A Collector’s Guide to Vintage Cards Before The National | Gordy Bonkers

What should we be buying right now in vintage? Buy the highest level that you can afford. Buy the best names and just hold them. At the end of the day, there is a risk-reward equation that you can run in that. And to me, like, I love a sure thing. And I just couldn't feel more confident in terms of where the vintage card market is. The blue chips are sitting in front of me, baby. That's what I'll say. Greatest name in the hobby. Let's go bonkers. Welcome to the Collector Nation podcast here on the Collector Nation Network. Whether you're chasing grails or calling bluffs, we take you inside the hobby. Here's your host, Ryan Alferry. Everyone talks about the next hot prospect. Gordy Bonker is looking at the cards that have already stood the test of time. Gordy is back on Collector Nation to talk about the surge in vintage, the mantle market, grading headaches, and what collectors should be hunting for at the National. If you want to understand why serious hobby money is moving into vintage, this is the episode right now. now. Gordy, what's up, man? Great to have you back on Collector Nation. Hey, what's up, Ryan? How are you? Thanks so much for having me. I'm good, man. I love watching your content. I'm a fan from afar, even when we aren't together, my brother. So I do appreciate living vicariously through all your vintage deals you're making and you're making some big ones lately. Thank you, man. I appreciate that. Yeah, it's the market's really strong and I continue to find myself kind of just being like, I don't know, in disbelief sometimes of the stuff that I'm able to get to be a part of. I've closed a couple of big deals recently that certainly fit in that category, but the market is strong and I just feel very grateful for it all, my man. Yeah, man. Well, good things happen to good people. I believe it. So talk to me, like, is it getting to the point where the deals are finding you? Yes. Yeah. I am very lucky that, you know, I was mentioning to you, I have actually gone on a lot less card show trips this year. And part of that is that, you know, years prior card shows served as like a way that I found inventory and found deals and, Uh, as my media presence has grown online and I've built out my network more, I have a lot more deals that are coming to me, whether from the brokering perspective, if they're really high end or just large collections, I just closed on a six figure collection that I'm buying from a follower of mine about 20 minutes before we started recording tons of good stuff in that. Ruth's Cobbs mantle. But it's like, you know, it's all about just keeping up with the DMs and emails. And I'm fortunate that a lot of the cool stuff is starting to find me versus me finding it, which I appreciate. No, that's cool. That's the benefit of... you know, putting yourself out there, you know, you got the, you know, the, some, some of it perceived some of it real, you know, the negatives of, you know, just being out there and being on camera and doing those things. But then, but the upside is, you know, you get known people get to know you that, and it's hard to hide, um, If you're fake or not doing it for the right reasons, you can't hide that. And so when you're doing it authentically like you are, people see that. They get to know you. They know you, and you don't know them in a way. But it makes them endeared to you to do deals, and they want to bring stuff to you. So, you know, there's a... Risk always has reward, and it can go either way. So congratulations on your success with all of that, man. Thanks, man. I think of a few things when you say that. I feel like the risk-reward calculation is the most important thing that someone can learn in the hobby, and your level of comfort with risk will ultimately determine the amount of reward that you receive. And, you know, it's constantly like surviving some of those more risky events that that start to give you more tolerance for it. Putting yourself out there and especially to like interacting with a lot of people that I don't know that feel like they know me is like one of the. most strange experiences. I as a part of like, I've been publishing content on the Internet now about sports cards for about five years, and a lot of people have been following me for that entire duration. And some of them are reaching out to me and will kind of like you, like you said, have that conversation like they do know me and I love that to some extent. But the other side, the downside of it is that you really have no idea who you're speaking to. And I have had to like adopt and change the way that I do business sometimes because of it. Cause like you're exposing yourself to all of the world, the good and the bad had an experience where you know, I had bought some cards and collections from this person online. They sent me a big lot of mantles. I think it was only at the time was a big deal for me. This was probably two, three years ago was a $5,000 lot of mantle cards and, sent him the money after we had done a few deals and I had received the cards fine. When I sold him, I sent him this larger payment for the bigger collection. I never received the cards. He deleted his Facebook, never heard from the guy again. And it changed the way that I did business. I strictly now only pay for collections upon receipt. You know, I'm fortunate that I have a really strong reputation in the hobby and people, you know, know that they trust when they send me cards, I will pay for them. But unfortunately, you know, I have no idea who I'm dealing with on the other side of things. So it's a learning experience in a lot of ways and it humbles you at times. It's amazing. Sometimes the people I get connected to, I've got to meet unbelievably cool people, entrepreneurs, people that, you know, I'm sure you, you can detest being in the hobby. You meet a lot of amazing people. And so that I've learned a lot from as well. Yeah, man, I appreciate you bringing up that side of it and being transparent about it, because I think, you know, that is the reality of the world we live in. And I think, you know, we don't want to paint it too rosy or, hey, yeah, just get in front of the camera. It all works out. You know, like, I mean, no, you still have bad players out there and you got to protect yourself. And I hate that you went through that. But if it. taught you something and you've grown from it and made it, you know, protected yourself, then maybe it needed to happen, but you never wanted to. I know I was kind of cringing in my seat thinking, oh, because I've had not since I've been back in it, but enough business dealings with similar type situations, and it's just, I don't know. There's. I feel bad for those people, how short term and how hurt they must be to enact those things because it's just so short, so fleeting. You know, like you and I, I mean, we're out there. We're on camera. I mean, I've been doing business content for 10 years, so I'm out there. I don't want to harm anyone. I don't want to do riling against anyone, whether I was in content or not, but I'm not going to do it because, I mean, I have a reputation, you know, and that too. I mean, like all of those things. One, I'm not a bad person, I hope. And two, you know, you actually have something to look like. People can find you, you know, because you put yourself out there. This guy just disappears. Yeah. It's a weird dynamic in the industry in general, but when it comes to content as well, I'm way more comfortable. I don't know. I feel like I... just generally speaking, I've always been very comfortable public speaking, being around people. So like the, the turnkey of like starting to publish stuff online wasn't as hard for me as it probably is for other people. I would say like, if there was anyone who is listening though, that is been wanting to do it, the upside is way greater than the downside of it. And it's been an amazing experience and you learn a lot about, you know, discipline and consistency and kind of like sticking with it because there was periods of time, even today still, like I go through periods of time where creatively I'm a little bit in a drought, but I know if I just keep showing up and do the rep that maybe the next day or the next video or the next thing that I want to write about starts to ignite something greater. I'm a really big runner. I took a bit of a step back in running because I got super into golf, but what running It ultimately matters. You know, it's not about one day of running. It's about a week and stacking three weeks and four weeks. And I, you know, I trained around a marathon last year and that experience like changed my life in terms of what I can think about that what I can accomplish. So for anybody that's thinking about starting content, just start doing it and keep doing it and you'll accomplish amazing things. Amen. And you nailed it. It's in, you need to have a purpose and it's not that anybody can just throw it out there. It needs, it needs to be interesting on some level to, to some audience, but it is about the reps. And I, I, I say the joke all the time, my business show, you know, for two years had a hundred listeners and 99 where my mom, You know, but I got better. The show got better. I got more comfortable. But you just do the schedule, the routine. And I'll tell you what, anybody that can run a marathon and train for a marathon, you can do anything, brother. Yeah, most of the part, that was definitely hard. It was good, though. I love that experience, man. Let's talk about some vintage, man. You know, I know you know a little thing or two. Is it still as hot and as strong as the last time I spoke, the last year feels like even people had ever thought vintage would come out of their mouth, it comes out of their mouth. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you look across the category of all the major vintage players, all of their player markets are up 40, 50, 60%. I think last week when I was looking, the entirety of the mantle market is up on average about 60%. The 52 tops mantle and an eight. Most recently sold at Golden for 1.86, I want to say, 1.85, somewhere in that range, which is approaching like the all-time highs again for 52 Topps Mantles in eights. I think we will eventually see them cross 2 million again. within this year, there's a couple of eights that are going to be selling publicly again soon. I was mentioning to you before the show, since we last spoke, privately brokered the sale of two eights. And the market demand for the super high end level of vintage can't be hotter. You're seeing more high net worth individuals, People that are looking at this category of cards as truly an emerging alternative asset class, which is fueling a lot of the growth for the all time greats when you're talking about Ruth Mantle, Maze, Clemente, Aaron. All of those names have seen really strong growth. I think the vintage category in general continues to be looked upon as like a really safe store of value in sports card space. There's a lot of collectors that are coming into it that are buying modern cards because they recognize the players that are on the field today. And they also really like the action, right? The volatility of a player market because a player gets really hot on the field. alternatively, you know, changing their pricing and their cards is super exciting to some people. But what they don't like is when that player breaks their leg or has an off the field issue. And then the value of their cards tank 50, 60, 70 percent versus vintage. You know, unfortunately, Roberto Clemente and Willie Mays are no longer here with us. They can't have a off the field issue or a legacy change. limited, like they're not making any more of it. And the demand continues to increase because of just everything we've talked about over the last few years with collecting becoming more of a cultural activity. And now, as I've been talking about for years, this truly is an alternative asset class that people are seeing great returns on. Like I just mentioned, 50, 60 percent sometimes in the past year for some of these guys. So it's a really good time to be in the vintage card market. Do you feel like There's, and we shoot this at our collector station store here in Greenville, and you're getting the full experience if you hear the train going by. I hear it. I love it. 10% off just for you, Gordy, if you can fly down fast enough. You know, when you get your private jet, I need you to come get me. And you're well on your way. But the people that are getting into vintage, like in the asset class, is it – These people that are doing it because their buddy's doing it, or they're doing it and they're going to sell it in six months and it's a fad for them. I mean, can you tell if that's what's going on? I know that the broader hobby is more than a fad, by the way. So don't mistake anyone listening. Don't mistake that's what I'm asking. It's more kind of this upper, any of these niches like this upper tier echelon. Like it's cool to have a 52 mantle, you know, if you're a really wealthy guy. I have seen that. Poor girl. I have seen that. I think the word of mouth certainly helps in those circles, but there is a similar character trait upon a lot of the people that I'm doing the business with, that let's call it high six figures into seven figure card category. Yep. They all do enjoy sports or have some connection or interest in the players or just sports in general. But they're really smart people that recognize that this is a tradable asset that holds value very well. And also like, if you really wanna get granular with it, they really understand the tax benefits of the appreciation, right? Like this is something that oftentimes like a private transaction like this, they acquire a card and it appreciates in value and there's no taxable action that can take place on that. If you also look even deeper as well, a lot of the high net worth people that are buying it, it's an exchange of value as well. Like for their children, when they inherit these cards, it's not a taxable event by any means. So it's interesting. Let's go down that road, Gordy. I know that, but I think that's a really cool, interesting point that you're making. So let's explain that for our listeners. So if I'm a collector and I buy a... seven figure, $1 million card. If I pass away and I leave it to family, or if just 10 years later, it's worth 2 million, I don't get taxed on the $1 million increase. Well, no. And the other thing that, again, I have had some conversations with this at a high level with certain accountants and people that are really into the weeds on it. But What I do know is that there is a limit to how much wealth someone can inherit from their parents before there are taxes that become involved. Like it's an inheritance tax. But when a lot of that is tracked through either real estate, stocks, bonds, whatever. But that's not really the case when it comes to. baseball cards and the card market is incredibly liquid. The value there is there. And it's very easy to physically give somebody a 52 mantle. So it's an interesting event that I have recognized, like people are interested in for that reason. I think there's the growth and like the value appreciation that people are just excited for. Like I, I think I could share one of the 52 mantles that I sold last year in an eight. I could say sold for around 1.2 million. And for that client, I provided an offer less than a month ago for that exact card at 1.6 million, which was very quickly declined. So in less than a year, like you could see like a pretty strong, appreciation and that's attractive to a lot of people. If you look at just any other asset class right now, I don't know how many places you're getting that type of return. I think one of the things that you, the reason that you get really great returns as well is coming partly because the market is still so fragmented. You've got six or seven different major auction houses that are hosting these auctions at different times and have different audiences and different people that evaluate and give different price points on each card. It's not like a centralized exchange like the New York Stock Exchange, where, you know, stocks are trading at an extremely tight. Like there's a massive spread that is still existing in sports cards based on your knowledge, your network, if you're in the right place at the right time with the right capital and you know what cards to buy, like you can do really, really well. And smart people see that and want to get involved with it. Yeah. Talking with Gordy Bonkers, greatest name in the hobby. One of the best guys with the greatest names. I could be your marketer, Gordy. I'm very lucky to have a good name. It's helpful that people can remember it easily. What's going on with grading? I have a feeling I know the answer. Like these cards are worth so much. It's not a big deal if it's $85 versus the value tier. I don't know, but is grading impacting the whole shutdown impacting vintage? Oh yeah. I mean, it's really upending. A lot of it was what I would say, um, It's changing the way a lot of dealers do business in the hobby. Like the business of vintage baseball cards is about to like really dramatically change because of the grading shutdown that's been going on a PSA. And the fact that you can't get guards graded at SGC with any sort of turnaround time either. So, um, the dealer business model has to change. They have to either be more comfortable selling raw cards or pay more of a premium for preexisting, you know, grading, graded inventory that that's already here and graded. Um, I, I struggle to like comment on the grading business. I don't know Nat Turner personally. I'd love to meet him one day. I think, um, there's a lot of really smart people that are in those boardrooms making decisions, but it, um, is frustrating that the, um, demand cannot be matched. There's not enough staffing and resources that the grading companies have to be able to fulfill the demand. And a lot of it is driven, unfortunately, from the growth in TCG and Pokemon. It has nothing to do with baseball cards. It has nothing to do with sports cards. It's the Pokemon market, which I personally think is in a bubble and very unsustainable, and hopefully has no impact on the sports card market, but it's an effective market market, so. I saw a lot of it in my store, Gordy. I'm okay with it right now. I'm sure you are. I'm sure you are. I do recognize the world we live in, though, so I don't think you're wrong. It's a wild west. It is. It is. I don't know. I'm happy for the store owners and for everybody that is making great money and being able to provide for the family with it. I just don't think it's something I would want to put my chips behind long term. Yeah, it feels like it's almost what's happening is the worst of the modern sports. Like what's happening in Pokemon is the worst end of what's happened with a lot of modern, right? It's not because it's modern and it's... I don't know speculative is the right word. Yeah, speculative is the right word for it. I think like when you compare the two things, we'll compare vintage baseball to Pokemon, the buyer profile for who's buying vintage baseball cards. And this is at all price points. I'm not talking to seven figure buyer. I'm talking to the guy that's buying a 500 to a $1,500 card even. They're buying it because they want to add it to their collection. And It's truly for the hobby. And I don't believe that the majority of the transactions and the Pokemon side are happening because they wanna add it to their collection and keep it. They're buying it because they wanna sell it and they wanna sell it for more than what they just bought it for. And that is not sustainable activity. And not to say that I don't buy vintage cards to flip them either, but the buying profile that I see on both ends is so different. People are seeing money being made in Pokemon and they're just jumping in and buying whatever and then immediately selling it for more. That trees don't grow to the clouds, is that the expression? There will be a reckoning there, and it's not gonna be good. Yeah, at some point there has to be real growth. Yeah, no. And I don't know, people talk about how it's the most valuable IP in the world. Maybe I just didn't experience Pokemon like some of my other – like as I'm 30 years old, I'm a millennial, was born in 1996. Like TCG, like that first edition of Pokemon came out in 99. Like I remember kids in my elementary school opening Pokemon packs. I was opening baseball card packs. Like I just never was interested in Pokemon. So I don't have that – you know, an affiliation towards it. And maybe I don't understand it, but, um, I get asked a lot, like, why am I not getting involved in the Pokemon space? Or, you know, there's dealers that are selling baseball cards and Pokemon cards, card shops that are doing both. I just, I'm a big believer in like, do what you know and do it really well. And I try not to chase the shiny thing. And I just really firmly believe that that is what Pokemon is right now. But I could be wrong. We could be here 10 years from now and it's all higher. And People just love, you know, whatever Snorlax or Pikachu or whatever the character is. I'm going to open invitation, Gordy. I have a Pokemon specialist and he's not, you know, 19 and going, hey, Pokemon is great. He's actually older and knows it. I invite open invitation to come down and then you can leave and make your own mind up. All right. There's a huge Pokemon community in this area. And so I didn't believe it either. And I don't know where I fall on the on the bigger topics that you're talking about. I don't know that I firmly made up my mind either. I just know it's, I'll say this, it's more real than I thought it was. Do I know it has the, do I know where it's going to be in 10 years? No, I know where Michael Jordan and Ricky Carts are going to be in 10 years. I know where this Willie Mays and this Pete Rose are going to be in 10 years. I know where this is going. That's it. But, yeah, it's fascinating. At the end of the day, like there is like a risk reward equation that you can run in that. And to me, like I love a sure thing. And I just couldn't feel more confident in terms of where the vintage card market is. And I don't have that conviction in Pokemon. So that's why I don't touch it. But, you know, there are people that trade all sorts of different stocks, too. There are people that love trading penny stocks or they love trading small caps. And there are other people that just want to buy high quality blue chip names and let it ride. So it's all a matter of how you view it, you know. I knew penny stocks was going to be the first thing out of your mouth when you started that line in the comparison. We all get to have our own flavors of ice cream. We'll let you determine which one is that. But the blue chips are sitting in front of me, baby. That's what I'll say. They're right here. And they're right here with me. He's Gordy Bonker. He's a blue chip. Talk about the mantle effect. You know, every collector knows mantle. You know, it feels like even today it has an aura over the whole vintage market. Yeah. You know, I... Mickey Mantle captured a generation of baseball fans, right? The golden era of baseball is in the 1950s. He was the guy. The Yankees dominated in the 1950s. So culturally, like he just implanted his name, his image into Americana in that decade. And it has continued to be a huge part of baseball cards because that's when baseball cards start to get really popular again, post-World War II. You know, you've got Mantle's face on all baseball cards. And so like culturally, he's so entrenched into the hobby that I really don't ever see his market reversing as long as like people are trading cards and people have been doing it for hundreds of years. Like he's cemented in that space. If you look at, um, other player card markets of players who had probably better stats and careers, they don't grow and accelerate the same pace because he just, they weren't as culturally relevant. That's the term I always go back to. It's odd though. If I look at my own collecting and my own investing, I don't own, I don't think any Mickey Mantle cards in my personal collection. I've never like, and I'm a Yankees fan and I've never- That is hard to believe. A Yankee fan living in Jersey, And that deals in vintage cards. I have more like Hank Aaron, Jackie Robinson, Satchel Paige stuff. I've always loved the history of baseball. And I don't think I had the connection to mantle that some other people have had. But I will say this. If I see a mantle that's priced even a little bit under where it was a month or two months ago, I do buy it because I know that the market is going to continue to go up. But I don't know. I think it's an interesting thing. I really don't believe that the price will ever be cheaper for a 52 mantle in the future than it is right now. But it's not – I don't know. Everybody has a different taste for it, I guess. I just – I love different periods in the history of baseball, I guess. We didn't really close it out. I do want to close out the grading discussion part. Is the issue, because I mean, the only thing that it's shut down is based on, you can still send in stuff for 85 bucks. I mean, it's just the time that it takes and the reality that... so few people want to send and pay that. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a strategy that they're using to try to get people to stop sending lower tier cards in, which sucks because like the everyday collector does want to have like their regular cards put into slabs and they can't really do it. It doesn't make any financial sense currently. Um, They're doing it to lessen demand until they can get their resources up to be able to fulfill expectations that collectors have. I recently, I mean, I sent an 86 Fleer Jordan PSA 9 in. That's a $40,000, $50,000 card. But I got a turnaround in a week. It was 200 bucks. And to me, like that service was still super helpful and useful. Um, I think they're trying to, um, lessen the demand of sub $100 cards getting graded. Let those cards just transact raw and allow for grading to be for cards that are 100, 200, 500 and up. But from a business perspective, it's very hard because that high of a grading cost like really eats into your margin if you're buying raw cards. That's why I was telling you, dealers are struggling with it. For that lower grade, vintage player of an all-time name like people want their stuff in slabs but they're just not making it affordable right now i struggle to like really also apologies the the grading side of the business to me is the least exciting thing i struggle to like get myself as fired up about it as other people do um because i just i don't know it's a necessary evil we have to deal with it there's not much i can do to impact it either you know Yeah, I've had some DMs with Nat Turner. He has an open invitation to him on this show. He hasn't taken it. I'm not even saying that if I was him, I wouldn't necessarily do it either. He's got a lot bigger fish to fry. But I don't envy the situation. I mean, the dude's going to make a killing. I mean, he's going to sell that company for a billion dollars one day, or, I mean, multiple billion dollars. And I know he's got other stakeholders and all that stuff. But, like... He's just really smart. I see like like him personally. I just it's just kind of I don't. Seems like they could have figured out the staffing thing, but that's easy to say and hard to figure out because I've managed people, you know, but it just seems like we could have gotten ahead of this. But no, I mean, you definitely. I mean. Again, I'm not in those rooms. I don't know. But you could have seen the demand coming for several years over the last three or four years. So it's not shocking that we're seeing these levels. I don't think they could have anticipated the growth that came, unfortunately, again, on the TCG side. The TCG. They decided not to. Now I know why Gordy hates TCG. Get it in the way. That should have been – they should have built a grading infrastructure for TCG specifically. But instead, they bought SVC and kind of killed it and used all their resources to get more graders to, you know, throw on for everything that's happening in the TCG world. So it is frustrating. I don't love Pokemon. I hope I don't get, you know, upset any Pokemon fans you have. You're probably going to get some hate mail. I was going to tell you. There's definitely some – no, maybe. Maybe. Not email. It'll be like, there'll be people trying to probably convince you. But yeah, I'll tell you, I've seen guys that I never, ever, ever, ever, ever thought would buy a Pokemon card. And they're showing me these Pokemon cards. for a crazy amount of money, and I'm like, I just feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Like, I just don't understand. But, um... I sell a lot of Pokemon. I'll just, I'll leave it at that. Yeah. I don't buy a lot, but I do keep some sealed. Like, sealed product. Like, in the... It's, uh... Economics of sealed product makes complete sense to me, too. I mean, if you look at sealed product from 5, 10 years ago in any sort of category, it's all worth more than it was then because the supply has lessened and the demand has at least stayed stable. And if there's an increase in demand to a lowering supply, you're getting awesome returns. This is like, you know, it was really cool actually. I had a PhD professor at American University come on my show a couple months ago and I got connected with him because he was using my content and my newsletter to teach economics at American University rather than use like old business cases of, you know, staples getting bought by Amazon or whoever, like they were talking about economics through sports cards. And I think, uh, it's a really great place to learn some of the basic foundations of economics and business because it's all supply demand, risk reward, um, inventory management as well. Like I know, I'm sure as you're building a business and hiring people as well, um, there's so many good lessons that you could teach while you're doing it. So I do love that for the sports card world. That's, I mean, that's what I'm teaching my boys more than anything. It's like that part of it all for them. When we got into a couple of years ago, it's going to shows and teaching them. Okay. Them understanding, you know, scarcity, rarity, uh, the impact on pricing and negotiation and talking with adults. You know, it's a lot of life skills, uh, come out of the hobby that, uh, I think it talked about, but I don't know if they could talk about enough because it's, I think we sort of sensationalize the big deals and all that. Yeah, that's great. But it's like, there's a lot of life lessons in the hobby. Totally, man. I mean, I love when I see, it is cool. And there is like a cyclical nature, I think, to the industry in general. Like a lot of the kids of the junk wax boom of the 80s and 90s are now adults and have kids of their own. And yeah. they are reliving and experiencing the hobby and they're bringing their kids along for it. And I love to see it. It's like one of the coolest parts about it. I also love like seeing how to your point, like kids are learning like how to have a real conversation and interact with people in real life. Like I, I was a part of the last generation of kids that didn't grow up with, you know, iPhones or tablets or internet or any of that stuff. And I am very grateful for it because I feel like in those formative years, like I was able to, learn how to talk to people and like be in the real world. And now with everything on social media, I do think it limits kids ability to like communicate effectively and build meaningful relationships and like kind of be able to tell when people are lying to you as well. And like who are real and who are not, um, it's really hard to do through a screen, you know? What's yeah, dude, it's hard raising kids with everything that's out there. It's, you know, shielding them, but also not shielding them, right? It's like, it's a delicate balance. One P-Rose rookie at a time. I don't think this is rookie, but it's close to it. 66. Yeah. Yeah. He's 63. Yeah. That's still like it though. This Hank Aaron though. My boy NBA, Mike Baker gave me a three on this. Yeah. I got a with you as well. I got a 59 in here. Yeah. I love that. The, uh, I've gotten into like, I've always appreciated vintage, but I've definitely got, I'm getting more into buying a vintage. Yeah. So I've, I've, I've I've got my cheat sheet out for this next section, which is what should we be buying right now? In vintage. I remember the last time I came on the show. I know you did. You made some recommendations. I think I bought a few of them. There you go. You did well. Because all the players that I will say, and again, I can pull up their player markets over the last year. have continued to go up and show strength. I think the challenge is when you're giving blanket advice of what to buy is that I don't know the end user in terms of what they like, but also like what their budget is, like what they can comfortably spend. I think those are all important nuances to say before you throw anything down in terms of what to buy. Let's do a five grand. All right, five grand. If we're spending five grand on vintage, and it could be a couple cards or one card, you know, what's in that territory? Who are you buying? I, for one, like... If I had that exact budget, this card right behind me here, it's a 1954 Hank Aaron rookie card. It's from 1954 Tops. I love the set. I love the card. I think it's a top four vintage baseball card of all time. It hasn't had the mania around it, though. It's just a truly appreciated... great player from a great set. Raw or graded? I mean, obviously. So you can get, I would say like a lower grade copy in a PSA one or two, probably for around three grand right now. So that could kind of be like the foundation, the cornerstone of this $5,000 budget. Yep. When you have that other 2,000, I still think it's good to round it out with great names from good sets. If you're buying this because you want to see appreciation growth and it's just an investment and there's no emotional attachment. Then I would tell you with that remaining 2000 to sprinkle in at least one or two mantles from as early to his rookie season as you can get. Right? So if you have 2000 bucks, you could get one, let's call it 52 Bowman card, uh, in a low grade, which would probably be around two grand. Or you could get one or two from maybe the late 50s in lower grade and leave yourself enough room to be able to maybe buy a lower grade Jackie Robinson card. The card right next to Hank Aaron from 54 here in the set that I have is Jackie Robinson. You could get a low grade 54 Jackie for 500 bucks. And that will never, in my opinion, the Jackie Robinson market. is the most resistant market ever. Even when you saw like in 2021, there was a huge increase in price across every category. A lot of the vintage market did feel some of that. Maybe it regressed for six months or so. The Jackie Robinson market, the mantle market, that stuff didn't even regress. It just stayed where it was, and then it continued to go higher once the rest of the market moved higher. So it's just a safe place to go. I love 54 tops. I like those early Bowman sets, so like 51, 52 Bowman. They're great sets. They're still relatively affordable and low-grade. I do think you'll see a great reward. And the more money that you spend, the higher end card you get, the percent return does get higher. Like the cards that are performing at the highest year over year clip are the cards that are in the highest grade. So buy the highest level that you can afford, buy the best names and just hold them. What's your approach? If you're at a show, and buying cards that you just described, like at the National. Yeah. So walking around, there's tons of everything. So lots of vintage dealers. You walk around and you're looking for those cards or just some vintage deals. Yeah. And everybody's, Some dealers are more motivated than others, but everybody's around comp, generally. And so how are you negotiating or knowing how much room there is or isn't and where you can sell over and above comp and those kind of things? I know it's easier when you're buying a collection, Because you're making a lump sum. I'm buying all of them. I'm taking them all. There's some risk here. But I get them for some percent or a deal or just a number. $50,000 for some mountain of upside. But individual cards or a couple cards at a time, how would you guide people? I think this is part of the part of the hobby that people get most discouraged from. And I think it goes to the earlier conversation we had about like consistency and running and doing the hard thing over and over and over and over again, is that you're going to go to a lot of dealers and they might be priced well above market. And then when you ask them if they could even be closer to comp, they're going to say, no, have a nice day. Somebody else will buy it. It's a very like, for some people like demoralizing experience. If you see something that you want, then you can't get it even at a reasonable price. And unfortunately there is a lot of old school dealers that just don't have people skills and the experience sucks. So I want to preface this by saying like, I understand this is not easy and like, nobody should expect that like you're just gonna walk up to a table offer 80% and then the guys can be like, sure, here you go. A couple of things you have to remind yourself is that they themselves had to struggle to some extent to find that inventory. So you have to understand that like, you have to show some sort of level of like understanding that like what they have is valuable. And I think like the way you approach the conversation is important. So if this is a 59 Hank Aaron PSA four, it's on the table for 300 bucks, it's comping at 250. And you're like, man, I love this card. Like even describing it to the dealer, like, hey, I love this card. I'm interested in it. I totally get where your price is at. I know stuff's been moving higher. Like talk to me at all. Can I offer you $200 for this? Or what do you think about $200? I know your price is $300. Like what's the room with that look like? Like kind of make an opening offer recognizing like, hey, I don't expect you to offer this, but like let's start the conversation somewhere. It kind of gives a little bit of like – freedom to the dealer to be like, all right, I can recognize this person's reasonable. I don't think that's the real offer. And maybe he'll come back and say, look, I'll take 20 bucks off, it's 280. And if this card's trading for 250 and you're trying to flip it, like this isn't your guy. But if you come back and say, look, I get it, like, could you get close? Could you do 230, 230 get it done? Maybe you say cash, 230 cash. When you're selling cards for cash, dealers will oftentimes jump at cash over PayPal or Venmo. So sometimes it is a little bit of an art form and a dance and you have to like keep moving forward after the first no being persistent. I think when you go to multiple shows, you start to recognize like who the real dealers are that are there to sell versus the guys that are telling you to kick rock. So I don't spend time with dealers that I don't think want to do business. I also think again, what I was saying earlier, the market is fragmented. So you might. not realize as a dealer that the card that you had priced at 250 just sold yesterday for 375 because you've got a hundred cards on your table and you can't keep track of every card's price. You can't just reprice stuff all day. So I encourage people sometimes like take a look. If you see the quality of cards that you like on the table, like price don't price out two or three price out 10, 12, Because sometimes if the quality is good, you might catch a comp. Look, this one just sold for $400. He's got it stickered at $320. I can offer him $300. He's happy, and I'm going to be happy. So it takes persistence and recognizing who the right people are. It's not something you're going to walk into a card show for the first time of your life and make $10,000 because you walked around offering people 80%. That's just not this big part. But I think that's all stuff to keep in mind at the very least when you're thinking about trying to negotiate and buy cards and stuff like that. Yeah, man. And no one dislikes the dealer that's really not there to sell. Then it's like... It's funny you say it and it's like, well, that doesn't make any sense. Of course, they're to sell. But there are those guys, man. I swear they're in retirement or semi-retirement and they don't really have to sell anything. Or like, they're just passing time. And then it's like, nothing is really for sale. hobby to people though. And some guys like have waited a long time to get off the wait list, to get to set up at the national and to kind of showcase their collection and get to meet other people and have stuff that they think is really cool. And if somebody wants to pay the price that they want to sell it for, they sell it. And at the end of the day, like it is your stuff. You could price it however the hell you want to. I'm a big believer in that. I'm not going to spend time with you if you're not priced to market because I don't have time to deal with that because I'm not in that business or interested to do that. But some people are. So it is what it is, man. What's your advice to someone that's considering going to the national, if not this year, another year, you know, how to make the most of it, what not to do any, uh, the regular tips that you hear, like if it is your first time going, I think you're going to be overwhelmed. I think you're going to underestimate the size of it. Um, and I think, um, Hopefully you have a good pair of shoes on because you're on your feet all day There's not a ton of places to sit or anything like that They use up all the square footage they can to be able to get people have tables for dealers So, you know bring a good pair of shoes sleep. Well drink a lot of water I think one of the things that I would tell people to do also is kind of like accept that you're not going to do everything somebody who's like a highly anxious person that does have like this and I would say like unrealistic expectation of myself at times. Like I think the first couple of years I was there, I was like mad at myself or disappointed that I wasn't able to get to see or do or meet everyone, do everything I wanted to do. I think if you go into it thinking like there's a handful of areas that I know that I want to go see, like I really want to go see the tops pavilion. I want to, you know, get in on a break or I want to make sure that I go to the autographs portion of the day because I really want to meet that childhood hero of mine. Walk out the things that mean the most to you and like kind of accept that you're not going to do everything and that's okay. And to the conversation we just had earlier as well, like I do think it's important to set expectations too. Like these dealers travel from all across the country. Those tables are crazy expensive to buy as a dealer. If you want to sit up there, they're not going to sell you stuff at 70, 80% of value. Like if you think you're going to the show, and you're going to walk around and make all this money offering dealers that spent all this money to get that inventory and set up and commit like a week of their life to do this like get that out of your head and i'm not a traditional dealer in that sense but i have a ton of like respect for what they do and the difficulty of it so i'll say like set expectations do the things that you're really want to do make sure that you hydrate bring yourself some good snacks and like just I don't know. I might be speaking to myself a little bit through this advice as well. Thank you. Take a little pressure off yourself is what I would say. I definitely feel like I put a lot of pressure on myself at the National. All right. Let's take the pressure off, Gordy. And let's have a beer or a soda, whatever your drink of choice is. I have a happy hour at the National Thursday. It's at Crust for anybody that wants to come. It's in Rosemont. Yeah. after the national closes Thursday, um, having guys for the bonkers cards club, but just to have a beer and hang out after. So anybody listening, hit me up. Hey, drop, uh, you mentioned, you know, some things you got going on, drop those drop details. The newsletter is incredible. Let's, uh, let's get all that info out. Yeah, I try to show up as many places as I can. I've been writing this newsletter for three years now. It's published on Substack. You can subscribe for free. It's at bonkerscards.substack.com. It's a weekly email that goes out and just gives updates on everything that I'm doing, all the card deals I'm working on. I run vintage breaks as well. So you go to bonkerscards.co if you ever want to check out any of my vintage breaks. I'm running a... a 52 tops Mickey Mantle break right now. So I have a 52 tops low series set plus the 52 mantle, which was the first card in the high numbers series. So somebody is going to win a $50,000 mantle for 300 bucks, which is very exciting. Wow. You can do, you can join the break, go to bunkerscards.co, buy spots there. I've got, social media handles on Instagram, on Tik TOK, on YouTube, everything on bonkers cards everywhere. Um, and then I have the Gordy bonkers show, which is published by SCN media. And, um, I have episodes that run every Wednesday and I try to just bring everything that we're talking to today, Ryan, like every, all the topics are stuff that I love to talk about on my show. Um, I try to like really focus my content on just purely educating people on the hobby. I stay out. None of my stuff's ever going to really be, um, related to hobby drama or any of that type stuff. I'm here because I love this. I'm passionate about the history. I love the market of it. I think there's a financial angle that people can really benefit from learning. And that's where I spend most of my time. And then, yeah, I've got a Facebook group community and then the Bonkers Cards Club, which is on my newsletter. It's the premium version of my newsletter. And the club meets once a month. I'm going to have an in-person happy hour at the National for the club. But anybody can come to that. I want people to come say hi, hang out, get discounts on my breaks and stuff like that. But yeah, you can find me anywhere or email me at bonkerscards at gmail.com. But I really appreciate the time as always, man. I think you're doing great. I want to congratulate you as well in the shop and everything you're doing there. I know it's a lot of work what you're doing. And I was talking with Bella before the show, having like really smart, talented people with you. Like it's a hard thing to do. So congratulations for everything you've done as well. Hey, man, Gordy, I always love talking with you. Yeah, I want to continue to grow this relationship, having you on the show regularly talking all things vintage. The irony here is, you know, going bonkers, you know, you know, but but you're a practical, you know, guy. But you know, like I love the like the parallel, you know, it's like going bonkers and being practical. But it's how you make hay in the hobby. And I love, you know, your style is direct, but it's It's so educational. I always feel like I learned something when I talk to you. You're wise beyond your years and really appreciate your time. We'll have all of those links on the show notes. And look forward to catching up with you at the National, brother. Yeah, I'd love to see you guys. Again, thank you so much. Appreciate all the kind words, man. And, yeah, we'll be in touch. Appreciate you, man. The collector nation.com. We're building the home for the hobby media. It's come big. We've got an app about to launch. We've got the whole network coming together. It's exciting. And I appreciate guys like Gordy for making the hobby what it is. We appreciate you for joining in. We'll see you next time on the collection nation. Thanks for tuning into the show. Be sure to follow us on your go-to podcast platform and catch the full video episode over on YouTube. Visit us at collector nation.com and follow Ryan on Instagram at Ryan Alford. Now get out there and collect yours.