The Pokémon Price Correction We All Knew Was Coming ft. Jarchomp Collectibles | Ep #44 | Card Lounge - Card Lounge Podcast

Navigating Card Shows and Vendor Strategies for Success Hey, what's up everyone? Welcome back to the Card Lounge podcast. It's your boy, Robo. Speaker 2 And twice baked Jake. Speaker 1 And we are here with our first ever Card Lounge recurring guest ever. Speaker 3 Hey guys, Jar Chomp collectibles here. Jake, happy to be here. Thanks for the invite. Speaker 1 Yeah, of course, man. Dude. So it's been a couple months since you've been back in the Card Lounge studio and we've got Front row Card show this weekend. Yep. Speaker 3 We're in town for Front row Vegas. Speaker 1 Yep, Yep. And so we were kind of talking about this a little bit, you know, behind the cameras off the pod, there is just a card show, almost like a major card show happening every weekend, but specifically this weekend. And I know you're aware there's this happening in Vegas. There's Dallas card show happening at the same time as Fort Worth Collecticon, I think. So those are not even 30 minutes separated. Speaker 2 From I think there's going to be some people that might, you know, double dip and go to both of them, which is something you and I have done before too, where there's enough card shows that you can drive 10 minute and go to another card show happening in the same weekend, which is kind of. Speaker 1 Weird I I think there's a double dip one in Socal 2 I can't remember the exact names. And then also in Canada, Toronto card show is taking some people's attention and some people are just hitting that up and it's all happening this weekend. Speaker 2 OK. So George on just a quick first question. How do you decide which show to go to? How do you decide which one do you want to bend at? Speaker 3 I have experience with some of some specific show organizers. I've been going to front row card shows for over a year now and so I know the organizers and the way they do business and so I trust them quite a bit. And then the Collecticons, I've, I've been to quite a few of those. And so for me, it really comes down to trust. And then if I have a good experience at a card show or their circuit, then I'll be willing to try that same location or, or maybe a different location on their circuit again. But for the most part, for other people, when we're talking to maybe those that are in the comments section right now or the viewers, I would just say start with what's most convenient for you. You know, like if you're a beginner, you're going to want to start with something that's going to be low expense, right? Because if you don't know that you're like, really good at vending and you're going to have a perfect experience, at least make it not very expensive so that your risk is kind of low. But yeah, that's kind of how I got started. Speaker 1 Oh yeah, that makes sense. And I feel like it's, it's especially like it would be counterintuitive for someone to try to travel to a show that they've heard is good, but good for maybe other people are, you know, good for Jar Chomp or they're kind of like, oh, I think I could do that same thing, but maybe without the right experience or personally, you know, even just being in a separate table section can make or break the difference at a show where you may be at a section that's a little bit more centered because you've been, you've been going to the show for X amount of times. And so, you know, usually guys, when when you're signing up for a show or to, you know, re sign up for the next one, if you want to stay at that same table, they kind of just have you re sign up at the end of the show. New people coming in though you're you're not going to know where you're. You're going to get a random table somewhere around the. Speaker 3 Room and hopefully you get off the wait list because all of these shows are competitive. But, and I don't mean to get so philosophical so fast, but. Speaker 1 Go for it. Speaker 3 When it comes down to making decisions and if you're building a a business, any business, whether it's Pokémon or not, getting advice or you know, hearing from other people, hey, this is a good, a good choice for you that can get you so far. The best thing to do though, is to really make a choice and then learn and have your own experience. Because the way that you're going to get good, the way that good things are going to happen for you is as you gain experience and gain confidence. And the only way to really gain confidence is to make a decision, solve some problems and have your own personal experience. And then you know that, OK, this was good, this was bad. I need to change this or I need to keep doing this. And that's what I recommend to people like, hey, how do I get started vending? I'm like, you should just try. Speaker 1 Go vent. Yeah, you should. Speaker 3 Go do it and you know, like maybe learn through observation, maybe go as a patron, ask some questions and learn a few things that way. But learn through experience. Speaker 2 I mean all it takes to then truthfully is you need some cards and some cash and you can start at any level I suppose. Speaker 3 And maybe a smile, but not required. Speaker 1 A smile. That's true. Speaker 2 I will say that's required I I have met some vendors that I might not want to do a deal with them. Speaker 3 If the crowdy ones are hard to talk to. Speaker 1 You there is, yeah, I mean, if you are an off putting vendor, I've I've just let some deals go, dude, I can just go buy this from from somewhere else and then they, you know, have this like disposition or attitude and I go, OK, I'll just take my business elsewhere. Speaker 3 You know, and I don't want to be picking on sports card vendors, but like sometimes, sometimes I'm observing some of the things that other vendors are doing and it happens in any TC Pokémon or whatever, any TCG as well. But like the vendors disposition towards the patrons is like I know more than you, my stuff is cooler than yours so you should just leave me alone. It's like why did you come to the show? You're gonna just kind of be sour to everyone. Like maybe stay home with that attitude and not try to sell things cuz it's not gonna go well. Speaker 1 You wanna make sales and then you're like attitude you're projecting is like, yeah, I know more than you stay away from me and my table. Understanding Market Volatility: Graded vs. Ungraded Cards It's like that's not really inviting, especially to, I would say in this particular time period in the hobby with Pokémon. There's so many newcomers coming into the hobbies there. Speaker 3 Always will be, right? And you guys know this, you've been in the hobby for a long time. But I'm statistically, what's it like? At least every 18 months you get just like a new batch of people or a new set that comes out that really draws a lot of attention. Or a new game like ZA comes out and it brings back a whole bunch of people who maybe played X&Y as kids and oh, Pokémon's a thing still. And I, I want to get back into it, have some nostalgia. Speaker 2 I got a stat for you guys. You guys know the Pokémon TCG Pocket, the app that came out right around November of last year, which was when the the boom really started. The TCG app game. It's made Pokémon over a billion dollars, $1 billion in one year. Speaker 1 I'm proud to say I've not spent a single penny on that game, but I will just for the fix. Just go open up the free packs from time to time just to see what I. Speaker 2 Did I set my limit at 100 bucks and that was my limit and I did not feel the need to spend more but they got 100 bucks which is more than Legend ZA is worth. Speaker 1 Right. I mean if they get that from every person that interacts with it, it's like selling a very expensive hard copy game like that's all they want from everyone is about 160 to 100 bucks. Speaker 3 It's such a brilliant business model, you know, like think like any software company really has this same model. Like there's no physical inventory, there's no like your method of distribution is already in everyone's pockets. It's just brilliance, like these people know what they're doing. Speaker 1 We got to make an app. What's the we need? We need the Jar Chop Robo Jake app, Yeah. Speaker 3 There's an app for that. Speaker 1 Oh, man. All right. We'll think on it. We'll think on it, guys. Speaker 2 Jar, last time you were here, a lot of people were talking about how great your takes were, and I'm just curious. Right now, the market's kind of in a weird space where there's cards that are still climbing, but there's also cards that are dropping. When you go to a show, if you are someone that is one of our viewers and they're going to a show, what do you think they should be on the lookout for in terms of singles graded cards? Like where do you think is the best value right now? Is there something that is better value than other things? Speaker 3 Yeah, yes, in my opinion, and I'm going to harken back to someone that I really respect in the hobby. You guys probably know Catch them all collectibles. Dan, One thing that he said in the live stream a long time ago, and maybe he repeats it, but I heard it back then and it kind of stuck with me. He says that he is short plastic and long cardboard and what he means by that is he has a lot more confidence long term in ungraded desirable singles than graded slabs. And my take, my understanding and kind of what I take away from that is that when we have market swings, the most volatile stuff is going to be those, those graded cards. And, and I think it's just because like the market of people who are buying graded cards, it's just that much more niche than the than the, the collection, the the market of people collecting things generally. Speaker 1 Yes, I get what you mean by that. There is a smaller subset of slab collector. It's like we know everyone in the hobby that collects slabs, but then you forget beyond that there's a sea of people that. Speaker 3 Well, and think about the purpose of grading your card, right? You're, you're grading your card because you have a speculation that it's going to first of all, get a certain grade. And then because it gets that grade, it's going to be worth more. And so it's a, it's a money play. It's a value play. It's a minority of people that grade cards just to protect their card. That's, that's not as common as maybe it used to be. More people are doing it because they want to increase value and make money. But when the market is slowing down or even moving downwards, it's not the, the money people are maybe not as involved, but there's always collectors involved. And in my opinion, in my experience, and even me personally, I might not always be chasing certain graded cards, but I almost always have some sort of binder that I'm trying to work on really a master set or a themed binder because that's like there's always things that you can be adding to it regardless of the markets doing like, oh, these top flight cards are so expensive. But like there's always an illustration rare or a common or uncommon card that you can get that's like less than a buck that you're that you're going to want to add to your collection. Speaker 1 I see. Do you have enough time in your, I guess, personal time that you devote to hunting for cards and adding to your personal collection to even look at like, you know, I'll give you a perfect example. The when I see your stories on IG, I'll be like Dang jar Chomp, just got a sweet slab. Like you're showing off some, you know, like reverse hollow EX dragon 10. That's like probably super low pop or some vintage card. And I'm I'm seeing slabs coming from you. So do you would you say there's more things that you are looking for personally that are raw cards to like fill out? I I mean I don't know if you are a are you a master set like binder collector? Speaker 3 Old so if you look at my insta handle right now, you'll see that my PC is Watsi master sets, vintage master sets. And what I'm working on right now is expedition Aquapolis and sky Ridge in one single binder. It's nearly 1000 cards. And that is what gets me excited to go to go to the shows. Right. And and The funny thing is I've gotten to the point where like I go to the shows and I have kind of a baseline expectation of how business is going to do. But the thing I'm most excited to do when I go home from a show, it's not, you know, oh, there's this amount of money or these new cards that we bought for the inventory. It's how many new E readers do I get to slide into my binder? That's what I'm most excited. Speaker 1 Do you have time to even go around the front dude? Because this is the thing with front row. It's getting so big now. Even when I've not vended it. I will dedicate my whole Saturday and Sunday to walking around and I still don't cover the entire floor. So with how I, I know you get busy at your your table back-to-back, do you even have time to go kind of hunt for cards that you want in your PC? Speaker 3 Usually it's like a a quick pit stop at a certain few tables on my way to the bathroom for my bathroom breakups a day. Speaker 1 Take those like peaks as you're walking. Speaker 3 By any E readers. And then they'll kind of show me what they have. And and then sometimes on Sundays, you know, the day two of the show is a little slower. And you know, a lot of times when I'm traveling and I'm, I fly to a show, I might have bought some sealed stuff on day one that I really don't have room for. And so I'll just try to make a trade or something with another vendor. And while I'm doing that, I'll look around for other cards. But again, like, one of the main reason that I'm in this profession in, in the 1st place is because I'm a collector and I love, love being at card shows. And in a world where like, you know, we, our business is successful enough. I I'm excited to get to the point where I just get to go to card shows and be a patron. Speaker 1 I was gonna, I was gonna say if, if you and me and Jake, like if I, I feel like if someone offered us, hey, you want to go to a, a basketball game this weekend or be outside in the hot sun and go golfing or go to a card show. It's like if we didn't have to run vending tables, I I would just be like, yeah, I'll just go to the card show, 'cause I'd like to just go look around and like. Speaker 3 Yeah, I'm, I'm an active guy, but yeah, I, yeah, you are. I love, I love card shows. I love the energy. I love finding things that I I never get to see. I love learning things about, you know, the, the provenance of cards that I've never heard of before. That's all super fascinating to me. Unraveling the High Population of Iconic Promo Cards I'm a collector. Speaker 1 Danny does good content on that when she does like little deep dives in the old. Speaker 3 School Hall. Speaker 1 Yes, she kind of covers like the the history or the provenance of like where stuff comes from so. Speaker 3 She made a video recently about the ancient Mew card. Oh yeah, variations and that like her spiel on that. Like I've given that same exact spiel to tons of people who come because I right now in my inventory, I have one of those like version one ancient muse that with the corrected, you know, it used to say Nintendo. And now I have one that with the corrected that says Nintendo, but has has this the skinny border. Yep. And it's like, you know, three times more expensive than the US release. And they're like, why is this so expensive? And it's like, well, let me tell you. Speaker 1 It's like refer to Danny. Speaker 2 Popping off, I remember when those were $10 cards readily available. We should have. And I think now they're like $100, yeah. Speaker 1 It is wild. I, I mean, it's also the, I, I want to hear both of your guys takes on this. Like I feel just in the past six months, that card, I I hear the new people getting back in and wanting to collect it, but also through my whole time being back in the hobby. That card seems to be the one card that every six months there's a story somewhere. Some guy finds some in his attic or a family on a Facebook stories. Like we went to the movies and my uncle worked at this AMC theater and he brought out a box and there were just 40,000 ancient muse. And I'm just like, how many more ancient muse in boxes could there be? It seems like it's a higher pop than the burger chew the Van Gogh pika. Like what is the? Speaker 2 I mean, they they printed one out for every seat in a movie movie theater, you know what I mean? So. Speaker 1 For every movie theater in America. And there had to have been even more than that because, you know, there were showtimes every two hours when that movie was down. Speaker 3 At least in the UK too, like that's true like these, there's a bazillion of those cards, but it's going to be the same thing that we learn about the felt at Pikachu. I had a patron come to my table at the card party in Seattle recently and I think he was from the Netherlands, right? Because that's where the the. Speaker 2 Yes, that's where the the museum. Speaker 1 Museum was shout out to the Netherlands. Speaker 3 And yeah, he, he had a whole just like box full of sealed ones. I'm like where you get. Then he's like, he said something like, oh, there's a lot of people that have these and I'm like, wait a second, those are like $50,000 for a whole box of. Speaker 2 Them see, I've talked to you about this, that kind of rings alarm bell because how do you get a box of sealed great felt hat Pikachu? You know, and that is worrying because we don't know how many boxes of that is out there. It's already a pretty high graded population. We, you and I have beat the the great felt hat Pikachu to death in terms of like this pop report. But then we got like the McDonald's Pikachu and it's got a very similar pop report and it's crashing hard. But the great Felt Hat 1 is very similar. Speaker 3 Pop, This card is fascinating and I know that you guys have talked about it quite a bit, but it's fascinating to me. Like the volume at which it's being graded is US unprecedented. Speaker 1 Unprecedented. Speaker 3 Which shows to me that like, and again, this is just my opinion, it's here the tape. It shows to me that there must have been backdoor connections with, you know, a printing facility or a distribution facility that had those before they went to the actual McDonald's locations. Because yes, all of us consumers might have graded A handful or bought like 50 inch and you. Speaker 2 You said the same. Speaker 3 Thing I'm like I'm talking about, you know, individual like submissions of 10,000 copies of it. Absolutely that for sure. Speaker 1 Has and it and it seems unreal because we are all pretty. I mean, we all work in this hobby full time. I still have my, I haven't had the time to submit and I do this full time. So you think a casual guy that just picked up one or two or something locally from a Facebook group, you know, he's probably got it somewhere sitting on his desk up amongst 50 other or 100 other cards he's been trying to grade for the last year. You think that many people could have submitted hundreds of copies each across every city in America? Speaker 3 And the return time, right? The turn around time you say is months long and these cards aren't valuable enough to submit in the higher tier with a quicker turn around time. So I'm thinking like 10 fifteen 30,000 copies get dropped off on like week 1 of it being out. That's that's my take. Speaker 1 Because the number was so high so fast. Speaker 3 It's crazy it's more graded than the base set Charizard. Speaker 1 Like how is that possible that? Speaker 3 Card has had 30 years to get graded and this is beating it by almost double. Speaker 1 And it just came out to what, two months ago and you're just talking PSA report that's not even BGS and CGC? Speaker 2 So is this a card that you are willing to pick up hundreds of copies of chunk? Speaker 1 Median. Speaker 2 Is there a price point that you would pick it up at? Let's say if it drops to $50 and a 10, is that at a point where you say, OK, maybe I'll pick up some? Speaker 3 Well, the card like this. Speaker 2 Yeah. Let's talk about that like volatility of it. Speaker 1 Yeah, where's your mind at it being a experienced Pokémon card vendor? Speaker 3 My mind automatically goes to opportunity cost, right? The the risk of spending that money on that card versus almost any other card. Why would I? Why would I take the risk when I've got quote UN quote easy attendees with buying something like Ghastly from Temporal Forces or Charmander promo from Obsidian Flames box that I know for sure is going to be more steady and you know, less speculative? Speaker 1 Do you have those cards coming up to your booth as frequently as these, though? Are you like really you feel like you just is? Is that coming from just people's binders that they say hey jar chomp, can you like or I'm selling this like take a look at this and pick out what you want. Speaker 3 Yeah, Yeah. You know those those kind of singles in like the 30 to $50 range, Those are the things that most people are using to hopefully like trade into a bigger. Speaker 1 Car. Speaker 3 So that they can reduce their upfront, you know, cost basis and stuff. And and so I, I, I deal on those a lot, quite a bit. Courtyard.io and the Sweet Spot for Ungraded Singles I like that. Speaker 2 Card Lounge. We'll be right back after this brief message from our sponsor, Courtyard. A huge thank you to Courtyard dot IO for sponsoring today's episode of the Card Lounge Podcast. Check them out. You want to open up some cool graded Pokémon cards? Speaker 1 Courtyard is just an app on your phone, guys. You can literally just go to your phone, open up the app, you can choose what type of pack you want to open up. There's cheaper packs for people that are on a smaller budget, and then there's also some insane packs that have some crazy Pokémon grails that you can purchase. And then from a flick of your wrist, you can open up the pack and see a card that you can then leave in the vault. Or you can have Courtyard shipped to you and you can get that actual card in your hands physically in just a couple of days. Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm looking at some of the cards that you can pull on Courtyard right now, and this is just with their $25 pack option. You can pull yourself a Pikachu V full art from Lost Origin. You can pull yourself a Volcanon from XY. This is a Secret rare, and there's a bunch of cool tag team GX alt art you can pull. Dark Charizard, Rob when you say that. These are some awesome poles that you can get from just a $25 pack. Speaker 1 Yes Jake, those actually sound like some amazing hits. I actually like the hits that are in the $100 bag. You can actually get some insane grails including vintage hollow hits as well as modern day alt arts. So guys, if you want to RIP some Pokémon cards and you want to support the card lounge podcast in the process, you can go to courtyard, download the app and use lounge 15 for 15% off your first pack RIP. This is amazing because even if you buy the 1000 dollar pack, you can actually get $150.00 off and out of the $1000 pack. Oh my gosh you got the altar Latios Latios GX tag team. You can even pull the Charizard Poncho Pikachu in a B GS10A. Speaker 2 Huge thanks again to Courtyard dot IO for sponsoring today's episode of the Car Lounge Podcast. Be sure to use Code Lounge 15 for your very first pack. RIP and absolutely check them out today. Speaker 1 So you know what, adding to that then are you saying as a vendor or just anyone out there that likes to wheel and deal with Pokémon that those IRS between 20 to $50? What is it about those that makes those such a good opportunity cosplay for you where you're like, that's my I guess, not necessarily like focus, but you're like this. This is a good sweet spot of the more of these cards I can get, the the better. Speaker 3 I'll repeat something I said on the last podcast. This is a trading card game. And the although there's a lot of talk and a lot of content being made about the money plays that are happening primarily with graded cards, the basis of the community is collecting cards that people like. And the average person more often than not is willing to part with, you know, 30 to $50 on a card that they like because that's a lower risk play because if it goes to 0, it's OK. They like the artwork on it. And if they're out 30 or $50, that's an opportunity cost that they're willing to part with. And so when I think about the marketplace of people who are potentially coming to the booth, it's so it's a much larger amount of people who are kind of in that category than the speculative speculative slab purchase category. That makes sense. Speaker 1 It does. It does make sense. I'm curious then. Do you feel like, OK, so taking this back to, you know, Jake was talking about the burger chew. You're like, I wouldn't, I wouldn't pick that up. I guess this is always this always makes her a popular short segment to the what would be in today's, you know, now, now we're updated what, like 6-7 months later. Jar Chomps 3 top Pokémon card picks for what you kind of look out for right now that you think is either way undervalued, that you're like, oh, I'm getting these at this current market price now or that is fairly, you know, valued, but you still feel like you pick them up all day long because they sell like hotcakes. Speaker 3 In a market like right now where you've got pretty much widespread cooling off on almost every card and every set, it doesn't really make sense to try to pick a couple of winners. I'm much more interested in maybe like a classification of card that's going to be comparatively more safe. So what I am focusing my business on right now is singles, ungraded cards that are Sun and Moon or older. And my take on that right now is because those sets are a little bit less known, but also were a little bit less printed, they're going to be relatively more stable in a down market because they don't transact as frequently as some of the other cards that more people have and more people are trying to sell because unfortunately the average person sells when things are going down. That's just kind of natural hobbyist investor tendency is to buy high and sales are going up, yeah. Speaker 1 That's the human psychology. Speaker 3 Yeah, and people do that. They they know they shouldn't, but they do. Speaker 1 Right, it's the FOMO. Speaker 3 But the probability that you kind of eat your hat on a a vintage single that doesn't transact as often is less because there's just not as much sales data and not as many people have it. For it to kind of see that consistent decline downwards in a downward market. Does that make? Speaker 1 Sense. It does make sense, but then, you know, I know we were starting to get into this a little bit off camera before the pod, but I'm curious your so I have also been focused on buying up cards that I think fit that that schema that you're talking about. And what I've noticed, and I'll just speak personally, is you can then get into a sense of picking up a bunch of these types of cards. You're spending the money, you're buying, you're buying everything. But just as you said, because these transact less, you know, unless you're at a show constantly, you, you do seem to have a, a smaller buyer pool of people coming up to pick those cards. How do you prevent yourself from just holding or ending up with a bunch of bricks where you're like, I know if I hold these over a a long period of time, eventually these will sell, These will make me money. But if they are all just like stored cash and I've got a, you know, pay the bills, what am I doing to really cycle these sort of harder to move cards? Speaker 3 Well, I would just maybe combat with the idea that they're quote UN quote harder to move. I think that vintage singles they don't transact quite as often on maybe online marketplaces, but they transact very freak frequently on what what I mean online marketplace. I mean like places like eBay or TCG player. Maybe the listings there aren't as frequent, but they sell very frequently in person at a show, which I'm at probably 30 * a year. But I also stream and do live streams. And so your question is less about what's the right card and more about what's the right sales channel and how do I create a new sales channel so that I can offload something that I have a lot of? Speaker 1 Are you finding your online sales channels right now or outperforming your in person vending just because especially I know you're, you know, so well well known in the in person vending space. Speaker 3 From a quantity standpoint of transactions, no. But the advantage I think of having that online sales channel in streaming, for example, is that no one can really trade for your cards. If they want your card, they have to pay for it. And depending on your business, type of a vendor, for example, they do a lot of transactions in person that are mostly trades. And just because a trade is in your favor doesn't mean that you actually have money. And sometimes you need money to have a business, you know, to pay your employee or to pay for your cool office space or whatever. Unfortunately, your landlord's not going to accept Charizard. It's an exchange for the lease. Speaker 1 I wish. Speaker 3 And so, yeah, it's great about creating sales channels that bring you different things and it shows, you know, I'm more concerned about how do I grow my inventory. And then on the streaming side, I'm more concerned about how do I sell so that there's at least some cash in the business so that we can pay for expenses. Speaker 2 Is that something that, I mean can you divulge that in terms of the amount of inventory you have, you would say you have way more inventory now than at the start of this year? Is that it's something that you'd like to keep growing just to that you can grow the business, you need more inventory. Speaker 3 Yeah, I think the answer is yes. And I but I think that's probably the same with anybody who has been involved in that time, not just because they've been buy, sell, trade and taking things at a margin and whatever, but because the market has moved up. And so the items that they have had have appreciated, if they haven't, you know, automatically sold all of them, which I do recommend if you are, you know, in this business some percentage and doesn't have to be a perfect science, but some percentage of what you gain in your inventory value, you should take off the table for safety reasons. And it for me personally, I usually do that in the form of sealed product because it's a little bit safer, a little steadier and has a really good chance of being desirable five years from now. Speaker 2 I got it. I got a cool one for you just on that little topic is that I wanted to save something for my kids for their college education or something of that nature, but I couldn't figure out what the store value for that was going to be. Building a College Fund with Evergreen Sealed Pokémon Products And I decided something three months ago. So I currently have a giant tupper plastic bin full of sealed products and there's three products inside of it. It's evolving skies, it's Crown Zenith and it's one 51151 yeah. And it's just seal products with that. And I think it's like 20 grand and that's their that's their college fund. And I love it. Speaker 1 You want to put the the XY best of trainer collection. Speaker 2 No, I mean, it's, it's, it's just really easy to track because it's three sets, three different kind of packs. It's just real straightforward. And those three and those are my 3 winners. Speaker 1 Yeah, those three sets are. Speaker 3 They're they're. Speaker 1 Evergreen like they're not going down 10 years from now. Speaker 3 They're strong and one of the reasons that they're strong, Jake, is because they're always going to be in demand to open. And when something is always in demand to open, then you're going to have way more channels to sell it in the future if you need to. And that's that's critical because one thing that I think that there's a lot of Pokémon investing content out there. And I keep doing air quotes. I, you know, waste my You're good. Speaker 2 That's kind of funny, investing, yeah. Speaker 3 Exactly. Well, yes, but what is maybe not as prevalent is selling my investments channel or selling my selling my when's the right time to cash out and how do I do that? How do I build a sales channel? And I think a lot of people are discovering that right now with the markets dipping a bit. The people that have maybe been buying Pokémon cards all year and have experienced this astronomical growth, like, oh wow, I've got $50,000 in my sealed collection. Well, now the market's a little slower and it's holiday season, I'd like to have some cash out time to sell it all. And it's like, well, they've seen enough, you know, vendor PO VS to be like, OK, well, I can probably get around 80% for my items. And it's like, it's not that simple. Like you might need to know the right people. You might need to, you know, have built some relationships in order to actually get out of the, you know, the items that you have or you have to establish sales channels for yourself. So it's it's not quite as liquid as maybe people think, especially in a down market. Speaker 1 I, I, I wanted to touch on that too. Like I have noticed I've talked to Jake about this too, even like I feel like I do have quite a few sales channels and you know, I do have a following, but even certain sealed items that I've just had forever that I know certainly there would be collectors out there that would want to have like this sealed item in their collection. It's not like I can just make a YouTube video or a TikTok saying like, hey guys, I, I got this for sale and someone's going to go pay me exactly what it's what it's worth. So, you know, I'm trying to think like, who would be the right people? I would, you know, sell to. And I, you know, I know I don't need to undersell myself because I, I know enough people in the, in the hobby. But then it, it becomes like a, and, and I guess maybe that's where this whole, because I, I don't remember this five or six years ago, these talks of like percentages coming into play, where even anyone coming to the table with just X amount of product will be like, well, I know 87% is better than 86. So if someone says 87%, I'm going to go with that. But then to kind of beat that, you almost like go around and farm for answers to be like, Hey, anyone that will buy this for 88%. OK, then 89 and it. But it gets to the point then where when I see that approaching me, I'm like, well, if you got that I, I don't know, like I can pick this up for like this amount because I kind of know maybe the the true value or what I can move it at. And, and there's kind of like a, a clash there, you know what I mean? It's like, what would be the perfect science? Like I guess if you had some sealed items that you were looking to move that weren't necessarily Evolving skies booster boxes, but maybe old school box collections. But they're really cool for display. Like things to come to that come to mind are like the great ball Ultra Ball premium collection from Hidden Fates, right? Hidden Fates, maybe some of the older lunch box tins that have really cool promos inside, like the armored MU 21. That lunch box was something that you that's just desirable $20, you know what they call a treasure chest? But now if you have that, people will open that or people will collect that just to display it. Where where are you looking to sell that type of stuff? Or are you bringing that to shows and just hoping the right person walks by your table and sees it? Speaker 3 So it's a great question. It's it's a complicated and there's not an easy. Speaker 1 Answer right. Speaker 3 I would say that bring it to shows can be risky because those items are very fragile and the people that want them want them in pristine condition if they're going to keep them sealed. And so you're going to have to invest the time and money to get the right protective cases for them. And they're also kind of bulky. And so every time you move them and there's that complication and transportation where it's like, OK, I'm moving this collection box, it's worth $1000 and it's taking up this much space. Or I could just have 4 singles that are worth that much and they take up this much space. And so it's, it's difficult. And I would say that the, the type of person that we're talking about who is looking to maybe increase the value of their items over time should not just be thinking about the value of items, but also the liquidity of items. And maybe being, being careful with collection boxes and sticking to things that are more transacted like a booster box or, you know, maybe a Pokémon Center ETV or something like that. Or, or loose packs. Right now, with the advent of all these RIP and ships, loose packs now carry an extreme liquidity because people need them to open on stream all the time. But to answer your question, if I had those boxes and sometimes they do come across my table, I've experienced relatively good success with buying those, obviously at a percentage to kind of justify the fact that they're less liquid. Speaker 1 Is there a common percentage? You typically buy those very niche but very cool collector's boxes. Speaker 3 Depends on what they are, right. But like I would very rarely pay over 70% for those because of the lack of liquidity, right. There are probability that I have, I know have to pay a high amount just to get involved with that box, but I might sit on it for months and months until I can find the right buyer. But there there are people who are still opening those. And I think that to the vast majority of us who are involved in the hobby, it would seem like like heresy to open something like that because it's so valuable and it's old and like, oh, it's so cool. And this like the display that you can't find anymore. But some people who are, you know, in a different tax bracket than you and I. Speaker 1 Or they want to make content. Some people want to open it just because of that. Speaker 3 Yeah, shout out Pat Flynn, right? Like you think of all the cool blister packs he opens and stuff that like you and I look at and we're like, I would never. Speaker 1 Right. Speaker 2 Open on a team of blister packs, they've. Speaker 1 I couldn't, yeah, I couldn't make back enough on the TikTok video for it. But his short will will cover it some. Speaker 3 Yeah, well The thing is it's all for him. Like even if his short didn't cover. Speaker 1 It it would still be. Speaker 3 Right. For the experience, you know, and some people are in that situation where it's about having that experience that they could only have if they did it or maybe they did it five years ago and they want to have it again. Speaker 1 Again, I think that's why Pat's should I open it or should I keep it sealed do so well, because he does a good job of wanting to experience that forking over the the money for it. But then like sharing, you know, that experience to where the viewers almost living vicariously like through it. You know, like when his, when, when a short goes up, especially for like a vintage pack. Yeah, I'm so locked in because I'm like, dude, I haven't seen this packet opened up in, you know, like I'm kind of, I want to know what's inside. Speaker 2 I I fully agree with that. It's that if you're ripping open an old tin, you know how often you get to see one of those ripped. And if you can't pay for it, it's fun to watch someone else throwing money. Speaker 3 Yeah, shout out all those original guys opening those boxes, Leonhard and Pokie Rev and all those guys have listed Leaf. Yeah. Speaker 1 TCA. Speaker 3 Yeah, TCA, love all that, all that stuff. One piece of advice for you, Rob here, that it may seem obvious, but again, it's another good business practice if you are thinking about, OK, how do I create a sales channel so I could sell those more niche high end collection boxes that you might have from all those years back. If you do sell one locally or at a show or online through your stream or whatever it may be, take that extra time and maybe it's through a DM or through a private conversation to ask that person why they bought it. Speaker 1 Great, great tip. Speaker 3 Ask that person why they bought it, because you're looking for more people like that. And what does that person have that the the next buyer is going to have in common? Does it have something to do with their net worth? Maybe, probably. Does it have something to do with maybe it's their favorite Pokémon or something like that? Like, learn as much as you can about the demographics of the person that you're trying to find. Speaker 1 Great tip. Actually, I have done that sometimes. Sometimes that answer will be, oh, I'm buying it for a friend who's a big collector. Boom. Now he's introduced you to someone else that's a potential buyer or client for you, right? Then that guy's got a friend and some his friend pod group is like, oh this is the guy that has kind of niche cool old collector boxes. Speaker 3 Yeah, that's just networking, right? Because at the end of the day, anybody who is selling anything in Pokémon, they're a reseller, right? And if you're going to try to get, if you're, if you're going to do this more often, you're going to want to try to get better at it. And there's been reselling in tons of industries for as long as there's been items for sale, right? So I've learned things recently from the high end watch business. I watched some content on that or back in the day, you know, when sneakers were really popular. Like there's, there's things that not, there's tools of the trade, not tricks, but tools of the trade that you should pay attention to if you're, if you're looking to get into this in a serious way. The Art of Reselling: Speed, Hustle, and Market Psychology I'm curious for you, would you self define yourself as like someone that's very, I don't even want to say like well networked or well connected, but I guess I'll say this. Can you with any sort of Pokémon item if if me and Jake had like items for sale and and I was like hey dude I've I've got one of these but I'm having trouble finding a buyer. Like, do you feel like you have a buyer for almost any type of product at any given time? Speaker 3 No, I I wouldn't say I do. And I say that with confidence because I see the types of things that other vendors might have at the table. And I think God, like, why do you have that at your table? And there's no way you're going to sell that. But the answer is actually, there's no way I'm going to sell that. Maybe they deal in that thing all the time. So an example of this, Brian Ong, you guys probably know him. He makes tik Toks and the way that he does his vending is he starts his vending day with nothing and his entire goal is to buy everything that walks up to his table. Anything. CGC 7.5 common card. Speaker 1 He'll buy. How does How does that work? Speaker 3 He'll buy everything because, because at the end of the day, like he has found a sales channel for anything. And as long as the margin makes sense, there's going to be people that come to the card show and they show their cards to 50 vendors and none of them want them, but Brian will buy it. And because of that, that that seller is now like, Dang, like nobody wants my stuff, but Brian made me an offer at whatever percentage made sense for him. And that's better than getting nothing. So they're gonna, they're gonna do that. Speaker 2 Deal. I think, I think you're stuck on, oh, maybe Brian's not paying them 80%. He might be paying them 5040%. Maybe, but it's better for an item that they literally cannot move. Yeah. Speaker 1 I'm trying to think what in Pokémon that OK, I know those buys happen because I hear the stories that I want to hear Your like, I can't even wrap my head around how people are buying right now at 50% because I have to look at the seller and I I see the items that are being bought at 50% and I'm like, if you have these types of items, you're in the hobby enough that you know how to use eBay or TCG player and how are they letting it go at 50% when they could just. Put up anywhere online. Hey someone buy this at 60% and like you would scoop it or I would you know what I mean? Speaker 3 Maybe not though, maybe not, right? Like again, what Jake said is like we're talking about things that like maybe the common reseller doesn't want to deal with because most resellers have that opportunity cost mindset. Maybe I could get this item for $60.00 and it's worth 100, but it might take me 5 months to sell it. And if I buy this other item for $80.00 and it's worth 100 and then I sell it the next minute, I make 20 bucks instantly versus 50 bucks eventually, right? And those are different things, right? One of the things that I think those who are getting into the hobby from a vending standpoint, they need to learn that money loves speed. And the person who can move some of the fastest, not necessarily at the biggest margin, but move it the fastest and move on to the next thing and keep doing that and turn and turn and turn and turn. Those people are always successful. Speaker 1 Interest. That's OK. So money, love, speed. The the interesting thing I'd hone in on there is you just said there are certain items and maybe this kind of goes back to even at the beginning of the pod. Would you say that those items that are moving quicker where you can make the 20 bucks now as opposed to 50 bucks over a 345 month period? What are those Pokémon cards that you see right now in the hobby and in the space that are kind of doing that? Speaker 3 I think most of us know the answer to this who are going to shows like right now it's it's still those top chases from modern sets, right? Modern altars, modern S IRS, the tag teams like those things, even in a down market, will still command a higher percentage that can be shopped around at a show or on Instagram or whatever you're selling because they're just they're, they're liquid enough. They're they're well known enough. Like again, we talked about it last time I was here. Stained Glass Birds, Lugia V, Dragonite V Like these are cards that will sell. Speaker 1 Are they, they will sell because are we talking about them or are they talking not just US 3, but CI? I think you know where I'm going with this. It's like the cards that you just described that will sell and that are so everyone knows about them and everyone wants them. There seems to be a tie in of just the content creation or the, the, the how much they are talked about in the ethos of just the content we all consume. That is, are we all talking about it because everyone's buying it and that's driving the motivational factor, or is it all being bought and that's why we're talking about, you see the chicken and eggs and. Speaker 2 I'll say I agree with you, and what I'll say is that those cards come with marketing already. I can buy a bubble muse because the bubble muse it's pre marketed it coming with marketing and branding on it. Speaker 1 From it's prestigious. The artwork alone is giving. Speaker 2 The notoriety, the fact that every the word amount, everyone already knows about it. If you buy a card that is let's say a random illustration rare that most people don't really talk about or transact, it doesn't come with the branding or the marketing to sell it faster. And you can make it a cool card but that would take work and if it comes with pre marketing it's less work for you to market. Speaker 1 It is the pre marketing just because the bubble mew like the bubble mew, the Dubois made the bubble mew song that obviously. Speaker 2 Someone else did that work for you in marketing that card I guess. Speaker 3 Are you guys familiar with the term a positive feedback loop? Speaker 1 Yeah, it's like, it's like a sense of. Speaker 3 It's a scientific term where like something happens that causes a reaction, and then that reaction escalates the original thing to happen. Yeah. And then it just kind of creates this feedback loop that it speeds up and gets more and more powerful over. Speaker 1 Time and that's how you get like self fulfilling prophecies. Speaker 3 Right. So I think the answer to your question is natural. Natural desire for something. I always believe in the hobby is the genesis of that feedback loop. But if something sells and then and someone likes it and then they make a piece of content about it and then that attracts more eyeballs. And then I guess that, you know, and then that wheel just kind of keeps going and going and going. So the answer to your question is chicken or the egg. I believe that a desirable card is intrinsically valuable, and we kind of all just agree that it or enough people agree that it is. Speaker 1 Right. It's like something about the way we're all looking at it. We go it's, it's desiring. Speaker 3 And and some people would call that beauty, right? So something that is generally perceived as beautiful, it does you don't like have a reason why like the it's just that something in the in human nature, some large percentage of people look at that and they're like, that's beautiful. And there's certain, like famous art pieces or architecture or songs. Speaker 1 That separate themselves from other similar architectures or paintings, but there's something. Speaker 3 About that one. And then that's the beginning of the loop. And then we talk about it and then we visit it or then we make content about. Speaker 1 It and it just adds so much to the loop. All right, well said. I like that. Using Collectr and Identifying Cards to Avoid in the Market Card Lounge. We'll be right back after this brief message from our sponsor. A huge thank you to Collector for sponsoring today's episode of the Card Lounge Podcast. Collector is the ultimate app to track value and manage your collection like a pro. Imagine this, you're at a card show and you need to know the value of a card immediately. You can scan the cards in 2nd, just point your phone and boom the card name, set rarity and price. You have all the insight on the current state of the Pokémon card market in the palm of your hand. Want to know the value of your collection today? Collector post live price data from real time sales so you're always locked in on the current market value. No more digging through sold listings. Your collection digitized and organized with 0 hassle. With real time portfolio tracking, you'll see your total collection value, daily movers, and price history over time. You can even add cars to your watch list so you remember what you wanted to pick up. Collector also offers an amazing platform to show off your collection to others. You can even see my whole entire collection showcase on the Collector app. Try out Collector today. It's available for download on iOS and Android. While we're on this topic, I want to kind of flip the question because we're talking about the most desirable cars. So I think this will be a more interesting one where, OK, someone will bring some cards to your table. You might pass on those. And I think the more interesting thing is what are the cards that you would pass on because that might be interesting to the viewers. What are cards that are OK? You might not touch this at this moment for whatever reason. Speaker 3 You know, back in the summer of this year, we had this extraordinary boom in like really low population vintage and like mid era carts. And there was kind of this, again, a feedback loop happening where someone would get this card and it didn't have very much sales data. And so the vendor would kind of just like pick a number, and because it's so rare, someone would eventually come and pay that number because they literally can't get it from somewhere else. Speaker 1 There's a couple of cards that have in the last six months I think we've all seen. Speaker 3 And it and it just creates it's own comp and then like the only way that you know what it's worth is because you heard from some guy, from some gal that they'd sold for this price in Indianapolis or whatever. Speaker 1 And then everyone that has one set, I, I feel like there was a couple big low pop 10s, certain like EX hitter, certain full arts where someone was able to just set the, the sales price and then everyone. And then you just have that word travel to everyone. And then suddenly it's like if everyone puts it at that price and no one is willing to buckle, then it kind of does become that price for anyone else that wants to try to acquire that card. Speaker 3 And, and those items specifically, to answer your question, Jake, are ones that I'm avoiding right now. I'm, I'm really only interested in things that like have comps because in a market that isn't just like euphoric like it was a couple of months ago, you betting on yourself finding a buyer for an item that has never sold as high as your sticker is, you better be really good at selling. And there are some people that are still in that boat, like they are extremely talented at finding the right buyer for items or they've curated a marketplace of people who are always going to them for that kind of thing. Speaker 1 I was going to say I and I, I think you and me probably thinking of the same people because we know these guys that they almost like that's their Forte. They're the exact they want to find those cars because then they go, Oh, I can I bought this for four grand, but I know how I can turn this into 7 grand and just like flip it like that and you you're like, that's to you would rather pick up cards at your booth that have like 10 comps from that day. Speaker 3 Yeah. In a market like this where there's more uncertainty, I'm more interested in something that's a little bit safer. But also, I'm compared to a lot of the vendors out there, I'm more risk averse and that may not look like it because, you know, I quit corporate and I do Pokémon full time. But compared to some of these folks, I'm more risk averse. And I think it comes down to just, you know, my, my background, but also I have responsibilities outside of myself to my family, wife, want to, you know, buy a house one day and all these other things that I'm trying to do. And I'm not trying to hit home runs. I'm trying to have I'm trying to show up and hit singles. Speaker 1 Hit Moneyball, yeah. Speaker 2 No, I think that's. Speaker 1 Brad Pitt, Good movie, Yeah, Shut up. Good movie. Yeah, shut. Speaker 2 Up. We have seen some cards that have seen, you know, 70% dips in a week or two. And I think those are some of the cars you might want to avoid just getting burned on. Yeah. Do you have a, do you have a story of you being burned at all, even though you are risk averse? I'm sure it has happened. Speaker 1 Yeah. Speaker 3 Yeah, so we have a a section on our live stream, me and Ricky, our midweek me champs. Sorry if a subtle plug. There we go. But one of the sections that we put on there is a clefumble. A clefumble. Speaker 1 Oh, I like that clefumble. Speaker 3 Where you, where you buy? Speaker 1 OK, we'll do ours. Let's do our clefumble. Speaker 3 Sure. Or you buy something and you're like, Oh yeah, I'm gonna kill with this. And then it just absolutely tanks. And the one for me that I brought up not too long ago was I bought a sequential pair of the Magic Carp and Gyarados Poncho Pikachu Full Arts PSA 10 at Card party in Tampa in June. And that was like the peak of poncho season. And it took me months to sell them for even close to what I bought them for. Speaker 1 So you ended up breaking even. Speaker 3 I ended up making a little bit of money, a little money like, but again, the the time value of money, I didn't make any money. I see what you're saying right, Because you spend like 1516 grand on something and it's like hopefully you can sell it for 17 but like I could have bought something else. Speaker 2 And more than $1000. Speaker 1 Dude, well said. So wait, then I'm curious, what did you, what made you pick them up? It had to have been at an enticing enough percentage to you. Yeah, but then it couldn't have been too low because ponchos are so. Speaker 3 And they were so liquid and they were going up, but I bought them and my, my mindset at that time was like, I don't have any ponchos right now. So it's, you know, it could attract a type of buyer that right now I'm not attracting on the on a second thought, I also, you know, had a little bit more cash than I needed on hand and like having money is good, but like having dormant money not doing anything for you. Speaker 1 Is is worth? They have cards, yeah. Speaker 3 Yeah. So like I was like, OK, well, the the chance that it maybe continues to go up a little bit, I'll take that risk. There's a chance that I could sell it in a week from now for 1000 or two more than I bought that. I'll take that risk, but you know, ended up being a Cliff fumble. Speaker 1 Form would would it? Did it go down a lot? Yeah. I'm like not even aware of. Speaker 3 The poncho market, we valued it at the time at like 16 K and then like a month or two later they were down at like 14 or so and I was like. Speaker 2 Oh, that's so the interesting thing is that's not a large swing if you really think about it's like 10 or 15, but because because it's so many expensive. Speaker 3 Yeah, exactly. Speaker 1 2K yeah 'cause I don't I. Speaker 2 Don't you want to share? I don't know, Cliff Fumble. Speaker 1 Well yes, I I think I have something close but not as big of money, but it may be something. Speaker 3 You're not as big of a loser. Well, no. Speaker 1 No, it's not. It's not even that. It's like I I'm I'm not even sure if it's a clafumble yet. I'll have to see this this front row if if it sells or what it's price. Speaker 3 No, I'll buy it from you. So it's a win. Speaker 1 No, Yeah, yeah, if you you want to. Speaker 2 So this will be in the past anyway. Do you want to share with this card that you? Yeah. Speaker 1 OK, so the the card I'm I'm curious because I I do think it has potential to go up. It's just it was a great fell hat Pikachu. OK, and I got it at the Last Vegas or maybe the last Last Vegas show I was at. But then at the last show people kind of looked at it and I'm like the reason I got it was Oh, it's it's a great fella hat Pikachu. I thought a lot of people. Speaker 3 Everybody wants that. Speaker 1 Everyone wants that, but no one picked it up at the last show. But the last show was kind of slow that I was at. And maybe, you know, we'll we'll see at this front row, but I feel like I had to. The seller I remember said something and looking back on it in retrospect, I was just, I didn't even like count. Like they were like, I need at least, I mean, this is a great felt hat. So I need at least 85% or maybe they they were like 90 exactly. And I'm like, I'm not paying 90, but I'm like 85. Well, if I'm just trying to do 70 or 80, he's not, he's not going to sell it to me. He's going to go to somewhere else. And so I'm like, OK, 85%, I just have to sell this card. I mean, I'd like to sell it at 100%, but even at 90% there's, you know, there's some margin, but that's such a slim margin that I'm like 10%. Speaker 3 Should I be? Speaker 1 Immediately. Exactly. Speaker 3 The next sale? Speaker 1 Especially in this right in this market, it's like we're seeing 10% swings week to week. So in my head I went, OK, I'll I'll pick it up for this because it's a grey felt hat and now I think it's already dropped that that like margin. Speaker 3 The cushion's gone, Rob. Speaker 1 The cushion's gone, but then so when the cushion's gone, what, what should I be doing? I, I should, I, I can, I can hold it strong, but I'm also like, if I just sold it for right, like what I put into it and I'm trying to even struggle right now. What that was. I can't. I wish I knew the exact dollar amount so we can talk. Speaker 3 About it Here's your hot take, right? Just move it when it moves, because here's the truth. You are in the Pokémon business. I'm looking around your office and you guys have all types of different TCG items everywhere. Yeah, and all of those items all day long are going up and down in value. And the truth is that in general, because you buy things at a margin and sell them at market or whatever your price points are, you're almost always taking W's. And while your Gray felt hat might have you lost your cushion on it, something else in this room that you're not even thinking about has gone. Speaker 1 Up and has made-up that well. Speaker 3 And so don't waste your time and your thought process being like, oh, I gotta move this 'cause otherwise I'm gonna take a small L on it. Like that is wasted. Speaker 1 Bro, I, I think I just see a lot of I've, but I have done that before. I know I've so come to, to feeling that way. And I, I have told other kind of newer vendors you can't get. So especially in negotiation. I see this a lot where when someone says, oh, I'm in on this card for this amount so I can't sell it. And I go, well, it's not worth that anymore. And they're like, well, I just, but I can't sell it for less. And I'm like, well, I mean, you can. And that would get you your money back. And I think the part I'm missing is to say you probably have 10 other items that have gone up in value that you weren't even thinking about that are just making up that difference. And as long as you're staying in the hobby, you're buying all this stuff that you just mentioned. I've I've got you will be OK as long as you keep the the wheels. Speaker 3 In business, in every sector, take losses every day, all the time, every day. Think about this. Think about how many companies that are out there that hired somebody and then had to let them go the next month because they weren't the right fit. Speaker 1 That's a loss. Speaker 3 That's a huge loss, thousands of dollars of time of training of the compliance work of a recruiting everything that they've lost never to get back again. But what they have to remember is that the nine other hires from that from that group are already creating profit doing business. And you, you, if you dwell on that, you just waste your. Speaker 1 Time Sometimes you just need someone to thank you for coming in and telling me this this this actually just I. Speaker 3 Went over yourself. Speaker 1 20 things in my head for cards, I'm just like, now they're out of my head because like now I'm just you know what? Overcoming Loss Aversion and Valuing Sentimental Cards And that that's super helpful. I guess another way of thinking about it is imagine if every business like they make those hires. Businesses still got to run. Even if they let people go, let them. Speaker 3 Go I I if at some cost validity like don't waste your time. Speaker 1 I know if every business was like I, we, we can't make this play or do this thing because it would result in the in a net negative for just this inner this one variable. No business would get done anywhere. It would just be. Speaker 3 Back to psychology, like the reason that we do that is because human beings feel the pain of loss 3 or 4 times more than we feel the the joy of the joy of victory. And think about like your inventory like 2 months ago, you're repricing things. And I was like, wow, this has gone up. This has gone up. That's so cool. And then you forgot about the the next second. But if something went down, you're like, oh man. Speaker 1 Like I took a huge. Speaker 3 L on this it's like that's just the human in you and you need to get over it yeah. And I learned that lesson all the time too. I'm not. This is, you know, preaching to the. Speaker 1 Choir great. No, I I'm over it for some of the things that like I I mean, I hope I don't even think the grey felt hat is I'm I'm in the red on it and I hope I could just well, no, no, I'm justifying I'm going to sell it for I think what I bought into it at or you know what it'll sell when it sells. And you know what Pikachu felt hat is on its way up because you know Van Gogh. Van Gogh's everlasting only because. And the reason I say this? Speaker 3 Dude pumping is back. Speaker 1 Well, it's it's not even I I just think the the Pikachu collabing with like the famous artist thing. I just attribute it to also ODA. I don't know how how much you're paying attention to the One Piece market, but that LA Dodgers Luffy OK, you're aware of this, right? And so it's, it's drawn by ODA. It's like a sports card with the TCG card collab. And I'm, I sold one of those to someone that's a, you know, a part of my following. And, and so I was happy to do so. And I was happy to, to, you know, give a deal on it because I, I had some, some spares. And I do think cards like that, like the Van Gogh Pica, this, you know, LA Dodgers, Luffy, they kind of have this special collab sauce that's just going to make it be. Speaker 3 Same with same thing as Pikachu Mario, right? Like when you can bring in a larger again marketplace of people who might be attracted to that item, like of course it's a win win now it's not for everybody. Some of the purists are like, oh, that's who cares about that collab? I only want Pokémon that are in the video game and they can use Flamethrower or whatever. But like the collecting's for everybody and it's a huge audience of people who like Van Gogh. You know, like when I was in Chicago for Collecticon, I went and saw the the Van Gogh Self-portrait in the Chicago Art Institute. Speaker 1 How was that you? You did a couple of things after you like, spent some time gallivanting. Speaker 3 Around Chicago, I don't tell us get to do that. Yeah, it was. It was a ton of fun. We got to go to the artists, too. We did a really cool tour on the River Chicago River. Speaker 1 Van Gogh's in Chicago like the real 1. Speaker 3 Yeah, my guess is that it travels around. OK, right at that time it was in the Chicago and I took a picture of it and then I did a little kind of a cheeky post on me instead of I don't think I'll get APSA 10 or whatever. And but like I had tons and tons of people who like have been followers of mine, but had never like really, really engaged with my content comment on the on the on the story because like. That, that artwork, that piece, that that provenance, like they know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the Pikachu and how it's tied to that artwork. And so, yeah, there's, there's always going to be people who want that, like the Luffy Dodgers thing. Like anybody who likes LA likes that card, anybody who likes Shohei likes that card, Anybody which is like baseball who likes that. Yeah. So like, it's just tons of different people that it could grab. Speaker 2 What I'll say about those specific cards is that because of how popular they are, they swing really quickly. Is. Speaker 3 That is that a pun? Speaker 2 Well, sure. Pun intended. Yeah. Yeah. Because of how much speculation there is involved. You'll see those cars, they can go up very quickly because of the emotion that's involved. You know, the Dodgers just won the World Series. I gotta I gotta buy that card. But then it spikes up, these cards. But at the same time, when the market is dying down, those are also the first cars people sell like, Oh my goodness, I bought this card on emotion. I kind of want to sell the great fell hat now too, you know? Speaker 1 Interesting, but doesn't emotion want it want them to keep it in? I'm trying to find a way to to segue this into what we were talking about with the the the beauty factor and the driving the value inherently before any other. Sort of like outside variable influences. Speaker 2 I think that's, I think that's what it is, is that it take they bought that on an immediate emotion right now is that the Dodgers won the World Series. I want to commemorate this. Let me buy that card. Speaker 1 As outside incorrect. Speaker 2 They didn't spend months looking at this card and being like, you're right, right. This card is beautiful. I'm buying it because it's beautiful. They're buying it not because of the beauty, but they're buying it to commemorate a moment in time. Speaker 3 It's more like jewelry in that case than it is like a collectible, you know, like you're buying it because it reminds you of this anniversary or whatever it may be. And it's like, yeah, you buy that because it signifies a time in your life you want to remember. Speaker 1 Interesting. OK, right. But whereas, and I guess are you using the metaphor of jewelry in the sense that that specific item of jewelry may not be worth what you're paying for, It will be, it never will. Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, if you take it to, you know, a jeweler or whatever, like they're going to pay you a percentage that's probably way saucer than what a Pokémon card vendor would sell pay a card for because they don't care about it, right, They don't care about your. Speaker 1 Ring the sentimental not. Speaker 3 At all they care about, OK, how much gold is here? How many carats of diamonds? That's what I care about. Because the fact that it was on your grandmother's finger for 50 years, they don't, they don't care. Speaker 1 So then is this jar Trump's? Is this your is are you don't get jewelry because it's a it's a trap for sentimental buys. Speaker 3 No, I, I think buying something for Sentinel reasons absolutely has a place in your life. And in fact, I talk about this when I talk about collecting things for myself. A lot of these master set binders that I'm working on, they're things that I don't track in collector because I don't care what they're worth. I think that they're awesome, they're beautiful, They remind me of my childhood, and so I'm grateful to be the owner of them while I'm still alive on the earth. But eventually I'm going to pass on and they're going to outlive me, and I'm OK with that. And because of that, like they kind of stretch beyond the value of money. Speaker 1 I I like that. I like how you say no. Yeah, that's really. Speaker 3 Cool, eventually my kids or. Speaker 1 Grand. I was going to say, would you, would you give those binders to your kids? Speaker 3 Eventually I will because you know they'll be able to get more use out of them. And whether that's emotional use or it's financial use, that's up to them because when you give somebody something, you kind of. Speaker 1 Leave it up to. Speaker 3 Yeah, you, you surrender the emotional attachment to it, to that person. Speaker 1 I'm sure they'll they'll still find sentimental attachment to it because they got it from you, you know, we'll. Speaker 3 See, maybe they'll watch this podcast and be like, oh, we can't. Speaker 1 Sell it. That's the beauty of it. I know, right? They'll watch this like 10 years from now. They'll still be able to go to this episode. Speaker 2 I think Julian from one of our previous episode asked us about that. Which is what? It's the card that you value the most in your collection. It's not so much how much it's worth to you, but how much you value it. The Thrill of Completing Vintage Master Sets and E-Readers Yeah. Speaker 3 Wow, I have a few a few cards that like I look at and I just think I can't imagine bringing myself to sell it. Speaker 1 Yeah. Speaker 3 I'll bring up a couple for sentimental, one for sentimental reasons, and one for just like I don't know if I'll ever like buy it again kind of thing. So the one I don't know if I'd ever buy again is I haven't and those who follow me on insta have seen this. I have a reverse hollow Charizard from Crystal Guardians and APSA 10. Speaker 1 Stamped one. Yeah, yeah, it's. Speaker 3 Nice. And it's like pop 50 and it's a it's a more modern cert. It's like a nine cert and it doesn't have any print lines, which is very rare for that for that generation. And it's it's exceptionally clean. Like it's actually APSA 10. And I got it last year in September for a tiny fraction of what it's worth today. And there's no way that I justify buying it for the price that it's. Speaker 1 Worth today? Speaker 3 But the fact that I got it back then and I've been able to enjoy it all this time, it's just like chef's kid. Speaker 1 What would you get it at if you don't mind? Speaker 3 I paid $3000. Speaker 1 3 for the 10 Whoa. Was that something that walked up to you or did you have to go out and seek it? Speaker 3 You know, I had and again goes back to networking. I had a vendor connection that I had done a deal with and then they had kind of heard that I was interested in those Delta species cards. And they came up to me at the end of a of a show in Pasadena and said, hey, I heard you might like this. And I look at it, I'm just like, like, Oh my. Speaker 2 Goodness. Speaker 3 And he made me a very favorable deal on it and and that was really cool. Speaker 2 Yeah. So those are the kind of cards that would literally come to your table once in a lifetime, like you might not see another PSA. Speaker 3 For the right price specifically, Jake, right. It's not just about like because I've seen a couple copies since then, but one, one or two in a 10, but none of them for a price that I would ever even sniff at, they're like, Oh yeah, we want 25,000 for it. I'm like, whoa. Speaker 1 Is that what it's at now? Speaker 3 It's again, it's a little pop. Speaker 1 Card was was the 3K roughly around what you would have said it had. Speaker 3 Sold for that price the week before. Speaker 1 OK, so it was like. Speaker 3 I was like, yeah, I'd be willing to pay that cause. And at that time I was like, ohh, like can I get it for a little cheaper? Because like I don't want to pay full market for something but like how was I supposed to know that a year later it was going to be worth way? Speaker 1 More I just feel like even you're telling me you got this so September 2024. That's right. That still seems really low for that 10 Charizard, especially the reverse hollow foil with the stamp, which you know argue. I mean, as we know, those go for more than just the regular hollow foil for a lot of those stamped era sets. And so it's just like I would have thought even a year ago that that'd be at least it's 56K. Speaker 2 Which is why he bought it because it was undervalued. And I agree with you that at the same time as that card being 3 grand, there are other Charizard cards that we know that are way higher pop that are also around that price. Which does not make sense. Sure. Speaker 3 But again, back to that, what you guys are saying like I didn't really care what? Speaker 1 It that wasn't even the drive, you know, like if it was more 5K would you have still bought it because of how clean and beautiful it is? Speaker 3 Maybe. But again, we're talking about a version of me that was in a different financial situation from my business back then. Like, so it's hard to say. I'm not saying like, oh, I'm so much richer now. I'm just saying, like back then, that was a larger percentage of the overall value of my inventory. And so it was when I went and showed it to my wife after I bought it, she was like, wow, like, wow. And I was like, I was like, oh, yeah, it's going to be great. And we're just, I'm just going to own it forever. And it's going to be a cost of 3K. But like now it's, yeah, it's something I would have a hard time selling. Speaker 1 I see. But it's you know what? This is also something we talked about in a previous pod of OK, you don't care about the money in the sense that. So there's a distinction about the caring about the financials part. What I mean by that is money was not the main motivational driving factor for you picking up the card. But even though this card has sentimental value to you, like you showed it to your wife, you're like, you know, this is just a sunk cost. But you do know that it's worth X amount now such that if you or you know anyone in your family, like, say an emergency arose, it's like, you know that this card is worth X amount. Does it give you some sort of satisfaction or safety feeling knowing that within just this one card that only takes up, you know, like barely any space in your house, you can kind of move that and get kind of 25 grand. You said 25 is like what it's kind of going for right now. Yeah. Speaker 2 Or 20 grand reassurance reassurance. Speaker 3 I think we're getting at Rob is like the security that comes in the Peace of Mind that comes when you are someone to who has assets because the power of that. Is that OK, if if there's an emergency and all of my liquid, you know, emergency fund or whatever was to evaporate. Yeah, I could, I could you know, sell an asset and I I think that and generally yes, like of course that that offers me Peace of Mind. But anybody who's in this business or even just in in serious about collecting and has a large collection, I would recommend from personal experience, it would be wise of you to have a security or have an emergency fund and other assets on top of this so that this money isn't necessarily something that you would need to sell in an emergency. Speaker 1 I like what you mean by that yourself. Speaker 3 Much more safe, yeah. Speaker 1 Do do you have a, is that for you just a kind of like a emergency Piggy Bank fund, like it's just cash, or do you have other assets outside of Pokémon cards that you also put finances into? Speaker 2 He's asking you for your portfolio split. No, I'm not trying. Speaker 1 To yeah, I guess. Is that a yeah. Oh, I'm assuming a diversified. Speaker 3 Portfolio again, I think it's a pretty common sense to have an emergency emergency fund in cash in like a high yield savings account high yield saving yeah cuz it's liquid and you can access it but you would only do so if something. Speaker 1 Emergency happened, right? Speaker 2 What I'll say is that I always thought I was being very sensible in that in terms of, you know, how much I'm saving. You never really want to put more than like 20 or 30% in collectibles, right? And The funny thing is, regardless of how I feel about that, my collectibles portion of my investment, hearing it's so large now, I, I, I it's like 60% of my investment or something, but that's not my goal. I didn't try to make it 60%. It just inflate it I think. Speaker 1 Means you got good picks, you got good taste. Speaker 3 Well, yeah, for sure. The appreciation's nice. Yeah. But I would say that for someone who is so heavily involved in this business, and yes, I know you still have your nine to five job, which is awesome, I don't know how you can do both. You're incredible. But the fact that you are so involved in this industry, YouTube channel, podcasts, partnering in this business and all this, this all the things that you do, you know, the partnering, the vending piece, I'm sure you guys have that relationship going. It means that you're in the business, which means that at the end of the day, all of your inventory, any portion that you're willing to sell at some point, it isn't just collectibles, it's inventory. And for me, the way that I kind of justified to some degree the fact that I have a lot of Pokémon cards, right, sealed boxes or whatever it may be, and that, OK, it's kind of risky to have such a large portion of your net worth in one type of thing. Well, it's like I'm not comparing myself to an investor. I'm comparing myself to a business owner, and a business owner has most of their equity, their life savings, their value inventory and their business. Yeah, whether that's lumber or cattle or software or recruiting or whatever it may be. Speaker 1 I'm feeling that right now with like what I like own as my like personal assets. Yeah. And then but and then to your point, I still feel like I have cards that means so much to me, like your Crystal Guardians Charizard, that I don't even like. Like I'll have people tell me, oh, you can just you could sell that and you'll get like 20 GS for that. And I would go, no, I didn't even sell my card. Right. Sell that card exactly. I would. There's so many other things that probably other people are like, oh, you wouldn't sell that first before the card. And I'd go, no, I would. I would. What what else do you have like that? That's besides the Crystal Guardians, Charizard. Speaker 3 Collectively, some of these vintage master sets, I just love them. Robin and Jake, like I, I, when I, like I said, when I come home from shows, I'm, I've got to the point where like most of the inventory that I used to like flip through and be excited about all the deals I did. I just leave that for my brother. He he processes most of that. And then I can go back to my little dork dungeon and look at my vintage master sets and flip through them and see, Oh man. So like I'm, I'm really close to finishing expedition. Nice. And I have almost all the hollows from Aquapolis and only the only big thing I really still need from Sky Ridge is the hollow Gyarados. But for the most part, like we're getting close. I'm probably like 80% of these 1000 cards that I need for these sets. And when that's done, oh man, I'd have to see some crazy offer to be willing to sell. Speaker 1 That we're on similar quest 'cause I got the bind. I'm just going for the hollows from expedition sky Ridge in Aquapolis and I'm I'm getting close. I just finished all the hollows in APSA 9 for for expedition and just when I when I flip through I have a slab binder for them but I want to almost display them because like they just they look so good gorgeous. They're ear likes, I know. Speaker 3 Pumping our own bags. Speaker 1 No, I just, I know I feel like they're undervalued. There's there's some in a nine that you can get for well, I wouldn't sell them for this, but I've you know, you can get them for like 152 hundred. I'm like, dude, the pack you you're not guaranteed the IT doesn't the math doesn't matter. You know, I'm like the pack is way more. You're not guaranteed the hollow. You're not guaranteed the hollow in mint condition. And I can just get the chase mint already graded for half the price of the pack. It's like arbitrary. I'll just pick them all up. I'll pick them up all day and they've all done well for me, but I'll also never sell them. So it's like a sunk. It's like a sunk cost, but I was talking to actually it's funny, I brought up a tempor elf. It's like there was the I I knew this from the beginning of the set. I guess there's Apsa 9 Umbreon. Wait, the is the Aquapolis the crazy one or the sky Ridge? Speaker 3 They're both expensive. They're both. Sky Ridge is more. Speaker 1 Expensive. There was one where there was like a deal, we closed on the deal and then the guy like sold it out from under me for more money. But and then it took some time to acquire it because I was really honed in on acquiring it because I was like, this is going to shoot up. And I think I, you know, I got it for just over. I mean, I had to spend more than the original deal that I already had. So that made me it made me upset. But then to hear now that I think even still in a nine, that card is like, I don't know, like 4-5. Speaker 3 Six got to be Yeah, because the 10s. Speaker 1 Got to go 15K is that Oh my gosh. See, I remember when the 10 was like 456 grand and now the fact that that's 15K is I, I can like see it because I understand the popularity of the Pokémon. I see the art and then I see the rarity. It's just it's funny that the popular Pokémon I get that there's a higher demand for them, but with that higher demand almost comes like this respect for the rarity, but then the same card, same hollows from the same set, same rarity. But like they they should be worth a little bit more even if they're not an Umbreon like talking. Speaker 3 About that same positive feedback loop, right? So certain characters got enough press after they got bought, you know, and now enough people know about them. Remember that this hobby is about attention. It's an attention. Speaker 1 It's an attention. Speaker 3 Hype hobby. And so when you get enough eyeballs on something and some percentage of those eyeballs are gonna be high, high enough net worth people to spend that kind of money and to be willing to spend more than the last one just because they finally got their opportunity to buy that. And that kind of catapults up and up, Yeah. Speaker 2 I think one of the examples we use was that McDonald's Pikachu is that it comes inside of every single booster pack, but the other cars from the exact same promo set. You have to RIP open multiple booster packs to find one, right? But obviously the population on that is 70,000 and the other ones, they're barely touching 1000 for the exact same, you know, higher rarity, more, more, more harder to find. Speaker 3 I I would that the vast majority of people, the collectors have seen this card now, but then if they saw one of the other ones from that set graded in PSA 10, they'd look at it and be like, what is this from? Oh yeah, they didn't even. Speaker 1 Know it comes from the same pack I you know what I agree with that, but then are do those eventually become the sleeper things and what I mean by that is you see we've talked about this on the previous pod about the celebrations, just the regular hollows like the mew and you see what that is in a 10 now I remember when celebrations was out everywhere people were throwing that mute the the common hollow rares were bulk people were just throwing it away wait until the to get the full arts with the state. Well, no, I guess they all have the stamp on it and that's the point. It's like people are starting to realize those common hollows and they are all of legendary Pokémon. You know, Mew, Lugia, Ho, they they are like a part of that set still, even though they're way more common. But because they were way more common, everyone disregarded them at first, but then everyone disregarded them and then now later we're starting to see it's like they're less common to find in a 10 then maybe some of the rarer cards from that same pack. So it's like. Speaker 2 I have two cards from the exact same set that I still really like. It's the Kyogre and the Groudon. Speaker 3 Oh, so nice. Speaker 2 The reason for those two is because it's very similar to the old Kyogre and Groudon where the whole entire team is on the swimming one. It's a really solid art piece and it's it's a $0.50 card literally, but in APSA 10 it's going for 200. Speaker 3 Dollars, is that right? Yeah. Speaker 1 So we and is it raw still $0.50? Speaker 2 Yeah, it's a dollar card because, you know, it's just a random celebration card that you'd be. Speaker 3 Recording. I gave away hundreds. Speaker 1 Yeah. Speaker 2 I I did as well during my holiday giveaway because I thought they were cool. You know, they're $0.50 to me, but I still think their desire to someone out there, no one graded it. The population on those is like 300. How Corporations and Big Buyers are Reshaping Card Grading Same with the MEW, which is why the MEW is like $800. Those are going for 200. Speaker 1 It's funny, I always thought, and again, maybe This is why, you know, we're who we are in the hobby. I guess it's just like I always felt like those were kind of undervalued and I was like, I think when I personally ripped celebrations and I ripped a lot of it, I sleeved up and kept every single of the, the common, the the bulk rares and I just found the utopian stash of them and I have like celebrations. Speaker 2 There are guys. Speaker 3 Out there, yeah. Speaker 1 Treasure travel. Do I just grade all those now and. Speaker 3 It's all about money grade it's. Speaker 1 Just well, and I mean, I I want to get the full the full celebration set, but I just know that to get one in a 10, I'm going to have to send 12 in now at PSA with this point, we'll we'll also need to talk to you about the the grading and like the the USA and GameStop collab of buying up. Have you? Speaker 2 Sure. How does that how does that impact you as a? Speaker 1 Yes. Speaker 3 I spoiler alert, I'm gonna be doing a really cool live stream on this exact topic on next Wednesday, So tune in for that because we're gonna go in deep dive and talk about like this history of grading Pokémon cards and how it's gone from like super niche now to like totally corporatized, right? Speaker 2 It's so easy to grade your card nowadays. You can walk into a GameStop, know nothing about grading, and get your card. Speaker 1 No one was really doing it except for like the the top. I won't even say top, just like 1 to 2% of the hobby that was integrated. Speaker 3 How long TCA gaming has been grading? Speaker 1 And that's why he's OG. No one even. Speaker 3 Like why grading TCG cards but now it's huge. Speaker 1 Or knew about it. They didn't even understand what he They didn't even. Speaker 3 What I mean by corporatize isn't just that like you can go into GameStop and like the barrier for entry is really low. I'm talking about corporations with their own money or businesses with venture capital money getting into the graded card business. And so we're talking about these online mystery packs, right? Like those are developed by software teams who are employed by Fortune 500 companies. To build a product that is going to be generally available to millions of people because they now see that this marketplace is so legitimate, it's utterly legitimate. And then they also add that mystery pack gambling thing to the product and it's just absolute wildfire. Like there's a reason. I mean, I'm sure you guys have heard the rumors and they're they're mostly true about people being kind of assigned as buyers for these companies, whether GameStop or PSA or others. Speaker 2 Who? Yeah, they need inventory to make these happen. I'd know for sure. The GameStop power packs is really getting up. Speaker 1 There are they going up to your table hitting you up? How's that? Speaker 3 Going they employ buyers who spend not exaggerating 7 figures Yeah in one collecticon. Speaker 2 They need the inventory because you know they could do $1,000,000 in inventory in a couple of hours on a GameStop app if they ever go down the line. Speaker 1 Easily are they paying you strong because they're having to pay every inventory? Well, sure. And OK, so and that is what's happening. I think we're all thinking of the the buyers. We probably some we know by name, some we don't. Speaker 3 Know I'm seeing that like, and again, this, I know that there's been some content made about this, but just to confirm it, like there was again kind of a, a rumbling, A rumor that spread when I was at Collecticon Houston that there's people in the room that are paying up to 95% of market price for graded cards, almost any PSI 10 graded card. So within 20 minutes there's a line of vendors going to lined up at their booth and I'm talking about like 5 hour long line and just absolutely cashed out of their inventory because they're into those cards for a fraction of that 95% number. And like there was a vendor across me, I won't say his name because you know, his business is his business, but it was a vendor across me in Houston who sold 100, like $115,000 of inventory in one transaction to that one person. Speaker 1 That person just had that amount of. Speaker 3 Cash or digital? Speaker 1 Yes, OK. So they're coming with that they're. Speaker 3 Going to the show. Speaker 2 I was telling Rob about this. They need like these. Speaker 1 Bodyguards I'm hoping that are walking behind them to. Speaker 3 I'm serious. They're coming to the show and again, I don't want to put a target on anybody. Speaker 1 'S exactly right, but you don't want to say that with enough. Speaker 3 Cash to buy all these items. Speaker 1 Yeah, that's man. Speaker 2 Yeah. Because the the difference between them is that they're not trying to sell those cars directly for that 5% margin. No, no, they're putting it in a system that they can use it as a tool to generate more, right? Speaker 1 Where where out of each individual car they're the company like GameStop might make 120 to 150 percent, 50 margin exactly. Speaker 3 Rob, because like think about the types of margins that a retail business is going to require like GameStop is. Speaker 1 Overhead. Speaker 3 As far as I understand, they're probably getting Pokémon product from Pokémon at the wholesale price. Speaker 1 Right, which is? Speaker 3 Which means all those stocks and they still sell a lot of things, at least Walmart, Target, and maybe sometimes games up. They still sell things for the most part at retail at MSRP, which means in order to get the spread that they need, they're buying probably it, you know, 50 percent, 60%. And so in order for their business to make sense in this slab game, they need to buy things and think, OK, I can make 4050% on this, which means they're engineering their mystery pack product to no matter what happens, no matter what you pull, everything that's pulled across a given day, they're going to make 50% on it. I see. And then they're going to incentivize you to sell it back to them for 90%. Speaker 1 Right, because it just cuts down on the work they need to do to hunt for the next class. Speaker 3 Even better. Speaker 1 We were talking about this in the last pod, just in the sense that it, it cuts down so much on the transactional time of this having to go to you. If you want to sell it back to me, you got to say it's just, oh, I'll never send it to you. Here's your money. Speaker 3 This is liquidity. We're talking about liquidity and because money loves speed like I just. Speaker 1 Said. Speaker 3 This is a genius business practice, but it is absolutely altering the graded card market. And so right now what I'm perceiving is because of all of that change, there's significant uncertainty and eventually that will become more certain as we know exactly how these businesses are doing these things and what impact that will have on the graded card market. And then my prediction is that graded cards across the board, PSA 10 specifically are going to all have another leg up because they're because they're liquidity is now undoubted and is being absolutely dried up in the marketplace by these big buyers. Speaker 1 How do you as a vendor and you know, I guess it's just a secondary level of what even Jake was saying about when. So this effects you on two sides or you even talked about a vendor across from you watching him sell. There's a there's a market. You are your business and your booth is like your shop and you're like a traveling shop going to these shows and being in these cities. If you get your inventory from people coming up to you and selling to you. But now even people that would theoretically come up to you see these other options of like, whoa, I can sell at 9095%. Can you even compete with that margin? And if you can't, does that just not all funnel? Not only you guys as the vendors, you know, any Pokémon collector that can find those guys, like almost all of the slabs that could be transacted funneled into these like 10 buyers that all represent these different companies that are making, you know are doing whatever with the with the slabs. Speaker 3 As of right now, I'm not seeing a way for the average collector to be able to access these buyers on a regular basis, at least a large percentage of them. Speaker 1 OK, fair. Yeah. Speaker 3 Because right now, like most of these buyers are people that are deep in the TCG business. Yeah, and many of them are former vendors or are also vending on the side for themselves as well. And then they're just buying in bulk and supplying those those outlets with those items on top of their regular business. And so it's it's kind of hard to say if long term there's going to get a point where in general all collectors are going to have unlimited access to sell at an extremely high percentage. Because at this point, the only people that really know about it are the vendors or that can actually sell in at a high volume are the vendors. Speaker 2 So what else I'll say about that is that they're buying at 95, but they're not buying 95 for one card. They're buying it because they're getting 100,000 cards at once. You know, you can walk into any GameStop and sell your card. They're not going to give you 95%, but the only reason they're giving these vendors 95% is because they want all of your cards all at once. It's such a efficient deal there in terms of the quantity. Speaker 3 The only people that have a huge volume of extremely liquid cards are. Speaker 1 Vendors, good eyes vendors, but then how are vendors getting that? How come vendors are the people that have those so. Speaker 2 Because everyone else sells the vendors well. Speaker 3 It's not just that everyone sells them, it's that the vendors on average, your average vendor is the type of person who is a hustler. Speaker 1 And they're curating. Speaker 3 They're, they're and they're like, if you follow some of these people like they are traveling around their town all day buying this deal, this deal, this deal, this deal. And they have connections with the local card shop and they have outlets and they have plugs and they have, you know, it's a, it's a network that because of that network and how frequently they can acquire A lump sum of inventory that they're getting that higher percentage from these bigger. Speaker 2 What you're saying is they put in the work, they put in the work they they did the lake work of running the gamut and buying all these cards and now they. Speaker 3 Can only buy that's. Speaker 1 Time then right is that worth not just eating into the advantage of the the gained percentage that they're getting to where it just levels out. I see a leveling out thing and what I mean by that is is it not kind of a little backwards that it used to be Oh, if you're buying a lot of slabs, cut me a a lower percentage deal and now it's almost flipped where it's like, oh, I'm getting a lot from you. This is easier for me. I'm paying more a higher. Speaker 2 They, they have to pay a certain price that people are even willing to do the deal. Because if obviously if GameStop offers you 80%, you no longer want to sell to them, right? They have to offer a sweet enough percent that you're willing to sell them 100 grand of your inventory. And that percentage seems to be 9095%. Speaker 1 Which makes sense, right? It's got to be close to market knowing that. I mean it's funny like they right the way I'm looking at it is they have to pay me close to market because otherwise I could just sell it to actual collectors that will just want that end product right now for close. Speaker 2 To so that answer the question is what is that sweet spot where it's worth it for you to sell that inventory to, but you want to sell it to because now you're no longer waiting for someone else to walk up to get that 5% difference? Speaker 1 Then this is the flip. Go ahead. Speaker 3 There's one more piece here that I think sometimes we're we're forgetting. Yeah. It's that the vendors who are selling to these big buyers have zero emotional connection to their items, right. And so they're the only negotiation that's happening between the big buyers and the vendors is what exactly are we agreeing on the market price? Speaker 2 Points and numbers and percentages. They see these as numbers. Speaker 3 Yes, but like a collector selling to a vendor or to just, you know, a person who is hustling and doing deals on the side is there's a negotiation about the liquidity of items. There's a negotiation about their relative emotional attachment to those items, what they want to sell, when they want to sell it, how much they got it for. Like there's all this complexity on top of the time that it takes to actually go and acquire those things. Whereas these big buyers, what they want is I want to do business with someone who knows what they're talking about, who can bring me exactly what I need. And I will pay them this percentage. Because that big buyer is going to take that, you know, 500 grand worth of slabs that they bought at 94% and sell it the next day for 100% and make that 6% margin on 500 grand. Speaker 1 So then OK, and that's and that's obviously a, a large sum of money. Speaker 3 Go ask any real estate. Speaker 1 This is, you're right, exactly the, the flip side I was saying there's two, there's two viewpoints from the vendor perspective, such as yourself. We we cover this. OK, if, if someone's coming up to you to sell, then the challenges of like, OK, are you going to be buying their stuff? Would they sell to you if they know they can just go? These people that are buying at these high percentages are just people. They have 24 hours in the day. They're limited to how many people they can speak to. Speaker 3 How much money they can stuff on their naps. Speaker 1 That's very true. Like limited by space-time, distance, everything. So the flip side of that though, is do you see this affecting you not in someone coming up to you to sell, but coming up to you to buy? In the sense that we just talked about how OK, if, if someone really wants a card, then now in this market, your average collector, your average buyer of someone that likes to go to card shows and pick up cards personally for their personal collection. Not for the point of flipping, not for the point of hoping this card goes up. And are you willing to cut them a deal where they're like, hey man, can you do 90% on this card or can I get some percentage off? But I do really want it when you know, you can take the same high. Hopefully it's like a, well, not hopefully, but just if it's a high interest slab or something, which is why so many buyers might be coming to you to want to get it. You know though, you you could go to that special buyer and at least get 95%. Are you then unwilling to go below 95% to sell to anyone else? You see what I'm saying? How does this affect the buying ecosystem then? Speaker 3 Yeah, it makes it makes it more strict, right? Because with ultimate liquidity comes ultimate confidence in the value of your item, right? Like for example, if I've got just a stack of $100 bills in my, in my case and someone offers me 95% of those $100 bills, I'm going to say, well, no, because I could, I give them to Rob and he knows they're worth $100. And so like the answer to your question is like, obviously it has to yes, but there's still a large enough gap of access, a large enough gap of information of experience of networking that's going to allow there to still be margins on graded cards, maybe not as frequently as it is on singles because there isn't some unlimited buyer of singles, but graded cards, yes. But the answer to your question is like in as much as these corporations get more and more involved and these items get more and more liquid and transacted not just in person but virtually and represented in the vault or whatever, those margins have to get tighter. But it means that anyone who wants to be involved in the card market, in the graded card market specifically, is going to have to have a plug at one of those places to sell. Otherwise, they're not going to be able to make an offer to any other person who's that they're going to accept that they're going to make any money on to sell to another person. Speaker 1 That's interesting. It's a do you foresee then are we moving towards an era? Predicting Pokémon Market Trends Towards the 30th Anniversary Because you know what, there was a pretty viral video that Ash Robin QT. Do you know Ash Robin QT he he was like he's like OG poke talk and then like he took a break. He's like come back. But he made a video where, and this isn't even to call out like whether or not it was a, a good or bad take, but it, it seemed to be like he was commenting on how there's like less negotiation, less wiggle room that he's sensing from vendors in general from just, and you know, I think we've all sense that like, of course, the Pokémon market has been on fire in the last couple months. So that always makes things tighter. But are you saying that if you foresee this kind of path to where if these large corporations get involved with the space, it just makes market price, market price. And if like you want this card, you have to pay this price because it's that $100 bill. And if you want that $100 card, you got to come with $100. Speaker 2 I think, well, I'll, I'll chime in first, but what I'll say is that from what I've seen in the past six to seven years, you're right, is that the, the margin and the, the gap is getting tighter and tighter. There was a point in time when you would sell to a car shop at 60% and then there was a time when you sold at 70 and then 80% became market. And now we're talking about right around 90. And I think there will come a point in time when it's almost treated like $100 bill is that everyone will just just trust each other. It's all grand, all all. Speaker 1 Round when we say trust and you brought up the liquidity thing are we not just saying that is this not all just what do you call this I guess like efficacy that Pokémon cards can like can truly equal sign dollar sign because we know net like but 7-8 years ago it's just speculative it's like what collectors will pay the risk I can only. Speaker 2 Pay up that it had to be 60, right? The risk became less than 80. Speaker 1 OK, so you have a $300 Charizard a shop's like well maybe someone will only buy it for 200. I'm only going to buy it for from you for 1:50. But now if we can all agree that a Charizard and a PSA 6 is like $300 and it'll go to anyone for that, we're just saying that these cards are just these prices and they just won't really. There will be no wiggle room unless we as a collective hobby community deem that the value of said card goes goes down or up. Speaker 3 No, I it can never be that tight. Speaker 1 It right because that's impossible right it would have to just equal money it. Speaker 3 Can never be that tight because these items are inflationary and what I mean by that is there's always more PSA 10s being graded all the time. Interesting. And at the end of the day, because any of us can still go in grade cards, if I grade APSA 10 Umbreon and I, you know, I pulled that card, let's say I pulled it. And so I paid, you know what, 30 bucks for a pack pulled the moon Breon comes back at 10. My cost basis in the moon Breon is now, you know, 30 bucks plus my cost degrade, let's call 3400 bucks because of there's up charge shadow PSA. So I, my cost basis is like 400 bucks. Market price is $3600 for that card, but I just really need 3 grand and so I sell it for three grand and that's not a legitimate comp. And what I'm getting at is graded cards can never be a finite value that we all agree upon because everyone gets them for different prices and needs to do different things with the value that's encapsulated in that card. Speaker 1 So hearing that sort of hypothetical story, would certain buyers disagree with you on that? That would be a a comp though, in the sense that if that buyer even knows, oh this guy just sold it because he was kind of desperate for money, he's in on it low. Speaker 3 Corporation and the corporation again knows who were talking about driving this increase in demand and liquidity. A corporation doesn't have time for anecdotal evidence. All of these big time buyers are having to lean on widespread accessible apps that are aggregating data across lots of sales platforms to find a relatively fair market value for these cards. And that number is going to be informed by data that is collected from all different types of people and all different types of sales. So that person who sold the Moon brand for three grand because their eBay store is not very well known and they created the card themselves. So they did. They had really super low cost spaces in it, blah, blah, blah. That's a legitimate comp and that legitimate comp is going to inform the market price that you know PSA or whoever is going to going to offer you. Speaker 1 I think what I'm saying still may play a little I I get what you mean by legitimate in that it happened. But in the same sense that would you agree that most of those types of sales that aren't recorded on something like being sold through eBay or being sold on a track, if it's not tracked on that data sheet or all those data sheets that the companies are aggregating from, then does it not then become not a legitimate like it, like it never happened? Speaker 3 To a company that's only using that data to kind of inform their decisions, right, right. So they they're only using that data, correct. And so you and me as kind of private, you know, vendors and Pokémon cards. Speaker 1 You'd be buying the Mumbrian from someone that just needed 2K out of it though, right? You're not going to go to one of those sites and report or catalog that you that will never bought it. Exactly. Speaker 3 You can never depend on random vendors. Speaker 1 Spending their own time. Speaker 3 Subject themselves to data. Speaker 1 So I know, right? So, so then that's, that's what I'm saying then does it not kind of create this secondary market or I don't know, the black market, even though not the black market, But you know what, like this, like this underworld market where transactions will occur and people that are really deep into the hobby will be like, Oh, I, I, we know the real value of what this. Speaker 3 Already happening today. Speaker 1 Oh, between just that's. Speaker 3 Already happened today, specifically on these really niche cards that we brought up earlier, right? Like for example. I know that this that Dragonite card that I recently bought from EX Dragon Frontiers and APSA 10 is pop 30. Speaker 1 Congrats on that pick up. Speaker 3 Well we valued it at a certain amount but like it hasn't sold publicly on a website since like June and last sale was 25. Speaker 2 100, there's no date on it. There's no spread on it. They they can't A large corporation cannot buy a card. Well know the data. Speaker 3 But I've talked to enough of the people who are deep in this hobby and vending every weekend that like, they've seen that card a few times in the last few months and they know that it has sold for more than any of the public comps. And so there's already that secondary submarket of people who are in the know. Speaker 1 When that's happening, then how are you going to make your money from the? So that would be an example of a card where if you tried to go to one of these GameStop buyers that will they, they're just not going to be able to offer you enough because they're going to be like, oh, last sold was 2500. I'll give you 2400 for this card, but you're like, Oh no, this is like A7K card. OK. So then there's going to be a lot of kind of grails or things that don't move around as much, the less liquid cards that are going to be under appreciated by the business corporation buyers. But in the hobby we're going to know what the true value goes. So so that's happening then is the inverse also not that there's all these like modern or highly liquid cards that are are moving for this price. That's that's like the only thing that they'll be able to buy accurately. So how does that kind of affect the hobby? If if it's only, I don't know like what would that be like modern liquid 10s like alt arts like of that nature I guess. Speaker 2 Yeah, that I think that's what they are picking up. Those are probably going to be the most common ones. Speaker 3 Absolutely. Speaker 1 And man, and then that's only going to drive people to think that that's all that they can pull from these. It's going to. Speaker 3 It's going to further inflate the value of these modern cards around because that like that product in of itself is going to be the only exposure that a huge percentage of the of people have, you know, to the hobby in general. Speaker 2 It might be what they want too, because I think a lot of the, the general audience would be the people that would want, oh, hey, I I kind of want to pop 50,000 Charizard because that's something that is a little bit more populated. They might not want a niche 30 pop 30 card. Speaker 1 Yeah, it's interesting. Then it just makes me think of the all of the you, you, we all know these people, the the vintage collectors that are like, I don't don't buy, don't buy modern, buy vintage. And they're like, modern cards aren't going to be worse. Like wait 10 years after the sword and shield era. Wait 10 years after Scarlett and Violet. You should be collecting, you know, stuff from before XY. And like, so if, if that's the case, I, I do see what you're saying about it's just going to be that that positive feedback loop. It's going to keep making these like these modern, like alt arts and, and just like these highly liquid cards be very, very just stay in the in the realm of conversation. And then how does that affect the the vintage market? I don't. Speaker 2 Know, I think it's going to be an exciting couple of years. I don't think the calm is going to happen anytime soon. I think there's enough excitement and enough energy in the hobby that there's always something interesting happening. Before we let you go, Jar, can you just give us a quick prediction of where do you think things are headed in the next 6 to 12 months and the next time we can pull you back in, maybe we'll see if your prediction is true or not. You've been hitting it out of the park with some of your predictions. Speaker 3 Mostly just luck honestly, but I'm going to go with in general, we're gonna see what we're seeing now, which is kind of a relative cooling off while there's some uncertainty going on all these bigger players entering the market. And then based on what we get revealed in some of these upcoming mega sets. So we just had Mega Dream kind of get revealed where we know there's going to be a Mega Gengar Altart and most likely a Dragon Knight that'll get revealed at some point officially. So that's an exciting set, but in as much as maybe some subsequent sets after that don't have as much hype on them, we might see a slow down continue in the in the brand new releases. And gosh, fingers crossed that we can get items back to MSRP and kind of be widely available for people. So I'd love to see that. But like we talked about last time, this year, this calendar year 2025, we have seen a a repricing of the entire market that I don't think we will ever go back down to kind of a steady market back to where we were from 2023. Speaker 1 Or you think that floor never gets reached again? Speaker 3 I don't think so. Maybe for certain items? Speaker 1 Dan thought it might go back down. Remember when he was? Speaker 2 Saying well he's talking about sealed products packs might go back down to 5 bucks a pack in retail price but we're talking about cars it's. Speaker 1 A dip not that's true yeah, yeah, there's. Speaker 3 A different packs for a certain period of time maybe, but like demand is just at a new level. Like the new baseline is higher than it used to be, which is exciting and fun and makes things competitive though. But then again, like I think that we're going to see a lot of buying happening during the holiday season like we always do. We might see a slow down in in the winter after that, but then the TCG market usually picks up again sometime in the March, April time and then has again a slow and end summer. And so I think we're going to see all those those same cycles continue. But for those that are involved and constantly buying, selling, trading, the market's still very strong because it's not just about the value of the items, about the liquidity. Things are still trading at a really high clip. And as you guys mentioned, the beginning of the show, card shows are happening more than ever constantly. More people are joining all the time. We've got new video games. We've got 30th anniversary next. Speaker 1 Year, I know that's why I'm like, I just don't see a slowdown before the 30th anniversary or even if there's a little dip, say in the next couple months, but. Speaker 3 It's good. It's healthy. Speaker 1 Right, exactly. There should be some up and down, but literally in two more months we're in 2026 and then we're in 30th anniversary territory. Speaker 2 Yeah, well said Jar, Where can our followers follow you if they want to see some more of your hot takes? Speaker 3 Yes, well, we've got a YouTube channel, Jar Chomp Collectibles, do a lot of ending content, some podcast content, and then also our live stream that we do every other Wednesday. The midweek Machamps shout out Ricky from Oyamas Trading. We got a really cool show coming up this week and then two weeks after that really cool guest. So come by. We talk a lot for hours. So if you if you like pokey talk, then that's the place to be. Speaker 2 Awesome. Thank you. It's always a pleasure to have you on. Thanks. Speaker 1 You guys appreciate your time. Thanks for joining with us. Hey everyone. Thanks for tuning in and yeah, we'll see you on the next one. Speaker 2 Peace out everyone.