity for one of their cards.

Right? Which I think is really cool because that's a big part of the hobby is is, you know, people need you know, people sell cards or assets that, you know, they downgrade or upgrade and they sell the whatever.

And, you know, that the hobby doesn't work without the liquidity in it. And so I think, yeah, million times we've helped people do that is really cool. And I hopefully, the next million takes half as long as the first million did.

It took, what, thirteen, fourteen months. The vault is growing faster now because of our partnership with eBay because you can vault from eBay. You can vault from PSA grading.

You can send cards in from your house or drop off at any show or drop off events that we're at. We've got other stuff coming there too, which is cool. Yeah. It's just it's a really powerful tool for the hobby.

We've got a lot of cool features coming in that we call it My Collection. Like, you know, the vault is the vault, but it's My Collection. You can have cards in there that are not vaulted and still track.

You know, we've integrated card ladder into that so you can track real time values. If you're into card ladder value, that is, that's very helpful so you don't have to go back and forth.

But on the grading side, I mean, we are, rapidly expanding the capacity. I'll be the first to admit we are unsatisfied as much as our customers are with the turnaround times.

I mean, we are most of the time, like, 98% of the time, meeting our advertised turnaround times as best we can, but there are times when we get we can't control how many cards come in.

Our only you know, we have only so much ability if we'd shut off our website, but, you know, we don't wanna do that.

We did that in 2021, and, you know, it was it was not great for the hobby. So we are doing our best to keep up, and we're opening our office in Florida side by side with SGC. We are in Dallas now, Plano. We're opening in Germany.

We're big in Japan. We're opening in Toronto. That won't be grading yet. That'll be a proper office with submissions and that. We're in Jersey City with grading already. We're in Santa Ana, of course, California.

So pretty soon, we're gonna have, like, five full fledged grading operations around the world for PSA, and, we're hoping to be in China for well, we're we're there now multiple times a year grading on-site as a as a, special event, but we intend to have a full time office there.

So, yeah, I mean, it's it's, yeah, it's it's a lot to keep up with, but, you know, we're we're thankful that, you know, PSA is is in, you know, in in, you know, in demand, you know, from a, you know, providing liquidity, standardization, authentication in the hobby.

And, yeah, we just need to to get better on the, you know, turnaround times.

Incredible. Before I let you get out of here, I was having a conversation with one of your colleagues and I was we're talking about, grading and I I was like, I've got an express order.

I'm like, I can't wait for it to pop. There's two cards in it. And then they mentioned, well, do you know about offers? And I was like, what are you talking about? And they were like, well and they were, like, started to explain offers.

And I I figured, since it was, like, new information for me, it would be cool to maybe get your perspective and and share with the audience if they don't know, like, what what our offers and anything you wanna share there.

Yeah. It's a super new thing. We're we're, very happy with the, uptake on both sides of it. So, yeah, I mean, the the high level is it's not PSA buying anything.

It's, we have a network of buyers. Think, card shops, big companies, repackers, you know, folks that have enterprise buyers, we kinda call them. Like, folks that you're not buying one slab or two slabs.

You're buying thousands or hundreds of slabs, right, for for some purpose, you know, typically for their own inventory of their shops or their online stores or their or their, repacks.

And so we get a you know, the way it works is we basically have a automated mechanism where those companies tell us what kind of slabs they're looking for.

And as those as we grade slabs, as we put out produce slabs from our customers submitted rock arts, once the grades pop, we just simply run a, algorithm in real time comparing what just graded or what's in the vault to what all those people want.

And the highest price any of them are willing to pay is the only offer we show you. And, it's a take it or leave it.

It's completely optional. We don't frankly, care if you take it or not. It's it's just an option. Like, you know, we hope you do because that means that you wanted liquidity from the card and you thought the offer was was fair.

It's, again, it's it's not really up it's not up to us at all what the offer is. It's It's whatever someone we just choose the highest offer from that network of buyers that people are, are willing to pay for your card.

And, I don't have the exact specifics, but, like, you know, it's a meaningful percentage of people are accepting, those offers, which means, you know, we're we've done a decent job, the team, of finding people who can who can, you know, make a a legitimate you know, I was worried that we were just gonna get a bunch of lowball and, like, people would be on Twitter yelling at us for, you know, hey.

You just graded my card at ten and only offered me $12 for it. Like, you know, it's it's thankfully, there's a market price for a lot of this stuff.

The market's quite liquid, and so there's comps. You know, not every card has a comp, but a lot of cards have a comp. And you you're not, you know, you're not flying blind. And most of these buyers are basing their bids off of comps.

So, yeah, it's a it's a really cool feature. It's live in both it's been live in the PSA vault for many months, I think, almost a year. But last Tuesday, it went live in, the grading flow.

So in your grade reveal, as you said, when you get your grades, you may have I I don't know what percentage of the time. It's definitely less than half of the cards, but, some percentage of the time, you could see an opportunity.

And the the cool part is you just get money wired to your bank account in in, like, that second. So yeah. Awesome. Appreciate, the update there. A lot of exciting stuff happening with collectors and PSA.

Nat, it's always fun catching up, always fun talking cards. Awesome list this year. This is we've done it twice, so this is becoming an annual tradition. We're gonna have to do it again next year. I'm holding you to it.

As always, appreciate the time. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate it, Brad. Always enjoy my conversations with Nat. I know he is strapped for time running around in a million different directions, but talking cards with Nat is a ton of fun.

Hopefully, you enjoyed this episode. Shout out PSA, shout out Collectors for supporting Stacking Slabs and the content we're doing here on vaulted.

We've got another one coming up soon. The gap between episodes will be much shorter this time. Excited to bring that to you. Thank you so much. Talk to you soon.