Cascading Hype Bubbles 🫧 | The Crossover 6.5.26

Josh (@cardboard_chronicles) and Chris (@chris_hoj), the founders of Card Ladder, join forces to bring you the most entertaining and educational sports card discussion on the internet every Friday night.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome everybody. Back to the crossover. Today is Friday, June 5th, 2026. And we've got a giant menu of great questions. Exceptional questions this week. But uh before we do those, we open with mail days. Christina, do you have a mail day?

SPEAKER_02 0:21

Not prepared.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Not prepared. Josh, do you have a mail day?

SPEAKER_04 0:26

Yes. Three. I'll go fast. Let's go. Let's see. 2014 finest Julio Jones Super Fractor one of one.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Sick.

SPEAKER_04 0:42

Sick. And then with that, I got this one as well. 2015 finest superfactor Julio Jones one of one. On the back, his stats are 104 catches, 1,593 yards. And then this one is an underrated one. 2007 Topps Chrome, Sean Alexander, Super Fractor 1 of 1. He was the 2005 MVP. He had 20 27 rushing touchdowns that season.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

That's a very nice card.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Sweet. That's it. Alright, I'll go quickly as well. Just kind of some random cards here. The first one I have is the 200607 upper deck hardcourt gold one of one of Vince Carter's base set appearance. I've become familiar with because Michael Jordan has one of ones in those base sets. And so when I saw that one hit eBay, I was like, yeah, that's awesome. The next one I'll do uh is Emmett Smith, his uh class two 1999 red label one of one courtesy of a great hobby friend. And then the final one I'll do uh has an agenda behind it. It's the 1998 Collector's Edge Odyssey product. And it's the uh this is Corey Dillon from let's see here, from quarter one. So he appears in the base set three times. This is his first appearing one, and it's the single-edge one of one parallel. And uh, I'd love to buy any cards from this set that anybody has. So if you if you're uh looking to offload some of your collector's edge Odyssey single-edge one of ones, I'm your buyer.

SPEAKER_04 2:43

I love the uh painter's tape over a hidden one of one Emmett Smith.

unknown 2:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Yep. We are back. We're in our loader. Yeah, we're in our top loader painter's tape era. All right. Let's get to some topics. First question from 1956 Tops guy. I thought you were taking time off. Have you found that the crossover fills a void in your life? So we were gonna take off two weeks. I texted this to Matthew, but schedules change and we were only able to take off one week. But uh, what do you think, Josh? Is crossover filling a void?

SPEAKER_04 3:32

I'm sorry to disappoint this guy.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

I like how you wait. I like how you phrased that. You were like, we were only able to take one week off. Like instead of like, oh, like we came back early for you. You were like, oh yeah, we we had to come back.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

PLB cards with the second question of the night says, if you had to collect one player playing in the NBA finals, who would it be and why? Christina. I don't know if you've watched him many of these. Well, I guess we watched game one together.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

I got I watched game one and I walked into your office when game two was playing tonight, but I quickly walked out again. Um, I used to collect cat. Does that count?

SPEAKER_01 4:19

It totally counts.

SPEAKER_02 4:20

Yeah. So anyone who's familiar with my collecting journey knows that I started collecting cat out of 2015 Don Russ.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

Yeah. What was your first big cat card?

SPEAKER_02 4:34

I remember uh the 2015-16 Elite Dominators out of auto out of 25 out of Don Russ that year.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

It was the best card of the product, and I hit it the week he was named rookie of the year.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

Yeah, exactly. Cage says Luke Cornette, easy. Josh, if you had to pick, and you can pick one. I'm I'm don't I don't believe there's no forcing us.

SPEAKER_04 5:00

Well, it says if you had to, so it does.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Yeah, well, uh I reject it.

SPEAKER_04 5:04

I've also collected a player in this finals, McKay. Mikhail Bridges. But if I had to start over, I am a big fan of Josh Hart. I like the way he plays, I like his hustle. He's flying in for offensive rebounds every play. I love it. He's just the guy you need in a game like this.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

He does, I think he had zero points tonight, but yeah, he had three points in game one, and uh, but he had the best plus minus on the team. I saw McKe. Yeah, that's great, man. That's a I love a guy who can have a you know, Marcus Smart esque. You can you can score zero points and still have a huge impact. Uh I saw a real feature mikhail bridges today that said he has eaten Tripotle every day for 10 years straight. Are you aware of this?

SPEAKER_04 5:50

I do. I am aware of this, of course. That's like why I collected him, probably.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

I figured it was. We might we maybe even did a bit on this before, but okay.

SPEAKER_04 5:58

Probably, yeah. I think I seen the article a couple years ago about this.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Yeah, yeah. I'm not interested in collecting any of the players in this series.

SPEAKER_02 6:06

Just how does Wimbi does he do it like leftovers? Because like they're close on like Christmas Day, right?

SPEAKER_04 6:12

There's no way it's real, yeah. Of course, it's like possible. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

All right. Uh General says so. Would like to know. How do you value a star player who is not hobby hyped, but who is on the cusp of an NBA title? And bear in mind this is before the Knicks went up 2-0 that this question was provided.

SPEAKER_04 6:40

So this is like for cat, I think, right? Kind of feels like this is a cat question. Is it or or is it a Brunson question? Brunson's hobby hyped. He's definitely hobby hyped right now.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Okay. The Brunson burner, if you will.

SPEAKER_04 6:55

I was looking at cat sales before this, and he has 57 sales total in the history of public cards that have sold for more than $5,000. Wemby has 5,000 sales.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

5,000 sales over five grand.

SPEAKER_04 7:16

And towns has 57.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Nice.

SPEAKER_04 7:21

So Brunson has 240.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Oh, Brunson has the fewest of all. Or sorry, how many how many say towns had towns at 57?

SPEAKER_04 7:32

Yeah, it's like towns has like zero hobby love. Like up some of his like best cards sell for nothing.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

That's amazing because Towns was rookie of the year, number one overall pick, Kentucky stock.

SPEAKER_04 7:44

Yep. Three straight conference finals.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Yeah. Yeah. But I I guess that speaks to what a different hobby it was.

SPEAKER_04 7:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Yeah. Hmm. All right. I saw some uh a uh a page of a dealer in the hobby, iRock Collectibles was posting some cool towns cards. I've seen some really cool towns cards come out. He posted uh Towns' absolute memorabilia base set one of one, which like I thought that was awesome. So it's been cool to see some nice towns cards start flying around. Start flying around like Josh Hart and Jose Alvarado chasing down rebounds.

SPEAKER_04 8:25

His gold Prism rookie 9-5 just sold for $9,000. What, like an eBay bin? Auction alt.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Oh, wow. Oh, okay, okay, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_04 8:36

The Wemby equivalent is like a billion-dollar card.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Right. Okay. Uh well, I guess the question is how do you value them? Do you want to speak on that at all?

SPEAKER_04 8:50

It's short-term excitement, and then we'll forget about it in three months.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

But he's saying it not hobby hyped.

SPEAKER_04 8:57

It's that's fun. If you're like a collector, then it's fun. You have to like enjoy the moment, you know, enjoy watching them on the big stage.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

How do you value him very quietly and hope that nobody else hope that they hope that you don't ever have to deal with the hobby hype?

SPEAKER_04 9:11

If I like if you were a Josh Hart collector right now, and just be enjoying it.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Totally, dude. Hart is like low-key has an MVP case for the finals.

SPEAKER_04 9:21

It's zero points. Let's uh get zero points, dude.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

He's averaging one and a half points for the series.

SPEAKER_04 9:29

He had that like 27-point game in that Cleveland series.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Yeah, yeah. Uh all right, from out of wax, please discuss the true RPA out of 99. Whatever happened there, have you noticed a shift away from RPAs?

SPEAKER_04 9:49

This card died in the last couple years, and I think of one in particular that killed it for me. It was the um National Treasures Justin Jefferson. Like all the patches are just horrible. You know, they're like one color, maybe two, and you know, they're not game worn, obviously. I think it's just sort of lost its luster, and they have stopped caring about it, and everything's focused on uh I don't know, other sets.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Yeah. Uh well, we still see big um RPA prices. Yes. Uh, like we were when we were discussing the Fanatics premiere from last month, and there was multiple six-figure NT RPA at a 99 prices in that auction for Edwards and Shea. Right. So uh but but they do seem to have like lost a little bit of momentum. But see, one of the things I think about is that uh NT was uh it was always the first product, and usually sometimes by month or even up to a year or half a year before you know flawless and immaculate would come out. And so it just had the head start, and the trade-off was that you only got player worn mem rather than game worn, but it was first, and it gave people the cards to to speculate on. But uh not to state the obvious here, but I think then the odd of 99 is is uh looming large larger and larger.

SPEAKER_04 11:26

Yeah, it's always been seen as like the investment card, you know, it's like you're buying stock in the player, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

Like the high end, like it's it's the silver prism of the high end, right?

SPEAKER_04 11:37

Yeah, we just haven't talked about it in a long time. Maybe it's why uh this question's coming up. We just uh I haven't thought about it in a long time.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Right. When was the last time you genuinely thought about purchasing any players RPA at a 99?

SPEAKER_04 11:54

Maybe like six years ago.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Same.

SPEAKER_04 12:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Next question from the currency project. Shout out to the currency project. Christina, you have their first Michael Jordan one of one they ever made?

SPEAKER_02 12:11

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Okay, okay. From them. Are 90s football inserts undervalued? Or does no one care about football? I think that's called a false dichotomy, but go on, Josh.

SPEAKER_04 12:26

People definitely care about football. It's the most popular league in the United States by a wide margin. 90s inserts? Like, yeah, maybe because like it doesn't have MJ to carry the inserts, you know. Like everyone loves the MJ inserts from the 90s, and there's not that like big name football to carry those. I don't know. But they're definitely popular.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Yeah, yeah, I don't know. Uh I don't know much about 90s football inserts, honestly.

SPEAKER_04 13:00

Well, like here, look at I'm looking at a sale. The Tim Duncan 97 rubies sold for 8,500, and the John Lway 97 Ruby sold for 8300. And the Duncan's a rookie.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Technically not inserts. Yeah, but the point is well taken. But uh, so we're gonna get to a question later from Drake where Drake is like, and I know Chris always wants an example, and then he has one. And questions like this would really benefit from like one, two, or three examples. Like, here's an example where uh Charles Woodson is one-tenth the price of Charles Barkley, right? And then we could analyze it further. So, but anyway, uh interesting question. I just I I need to uh I need to see perhaps what the what prompted it. So maybe maybe for next week or whenever. Okay, Squintz Sports Cards asks, is tops trying too hard to manufacture moments? For example, patches made to be in cards.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

I actually like this.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

Go off.

SPEAKER_02 14:23

Okay, well, like uh we're complaining, like previously, we were complaining previously on this episode or this show, not us, but like pe in the hobby, people were complaining that like we didn't have enough game-worn patches. Like, oh, like the jersey market is so high that you can't get that's the excuse that we are given from manufacturers, you can't get the jerseys to cut up to put into the product. So Topps was like, How do we solve this? Okay, we'll do a patch so that the whole jersey can still be sold, but we get the patch that then goes into a card that gives people a debut card and makes it uh like an awesome experience for the people who collect it. So, like now we're complaining that like, oh, they created a patch to go on jerseys to go into a card. Like they're fucking card manufacturers, like of course they're planning for everything to go into a card. Like, what are we doing here?

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Yeah, uh people are gonna complain no matter what. So in this hobby, it's the the right guidepost has never been are people complaining? The the guidepost has to be something else. Uh so you zagged against the question, and then I'll zag back into the direction of the question, which is that um it can start to feel a little bit manufactured.

SPEAKER_02 16:06

Uh they're literally manufacturers, like they are right, they are manufacturing.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

The the manufacturer has manufactured. Uh, but but what they've done that makes a lot of sense is that they've tied the patches to things that are meaningful to sports history. So it's not total gimmick land where it's like we're gonna have you wear a tops logo in a random game, then we're gonna cut that out and put it on a card. They're providing gold logomans and shields and stuff for MVPs, which is a very meaningful piece of sports history, and they're providing debut patches, which is a meaningful first in the uh career of these players. So I think uh sticking to things that have independent historical significance to the sports record books helps avoid this becoming overly gimmicky. What do you think, Josh?

SPEAKER_04 17:03

Traditionally, the moments thing has been more of a memorabilia thing, you know, like this bat came from this game or this glove or ball or whatever, this jersey. But in cards, it's really never been a thing. It's always just been about the card itself. Like if you think of all the most popular cards of all time, you can't even name what game it's from necessarily. And so in this new world of tops taking over, I think there is too much of a push on like, oh, I think collectors care about the moments and meeting the athletes and all this kind of stuff, and really I think they're over-indexing for that because they're that they think that's what the collectors want, but it's more about just the cards. That's my take.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Yeah. Well, let me just like reach for a I'm sorry, let me reach for like a crazy metaphor here that maybe can help. Because I've I always sort of like want to explain this divide. I think maybe this metaphor would help. So, Francis Scott Key, I think, was the author of The Star Spangled Banner.

SPEAKER_02 18:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

And you can analyze that work from two different points of view. You can say, Man, that is a beautiful melody, amazing lyrics, great song. Or you could say, What a historical moment. He wrote this song while in the midst of battle, as bombs were exploding overhead. And so I think the sports card collector is the person who says, What a beautiful song. This song is amazing. And I think the memorabilia collector is the person who says, How oh, what a significant piece of paper that he wrote the song on because he was sitting on a battlefield watching bombs explode overhead. The sports card collector wants to collect an item that is stunning, independent necessarily of any tie to history, and the relic collector is overwhelmingly concerned with what anchor that item has to a historic moment. Anyone want to comment on that?

SPEAKER_02 19:13

I just think that people were complaining a lot, and maybe they went too far with the pendulum, but the pendulum, like they listened to people's complaints of they wanted game worn, not game used. Thank you, Brendan. And they wanted like to know where the card came from or where the patch came from. This is a huge thing that people have been taught, or not a huge thing, but this is I've heard complaints about people, like, yeah, but when was this jersey worn? Like, what game was this worn? Like, so they actually went and they were like, Okay, we hear you here, we're solving for this. Like, this is when it was worn, and now we're complaining. I just, I, I just like I I can't get into the complaints tonight. Like, like, oh no, they listened to us, like that's literally what it sounds like.

SPEAKER_04 20:05

Oh no, they listened to us.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

Yeah, like that's the can you stiff? Where are you at? That's the title.

SPEAKER_04 20:12

That's so good.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

Oh no, they listened to us, dude.

SPEAKER_04 20:15

I'm about to buy a Francis Scott Key RPA.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

All right, let's move on. Uh Christina, stiff might not be near his keyboard right now. Could you type your title into thank you so much? All right. Let's go to the next here. PSA 9 says uh card prices keep hitting record highs. Have you adjusted your mental model for card prices?

SPEAKER_02 20:45

There you go.

SPEAKER_04 20:47

My mental model updates every day when I look at the card letter dashboard.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Yeah, this is actually deceptively a giant question. This is like explain your thought process for how you utilize, interpret, and work from real-time prices as they change over long-term and near-term trajectories, which is a giant question. You know, but or the question could just be like, are you are you willing to pay more now because stuff is more expensive at this moment?

SPEAKER_04 21:23

I took this as like a haha, prices are going up. You guys should make an LLM model about that.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:36

Uh prices are going so far up, it reminds me of our first uh April Fool's Day when Josh made a to the moon button for a collection feature.

SPEAKER_04 21:48

I need to bring that back. What did it do? It just like added a million dollars.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

No, it just like doubled, like it just made the graph double like for your collection. And then if you hit it like a million times, it just kept doubling.

SPEAKER_04 22:00

Can I just put that button on there now? Do we have to wait for April?

SPEAKER_02 22:04

No, it's already on there.

SPEAKER_04 22:06

Dude, I'll put that on there right now.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

People get so confused. Like adjusting your mental model for card prices, like it it uh the one of the things that that I think is adjustment worthy is being able to sort of say, all right, even though I really enjoyed these other cards, they don't make sense at the price. And my dollar goes a lot further, and I can find exciting other new things to collect in the price range that I'm comfortable in. That's sort of one way that my mental model updates. All right. JD9 Cards says, I'm interested to hear your thoughts on the Victor Wembanyama five million dollar sale. I believe technically it was 5.1. So I think Christina was really excited. Nope, nope, that was Josh actually, who can't wait to weigh in on this one.

SPEAKER_04 23:05

I am just ready to hate on Wemby. I'm gonna hate watching these finals just to watch his card prices be unjustified. He has 1,650 sales over $10,000. He's like in the MJ LeBron range already. He's like blown past pricing wise Jokic, Shea, like all the Luca, all the like top guys price-wise, he's blown past Mahomes. He's just he's literally like butting up against Michael Jordan right now. I'm not kidding. His his gold kaboom on Premiere right now is like double the price, not double. Let me check it. It was at like 400,000 after BP. And the MJ precious metal is at like 330. So it's like way past the MJ stuff. His gold kaboom is past like LeBron's Bowman Gold Rookie PSA 10. It's just this stuff is nuts. And he it's it's baked in that he's gonna win like five championships and six MVPs, and he has neither.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

Is that it?

SPEAKER_04 24:13

That's it.

unknown 24:14

That's it.

SPEAKER_04 24:14

He's fried. His presents are fried. He's cooked.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

You two you put to your story an hour ago a screenshot of Wemby's 2025 Topps Chrome Gold Refractor Auto out of 50 PSA 10, which sold for 192,000 with Fanatics Premier on May 22nd. By the way, his index is up since then. So the card letter value is actually 217,000. And your caption was this purchase looking pretty good now with two flexing arms.

SPEAKER_04 24:55

Then he missed the game winning shot. Cooked.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Yeah. Yeah. Uh I don't know. I'm reaching for my own Wemby rants, but it's mostly apathy. I was I was never moved in the first place. I do think he's a spectacle. I think he's terrific to watch. And I think they have a great team. I think they're a terrible matchup for the Knicks. And uh this might even get ugly. It already is ugly.

SPEAKER_04 25:30

But uh you know how people say, oh, like Hakeem and Shaq and Jokic, their prices are lower because they're centers and they're like big and stuff. So does that not apply to Wemby or something? Because he's even bigger, right? So how does that work?

SPEAKER_01 25:46

Yeah. Yeah, I never bought into that because the center position has the most players with seven-figure cards. So I never bought that, but you certainly hear that a lot.

SPEAKER_04 26:00

I think people are just like really looking for someone to grab onto out of one of these rookie classes, and he's the guy, you know, he's the alien, and the the media is just hyping him up. They're like saying they were talking about on a podcast today, like how he has the belt for the best player in the world or something. Like, what is this crap? Uh it's what is going on? He's literally like he's like the fourth best player in the NBA right now. He has the belt, right?

SPEAKER_02 26:25

I have a rant about this.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

Yes, please.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

Hoje also has a rant about this, but I will not say it as eloquently as he articulates. But I won't. I know I'm not able to. But all this is is the media and the NBA circus trying to prop up yet another player because they don't want Jokic or Luca to be the face of the NBA. In one season, this will crash and burn, just like the other people they've propped up in the last six years. And like we'll all just move on to the next person that they try and throw up as, oh, this is actually the best player, like in the league, so that they don't have to look at Jokic or Doncic and say, Yeah, these guys are fucking statistical freaks who are out here every night just being the best players in the world. I can give concrete examples if you'd like. Embiid, Edwards, after Edwards, it was Tatum, and then it was Shay. And then now we have Wemby. So five. We have five players that have crashed and burned in in the fight to not have Luca as the face of the league. And yes, I am biased. I am a Jokic and a Doncic collector, so take everything I say with a grain of salt, and I don't even watch these finals because I have no interest.

SPEAKER_04 28:05

It's more the Jokic thing.

SPEAKER_02 28:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:07

Uh, because he has the MVPs, he has the finals MVP. Like he has all the things that Wemby would want, but he really he already has it. Like I was hearing them talk about I think it was Simmons. They were talking about like all the face of the league garbage, and it was like, oh yeah, MJ, magic, bird, then then it went to whoever, and then LeBron, and then now it's finally passed over as like you just completely whiffed on the six years it's been with Jokic. I just don't I don't understand it. Like it they basically like it forgot he existed because he got out in the first round one year, dude. Wemby, the only reason he's in this position is because he's so terrible the last couple years and he doesn't play that they've gotten these top picks. And now all of a sudden they're like loaded with top picks and they have a stacked team. So yeah, it's like now he's in the finals great.

SPEAKER_02 28:57

Yeah, the same thing could be said about OKC last year.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Yeah, this is this is a great topic. This is a great hobby topic, too. Um, because there's uh there's there's a lot of like hobby sentiment in the short term that's downstream from podcasts and TV. And I think there's never been an era where it's more incumbent upon the collector to fact check and to come up to their own independent conclusions and not just go off of what Michael Wilbon is raving about.

SPEAKER_04 29:34

The thing that sucks, dude, is like he Wemby is fun to watch. He's great. He's like a he's a young player, he's 22, he's already top five by all statistical measures. We should be enjoying this, but we can't because it's like he's being shoved in our faces. The best player in the league, he's got the belt, he's five million dollar sales. Now it's like we have to zag against this, it's just too much. You just like they did this to and like Christina Rattle Moff. They did this, they forced it onto us, and it's like this guy's the best. And then a year later, I've pointed this out to you guys before. Like Rosillo and Bill used to always like rattle through these guys that are amazing, and then they just the next year they just completely trash them and leave them out to the dust. And they're doing it to Shay right now. They're like, Oh, he's this flopper, we're done with him, we've moved on to Wemby. They did it with John Moran, if you remember, he's gonna be the next face. Nope, too, he's too not good enough, you know, he's uh too reckless. We uh we saw this coming, and they're gonna do it to Wemby in two years when he like gets injured or whatever. Oh, he's too frail, he's too tall, or whatever. They're just gonna do the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 30:33

Yeah, they're gonna be like, Of course, we knew this was the problem.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

He had that blood call in his shoulder, like right, and Josh, we're not even giving you the opportunity for one of your most glorious original victory laps. The guy who actually predated everybody we've talked about who was served up. Trey Young.

SPEAKER_04 30:53

Yeah, the Morant Young one was too quick. It was like that was gone so fast.

SPEAKER_02 30:59

It almost like with young, like it almost feels like you're bullying now, like you're punching down, like yeah, bring it up.

SPEAKER_04 31:08

Exactly. Yeah, the John Morant and Zion Trey era is so far away.

SPEAKER_01 31:12

Well, to tie back in the NTRPA 99 question, I saw Zion had an NTRPA at a 99 sell for around 14,000 in a BGS9 recently, and I saw Trey Young in a BGS9 sold for four or five thousand recently, like both of these sales in the last week.

SPEAKER_02 31:31

So who the fuck is spending that kind of money on either of those players?

SPEAKER_01 31:38

Somebody spent 200,000 on Zion's Logoman autograph from NT about a month ago. The card that once had a 500k bounty when his hype was at its peak, and like I don't know if uh a player's momentum can swing much further than Zion's did.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

This is why. Oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 32:02

No, go ahead. Uh mine's a longer okay.

SPEAKER_02 32:04

I was just gonna mine's quick. This is why I always say money is useless, like, because people do this with it. Go ahead, Josh.

SPEAKER_04 32:15

I you don't have to do this. Please don't actually. But I'm just looking at sales history, Wemby, 10k or more, and just scrolling through the cards, and it's just like you gotta be kidding me. There's like pop 40 cards, pop 31 PSA 10 cards selling for 15 grand. It's it this is like it's just not sustainable, dude. There's like bowmen you cards selling for 70 grand. This is crazy. A bow man you gold refractor PSA 10 out of 50. He's literally wearing this stupid like G League jersey, and the card sold for $68,000.

SPEAKER_01 32:51

Yeah, I think you had the exact right take, Josh, which is that he's a top five player, should be awesome for a long time, could make another leap, is on a good team. There's lots of things to be optimistic about, but it's a like Brendan Ryan quoted you, it's a forced zag when we have to uh exist in a media environment where like you know, he's the greatest prospect ever, and then he's gonna, you know, Kareem, the he's gonna make Kareem look like a chump, you know. And Kareem has the most MVPs in NBA history with six.

SPEAKER_04 33:30

It's crazy. Just saying it out loud. The the part that really pisses me off. I'll sorry to cut you off, but like when people have this like really, really short memory of what's happened in the NBA, and it's like Victor Wemanyama took his first go-ahead game-winning jump shot attempt in the finals of his entire career tonight. You and I can just rattle off like 10 of these huge plays from MJ LeBron, all these guys. Kareem has six MVPs. These guys have so many of these moments stacked up over decades, and this guy's literally here one time, first shot brick, and it's like this guy's cards are selling for five million dollars. That's literally his first even attempt to get into these big stages.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

Nailed it. And and as I think about this more, about the mechanism more, it's like this it's just this like avalanche or uh cascading hype bubbles. So, like a lot of these guys uh had really, really hyped up the thunder. This is a dynasty, Sam Presti is a genius, SGA has the best player in the world belt, nobody can beat these guys. They won one championship in which they did not beat a team with over 50 wins, and they went seven games against two teams with 50 wins. They came back the next year, had another great regular season, and then they lost to the Spurs. And so all the dynasty talk, all the SGA MVP votes, all of the this guy's the next Michael Jordan, what if he wins back-to-back MVPs and finals MVPs? He'll be the first guy since Jordan to do that, the only guard to go along with Jordan to do that. Of course, none of these things had even happened yet. We were, you know, uh we were um we were uh profiteering off of content, speculating on things that hadn't even occurred. Like we didn't even earn the right to have these conversations, we were just speculating on what if. And then when it didn't happen, all of a sudden, like all that energy and the shame and sort of the embarrassment of like overhyping one thing, which was the thunder, just got transferred over into overhyping the thing that beat them, which was the Spurs and Wempe.

SPEAKER_04 35:46

Yeah, it's true.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

And now that bubble, that hype not the bubble of Wemby. Wemby is a terrific player, and the Spurs are a terrific team, and they're just up against the one team I think that's a terrible matchup for them. And the Knicks were a bad matchup for the Nuggets, too. I I had no faith that the Nuggets could beat the Knicks. The irony is that the Lakers kicked the Knicks butt this year. I think the Lakers could beat this Knicks, so it's just it's all matchups. But uh, you know, so so now and now there's gonna be this, now there has to be this some the Wemby energy has to go somewhere now. Like it's just premature coronations every year. You know, I've been having this rant since uh Edwards.

SPEAKER_04 36:30

So I was thinking about when Wemby was lining up for that last shot. I was thinking about that Luca game against the Wolves. I think it was game two when he just freaking put Gobert in the cross sauce and sent him into orbit and made that game-winning three. It's like Wemby has nothing like that. Luca has it, and now we're just like leaving Luca for dead because he's not in this playoffs, and we're just like Wemby's the goat. I just it just drives me nuts. We have these moments already. We have these players, we have these accolades, they already exist. Just go look at their cards.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

Right. Okay, well, what about the price? What about the $5.1 million dollar price? Let me give some uh perspective that I thought of on this price. About uh two or three years ago, when the market was, I don't know, price-wise, probably quite literally half what it is right now, and volume-wise, half what it is right now, there was a live bounty for Lucas 2018 prison black of two million bucks between two big spenders who were sort of like were publicly discussing that. So 5.1 million. Granted, this didn't happen in a in a public auction. This this uh yeah, I think usually in the private setting, an overwhelmingly strong offer has to come down to pry a card out of a private collection. Auction is different once it's been relinquished to auction. Now the seller says, you know, I'm seeding control and I'm just serving this up to the market. But this had to be taking place in a private context. But if like if Luca, who was sort of the hot topic of then, who was overhyped himself, uh was a $2 million bounty for his prison black, and then Wemby having a more limited rookie year offering than Luca because he doesn't have any on-card autographs that are NBA licensed, I think the five million price is pretty commensurate with the increases in the market since then, with sort of the special nature of Wemby's uh rookie offering when you consider you know Lucas the the two million bounty for the Luca Prison Black as being the right the vantage point.

SPEAKER_04 38:47

Yeah, I don't even have that big of an issue with the five million dollar sale.

SPEAKER_02 38:52

I just have an issue with the player that you're spending five million on because he has no accolades yet, like he's made a finals appearance, like he doesn't, right?

SPEAKER_01 39:04

It's very it's very much speculative, like you know, Judge also had a sale in excess of five million this year. Judge is a three-time MVP, and then I don't need to redo the Otani bit, but Otani is like coasting to a fifth MVP right now. So, all right, let me get to the next question here. Jam collectible says plea okay, we just like beat this up. He said he said please discuss how Wemby is already the GOAT and the Gen Z delusion of America.

SPEAKER_04 39:38

I want to know what that last part means.

SPEAKER_01 39:42

The Gen Z delusion. I don't I don't think it's Gen Z pushing this.

SPEAKER_04 39:47

Right. That's that's what I mean. Like this is being pushed on us by the boomer and Gen X media.

SPEAKER_01 39:55

Right.

SPEAKER_04 39:56

I think just saying Gen Z is having to slop it up.

SPEAKER_02 40:05

Gen Z's not shoveling with their lane now.

SPEAKER_01 40:09

Dude, let Gen Z breathe, man. They got they're they're on here trying to rent an apartment.

SPEAKER_04 40:14

Dude, Gen Z is keeping their head trying to keep their head above water, and they gotta get Kendrick Perkins telling them who the goat is. Give me a break. Let's come on. Dude, I I unironically was watching uh the Nick Wright one, I forget the name of the show, but they were talking about who's the best player in the world or whatever, and they were like, is it Brunson or is it Wemby? And Al Harrington was on the show, and he was like, guys, this is crazy. It's clearly Jokic and Luca, and they were like, What? I was like, wow, look at this. Al Harrington, holding it down.

SPEAKER_02 40:48

Al Harrington, news just in Al Harrington got deleted from ESPN's lineup.

SPEAKER_01 40:55

Al blackout on any Al Harrington appearances. He'll never show up again.

SPEAKER_02 41:00

That's yeah, you'll never see his face again. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_04 41:04

I was like, I was doing something else and I heard, I was like, what?

unknown 41:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:08

We've come like all the way to the point where the X players are now the voice of Reese. I know that's what I was thinking. Like Nick Wright and these guys are like, oh, I think it's definitely Brunson. Oh man. That was crazy, dude.

SPEAKER_01 41:21

Just region.

unknown 41:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:23

They're like, he doesn't average enough points in the regular season, though, but he's so clutch. Ugh.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

Oh, I saw so there's a fun Twitter account called the Lucaverse because Michael Wilbon was giving a take like today or yesterday where he said uh he said that Brunson is at least as valuable as Luca uh for making the finals and now being up 2-0. And Lucaverse quoted it and he said, Well, if he's at least as valuable as Luca, then why on your awards ballot for this season did you have Luca on the first team and Brunson on the second team?

SPEAKER_04 42:05

That's so good.

SPEAKER_01 42:07

It's so good.

SPEAKER_02 42:09

The Lucaverse, shout out to them, they're like my second favorite Twitter account. Shout out the Lucaverse.

SPEAKER_04 42:15

Like that's just like that's a death blow. That's just there's no getting you can't survive that.

SPEAKER_01 42:22

It's so good, it's just so good. All right. Uh let's get to this next one here. Oh, from Cardiac Kemba PC. Put us back on a positive track. He says, keep it simple. What are you enjoying about the hobby lately? I guess you don't have to take this positive. You could be enjoying the collapse of everything.

SPEAKER_02 42:44

Um, can I go first?

SPEAKER_03 42:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:48

Pivots. Like all these people, I've been seeing it, like people complaining a lot lately about prices and being priced out and how horrible the hobby is right now. And I'm just like, can you stop? Like, there's always something to collect. You just might have to pivot. Like, yeah, exactly. Like, you just might have to, okay, like your favorite player, the best cards of your favorite player are out of your price point. Okay. Like his worst cards are still out there. Like, and if you want to go collect his teammate, like his best cards are out there, and you could pivot into him, or like I did, because I did exactly that when I got priced out of Luca's game last cycle. I then moved on to his bench role player, like friend, started collecting him, putting together a super collection of that. Okay. Now I'm not really interested in that because the kid doesn't play much for the Lakers. So, what am I doing? I pivoted into hockey and I'm picking up a hockey goalie where I'm buying one of one rookie cards for like $200. Really nice upper deck designs that I Just like I'm obsessed with. So it's just like, can we stop? Like, are we not adults with like free will? Like, can we just stop making like the woe is me bullshit complaints about everything? Like, I'm just I'm kind of sick of it.

SPEAKER_01 44:17

I'm just gonna copy and paste yours for my answer.

SPEAKER_03 44:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 44:23

I like that a lot. The pivot. The pivot. Don't lift your pivot foot though, or that's a travel.

SPEAKER_02 44:32

Oh. Depends who you are.

SPEAKER_01 44:36

Josh, do you want to add anything to this one? I did not. Let her let her cook. Just let her have that one. She can have that one.

SPEAKER_02 44:42

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

Don't get used to having them though.

SPEAKER_02 44:45

I won't. You guys have laughed at like a title suggestion or like made a title suggestion after what I said. My head is like, I should just shut up for the rest of the episode and just like take this as a win.

SPEAKER_01 44:55

But somehow you won't. All right. This Josh made sure that we got to this question.

SPEAKER_04 45:04

So because he he's he's growing. He gave you an actual example. This is great.

SPEAKER_01 45:08

You have to appreciate that. Drake is of course very underrated.

SPEAKER_04 45:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:13

And misunderstood. Right. He had a nice appearance this week on Stagging Slabs.

SPEAKER_04 45:18

He called me out for that because he I asked him, like, where'd you get the card? And he's like, you didn't listen to my newest episode. And I was like, whoops.

SPEAKER_01 45:26

How dare you not listen to that immediately? Little does he know you run 29 miles a day, so you need podcasts on backlogs.

SPEAKER_04 45:37

Yeah, he's got a he's he's actually right. I should have I have plenty of time.

SPEAKER_01 45:43

All right, let's go. Drake's PC. Much has been made lately about the plastic tax of paying up for grades and whether it's worth it or not. For your personal collections, when do you all think the plastic tax is worth paying? And when do you choose to get lower graded copies instead? Chris always asks, or Chris always wants me to give a specific example, so here you go. I have the Peyton Manning 1999 Metal Universe Lynchpins PSA 10 Pop 1. I love the uniqueness of having a 27-year-old, awesome-looking insert in the only PSA 10. But I also wonder if I'd be just as happy having an 8 or 9 and an extra six grand in my pocket. But I also question if I'd still want any copy of the card once it loses the uniqueness of being a non-1 of one in the only PSA 10 holder. Josh.

SPEAKER_04 46:42

Great example. He laid it out perfectly. He's got the PSA 10 pop one versus something else. The only thing I'll nitpick is like he doesn't need to sell this now and keep, you know, like, or he doesn't have to sell this and go buy the 8 and then keep the money in his pocket. I think knowing him, he's gonna, if he were to sell it, he would put that towards something more rare. And he doesn't actually care about having a PSA 8 version of this card. It's not rare enough, it's not gonna excite him. So I would say like wait until there's something else on the horizon that you maybe need the cash, or maybe it's a trade, or maybe it's a auction to help pay for the new thing, or maybe just keep it and move it forward. But I have a feeling he'll eventually get bored of this card.

SPEAKER_01 47:31

Yeah. Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 47:34

I just I've been in the situation previously where my pop one, PSA 10, becomes a pop two. So I would just caution like that's not a real one of one, that's a pop one, and there's nothing stopping it from becoming a pop two if someone has a copy that they grade.

SPEAKER_01 47:54

So yeah, yeah, bacon that other PSA 10 risk.

SPEAKER_02 48:04

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:06

It seems like uh there are different ways, and they sort of evolved over time, of uh creating rarity. One of them is conditioned rarity, like pre-grading, still having the best conditioned copy of something, the one that looked the best. And then there was the in-person autograph, which like getting the card autographed made it belong to the much smaller subset of autographed versions of that card, thereby creating rarity. Then grading came along, and having a card in the highest available condition, especially if it's a very low population in that condition, and especially if it's from the most premium grading brand, that creates rarity. And then you get to the card companies actually making the cards themselves extremely rare by serial numbering them and andor having limited print rounds, so it's all different ways to sort of get to the same point of having something quite exclusive. And uh other than that, I just um so his question here is uh for your personal collections, would you pay the plastic tax? Would you pay up to have a low pop PSA 10?

SPEAKER_02 49:25

So, Christina, would you at this point in my collecting journey?

SPEAKER_01 49:30

No, right, John.

SPEAKER_02 49:32

I wouldn't collect this card at all.

SPEAKER_04 49:35

No, probably not, but I can see why someone where they are in their collecting world, I can see them wanting to do it. I pulled up the profile of this card. It is a total population across the four grading companies of 84, and it's the only that PSA 10 is the only gem across all four.

SPEAKER_01 49:53

Nice. Yeah, it's a spec, it's a it's a cool card. That's uh and if if the difference from an eight or a nine to a ten is six grand, sounds like that's a nineties football insert that's uh got a healthy price tag on it.

SPEAKER_04 50:10

The nine is about a thousand bucks, and the ten sold for seven grand. That's what he's referring to.

SPEAKER_01 50:15

Yeah. Okay, got it.

SPEAKER_02 50:20

I would probably downgrade if I was him.

SPEAKER_01 50:23

Yeah, I mean it's interesting, right? It's like, do you like the card or do you like the card only because of its elusiveness and high condition or high grade? Right.

SPEAKER_02 50:36

Right. Jinxed.

SPEAKER_01 50:38

Yeah, but I but I I certainly get the appeal of like having the a rare or one of the rarest versions of a card, whether that's through the grade or through an in-person autograph or through a serial number, or just through a really low print run. All right, uh, KB24 cards. I think we're gonna see more of this if we're not already seeing a lot of it. He asks, why does everyone think that their one of one card is worth a million bucks? Or how do you negotiate with someone for their one of one if they think it's worth a million bucks? I think he literally means that, knowing the category of cards that he plays in.

SPEAKER_04 51:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:27

Like he's quite literally coming up against people who are like, oh, give a million bucks for this card.

SPEAKER_04 51:35

I know how you are. You will be paying a million bucks, sir.

SPEAKER_01 51:40

Is there any answer to this? Like, this this does seem to be like a final stage problem. The the the final boss of one of one collecting is sort of when people are like, oh, actually, maybe I will keep this one of one and uh see what I can get for it rather than like dump my one of ones to you so I can go pick up a PMG red out of 135.

SPEAKER_04 52:08

I honestly, dude, I can't believe people haven't done this to you yet. You've gotten away with it for like a year now. And I finally saw uh someone post a story of like, oh, look, I got MJ 101s and I'm following Chris. What a genius! And it's like finally, someone is like figuring it out. He's been sneaking around for like a year doing this.

SPEAKER_02 52:28

Yeah, but the thing is, he wasn't sneaking, he literally was telling people like on his podcast, this is what I'm doing. This is what I'm thinking about.

SPEAKER_01 52:37

I know, like I know that gave it a very friendly feeling, like, oh, well, if he's telling us what he's doing.

SPEAKER_02 52:45

Well, I think, yeah, people were like it can't be that good. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 52:50

Blabbing about it.

SPEAKER_02 52:51

Yeah, like if he was actually a genius, he'd be doing this privately. So I'm not gonna follow him.

SPEAKER_01 52:58

There is something to that, I think. There is definitely something to that. Like, if you if you're talking about something, it feels very common and obvious, like, oh well.

SPEAKER_04 53:09

Yeah. Well, I just but I do get this feeling that this question is semi-related to that, and that people are starting to slowly figure it out or catch up, like, hey, it's a one-on-one, so I control the I control it, and I can control the price, and I can say it's a million dollars because there's only one of them, you know.

SPEAKER_01 53:29

Yeah, but you know, so so then so then the the game shifts back to the collector to say, like, I'm not gonna pay that, of course.

SPEAKER_02 53:39

Yeah, but like also like the second thing.

SPEAKER_01 53:42

Because remember, these guys who have them, like they don't want to keep them, they're valuing it at a million dollars just to see if they can get that out of you, right?

SPEAKER_02 53:50

Yeah. Well, he says, like, how do you negotiate with someone for their one-on-one if they think it's worth a million dollars? And the thing, like, you go back to same player, similar card, similar player, same card, is how I usually try to negotiate with people when they're being sticks in the mud and there's not a real comp to go around.

SPEAKER_01 54:15

Yeah, a question I'd pose about one of ones too is like I think one of ones are really exciting because they still have flown under the radar, especially in certain in certain eras, like 90s and even 2000s, at least for some of the sets. But like when they do start getting priced higher, are they as appealing anymore? I think that's a question worth asking. Because maybe they're not, and then maybe you pivot again and you find a different pivot.

SPEAKER_02 54:45

So I wonder uh read- I had this funny thought that like the ultimate pivot, like the end collection game is like set collecting.

SPEAKER_01 54:54

Back to the 86 Fleer set.

SPEAKER_02 54:56

No, like building a set out is like the the like end result, and then everyone just feels like they're kids again, and it's just like this is literally where we started building out master sets.

SPEAKER_04 55:08

Like yeah, I had someone all the way back around. Yeah, I had someone message me, and they had like the whole rainbow of 2014 Devontae Adams Prism, and I have the black, and they're like, Hey, just messaging to see if you can help me finish the rainbow. And it was like this total awkward, like, well, no, you're missing the big one, bud. I don't think this is gonna work out.

SPEAKER_02 55:30

That's the thing, too. Like, yeah, you should give up. You can't put together, you can't say you're putting together the rainbow until you have the one of ones.

SPEAKER_04 55:40

Yeah, it was just like, well, he's like, So is it for sale? I was like, Nope.

SPEAKER_01 55:49

Okay, I wanted to read this post from Contrarian Cards because I think it's kind of like on this topic a little bit. I just thought it was very clever. He he wrote this make sure that you are the one benefiting from your best ideas. Actualize your ideas before you share your ideas. If you stumble into a segment of cards or type of card that you feel is undervalued, do not share it with the internet. A couple things could happen. One, if you happen to be quote unquote right, and these cards were underappreciated for whatever reason, you may be creating unnecessary competition for yourself. But here's the part that I really like. He says, and if you happen to be wrong and the cards are just cheap because nobody likes them and never will, you might end up second-guessing yourself and doubting your own taste. And there really is no reason for that. You saw the value on your own, and if you like them, then you should like them. So share once you have done all the damage you'd like to do first, and then let the likes fall where they may. I really like that second part where he's like, the reason why you should keep a lid on something that you found that you like is because you other people might not like it, and it could be a blow to your confidence if they don't like it. So just keep it to yourself, and that, and then you don't ever like risk like creating that crippling self-doubt that comes from sort of having one of your ideas rejected by the group.

SPEAKER_04 57:25

You were showing me those collector's edge cards, and I was like, This is the upper deck, and you were like, No, it's different. I was like, Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_01 57:34

Dude, literally, like that's his point is like, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're even like slightly like if it if it's gonna hurt you, like if you strike out into this lane and like other people don't like it, you know, you're gonna these collectors edges are crazy. Let me show you something. But like I saw one of these in person for the first time out of a slab, and uh and I and I saw I like I took it out and I want to like smell it and look at it, and like I don't know if you'll be able to see this. Christina, could you put me?

SPEAKER_02 58:10

Yep, I'll do it.

SPEAKER_01 58:12

These cards are actually two pieces of cardboard stuck together.

SPEAKER_02 58:20

You can't really tell.

SPEAKER_01 58:22

I can tell. I can see it.

SPEAKER_02 58:23

Oh, you can tell.

SPEAKER_01 58:24

Rather than one. It's like a front.

SPEAKER_02 58:27

I saw it like when you angled it a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 58:30

Yeah. Okay, so so like when I was looking at these, I was like, oh dude, like is this splitting? Like, I was like, oh, is this when I when it first showed up in my hand, I was like, oh crap, is this two cards stuck together? Oh, and it wasn't. It's just it's just that's how these were made. Um, it was certainly it was uh, you know, I don't know, like I don't know anything about producing cardboard in the 90s, but I was like, oh this is this is like maybe a little bit lower rent.

SPEAKER_04 59:09

Right. Those guys didn't stick around very long.

SPEAKER_01 59:13

Yeah, no, they did not, and so that's kind of like the third zag. The third zag is like, or you find something that you like and you talk about it and you just like know that nobody's gonna like it, and that's the whole point. That's the whole point, is to like have a thing that you do like and you know that nobody else likes, and you're fine with that, and you're you still want to do your collecting thing.

SPEAKER_02 59:38

Yeah, I sit in that bucket.

SPEAKER_01 59:40

Totally. I think a lot of I think most people sit in that bucket.

SPEAKER_02 59:45

Like, we're not in eighth grade anymore. I don't care what you think about me. Or what I like.

SPEAKER_01 59:56

Yeah, uh, so we're coming up on an hour here. Do we have some time? Look at Cage. Cage chimes in with uh Edge was actually ahead of its time. They did a ton of acetate and see through stuff the nice before anyone else did. I still have some collectors, Edge Bledsoe cards. I like them too. So especially because like that Corey Dillon, like Corey Dillon was a was a cool running back, had a decent career. That was that card was like uh it was it wasn't very much, it was maybe like 150 bucks or something like that. So, whatever. Okay, so do we want to get to a few more here?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:28

Pick your faves.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:31

All right. Uh so let's just like do I'll just do the next three and then we'll be done and we'll do them quickly. Two choo sports card says if you broke down your entire collection, which five athletes have you spent the most money on? And if you had to start over and spend all that money again, would you change anything? Take the take or leave it. Because even if we don't want to answer something that the listener at home can think about for themselves.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:59

I don't know. I'm not a fan of like I would have done this and just bought all MJ and got rich and bought a mansion. You know, it's like, I don't know. What would I have done differently? I'd have a I don't I would want to have the collection I have now, so I wouldn't change it. But you know, LeBron, MJ, insert football players.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:19

Yeah, it's like to answer this question properly is a big retrospective on like well, you know, maybe I was a little bit caught up in the hype of this particular player at this time, and there were other players who were undervalued at that time relative to that player, and like it's that's a big question.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:34

I should have bought like a billion of those Pikachu Umbreons, you know, then I'd be then I'd be living on a yacht.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:40

Well, like my my like collecting regrets are never what I bought, but what I didn't buy. Like I still remember like a certain card, I won't name it, a certain card that was offered to me when I did not have the money to buy it. And like I think like I should have like borrowed money from someone, or like I should, like, I should have figured out a way to make that money so that I could have bought it when it did, when it was offered instead of it then going to auction a few months later for four X the price.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:20

Totally. Okay, next question from Ryan Bitter. It's actually a two-parter. He says, We all experience FOMO, but I find this especially difficult when chasing one of ones for obvious reasons. Can you talk about how you mitigate or navigate your fear of missing out while chasing one of ones? Which kind of dovetails nice with what Christina was just describing. And then the other question was putting aside who you collect already, would you rather have a one-of-one of a mid-tier player from a top-tier set or a one of one from a top-tier player from a lower tier set? Assume that the prices are equal. So take either of those if you'd like.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:05

Yeah, this is like us taking on players we don't like in this scenario. Yeah, I would not want that. I'd much rather have a set I don't like.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:14

Yeah, I agree. What about the other FOMA? Oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:19

The the lower tiered set is subjective and the player is objective.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:26

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:28

Yeah, that's the big point, I think. That's the big, big point right there.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:33

And what's lower tier today might not be lower tier in 20 years.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:37

Like, yeah, and like you find yourself in absolutely the perfect sweet spot if you find a set of your player that's considered lower tier that you think is awesome. All right. Uh less last one here from Cage. Cage says, talk to me about playing years cards. It's an easy thing when a player plays for one team and then they stop playing. But what about when they switch teams? So here's an example, Messi. He was playing for PSG in 2022-23, but Topps made some cards that year with him in his Barcelona jersey. Barcelona. He was still clearly playing, but do you consider those playing days cards? Or asked another way. Tom Brady was still playing in 2022 for the Tampa Bay Bucks, but there is a kaboom card for him that season in his Patriots uniform. Do you consider that a playing days card or not? And thank you for the great content.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:37

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:40

He's trying to like gotcha us here. I know what he's doing. And I thought about this. And this is another example of a thing where I rank out factors that want make me want to buy or not buy a card. You know, and it's like the player, then the rarity, then the set, then is it playing days? Is it not? And this is like way down the list of like, oh, is it playing days, but is it on the wrong jersey? You know, these are questions you have to ask yourself. How what are you willing to take on and add to your collection? And the Brady Bucks one is weird. You know, they're it's just a random thing. I don't know anything about soccer, but that sounds strange to me. I would not take these in as playing days cards because it's not like correct. It's an error, it's like a weird decision the manufacturer made.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:30

Yeah, I'll go a different way with it. I'll say this is a category error. The question isn't are they playing days or not? Because playing days is a term that is that I would for my practical usage, it's simply describing whether or not they were an active player when in the season in which these cards were distributed and released and associated with. So if Brady was playing in 2021. It happened to be on the Bucks. All the cards that come out from 2022 by technical definition are playing years. Because all playing years means is was he playing? However, there's a different question here, which is are the cards contemporaneously documenting his season in his career, or are they commemorative? That's the uh category that this that the dispute belongs to. And so if you have a Brady card and a Patriots uniform from 2022, especially it being an insert set, because insert sets, unlike base sets, uh all have a commemorative flavor already. They're sort of not trying to document a season, they're what ties them together, sort of an artistic theme. That uh that now that card starts to take on a very commemorative flavor. So I think the the question is are it's not are they playing days or not, but are they commemorative or not? And then I think you can have answers both ways. Like uh LeBron's 2018 Prism is an example that jumps out to me where he's in a Cavs uniform, even though he was on the Lakers that season. But I don't think that has a commemorative flavor. They just didn't have an updated picture of him to use, and so they put in little text on the card, traded to the Lakers, and then they use a Cavs uniform. Uh, and that was that. And and that card is documenting him as a player as his season progresses. It's a contemporaneous card. Whereas uh if you had like a set from 2018 that showed LeBron in you know Miami Heat uniform, and the theme of the set is like finals MVPs, and it shows LeBron in a Miami Heat uniform, even though that's a plain day's card, it has a commemorative flavor. It's not documenting what's what's currently going on in his career, it's documenting something about his legacy, something that he accomplished. So that's how I would attack that.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:06

I also want to point out that some of the leagues until very recently were very strict with editing photos and jerseys. I know from talking with friends who work for manufacturers that it was very recently that Panini was allowed to, like the last couple years, Panini was allowed to photo edit jerseys to match the teams players were currently playing on instead of having to do a photo shoot or put photos of their previous jerseys like team in the set.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:45

Awesome. All right.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:47

Well, we didn't get to a ton of great questions, but that's not read black hat cards.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:51

Yeah, yeah, I saw that one too.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:53

Black hates him, he's a good friend of ours.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:56

Have you ever had a hobby friend send you a card listing because they thought the card would be a great addition to your PC? And the card turned out to be something you had recently traded or sold. And if so, would you please describe how you felt? I've totally had when I did my McCaffrey sell-off to consolidate into a shield, I sold like, I don't know, 50 or 60 McCaffrey's or something like that. I don't remember exactly. And they do surface and resurface from time to time, and people send them to me because they know I like these McCaffrey cards, this type of McCaffrey card, and like I'm just like, yeah, that used to be mine. And then they're like, why don't you have it anymore? You know, sometimes they follow up with that. I was like, because I consolidated into the shield, and like I didn't want to have too many McCaffrey cards, but there are some cards from that consolidation that I just I've learned so much more about collecting since then, and I really wish I hadn't gotten rid of some of this.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:47

There's a sense of like the person who sends it to you. I've sent you the same McCaffrey select like four times myself.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:54

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:56

Uh it's a sense of like, uh, excuse me, I just spent time out of my day to send you this. Why are you not buying this and jumping out of your chair in excitement? You should be. I I should I have given you this opportunity and you're just turning it away.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:09

Dude, I've never figured out how to navigate the awkwardness of me sending to somebody else a card that I think they're interested in without wanting to put the pressure on them to be like, now impress me by buying it immediately.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:24

I showed you an example where I sent someone a card and I can't believe they didn't buy it yet. It's still on eBay. I'm like, I'll just buy it and give it to you, pal. What the heck?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:33

Yeah, it's tough. It's weird. There is a weird dynamic that isn't spoken about, which is like the weird pressure when like somebody sell sends you something or you send something to somebody, and then it's like they don't buy it, and it's like I I don't, I literally don't care. All I want to do is just pass along a piece of information very neutrally.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:54

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:55

But it's there is still an awkwardness.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:58

I think you should message them back and be like, that card is trash. I can't believe you're sending me this absolute garbage right now. Please never message me again.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:09

I'll try that on the next one. Don't do that.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:13

Shout out to Mrs. Black Hat.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:16

All right. Yeah, we really did not get some great ones here, but they're there's some really in-depth ones.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:21

Look at Andy. He's on his rant again. Look at that.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:24

Yeah, he's ranting against uh patch cards, particularly Logo Man and Shields, because he thinks that there might be a bit of a distraction from enjoying the card's aesthetic when so much of its surface is dedicated to basically showing a corporate logo. Ooh, cooked. Look at this zinger. At some point, did the hobby stop celebrating card design and start celebrating corporate logos?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:46

Corporate that's good. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:49

I can't, I can't even argue with that.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:50

Damn. He's sent me like edits of patch cards with like the area where the patch exists, just like blank. And he's like, if if you're not if the patch is excluded, what how many of these cards actually have nice designs?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:06

None of them. You know how people are like none of them.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:10

The shield, you know, then the NFL Shield, you gotta represent or you gotta respect it. It's like, you mean the company who like sells advertising space for you know men's razors? Yeah, I'm so excited about that.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:24

Drugs, alcohol, I was trying to be nice. Those are their three. That's all the Super Bowl was this year. It was drugs, alcohol, and gambling, and the occasional horror film.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:37

Yeah, oh, dude, give me five minutes and I'll do a whole dude. Christmas tree shapes, drawings, and horror movies during sporting events with family. I could go off on those two forever.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:50

Let me, I want to give a really quick answer to this one.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:52

I think you should be able to. This is what uh never mind. I was gonna go off on it. No, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:58

No, no, let's bring this home. This is from Plain Years. I just wanted to address this really quickly. He said, Thanks to you guys only collect one of ones, he's gonna be setting up at a show, but he's having a hard time figuring out how to price them.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:10

Oh, also the Columbus Card Fest, which if you are in the Midwest and you have no plans at the end of June, you guys should think about going.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:20

Yeah. Oh, and then he has an example. He goes, When I was recently upcharged by PSA when one of my one-of-ones gemmed, they cited other PSA 10 one of ones of the same player justification for the upcharge. What is your favorite method of value? One of ones, okay. So I want to quote Brent from uh Deep Value Investor because he gave a line on a podcast this week that I thought was succinct. He said, because people ask this, like, how do you value this card? Like, well, you got one on one, so how do you value this? And he's like, and he just goes, There's always a comp. There's always a comp. And I the way that I interpreted that is like, if for example, if you go to card ladder sales history, how many sales are in there right now, Josh? 250 million?

SPEAKER_04 1:14:02

Oh, dude, at least 300 million, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:06

At least probably more. Find the one. If there's not a comp of your exact card, find the one that's the closest. There's a comp. I just I think that that was sage advice. There is a comp. It might not be perfect, but there's a comp. And then guess what? There's gonna be actually multiples, and you're gonna be able to find find the closest thing to your thing. Don't just give up. Oh, well, there's not another. I'm not I'm not saying that Chrissy Buckis is doing this. I'm attacking a straw man here. But don't just be like, well, my exact card and mine's in my exact grade hasn't sold before, so nobody knows what it's worth. No, there's there will be adjacent things, and there's probably some that are quite on point that can be helpful, uh, that can be uh reasonably analogized to. Alright. Or just uh say all your cards are worth a million bucks and see how that works.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:07

Yeah, I was gonna say that's isn't that I thought that was the move.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:10

I thought that was the moral of the episode. Okay, let's wrap this thing up. We've uh uh we're coming up on uh 75 minutes here.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:18

And we weren't even supposed to do this, so that's right.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:21

This is bonus content.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:23

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:24

I had to watch that fourth quarter. I needed this show. Oh, turnover, brick free throw, air ball, brick. It's just good lord.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:34

This car died. Oh no, they listened to us. His prices are fried. Cascading hype bubbles.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:46

That's good.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:47

Forced zag and the third zag. I mean, we can all agree, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:16:02

This is uh this reminded me of the trip that we just took. Oh no, I have to eat more delicious food.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:11

Oh no, it's ice cream time again.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:14

Yeah, this is horrible. Yeah, I would say like cascading hype bubbles is sort of on brand.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:22

That's my favorite one.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:24

But oh no, like dot dot dot. They listen to us with like a scared face emoji. Also good. I think that's good.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:33

We already promised it to her like 20 minutes ago. We do. She was like, I got the title already, and I said something smart.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:43

And we were like, Yeah, yeah, and then she like banked on it. She she baked it. That's why we should take it away.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:52

We should take it away.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:53

That's why we absolutely have to take it away.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:56

You do I know how this works.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:59

You were like Bill Simmons talking about Wemby. You baked it in, you baked in his championship.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:03

I didn't say that you guys gave me the title. Rewind it, please. I said you guys called out a title that I said. So there's like a I didn't say that it was going to be the title.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:17

She was trying to juice it up.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:20

No, I was just trying to be like, oh my gosh, after you guys were razzing on me for a whole fucking week in person, it felt nice that like you guys were giving me props publicly to make everyone assume that's how this works.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:41

I'm fine with either. I'd probably do it. Do it, do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:48

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:49

I think the hype bubble one's better because of the Wimby thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:52

Yeah, you're fine.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:54

And and let me say something nice. Christina laid out like the she like went through the errors of the players that led you to think of the cascad. She actually gave you the idea.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:06

She did. So we're actually crediting this one basically to her, also. Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:11

Okay, now I know something's wrong with you both, so we're not doing crossover next week.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:16

Listen up. I'm voting for oh no, they listen to us. Josh is voting for cascading high bubbles, and Christina, you have to pick, given that you are credited with the genesis of each.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:28

And then whatever she votes, we'll vote against you.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:30

Choose the opposite. Yeah, like I know how this works.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:33

This is just a provisional ballot, by the way. This is like Los Angeles voting. We're gonna count the votes we want.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:39

Oh snap. 24,000 votes in a row. Look at that.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:46

Go on.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:48

I'm gonna say cascading hype bubbles, which is more on brand for us.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:52

Let's go. Plus, also, I came up with that. You didn't have that, you didn't need to.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:57

I know you did. All right. Oh no, they listened to us, is like me mocking our listeners being like, stop fucking complaining, which I said like four times this episode. Let's go with pipe bubbles.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:13

All right. See you guys next year.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:24

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