what's going on everybody welcome back to the flagship episode of stacking slabs here on the stacking slabs network we're out here we're talking cards we're talking collector psychology we're talking business too on some of the other channels there's a lot going on here i'm having fun building stacking slabs and i wanna say thank you to all of you for your support would not be able to do this at the level that i'm doing it right now if it weren't for you telling a damn friend you are telling your damn friends i've been saying this from the beginning and it's working appreciate all of you whether you're at a show you're talking about stacking slabs in your local hobby shop talking about stacking slabs dm ing friends episodes all of that stuff compounds and it matters trying to grow this damn network so i can continue to move this brand forward in the hobby i have so many awesome ideas on the drawing board right now things i wanna be working on things i wanna share with you and appreciate all of the feedback it really means a lot if you wanna show your support make sure you hit the follow button tell a damn friend if you want more content from me there's a patreon group go run on over there we're working hard out here the episode today is not so fun i'll say that not an exciting experience actually a very terrible experience but we're here to talk about experiences we have in the hobby and my goal is to share my experience and hopefully it helps someone out that out there before i do gotta shout out my good friends at inferno red technology for sponsoring the flagship episode they are the engineering team behind some of the biggest names in sports and collectibles like dc sports eighty seven commsi collectors upper deck and ebay from ai powered solutions for startups to full stack platforms for industry leaders their team can tackle your toughest technology challenge they build awesome software for the hobby for leagues and fans and for everyone in between see what they can build for you at inferno red dot com definitely if you're on the industry or business side of this space and you're building something on the tech technical front hit up my friends at inferno red tell them stacking slabs sent you alright let's get into it a little somber not so fun we're talking about a bad moment that happened to me this past week but this is what we gotta do we gotta share the experience share it in content no better place to do it than the flagship i'll start here last week i was away i had my mail held didn't want the packages to come while i was away didn't wanna have to chase them down so i knew i was very excited on monday because i knew i had several packages that were coming from direct deals they were coming back from ebay authentication more on that later and i was sitting working in my office and saw the usps guy this was a double dip day i had fedex and usps both come and both had a sign and so i ran over to the usps guy got the mail got down to my desk i was in the middle of content so i put it aside and i was like i'll get to it when i get a moment and i can actually enjoy this experience but something happened that i think every collector fears the bubble mailer was there but the card was not and inside that package was supposed to be a card i was excited about adding to my collection the twenty twenty five prism jonathan taylor gold vinyl out of five instead i got an empty mailer the card was stolen somewhere between the seller and my mailbox in all of my years of collecting sports cards this has never happened to me and if you collect long enough unfortunately it will probably happen to you so today i wanna talk about it i wanna talk about what happened what i learned what i would do differently and how as collectors we can reduce the chances of this happening again this episode isn't about complaining it's about getting smarter i think there are things that i did during this process that maybe i could have done better i could have maybe overcommunicated i could have set better expectations sort of those things like i'm owning that like it's on me and i know it's weird to say well the card got stolen you're saying that's on you like there's parts of this that i unpack and dissect and that i think i'm taking some accountability for i'll also say this out of the gates like this sucks especially my favorite player one of my favorite parallels part of my collection collection like couldn't happen with like a quiddy pay gold prism no it had to happen with a jonathan taylor gold vinyl only five copies but you gotta like move on mentally and so i when it happened maybe it's like going to therapy maybe it's like trying to understand when and when to get upset i like came to this mindset like this is shitty and instantly was like i gotta create content about it and then my second response was like well there's a community and maybe the community can help and so like that's how i'm thinking about this and i'll just say this at the top in case i forget about it anyone is able to track down that card i will forever be indebted to you and will likely reward you for the action definitely a card i still want in my collection whether it's this copy that got stolen or whether it's another copy i don't really care what it is but i want it and i still want the card the copy that got stolen was the serial number three out of five so if you can help a brother out let me know so this happened because someone referred me to another collector and i'm i'm not gonna disclose the person i'm working with i just i not gonna do that but i i got connected to someone on instagram because they had pulled this card in a break and so my eyes lit up and this was a card that i certainly wanted so i got referred i dm'd we started the conversation i got pictures excited about the card and basically got all of the back and forth done payment sent ship tracking the next day all the things you want happened i think looking back on the situation and one of the things that i certainly would will build into my process moving forward it's like this was my first interaction with this first deal with this seller and i because of that i wish i would have just said hey i'll pay more to get this sent overnight i know it's not like a thousand dollar card but it's a thousand dollar card for me in my collection like that's what i like it's worth that to me and so that is a big move that i would have made it would have been like hey here's the extra forty bucks just ship this overnight i think the overnight shipping or insured shipping whatever you wanna do is a good way to help mitigate risk and certainly i wish i could have that back and so like as i think about this now that is certainly something that i'll implement and i think this is important like what is your process when you're making deals like what would you do like how do you build this in to help make sure you'll mitigate mitigate risk and it was interesting like when the card got sent out it got like stuck in oklahoma forever like weeks and i've messaged the seller and be like hey can you talk to usps and then eventually it moved to texas and it was in texas for a minute then it went all the way back to finally to indy and that's what happened so it was like i don't know it was like in this holding pattern and i don't know if it's because they were trying to do an internal investigation and figure it out or whatever but that was something that was interesting and so when you hear these horror stories and i i know my man sean at victory investments posted a horror story about this happening to him obviously if you listen to the football card podcast this just happened to john with the lance briggs gold prism like when the market is hot when things are selling at all time highs like this type of activity happens like don't know if it was employee i don't know if it was somebody else but like there are individuals whether they're working internally or they're just have access that they see the bubblemailer and they think cards i think a big reason for this now what i'm learning just based on me posting this on instagram is that you know pokemon's really really hot and this is drawing more attention to opportunities like this when i i had this melt over me like there was this initial feeling of disbelief anger questioning everybody involved questioning the postal system you know questioning myself these are the moments that really test your trust in the hobby and i pride myself with the way i do deals with the way i do content where the the first thing i do always before asking or doing anything is like i work really hard to build and develop trust like i hope you as the member of the audience here recognize that and you listen to me because you trust what i have to say as authentic and genuine and i think trust is the most important asset that we have in the hobby and trust can be compromised so easily and we see that happen when there's missteps along the way with individuals or companies in this space over anything in my collection the most important asset i have is this trust that i've built with you so i think when we get tested or our trust gets tested with the system that's where we really test our passion and love for cards now this is a rising problem high value cards are moving regularly through the mail there are recognizable shipping pattern i think the bubble mailers signal a opportunity for value and there's like there's more visibility into the hobby than ever before you know you there are things that are happening behind the scenes that are that unfortunately because there are people always trying to take advantage of someone we need to help mitigate this risk and we need to do whatever we can to put our best foot forward like thieves are focused on the hobby we think about like individuals like mister wonderful wearing the you know diamond necklace with the logo double logo man we think about you know king of collectibles on netflix all of these things we think about media hits for card sales like they're all great for awareness they're all great to bring visibility to this space they're all great for this industry but there's also a downside and the downside is is like it attracts the attention of fraudsters of bad actors you know and it's not just me like i'm sure there are people out there maybe it's you who've listened who are listening to this who have there you've dealt with this and it sucks and you can empathize in a way and i think like one of the things that you we can't skimp on here is paying for shipping and you've got collectors sending out thousands of cards thousands of dollars worth of cards not in my instance but in instance treating it like it's twenty dollars i think the hobby has grown faster than our shipping habits and it's still wild to me and you know my friend scott at inferno red technology in one of the episodes of built for the hobby was talking about just like how crazy it is that we just like send all these these high dollar volume or high dollar value cards out and don't even think twice about it and i think really the hobby is growing faster than the way we ship you know things i think i would have done differently you can request signature confirmation request adult signature require insurance use registered mail you know po box ship to work address like i obviously like my work address is my home so that's more like probably use a po box maybe ask the seller to not put it in a bubble mail like there's a lot of lessons that i think i can learn here from this and at the time the deal was made i i literally didn't think twice about shipping i just thought about getting the card but certainly i will and i think these are the moments and these are the experiences that we gain through bad times and instead of like being down the dumps and being pissed off about it like my charge right now is to learn from this like how do i make sure this doesn't happen again or do whatever i can to make sure this happen never happens again experience and experiencing bad stuff like this definitely changes my risk tolerance so i think there are a lot of different things that we as collectors can do to protect ourselves when we're talking about shipping we can avoid the obvious packaging we can double box high value cards to make it really hard for fee thieves to get it like if it i don't know i would maybe i should talk the seller about like inside the package how it was put together but like a bubble mailer it's so easy to just take a knife out and rip it out and take whatever's inside and kinda like put it back together and you know keep going like it's really easy but when it's like double boxed and it's taped up and all this stuff it's like a lot harder i think another thing is like you know the labels people are paying attention to that and like when you're getting it delivered especially if it's a card that you love like that a signature is required buying i think there's a lot of things that we can do when we're buying i know sometimes it's out of our control but like buying through platforms with protection is important understanding seller shipping practices is important like doing some discovery there like if the card matters like this card matter to me the shipping should matter so this is like back to a theme i've been talking a lot about in this across stacking subs content but like platform and infrastructure matters ebay authentication guarantee i think people get upset about the delays with ebay authentication and ebay is a partner and i support ebay they support me but like one of the things i think we need to think about are the advantages of things like authenticity where it's like we are guaranteed the cards it might take a little while but they're going to end up packaged like we want and on our doorstep and if it doesn't then we're going to be taken care of you you get a full view of the tracking during this where it's going there's platform disputes like i got an email the other day of a card that i bought on ebay that i i paid for the psa grading on ebay and i was wondering why it hadn't entered the psa app yet and then i realized i had gotten an email that i did not see where ebay was asking me do i still want this card and luckily i saw this i had literally had twenty four hours to accept because the the seller didn't disclose like a crease on the back of the card and i hit yes and then i'm glad i did because i wanted the card regardless of the condition so it's stuff like that from an infrastructure perspective that i think a lot of us find annoying or we find that it slows us down but when that stuff is in place it helps protect us i think platforms reduce risk because they insert accountability between the buyer and seller infrastructure is boring until something goes wrong and so i'm gonna be talking a lot more about like infrastructure the space why things are happening the way it does because i believe what is happening from an industry perspective whether it's technology whether it's services whether it's new products like that is supporting a growing infrastructure around the hobby and that infrastructure is leading to higher sale prices of cards which also leads to a lot more risk for us as collectors how do you respond when something like this happens are you frustrated do you feel violated do you have hesitation to buy again do you question the hobby one bad moment i think shouldn't destroy an entire collecting journey i think losses happen in collecting cards get damaged deals fall apart packages disappear but i don't know man i try to think about this like i think about cards in general it's a very long game and i have spent thousands of dollars over the course of me being back into the hobby and this is the first instance of a card that went awry like this so like i'm this moment is short i'm i'm more or less using this as therapy for myself but then i hopefully it could help you as well i just wanna say like when i posted this on instagram in my story like i got so many responses i got responses from so many awesome people in this space and we just shout out like shane and andy at indy card exchange what i'm thinking about all of the responses i got they messaged me because they saw the story they said hey we'll keep an eye out for it at our store and indy card exchange is the hobby shop in indiana yeah there's many others but like from a national perspective like indy card exchange rules like they've been at it forever andy is like one of the goat owners in this space he's seen everything he's dealt with everything and he knows like his shop is a central hub for colts cards because his clientele a lot of them are colts collectors so just like knowing that like i have people in the community behind me eyes and ears like to help me track down this card or if they see something say something like that means a lot i can't even tell you how many messages i got just so much support and i think like community is so powerful and good times and bad times like we should really value the people in the community has this happened to you like i'd love to know like this sucks and i feel like if we can bring awareness to this that would be a good thing and like the more we can share the better off we'll be as a community and think this jonathan taylor gold vinyl was supposed to be a new chapter in my collecting instead it turned into a lesson and honestly a necessary one i think collecting isn't just about finding a card it's about getting the card home if you you're you're moving meaningful cards to the mail treat shipping like it matters as much as the card that's my biggest lesson appreciate you all checking out stacking slabs being here supporting this series supporting me on stuff like this it means a lot we'll be back soon you take care we'll talk to you soon