Episode 239: Timeless Moments – Shill Bay & Market Manipulation

In this Timeless Moments episode, Russell and Adam dig into one of the darker sides of the hobby — market manipulation.

From shill bidding on eBay to inflated comps, they break down how sellers can game the system and what that means for collectors. The discussion covers alleged practices tied to mega-sellers like Probstein, the risks for buyers, and how platforms like eBay and PSA play into protecting (or failing to protect) the community.

The guys also speculate on Probstein’s move to launch his own platform, what this could mean for the auction landscape, and whether the balance of power is shifting between marketplaces.

🎧 Listen now: https://open.spotify.com/show/70w10XxmGviovd5T0LUFFc

Transcript

00:00.00
Adz
so just We're not titling the episode, are we? We're just timeless moment.

00:03.16
Russell Gibson
No, you can say like, you can say Timeless Moments, episode 239.

00:06.35
Adz
Yep. Yep.

00:09.48
Russell Gibson
And what's our title? Market Manipulation?

00:13.18
Adz
Mark it in Shilbe.

00:15.49
Russell Gibson
Shilbet? Shilbet.

00:16.59
Adz
Yeah.

00:17.12
Russell Gibson
shu but

00:17.27
Adz
All right. Yeah, Shilbe. Yeah, that works.

00:24.29
Adz
Welcome, everybody, to episode 239. two hundred and thirty nine of the You Can't Comp This and NBA Trading Card Podcast. We host Adam Amy and Russell Gibson, and we're back with another timeless moment today titled Shilbey.

00:43.09
Russell Gibson
Shilbe, which is a fun one.

00:44.86
Adz
S-H-I-L-L space hyphen bay.

00:50.38
Russell Gibson
I feel like kids these days would just make it one word.

00:53.73
Adz
Yeah, Shilbey.

00:54.49
Russell Gibson
And maybe the A would be like an at symbol and maybe B would be capital B.

00:58.06
Adz
Oh.

01:03.47
Adz
Yeah, probably. Yeah, something like that.

01:06.11
Russell Gibson
Our generation would use a hyphen though, and that would still be pretty cool.

01:08.27
Adz
I ah feel like we we would definitely have it. it' be a hyphen for ours. um Anyway, we could we could we could go on and on about how we would manipulate the yeah the the title and how it was spelt.

01:24.45
Adz
But I think the more important part of this episode is actually talking about the way the market's been manipulated or the hobby market very specifically.

01:32.97
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

01:33.73
Adz
um I thought I'd try and give a segue to, yeah, get into...

01:36.92
Russell Gibson
Yeah. So you chucked something to my DMs this week and i thought it was definitely worth talking about. So why don't we just run through that and then we'll we'll kick it off, eh?

01:46.11
Adz
Yeah, yeah. So I came across a reel. Credit goes out to The Hobby with Cage if you're on Instagram. So credit to him not following.

01:58.18
Adz
Give him a follow. Talking about... um just some stuff that sort of, he's well, his post says, I'm not saying it happens,

02:11.94
Adz
but it happens if that if that's sort of a read between the lines um scenario. And for those at home, I'm actually trying to share the video, but basically what the guy is saying is if I list a card online on eBay and i buy my own auction.

02:34.47
Adz
So I buy a card for $1,000.

02:36.22
Russell Gibson
Yeah. Sure.

02:36.77
Adz
I list it, ah bid, bid, bi bi bid, bid. And I make it, ah like I buy it for $10,000 or $5,000, right?

02:44.37
Russell Gibson
so

02:45.69
Adz
Effectively, yes, I'm paying, i pay myself that $5,000. um But I'm not really out of pocket because I'm just putting the money back in my pocket. So I've still only paid $1,000 for the card.

02:59.25
Adz
So I now have a comp on that card of 5k.

03:03.34
Russell Gibson
You'd pay the fees on the 5K, but whatever that would be.

03:05.60
Adz
of Of course, of course.

03:06.63
Russell Gibson
Yep. Yep.

03:07.53
Adz
But you you would only pay the fees, right? Because then you get the money or after post fees and you would have a a card that you quite literally have um um got a comp.

03:12.88
Russell Gibson
Correct.

03:21.52
Adz
Yeah, 5x. And you can go, you know what? I'm going to go to a trade show and I'm going to sell that at 80% of comps, which happens to be four grand, pocket three, done.

03:32.53
Adz
Now, the post was very much, I'm not saying it happens, but it happens.

03:41.18
Adz
Like, it's possible. like it' Sorry, the actual quote on the IG reel, because I don't want to um put words into his mouth. that It says, I'm not saying it happens. I am saying it's possible.

03:52.50
Russell Gibson
No, fine. I think we can take her from here and we can speak our own words. We don't need to try and put words in other people's mouths.

03:56.37
Adz
Agreed. Agreed.

03:59.19
Russell Gibson
Yeah, 100%, this absolutely could happen. And I would be shocked if it's never happened. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is 100% has happened.

04:08.86
Adz
Yeah.

04:09.66
Russell Gibson
I just wonder if, like being practical about this, if there's a way that people then somehow get around paying those fees or minimizing those fees or maybe even getting some of those fees back just as i like to maximize their return on investment.

04:11.32
Adz
To the extent.

04:24.25
Russell Gibson
I actually feel like that's where the better scammers or the people who've been doing it for longer can sort of find those like

04:24.36
Adz
Yeah.

04:30.89
Russell Gibson
angles into it or for example with emerging markets so for example if you sold it on the PSA vault where there's no fees on that platform does that comp then go into card ladder or 130point.com to you know give you some comp data so that's sort of like a bit of an interesting one for me and then can that actually be manipulated and you know to be brought forward so

04:40.45
Adz
Yeah.

04:52.55
Adz
Yeah, that's, that is true. That is true.

05:01.44
Russell Gibson
My only thing about this is like how much time are people putting into these scams? And and there's also, there's not,

05:10.27
Adz
You know the answer to that, right? Like there there's enough, as long as there's money to be made, people will put a a reactive amount, like ah an equal amount of effort into scamming people.

05:22.11
Russell Gibson
I think you'd have to do it with low pop cards or you'd have to do it with a card that doesn't get sold that often. because

05:27.62
Adz
Yeah, true.

05:27.68
Russell Gibson
so So, for example, the easiest one to work with on this is Trae Young. So we know that there was a group of people from allegedly you know Philippines or Manila or something like this that had heavily invested into Trae Young.

05:38.54
Adz
Yeah, yep.

05:41.12
Russell Gibson
He went upside down. it was the same you know year as Luka Doncic going through COVID.

05:47.03
Adz
And that yeah,

05:48.26
Russell Gibson
you know la la la They lost...

05:51.59
Adz
a lot.

05:51.62
Russell Gibson
heaps of money and they're trying to recoup their money by basically just shilling up every auction that went online. And actually I actually, don't know how they did it. Like the, the number of auctions that they bid onto.

06:04.87
Russell Gibson
And I, and I'd put that into that same thing of like, if you're running a scam for long enough, you actually get really good at it. Maybe they had bots out there literally bidding up every single tray young auction in existence.

06:15.67
Adz
Yeah, and a but but this is this is about big money. This is the thing, right? So when money's involved, of course people are going to try and defraud the system.

06:20.24
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

06:26.18
Russell Gibson
Anyway, look, i think I think the next logical step to go into is talking about people shill bidding up auctions.

06:27.13
Adz
It sucks. It does suck.

06:33.77
Russell Gibson
And so this is a different way that you can manipulate the market. And it's very different to what you're talking about, but I think it's the same you know conversation.

06:42.31
Adz
It's a lot, yeah, it's very similar in in principle anyway. it's It's trying to manipulate the final outcome of ah of an auction.

06:48.23
Russell Gibson
Correct. Yeah. And I think for people at home that aren't aware of what shill bidding is or what we're calling shill bidding, it's when you list an auction and you're bidding on your own auction to make sure that it gets up to the highest point.

07:01.06
Russell Gibson
So for example, the way that you can do it on eBay is you either have a second account or you're using a second account that's using a ah VPN or a bot to make sure that it goes up.

07:11.28
Adz
and Yeah. yeah yeah yeah

07:13.51
Russell Gibson
I think that it was easier to do it previously because you could retract your bids on eBay. You could bid it up until it went past the maximum, retract your bid, put your bid back in at $1 less, and that basically pushed it all the way up to the top.

07:31.71
Adz
yeah

07:31.93
Russell Gibson
eBay have now removed that ability to do that. So i feel like they've absolutely made it harder for people to do that very obvious shill bidding. But

07:43.04
Adz
Of course it does.

07:43.42
Russell Gibson
There's no doubt in my mind that this does go on. In fact, I would say one step further that I know it goes on and I know it so much that I just don't even worry about it anymore.

07:56.06
Russell Gibson
Like I put in my bid for the auction that i I want. I hope that I get it. If I get it, I get it. If I don't, then and just move on to the next one. Do you know what i mean? Like I feel like this causes a lot of upset for people out in the community, but like for me, it's so prevalent now.

08:04.41
Adz
Yeah. Yeah, well, it's, yeah.

08:11.81
Russell Gibson
Like it's just, it's just another part of buying a card. Do you know what i mean? Like it's just, it's just so common now.

08:17.77
Adz
Yeah, that's very true. it's just but It's part and parcel of it, right?

08:20.52
Russell Gibson
Yeah. yeah

08:21.94
Adz
the thing But the thing with um shield bidding, and I guess ah and this is ah just more of an eBay thing that I've noticed, and it's because people would put reserves on auctions.

08:32.75
Russell Gibson
yeah

08:32.87
Adz
It's like, what? But ah parrot is a is it true that because the fee structure with with eBay, you get charged fees based on the prices you put on cards. You go 99 cent auction and started at nothing basically or a dollar.

08:48.10
Adz
then there's no, yeah, it's free listing.

08:48.85
Russell Gibson
That's free to list. Yeah.

08:51.27
Adz
And then you only pay the fees on the final the final value, right?

08:53.12
Russell Gibson
At the end. Yeah. Yeah.

08:55.33
Adz
Versus I'm going to put a $500 reserve on this card and say, that's where the bidding has to start.

09:01.15
Russell Gibson
That costs you more money.

09:01.23
Adz
They'll charge you for that.

09:02.33
Russell Gibson
Correct.

09:02.55
Adz
Yeah.

09:03.15
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

09:03.18
Adz
So what they do is they they start the bidding it at 99 cents and then magically it gets up to that reserve price.

09:11.26
Russell Gibson
And that's an interesting, like now you've brought that up, that's interesting thought because it's also very transparent when you haven't bid up to the reserve. So eBay will actually tell you that.

09:22.24
Russell Gibson
So maybe what they should do in a way to combat this is make it free to have a reserve listing.

09:22.41
Adz
yeah

09:28.92
Russell Gibson
I don't think that removes shill bidding altogether, but I think that's something that, yeah.

09:31.95
Adz
But it takes it takes the the the temptation to shill away. Because this is the minimum I want for that card.

09:35.52
Russell Gibson
So then you don't have to shill it up to $500. five hundred dollars Yeah.

09:38.84
Adz
And if you don't, yeah.

09:40.36
Russell Gibson
And then there's like the transparency there.

09:40.47
Adz
Yep.

09:42.62
Russell Gibson
At this point too, like the amount of money that eBay's making, I mean, they're definitely not going to,

09:47.15
Adz
automat they're They're automatically making as well. Like it's so much of their their platform is automated these days now.

09:53.12
Russell Gibson
Yeah, yeah. But like, you know what I'm saying?

09:54.79
Adz
I make it, yep.

09:55.23
Russell Gibson
Like, it wouldn't hurt them to, you know, make a small change and maybe even give something back for free. Like, you know, is that the best thing for them to give back? Like, who knows? Is that the argument?

10:03.84
Adz
Yeah. Add a dollar onto the to the um final, what is it? The final auction.

10:09.73
Russell Gibson
They're making enough money. They don't need to make up the money somewhere else.

10:12.39
Adz
But that if they want to make it up, they can make it up elsewhere rather than charging a fee for ah for a reserve.

10:12.62
Russell Gibson
Oh, God.

10:15.11
Russell Gibson
um Definitely.

10:17.19
Adz
Yep.

10:17.65
Russell Gibson
Yeah. So I think now is then the perfect time to talk about Probstein, which is one of basically the biggest eBay sellers ever of all time. And there has been allegations over time that the reason why Probstim was so good is because they were very, allegedly, very good at maximizing the returns on investments for everybody that sent their cards into them.

10:37.11
Adz
Yes.

10:42.78
Russell Gibson
So one way that allegedly this occurred is that Probstein was using um employees, employ employing people to put bids on cards.

10:56.08
Russell Gibson
So like the way I would just imagine it because of the bulk that they would be doing is that just there will be someone sitting there all day just, you know, just putting in shill bids, you know, on this stuff.

11:04.36
Adz
Yeah.

11:06.22
Russell Gibson
And they would have accounts set up and they would have, you know, their VPNs and all this type of stuff. Like it's a super interesting concept for me in that, It wouldn't just be like, you know, one person sitting there.

11:17.12
Russell Gibson
would have to be multiple people, you know, using different computers and like the whole thing.

11:18.95
Adz
Oh, it'd be, yeah. It's a network.

11:21.83
Russell Gibson
So anyway, ah look so I think we've touched on that, those allegations. Really interesting though, there's heaps of stuff on forums about this, but I couldn't find anything in terms of like a class action.

11:34.85
Russell Gibson
and And my sort of memory was that there was a class action going on against them.

11:34.95
Adz
yeah There's a lot of tiptoeing around the facts, right?

11:38.99
Russell Gibson
and And look, Propstein himself has actually addressed this over time about... shilling and he never 100% denied it.

11:50.00
Russell Gibson
he or He did say that, you know, that's right, you know, that he would never break the rules and and all that type of stuff.

11:54.72
Adz
Yeah.

11:57.50
Russell Gibson
But it was an interesting way that he sort of replied to that.

12:02.62
Russell Gibson
Now is also the perfect time to mention that he is leaving eBay and creating his own platform platform.

12:07.62
Adz
Yeah.

12:11.77
Russell Gibson
his own auction platform, which is called...

12:15.52
Adz
Yeah.

12:18.18
Adz
Chill.

12:18.95
Russell Gibson
Shilbey, correct.

12:20.60
Adz
Chill Bay. Well, is it snipe? Is that what he called it?

12:24.80
Russell Gibson
He's calling it Snipe, yeah.

12:24.85
Adz
Is it? He's calling it snipe. We could call it chill Bay.

12:26.88
Russell Gibson
Yep. Yep.

12:28.75
Adz
Yeah.

12:31.13
Russell Gibson
And it's spelt S-N-Y-P-E for all the cool people at home.

12:33.94
Adz
Yeah. Do you know if yeah if yeah if it was if it was the Shield Bay model, you could you you get to open five accounts as part of your thing-o?

12:43.00
Russell Gibson
ah That's so good.

12:45.60
Adz
yeah

12:49.54
Adz
You can bid on your own stuff.

12:51.12
Russell Gibson
That's so good. Like it's automatically just built into the platform.

12:53.61
Adz
It's built into the platform so you can do your Shield bidding.

12:56.54
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

12:57.22
Adz
Yeah. All your Shield bid needs in one place.

13:01.38
Russell Gibson
All right. So let's just, let's just really quickly break this down. Cause there's a few things for us to talk about here. So obviously eBay is losing ah huge percentage of Propstein business.

13:09.03
Adz
oh

13:11.52
Russell Gibson
They're moving off to their own platform.

13:13.71
Adz
Yep.

13:14.75
Russell Gibson
um As he exited from eBay, he's actually said something really interesting that he said moving forward, he still thinks there might be some opportunity to do some cross-platform work with eBay.

13:27.25
Russell Gibson
And I have to admit Like it actually, it's really hard for me to believe that every single card will be maximum return on a platform away from eBay.

13:30.73
Adz
Hmm.

13:38.49
Russell Gibson
Like I think the reason why eBay is so good is because you can list anything on there and you can list low end and the fees are adjusted on a percentage.

13:44.86
Adz
You can list everything, yeah.

13:46.88
Russell Gibson
you know what I mean? Like, it and it makes sense with with the number of people that use eBay. Like, I don't think it's a home run for him to move away. I mean, where I see it will be really good for him is like on the mid to high end stuff where he doesn't need to pay eBay, you know, the huge percentages that you do pay.

13:55.56
Adz
Yeah.

14:04.92
Russell Gibson
Like you'd get all of that back.

14:04.97
Adz
Yeah. Extra phase.

14:06.12
Russell Gibson
Like that makes sense to me.

14:06.88
Adz
Yeah.

14:07.77
Russell Gibson
Like a hundred percent it does. Really interesting.

14:10.47
Adz
Yeah, that's great.

14:11.55
Russell Gibson
What the thought that came back to me though is when PWCC announced that they were leaving eBay, eBay effectively cut them off.

14:18.10
Adz
Yeah.

14:21.20
Russell Gibson
And eBay's reasoning for that is because they were basically breaking eBay rules at the time, which which was an interesting timing of when PWCC announces they're leaving and then eBay immediately kicks them off.

14:21.93
Adz
Ooh.

14:27.85
Adz
It was, yeah.

14:36.71
Russell Gibson
So there was a bit of like word around that at the time that it really set them back because then they had no income at all for a period of time.

14:40.43
Adz
Reaction.

14:44.84
Russell Gibson
Like they were just completely removed from eBay. There was no bridging process. It was just you're off.

14:49.86
Adz
um No.

14:51.01
Russell Gibson
The auction house wasn't set up ready to go, so then they were sort of stuck in the middle there.

14:55.26
Adz
Yeah. But that could be it. But that's their, they've kind of started the fight. But, yeah.

15:01.76
Russell Gibson
Yeah. And so, you know, would eBay do this to Probstein?

15:10.57
Adz
I don't think so. um But it depends it depends what the relationship's like.

15:22.10
Adz
That would be my view. Like, I think it really depends what the relationship is like. Because if eBay are like, you know what, we we might we might need to utilize their services down the track or we want to encourage them to sell and chill on our site.

15:37.49
Russell Gibson
Well, so that's that's actually why I think he deliberately said, oh, we still think there might be some work for eBay in the future.

15:44.39
Adz
Publicly.

15:44.96
Russell Gibson
Yeah, because I suspect he's very much aware of what happened to PWCC.

15:46.03
Adz
Publicly.

15:51.01
Adz
and doesn't want his account closed.

15:52.38
Russell Gibson
Yeah, I think there's eBay could very easily shut down Probstein if they wanted to and just say, look, we know you've been shill bidding or we we have enough information of allegations against you for shill bidding.

16:04.16
Russell Gibson
you know Enough's enough.

16:04.56
Adz
Yeah.

16:05.74
Russell Gibson
you know We can't have this you know going on and they can turn it into like a PR ah compliment for themselves. Like, look how we're protecting the community from you know people like Probstein.

16:10.85
Adz
can spin it. Yeah. Yeah.

16:14.61
Russell Gibson
you know So I think there's that part, but I just think there's too much money there. I really find that hard to believe that eBay would like turn their back on that.

16:21.21
Adz
mmm

16:24.71
Russell Gibson
And so that's, I think the answer is no.

16:28.03
Adz
yep

16:28.52
Russell Gibson
If they do do it though, there's kind of the part of that Schadenfreude part of me that's like, that's kind of awesome that that happened. like So yeah. All right, moving on. My next question or my next thought bubble for you is that,

16:41.98
Russell Gibson
How does this negatively impact consumers? So for example, there was a class action taken out against PWCC, PSA, and also Probstein for selling trimmed or and or altered cards.

16:54.39
Adz
Yep.

16:59.64
Russell Gibson
So...

16:59.84
Adz
Yep.

17:00.98
Russell Gibson
and And this actually makes me think a little bit as to maybe another reason as to why Propstein is leaving because PSA have spent a lot of time and a lot of effort into actually improving the customer service for people.

17:15.24
Russell Gibson
So where I'm going with that is like they've got their authentication process in.

17:17.34
Adz
Yep.

17:20.53
Russell Gibson
Yes, there's still problems with people getting scammed on eBay. I'm not saying that it's a 100% home run rate, but...

17:24.73
Adz
and It's, it's not airtight, but it's improving.

17:25.88
Russell Gibson
hard run right but They're making it much better for for buyers.

17:31.46
Adz
Yep.

17:31.61
Russell Gibson
They're also trying to protect sellers at the same time too, but ultimately they're protecting buyers more than probably sellers, in my opinion.

17:35.12
Adz
Both. Yep. Yep. Mm-hmm.

17:39.24
Russell Gibson
And so if Probstein is moving away from that platform, you then take away all of those guardrails from essentially an independent party. Like if you think about it, they eBay is very powerful.

17:49.40
Adz
Yeah.

17:51.38
Russell Gibson
they They wield a lot of power in terms of

17:54.34
Adz
A lot, indeed, yeah.

17:55.22
Russell Gibson
penalizing sellers. Like that time that that guy rang me up on the phone and yelled obscenities at me, he was off eBay in the next two days. They took all his listings down.

18:04.55
Adz
Wow.

18:05.83
Russell Gibson
I'm not too sure if you remember that that episode, but that was something that happened.

18:05.90
Adz
Wow. Yeah, yeah,

18:08.99
Russell Gibson
And then, you know, we talk about PWCC, the you know, what they can do to them and...

18:13.64
Adz
Hmm.

18:14.47
Russell Gibson
Like you've had instances where you've been refunded money. Like it took you time to get your money back from your Kobe.

18:19.38
Adz
You had to work hard for it. Yeah,

18:21.51
Russell Gibson
But at the same time, like I'm not saying I agree with what happened to you, but I also, i don't, I don't have a problem them making people jump through hoops either.

18:26.33
Adz
nine No, no, no. The process.

18:31.09
Russell Gibson
Because you just have all these, you know, scammers just getting money back off eBay and off sellers. Right. Like it, there has to be.

18:37.56
Adz
the scammers but The scammers go to, there are two ways that goes, right? You've also got the people that the will send a card, like buy a card and the scam is they'll get the legit card but then take a photo of a not legit card and go, you sent me the wrong card and send it back for a refund.

18:41.38
Russell Gibson
Yeah. yeah

18:52.96
Russell Gibson
Yeah, 100%.

18:55.08
Adz
Yep.

18:56.17
Russell Gibson
100%. So, you know, what I'm putting to you now is i think this would go two ways. i think Propstain could be leaving so then there's less guardrails for him.

19:04.17
Adz
Mm-mm.

19:05.04
Russell Gibson
but is that bit up But is that better or worse for consumers?

19:05.14
Adz
It's probably, yeah.

19:08.45
Russell Gibson
Like, what do you think about that?

19:10.03
Adz
Well, that that's going to be, that's a, I don't know if people are going to jump ship and go to his trading platform. Sure, people might try it out, but I feel like, but there's but there's also a risk

19:18.47
Russell Gibson
There has to be a bunch of loyal people to Probstein, but yeah. But are buyers loyal to eBay or to Probstein, right? Yeah.

19:25.89
Adz
Yeah, yeah, true. And this is – but we enjoy eBay because of the protections that eBay afford us, because of it because the the protection that PayPal affords us, because of – and everyone complains about the fees, but the fees are there to protect you, right?

19:32.15
Russell Gibson
It's so convenient too.

19:39.31
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

19:41.72
Adz
Like, they have to pay the bill somehow. So we pay all these ridiculous fees, but when things go, like, pear-shaped – then we're protected.

19:53.06
Adz
What happens if Propstein opens ah this new trading platform and it's literally just organiz it's just chaos?

19:53.14
Russell Gibson
I think

20:00.20
Adz
There's no guarantees. There's scammers that go-go. Like, surely you're going to have to have some level of security and um just a way to protect your your ah your buyers.

20:14.79
Russell Gibson
yeah i think I don't think it's going to be organized chaos. i think he runs I think he runs a pretty tight ship in terms of, you know, getting that number of listings up.

20:19.88
Adz
You're wild, West.

20:26.02
Russell Gibson
Like, you can't do that with, you know, the complaints.

20:27.33
Adz
Sure, sure. But I'm saying if you, if you have the platform and you, you don't pay attention to the security on that platform, and then you've got a bunch of people getting potentially get ripped off.

20:35.15
Russell Gibson
Sure.

20:39.83
Russell Gibson
Yeah, yeah. I think...

20:40.43
Adz
So you, yeah. I, and I also think in the early days, he will have his eyes focused on that because if you're not protecting your new customers

20:52.01
Russell Gibson
That's right. yeah I think also too, that would go both ways. If you start selling absolute nonsense on there, well then why would people going to buy off there, you know, want to sell off there?

20:57.61
Adz
No one's going to go there yet.

21:01.08
Russell Gibson
I don't think, like for me, that's not a massive, what is really going through my head is like, there was a in my mind, there's been a lot of change in auction houses the last 12 months.

21:13.54
Russell Gibson
We've had Fanatics come in. We've had PSA come in with their vaults. Also their partnership with eBay. And then we've been talking about the power packs the last couple of weeks.

21:24.61
Adz
We have, we've also but we've also seen other platforms.

21:25.51
Russell Gibson
I...

21:27.33
Adz
And our we've got, well, ah Whatnot's the big one where it's it's quick.

21:28.67
Russell Gibson
Goldens...

21:33.42
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

21:33.65
Adz
They're not long-term auctions. People are like 30-second auctions.

21:35.52
Russell Gibson
Yep.

21:37.27
Adz
Bang, bang, bid, bid, bid, live. We're going live and we're going to auction a bunch of stuff. It's going to go for a minute. And if you don't, if you miss out on it, you're not getting it.

21:47.30
Russell Gibson
Yeah, I think that's true, but I think Whatnot is slightly different to it like a traditional auction house that you know fanatics auctioneers and gold.

21:58.48
Russell Gibson
I think that's very different to Goldens, but I kind of get where where you're going with that.

22:01.79
Adz
but there's But there's a new, it's the it's when we went from Twitter to Instagram to TikTok, like social media evolved.

22:02.81
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

22:08.09
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

22:11.28
Adz
So there are different platforms. They're like, let's try auctions in a different way.

22:15.06
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

22:15.50
Adz
and And there are different, people consume stuff in different ways. And that short form video auctioning is a thing now.

22:22.60
Russell Gibson
So let's go back to last week's episode and we really quickly went through the top five platforms. So eBay, 300 million.

22:28.27
Adz
Yep. Yep.

22:29.65
Russell Gibson
Fanatics at 37 million. Heritage at 33. Golden's at 14. And Ria at 13.

22:35.87
Adz
oh

22:36.48
Russell Gibson
So where does Probstein fit into that? Somewhere between, I personally think four or five. i couldn't imagine he's going to get up to Heritage

22:46.31
Adz
No, not, not in a, not in short period of time, it but God, in 10 years time, it might be eBay at one, whatnot at two. Probstein at three.

22:59.28
Russell Gibson
I mean, Fanatics is already out to at two, at 37 million.

23:01.79
Adz
yeah Yeah. Okay. So fanatics.

23:02.63
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

23:03.35
Adz
Yeah. Okay. So but do you know what I mean? Like it,

23:05.56
Russell Gibson
Yeah, yeah.

23:06.32
Adz
Like the the the landscape might shift. And then, but then there's different types of manipulation. The market changes again. don't know.

23:17.10
Russell Gibson
Interesting little one. All right. What else have we got here?

23:21.00
Adz
I think we're, we've almost,

23:25.75
Russell Gibson
So, yeah, I think the last one is this article here by Liz Morton, do trading card mega sellers need eBay more than eBay needs them?

23:25.79
Adz
almost covered it off. I guess the,

23:34.86
Russell Gibson
i think that's a really good question, to be honest with you, like,

23:39.46
Russell Gibson
And probably the answer is Probstein having his own platform and also selling on eBay at the same time.

23:42.91
Adz
Probably.

23:46.83
Russell Gibson
I find it really difficult to believe that you can't have one and the other. Keeping in mind that then the PSA vault is linked to eBay. Like there is a lot of benefits of selling through eBay at the moment.

23:57.25
Adz
Great.

23:59.14
Russell Gibson
You know, you can direct sub your cards to PSA now through eBay.

24:02.68
Adz
Yeah. Yeah, it's it's nuts. It's

24:07.81
Adz
It's actually, I don't know. I do think there's a ah level of um symbiotic ah relationship between the the big the big sellers.

24:18.40
Russell Gibson
That's the biggest word we've used on our podcast for a very long time.

24:21.70
Adz
it I just thought I'd throw it in there. ah Only in a timeless moment. Wouldn't use it in a um ah standard episode.

24:27.11
Russell Gibson
No.

24:28.40
Adz
But it is.

24:28.79
Russell Gibson
Is that because you've been watching like the, some Star Wars movies or something like that?

24:32.16
Adz
No.

24:35.39
Adz
No, but ah so I haven't watched.

24:36.00
Russell Gibson
No.

24:37.43
Adz
Actually, could watch Star Wars. Yeah. Yeah. But it is. They're very...

24:45.54
Adz
It directly impacts... Like eBay needs to have these reputable, we'll call them, big sellers.

24:53.73
Russell Gibson
Yeah, definitely.

24:55.06
Adz
Right? And and it's it it it is. If everyone's just doing their bit for a garage sale... then that's what eBay will look like. Of course you need the big organized businesses that are the there to sort of make the machine turn.

25:11.70
Adz
So I feel like they need each other. That's my thought on it.

25:15.01
Russell Gibson
Your final thought.

25:17.40
Adz
But um I think integrity is a big the big one. And people's, at the end of the day, the the messaging I like is about awareness to to the card collecting community and to understand that shilling and stuff like this and manipulation of the market happens, how it happens and how how to avoid it.

25:35.28
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

25:38.12
Adz
It's a real way to avoid it, unfortunately. Yeah.

25:41.48
Russell Gibson
I think probably my final thought about this is I'm just struggling a little bit to see where Probstein fits in because like in my mind, and obviously

25:49.54
Adz
o

25:54.41
Russell Gibson
This is also my view on the world a little bit. I'm quite conservative when it comes to stuff like this. Like, if you're the, okay, let's just call him the biggest seller on eBay.

25:58.62
Adz
yeah

26:02.27
Russell Gibson
Like, why would you change that? What's your, like, how much more money are you going to be making, like, going off by yourself?

26:08.67
Adz
Well, maybe you negotiat tried to negotiate with eBay and said, hey, I make enough money for you where we're negotiating my cut.

26:08.89
Russell Gibson
And so,

26:14.70
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

26:15.95
Adz
And eBay of like, we're too big, we don't care. he goes, well, i'll ah we'll see about that. I'll move my business elsewhere.

26:20.88
Russell Gibson
Sure. So then when you go down that path, then my next question is like, where do you fit into the rest of it? So, and that's where I'm a little bit, cause I'm like, like to me, obviously fanatics have got a fantastic platform set up and that makes sense.

26:27.83
Adz
Yeah. Yeah.

26:34.33
Russell Gibson
Heritage and golden. I feel like they've been doing it for such a long time. They've sort of got their own niche.

26:39.13
Adz
They've got a rep. They've got some street cred.

26:39.99
Russell Gibson
Like, worked out.

26:40.93
Adz
Yeah.

26:41.30
Russell Gibson
Like, so it's like, where does Probstein and also what is his niche? Like, I don't think you can just open up and be like, I'm going to do the same thing I've just done for the last 20 years and do it independently.

26:52.01
Russell Gibson
That makes no sense to me like at Yeah.

26:53.34
Adz
Without a gimmick, I don't, or without a gimmick, I don't think there is, but it could be, it could be in a whatnot.

26:57.11
Russell Gibson
Yeah.

26:59.37
Adz
I think it could be different. It could be the same gimmicky style video auction, but it might be real time live auctions.

27:08.68
Russell Gibson
Oh, man.

27:08.97
Adz
Five-minute auctions.

27:09.97
Russell Gibson
You just said that really quickly. Like, maybe they have a partnership with whatnot.

27:17.38
Russell Gibson
How great would that be?

27:20.25
Adz
But it's it's finding ways, yeah.

27:20.75
Russell Gibson
All right. That's a perfect way to to finish this off.

27:22.42
Adz
Awesome.

27:23.27
Russell Gibson
I think that's that's perfect. Yeah. Thank you, man. Thank you, everyone, for listening.

27:27.27
Adz
Thanks for that. Yeah, and we'll see you in the next Timeless Moment.

27:35.67
Adz
And we're done.