Buy Low, Sell Smart: Understanding Sports Card Cycles is the Key to Flipping Cards

We beat out the Kelsey brothers on the Apple Sports chart this weekend. That's the same. We're just getting started too. I know. We don't take it for granted. We open the packs and one of the first ones with the page vectors. It wasn't numbered. Probably like a $30 or $40 card. No, he looked at that thing up from like $140 to $190. That's amazing. TSA buys back it and they're just going to bury it, get rid of the brand. And there are people adamant about that. I can tell you with almost 100% certainty that back it is staying around. You know what's crazy too is when you look at card prices like the cyclical nature of it. There's times to sell and there's times to buy. I wouldn't have believed it getting back into the hobby two years ago, 18 months ago. How one day, one game, like how it just impacts it. So if you're listening and you're going to the national pan raise, first 10 to mention it in the comments. We don't want to give away the ticket if you're not going to be there. But if you're going to be there to say, hey, I'll be at the national and I want in. Welcome to the Collector Nation podcast. Here on the Collector Nation Network, whether you're chasing grills or calling bluffs. You take you inside the hobby. Here's your host, Brian offer and Brian Lutton. Hello and welcome to Collector Nation here on the Collector Nation Network. Always joined by my good buddy up in shi town. Brian Lutton, he is the CEO of Luttex, the greatest, best, finest, most efficient, lots of new featuring app on the app store. Luttex. Yes, I thought the adjectives or descriptors I could have today, Brian. Yes, pretty good though. That's more than I thought. That's more than I deserve. Oh, hey man, 300 cards. Hey, I'm just going to go right at that. You know, it's pretty impressive. You came on and Brian was telling me 300 cards in an hour on eBay. If anybody does eBay selling, this should be pumped to hear that. Yeah, I think I could put like 30 to 40 on regular. From a card perspective, I don't know how you could just because he's not going to Super Bowl, how Caleb Williams cards couldn't be going up. I haven't looked at the data, but I bet there should be a positivity around him, but we'll see what happens in the numbers. Yeah, I mean, I agree. Like, you know, people are like, this guy's got something special and his cards are up. I mean, what cards, like, when you look at like Bownecks, like, if he wins, he broke his ankles. So like, no one's cards are going to go up. If Denver wins, if New England wins, yeah, probably Drake May will be up again, but like, that's it. And then Seattle, no, like, Darnell, he's cheap anyways. I'm buying Darnell's like, I told you that. I've been buying Darnell's the last two months. If anybody's been paying attention on the show, I said that. Yeah, because he's probably going to win Super Bowl. Did you get your hotels and flights to the national? I'd love to tell you, yes, Brian. You better get him. I know last year, you know, for a head, I am then last year already. I mean, so I booked them last year, like a month before I don't know how I did it. I did stay at the Bravewood Inn, along with Del Griffith, you know, the shower curtain ring fellow. And though, if you know that reference, we should have a beer sometime. That's a plain strange anonymous bills with John Candy. But me and Brian are going to share a double bed. That's one of the greatest movies of all time. But no, it was practically that. It was some kind of homewood sweets and it was homely woods. But dude, I sent you the, we beat out the Kelsey brothers on the Apple sports chart this weekend. No way. Yeah, they were like literally. Like it was fun. I took the screenshot and they were next to us that we were higher. That's the same dude. We're like number, it was like, we were five. I think they were six. We're just can, we're just can start it too. I know. So if you're listening, we appreciate it for the, you know, pushing things to the top. Our download numbers keep going up. Our YouTube numbers are actually really going up significantly. And that's where you get traction. And that's the fastest growing podcast platform, which is YouTube. So look, we appreciate, we don't think it for granted. So don't think that. Brian and I like, we're, we're trying to bring you valuable content and do this the right way and give you insights and knowledge and have fun doing it. But not lost on us that you have a choice in what you'd watch and listen to. So we appreciate it. Yes. I second that. Talk to the audience and it's just you and I talking, which would you probably find with that? Anyway, it's exactly right. It's brought us out of, you know, shoot the shit a little bit, but I will say this. I'm going to jump into this. So a little bit, you know, I do keep my eye on the market with the store opening. I'm going to show you a product here. It might surprise you might not. If you're, if you, well, they say, um, if you know, you know, I, we, K, is it I, Y, K, I, K, something like that. Don't wait that. W N B a prism box at a Costco. I don't know. I hesitate to give this away, Brian, like I sell these and they will be for sale in the store. Um, but they're a fun rip and I kind of want to hog them to myself. Like so, but I'm going to be nice to everyone and give you a little hint. These are a hot product right here. What do they cost to a Costco 45, 46 bucks and you get, well, you get six packs. And let me tell you, these are loaded packs. These aren't, these aren't your crappy Walmart blaster packs. And I know there's some blasters that are hot. Don't nobody DM me and say, well, you know, they're all blastered. I know there are some, but most of them aren't. So this are like six packs out of like a hobby box. Think of a hobby box because numbers, autographs, galore, and then you get this bonus pack. And it's, look, it's, it's got three parallel, like, uh, Pandora parallels. One's a red, which is out of one 99. You're guaranteed a one out of 99 out of that pack right there, plus two silver Pandors. And let me just say if any of those are, you know, start with the names that you might already have in mind, obviously, Caitlin Clark, even being her second year, you're talking hundreds of like a thousand dollar card, probably out of one 99. And who might actually be the more talented player this year's rookie, Paige Beckers is the hot rookie. And Brian, let me tell you, we opened her packs. We opened the packs and one of the first ones was a page beckers. It was like a blue scope or something parallel. It wasn't numbered. Oh, it wasn't numbered. And I thought, hey, hey, it's probably like a 30 or 40 dollar car. No, you look at that thing up from like 140 to 190 was like the sales, resales, yes, just a blue scope parallel. I'm like, uh, okay. That's amazing. I'm sleeping on this thing. And if it had been numbered, are you kidding? I mean, if that's one, if her freaking one blue scope is, you know, 150 bucks, 180 bucks, what's a one out of 99, probably like five or 600? There's no law saying that you have to sell it. This is true. And I'll probably hold on to hers because she's, I think going to be something else. And we've had a few of these back, like a few hot topics on the show that get in and I've responded to the YouTube comments. And we look, if you're listening, we appreciate you. Hey, the boy we know you like it is if you give good hate or love. So, uh, we appreciate positive, negative or different opinions, no matter what. I guarantee you this segment, if we do a highlight clip, which we will now that I've said it, uh, we'll generate discussion because there is a lot on both sides of this. There will be people that will come up with the hard argument that any, you know, natural solution that wipes a smudge off or water or like pushing the corner that bent up, you know, down, like, okay, what did I just need to leave it? Like if I push it down and it wasn't really creased, but it was just kind of flaked up. And then it gets a tan or a nine that I cheat the system pushing the down around. He won the system. Yeah, like come on, man. You know what, uh, I talk about social media. I'm glad you respond to these people. You're better at it anyways, but I responded last Friday, uh, from a, we did a post on some Pokemon and Miles Garrett jumped in. Uh, uh, and, and he's like, I opened these boxes. I got this card and this card and this card. And so I did respond to him, uh, but he didn't respond back to me. That's, I don't use too busy, uh, polishing his, uh, you know, a sack record trophy. Yeah. I don't, man, I'm the worst social media person. I, I, I just not on it. Okay, we've got some card movers. Am I doing this? Are you doing this this week? I got it. I got it. All right. And the first one was something you mentioned, uh, Caleb, Caleb Williams, up 51%, uh, went from number 15 trending to number 10. Um, and I think it's what we, we said like he, he, he, he makes amazing plays and people love watching them. That's the next one's no surprise, uh, Drake May. I'm kind of getting sick and nauseated talking about him every week being number one. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, his, his card's up, uh, 50% again, and he's still one of one, um, on the trending players. And then again, Sam Darnold, um, his cards are just like for Brown's PSA 10. So Donner's optic Brown's 10. It's sold for $105 on the fourth. And now it sells for two 17. So it's up 14%. He went from 134 to 73, but that's not a lot of love. No, and you can't tell me if they end up winning the Super Bowl. Yeah, the defense will drive it. But he'll have to make a player to eventually. And if he does, anyone's Super Bowl, that's a $500 card. Yeah. Like easy. You'd probably should be more than that, but it was at least double. I would think it's almost like in this industry. It's like if, if they come in cheap, they always stay kind of cheap. That's right. You can't become the superstar if you didn't start the superstar. Yeah. So a follower, which 100%. I've actually never seen a quarterback play this bad in the playoffs. Did not take care of the ball. If you're a Texan Houston Texans fan, you are just like what the hell are we doing? Cause that defense is a world class defense. He dropped 20%. He went from 48 trending down to 235. Sorry, I don't mean to last seat at UCJ, but I, I, I, I never was like thought he was like a Josh Allen. My homes are like a, or even like a bro or like, but I thought he was good. And, but watching him, I was like this ain't it. Like, and everybody can have a bad game. Like Josh didn't have his best game, but he wasn't rattled. And obviously Josh is an over player, but still CJ is not a rookie anymore. No, Brock Perky's down. I mean, they just got the butt kicked. I mean, it wasn't on him. I don't know. It's down, but like, it's like, he ran into a bus all. Yeah, no one, there wasn't one team playing last weekend. That was going to be the sea ox. This one, I understand the least. Let me, yes, it's a brand new to buy this card. Yeah, Bo Knicks, PSA 10, he played, he, Freaky played his ass off and looked good. He made some throws and I didn't know that he, I knew he has, I knew he's got a strong arm, but he made some touch throws that I didn't know he necessarily had in his bag. And he won the game and has a freak accident. I get these not going to win a suitable. Well, why would he drop? Yeah, I mean, you're looking at this like, he broke an ankle. It's not like, like, they're taking off his arm. Yeah, they like cut his shoulder off. Yeah, he's, he's going to, guys, everyone, he's going to be back on the field in six to eight weeks. So, so just, you might, he's not going to win the Super Bowl because, but he played like, you could say he played better or equal to Josh Allen in some ways. Let's, let's just be honest about that as far as head to head. And you're dropping on, huh? That's this is, this just shows you how speculative game sensitive like shit is. Yeah, there's like a futures market that could happen here. You know, and you can almost like buy options and futures on these, on these prices. They move so much, but Bob and next is a buy. You know, they're going to have a good defense for a while. He doesn't make tons of mistakes. He manages the game well and you could get it for about $250 lower this week than you could have last. Yeah. And if it dropped that much, I'm kind of, you know, maybe ride it one more week and see if it goes even lower. I, you know, I think there's a, there's a pretty, there's a floor that's not too much lower. I'm buying it. If it gets under five, if it gets under 500, I'm buying that card. Well, let me just tell you, um, here they are. Oh, you got it. I got one's Drake May, one's Bo Nix, the silver, uh, prisms right here. Did you clean them up in there? They're going to be a 10. Yes. Uh, but I have, I have, dude, you know, as prison football, me and the boys ripped her, like, I have at least 10 of each of these. So like, all right. So I might be buying it from you. I mean, how buy a rock art? I don't care. Dude, I'll clean it up and send it to you. And then you can, or I can send it in for grading and then ship it to you. The, uh, but I got something, I got something on the grading. Yeah, all right. Back it, the PSA buys back, which ones are? This is a rare insert. It's kind of funky. It's a, uh, uh, tops, which is, uh, obviously it was unlicensed, but this is main attraction tops. It was the insert, like, it was an SSP and tops, uh, from tops is really start. I love top what they're doing with the inserts. They've done some cool ones. I think it was just chrome, but yeah, it was a fun one. It's like big top. I don't know. Like I'm a circus thing, but it's got some funky colorations. I've never seen, I know there's others to make it go. There's millions of those. Well, I hadn't seen many of these. Yeah. No, anyway, show and tell dude, I got so many of these guys. I have boxes of the rookies because we open so much football 24 year. Like boxes and stacks of the rookies from last year. Anyway, let's do a class. Tom. Anyways, so just a hobby news. Um, I heard whispers that PSA buys Beckett and they're just going to bury it and get rid of the brand. Um, and there were people adamant about that. And why should they, they shouldn't bury it. There's a monopoly, blah, blah, blah. I can tell you with almost 100% certainty that Beckett is, is staying around. And they, PSA is going to put investment into them. And that brand is going to be built back up. That's positive. I mean, they should be, that's what they should do. It has a lot of legacy. So that people listening and, you know, the trolls out there, they just assume they're going to bury them. And I didn't know what they're going to do. But I, I thought it'd be different than SGC. Uh, and I still don't know supposed to do the same thing with SGC. I think or the brand, the Beckett brand is so much bigger in this industry. A million pounds bigger. And you see it's like, whatever. It's another acronym that no one knows what the fuck it is. Yeah, that's right. I still don't know what it is. You ever noticed this industry is all acronyms? Oh, it's all acronyms. Oh, acronyms all the time. SSP, S G C, S A P. Yes, happy in PC. Uh, did you get your TCG? I got my own, got my MPP. Are you down with OPP? Hell, yeah. Like, I'm like, uh, it took me a year to get the, the, the slaying down, hobby slaying. There should be like a, we should do a spoof on that or something. And even like the new companies come out, collector collectors, collects. Yes. Like all that's collectors peeing. Like, I'm just like, stop. You guys, how about putting like an ounce of energy into thinking of something different? Like a lot of X or collector nation or collector station. Hey, we got a train going through here. We got a really kind of theme song. We're going to play that on the, we're at the play our custom song on air. Like for the, I need to hear that. It's fun. It's meant to be fun. It's, uh, it'll put a smile on your face. It's catchy. It may or may not have like a background group of choir singing one. Claritonation. Is Bella singing? Yes, she is. She is a really great voice, actually, especially when you add, um, what's it called auto tune? Hey, I heard that. I thought you might be sleeping back there without the first thing. She was listening. Damn it. I'm just kidding. It's probably something better than me. Uh, she does a lot of things better than you. I mean, yeah, this is true pretty much except for hanging chords. I'm a better core to hanger because I can have taller reach. Yeah, it's about to say I'm at a severe disadvantage. Yes, go, go gadget arms. How tall are you? Five, seven. Oh, that's a pretty good size. Yeah, but I'm a Brian's like six, five. Yeah, I'm a big oaf over here, you know, I'm riding the mill. Yeah, yeah. Oh, we got some NBA days for the first time in 21 years. LeBronz James isn't a starter in the NBA all-star game. Oh, I didn't see that news. That's not, I mean, it's going to happen, right? I'm just curious how that will impact his cards, um, and they're ranking. I don't think it we could look. I don't think it, I think he's legacy goat. Yeah, I mean, I don't like twice as long as a lot of guys did. That level unthought of, yeah, and, and I'm not the biggest LeBron guy, but I respect the hell out of his longevity and his game. It's just not personally, you know, my cup of soup. Yeah, I didn't collect any cards during that time. So I've, I've, I didn't either. I was like, right after, you know, I left, you know, he kind of came in. I was Jordan and Pippin and Larry Bird and, you know, Larry Bird was kind of in his career, magic and bird. We're kind of coming down and Jordan was ascending. That was kind of my time period for basketball cards. And then Loon, the Braun came in. I was officially into, you know, playing ball, chasing girls, doing whatever you do as a teenager in it's teenage stuff. Um, yeah, that's interesting. How's the shop? Are you on schedule to open? Yeah, the 28th. That's a week from tomorrow, I think, uh, or a week from today. So maybe the 29th, 28th or 29th, we haven't, we're like quietly not, like I talk about it on here, but we haven't been like marketing it. We get people driving in and like, you know, banging on the door every day. I'm like, one week, two weeks, we're opening soon. Uh, but it's looking great. It's, we're fine tuning at this point. We, we, we, we did a few things really quickly because we had to. And now that we've gotten the big stuff done, we're kind of going back and fine tuning. Like I redid it supports of the floor and my guy, uh, Cole, who's going to be working the shop has been lining the cases, cleaning the cases. And I've been working behind the scenes on a little tech for the store, which I'm going to actually show you here to come pretty awesome. The tech's pretty awesome. Yeah. And so it's fun and we'll be ready. And then grand opening, probably like that early March weekend, I got to look, that's what we're doing. We're doing soft openings, party, soft opening, party, soft opening, but like, you just want to make sure things are up and running exactly. I want to kind of work the kinks out and see how the traffic flow is. And then throw a big party. I'll be there. I know. I got it. I want your schedule for like those first couple of weekends in March, if one or the other would work. So look at your counter, get back to me on that. I will. But yeah, I think that's it for today. Any final thoughts, Brian? No, all good. My man, all good. Sweet. Well, we appreciate everyone for listening. Get in those comments like we said, you'll be the national. Hey, well, more than the Ludd X Lounds VIP. I'm telling you, it's a good time. It's worth it. And we appreciate you for paying attention and spending time with us. Don't forget, go to the app store, L U D X, download Ludd X, lots of improvements coming new things. It is the X factor in your collecting, whatever you want to call it. How are you collect? How you collect love that app? It's great for tracking your collection improvements, exciting things coming from them. Always appreciate your brother. Likewise, my man, it's always a pleasure. ThecollectorNation.com. Find the highly clips of the full episode, links to Ludd X, links to our content. And we'll see you next time on Collector Nation. Thanks for turning into the show. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and don't miss the full video version on YouTube. You can find us at www.collectorNation.com or follow Ryan on Instagram at Ryan Norford. Now get out there and collect yours.