How My Wife Built Her Collection at the National

For the first time ever, my wife was buying and selling cards on the show Fleer of the National. So today we're going to talk about what that experience was like, how the national was overall, and what this show means for the future of the hobby. You ready? I am so ready. Let's talk. The Jeff Wilson show is brought to you by Arena Club, the official home of Slab packs. Now available every day, Slab packs offer an exciting way to collect graded cards with confidence. Plus, every pack comes with an instant offer to buy your slab. Don't miss out. Explore the latest Slab packs and more by downloading the Arena Club app. Just search Arena Club in the App Store and use promo code SCI for 20% off your first purchase. So I always. I always introduce you. I realized as my wife. Yes. I know the number of people at the national who said, what is your name? Yes. Kim Wilson. Kind of an easy name to remember. It is Kim. It is Kim Wilson. Yu-Gi-Oh Hello. Nice and easy to spell. It is very easy to spell. It is very easy to spell. Does get confused sometimes. Isn't there like, a. A musician, like, jazz harmonica player named Kim Wilson, who is a man. So the confusion really shouldn't be, like, particularly profound, but. But yes. Okay. Well, it was. You've been in the national before. In fact, we should talk about the history. Yu-Gi-Oh The very first National I ever went to was in 2019, and I was here. Here in Chicago. Yep. You came by for a day because I was in Chicago for. For work. I was running my software company at the time, and we just happened to have a conference, a trade show, and in the Chicago area. So I was here for work, and you were here to come to the show for your first time. And it just so happened that we overlapped by a few hours, and you were so pumped up about it, talking about, you know, cards nonstop at that point, and I knew next to nothing, and I just said, oh, well, you know, I'll swing through for a few hours before I catch my flight home. And so I did. So. Yu-Gi-Oh I actually walked around in 2019. The national and the sports card hobby as a whole were named. Much different place. Yu-Gi-Oh A much smaller place, a much less sophisticated place in 2019 than today. Yu-Gi-Oh And they. I was actually looking back at some of the pictures I took from that trip because I was just fascinated. I'd never seen anything like this. But mostly what I took pictures of were not cards, but all of the collectibles and memorabilia that were at this show that year, which you hardly see any of now. But Back then. Less of it. Yu-Gi-Oh for sure. Less of. Yu-Gi-Oh But back then, I mean, it was stuff from movies, stuff from entertainment, television shows, whatever. There was a guy I remember on my way out who was carrying a pair of signed shoes from Bozo the Clown. And like, that was his big get. I remember that. That was his big get from the show that year. And he showed them to me in the elevator and stuff. And now, of course, it's, you know, 99% cards. But back then, there really was a bigger mix. That is true. Those were the. We didn't know it at the time, but those were the early innocent days in a sense. Right. I should have bought a lot more cards while I was here, I'll tell you that. You should have bought a lot more. I should have bough a lot more cards. But that was. That was actually the show where I bought my first big card ever. I bought a Michael Jordan 1986 Fleer BGS 95. I paid $14,000 for it at the show. I remember you, like I told you, like, I brought $20,000 with me to the show to spend on cars. That was the first time in my life where I was going that heavy. I had bought several. I mean, I had bought. Leading up to that. I got kind of got back into it in 2018 with Reeves. And so I started buying, you know, through the mail. I went to one card shop, one card show prior to the National. That was like a small one. I. I started buying little things, but they were, I mean, you know, it was like hundreds of dollars here. Yu-Gi-Oh Maybe a thousand or two there. It wasn't crazy. Then I came here with $20,000 to spend, and that was like my first big. I'm going in, I'm investing, I'm investing. Yu-Gi-Oh And. And I showed up not knowing that. And then you said, okay, I have bought an investment card. And I, you know, I'm confident it's going to go up in value, but I just want you to understand that it was really expensive. And so we went back to the hotel, which is one of these connected hotels, and you had put it in the safe because you felt like the value was significant enough that it needed to be locked up in your room, which is slightly comical because the amount of, you know, expensive cards that just walk freely around the National. But at that time, it was, you know, it was so new to you that you had to lock up this card in the safe. Like you weren't comfortable walking around with it. And so we went back to the room and you like sheepishly pulled out this, you know, Jordan card of which I had never seen any of, let alone one that was that expensive. Yu-Gi-Oh and that was at the time, I mean, that was, you know, spending $14,000 on a card at the national. That was a lot of money. It felt like a lot. Even within the scope of the show. You know, it was a lot of money to do day. It's like, Yu-Gi-Oh there's kids walking around with 10 times. Half the cards here are more than $14,000 today, it seems like, you know, so it's a little bit of a different time that also, by the way, that 2019 show, I had just launched the Sports Card Investor YouTube channel a couple weeks prior and I did a video at that 2019 show. I think it was like the fourth or fifth video I ever did in the history of the channel. Yu-Gi-Oh but you were like a. But it was like a self contained vlog. It was just you was just you, like, you, you filmed it yourself. You did the editing, I guess yourself, if there was any. Like you just, you were just a dude with a camera. And I think I was the first person ever to put a video out about the national. From the national during the national. Yu-Gi-Oh vlogging card shows was not a thing. I think that might have been the original card show vlog, so to speak. Ever. Now it's. Now they're all over the place, walking around with a camera for sure. And I also recall that one guy recognized you that year, which was Zebra exciting. I was very excited because I only had like four videos out on YouTube. One guy recognized me and by the way, all those videos, like one of them had a couple hundred views. I think the others were like sub 100 views when I showed up at the national. So I mean, not very many people have seen these. So we were honestly, I was shocked that someone had recognized you, to be honest. And you were so pumped up. And it was really, it was just really funny because now it's like you can't go two feet without somebody, you know, wanting a photo or sign something or whatever. But back then you were, you're an incognito, just floating through the ranks. In some ways I miss that, like being able to show up anonymously to a card show and just be able to browse and spend time going up and down the aisles and looking at all the dealer showcases. Like, I can't really, honestly, honestly, I miss that. You have to get you a disguise. I'll work on your disguise for next year. Okay. I do Miss that there is a, like a purity to that and innocence to that, which has been lost to the busy filming schedules and the stuff going on at Cards HQ and Sports Card Investor and all this stuff. It's been a busy week for all of us, which is wonderful. It's the, it's the biggest week of the year in terms of all of the business objectives that we're trying to achieve. Our content gets watched more during national week than any other week of the year. It's amazing. It's. Yu-Gi-Oh And our, you know, Cards HQ is able to buy more cards and more people. There's still a line over there. There's still a line. We're. Right, we're, by the way, we're filming this right near the end of the show on Sunday and you've got a line at Cards hq, people selling cards, Market Mover subscribers always record numbers this week, all that kind of stuff. So it's a big deal week, so we've got to do all the business stuff. But I, I, the one thing I do miss is spending more time on the show Fleer itself. Yu-Gi-Oh And just walking around and seeing and whatever I still get, I still get that experience more at smaller shows. Right. You know, smaller local shows. But the national is a, a different animal. It's a different animal and it, but it is also really exciting. And I think that the energy that's here is so, so contagious. And I think that's something that for My House been surprising. Like, people repeatedly this week have said, what took you so long? And I'm like, man, I don't know, like the first couple of years that you were doing this, I was still running my software company, so I had no time whatsoever to even consider being part of this. So that was maybe the first half of your journey with Sports Card Investor. I was still, I was still heavily, you know, working full time until, what, 20, 23, right? I think 20. Yu-Gi-Oh yes. Or 24. 23 or 24. Somewhere in there. Yu-Gi-Oh So a couple years ago. It's only a couple of years ago. Maybe, maybe early 24, I think. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh So only a couple of years ago was I did I step away finally from my software company. And then I, then I just needed a break a little while and I was just kind of like, you know, trying to figure out what I sort of wanted to do. And so then by the time, quite frankly, that I had enough energy to even consider, like, what else would I want to do? It's pretty much now. And I thought, well, you Know, I'm here at these card shows all the time anyways, and, you know, it's something I know you're passionate about in the boys. And so I thought, you know, what's the worst that could happen? Let me give it a try and see what it's like if I just try to dive in. And, like, to my own surprise, I have caught the bug a lot quicker than I thought I would. I thought, oh, gosh, you know, I'll give this a try just because I, you know, I'm a good sport. But then it turns out it's actually really fun. And I think that the. I think the reason for that is how contagious the passion is here, especially here at the National. I mean, these people are so pumped to be here. I met several people, kids, who told me, like, it was their birthday gift or their. Whatever it was like some sort of major gift in their life was that they asked to come here, so their grandma or, like, whoever had bought them a plane ticket or, you know, somehow arranged for them to come here. It was like, that big of a deal. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh that's. It's. It's awesome. Yu-Gi-Oh So as you. I'm actually curious to dig in a little bit more on, like, that. That element of it, like, you catching the bug a little bit. And because there's one thing that I've noticed at this show, and I know you've had this experience. There's. There, first of all, more women here than what I've ever seen before. Yes. More moms. Yes. Coming with their sons who are into it, or their husband who is into it, some of which have now seen the videos that you are in with me, and some of which were saying, hey, I'm. I'm trying to get into it a little bit. I'm trying to. My sons are into this, or my husband's into this, and I'm trying to get into this a little bit. So you ventured into this really, over the last few months? Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh Very recently, from that same standpoint. So what. What was that journey like? Like, how did you kind of, like, get yourself a little more immersed in it? How did you kind of pick your lane and approach it? Well, first of all, I have something very fortuitous, which is you. So every question I could possibly want asked, I kind of have a very easy way to get those answers between you, Reeves, Harrison. So, I mean, I definitely have somebody in my corner that I can ask. I think that if, you know, as someone who's new to the hobby, you're probably getting into it because there's somebody in your life who's already into it. So I would say even if you don't have Jeff Wilson, who you can specifically call whoever that is, leaning on somebody who knows what they're doing is probably the best advice I can give because it is overwhelming and it is intimidating. And so just like, showing up and hoping for the best is hard. Like, it's really difficult. And I think that, that taking the step from like zero to one is the hardest. Buying the very first card, going to the very first show, like coming up with some sort of plan for how you're going to collect, like, that's what's really the most difficult. Once you just get over that very first initial step, the rest of it starts to kind of flow, or at least it did for me. And I think, like, I kind of. That very first show that we went to, where I tried to start my collection, which is well documented in the YouTube video, but I had put some thought into what, what would I collect? And I think that was a good choice as well. Well, to kind of try to just narrow the field a little bit because there's so much here. Collecting is different to everybody, and there are a million different lanes you could go down for what that means. And so just kind of picking one, it just cleared the field a little bit and made it simpler for me. And so, you know, I was looking at 90s just because, like, I. I generally like non 90s pop culture. So I thought that was sort of like, fun. I looked at some Disney cards. I just Beckett like a couple things. And so now what that's evolved into is it really makes the process feel a little more like a fun game. Right. Like for me looking for Shaq, it's like I'm not just shopping aimlessly. I'm looking for something. And so that just makes it. It just makes it easier to walk through the aisles because you have some sort of purpose. And so I think for somebody who's really new and really trying to make like a concerted effort to get into something, find somebody to help you and just, just pick something if there is a player you like or a team you like or whatever, and just go look for that. Even if you're buying inexpensive stuff, it just gives you, like, some sort of purpose as you move through the show. I think that's great advice. Getting into sports card collecting is overwhelming. Yu-Gi-Oh there are so many different sets. There's so many different parallels. There's, you know, cards have been produced for well over 100 years. And so it's like, where do you even begin? And you go to a show like this with thousands of tables of stuff everywhere, and it feels like everyone knows what they're doing except you. You're just like, is everyone here an expert except me? Am I the only one who has no idea what anyone's talking about? And the truth of the matter is no. In fact, there's plenty of people who don't know, so, you know, feel comfort in that. But also, I think just, you know, having one thing that you're going after makes you feel like kind of, you know, what you're doing, because, like, it's not really that complicated. You're looking for that particular player, and now you have something to say to the dealers, like, do you have this player or do you have this team, or do you have this whatever? And so now that's also easier because instead of just staring at case after case after case, you know what you're looking for. And it's either there or it's not. And you keep moving. And that makes it. That makes the process so much easier. Narrowing the world. Yu-Gi-Oh So what was the experience like? So you're here. You bet. You know, as we talked about earlier, you've actually been to the national now. Several times. Several times. I don't exactly know how many, but a bunch. But this year was the first year you were here as an actual shopper, as somebody who was actually buying clothes. The rest of the years, it was just chasing our kids around. Pretty much, yes. And kind of playing teacher Harrison didn't lose his cards. Yu-Gi-Oh Kind of playing nanny for the week. Right. What was that like? Being. Being the. Being on the hunt for shack cards at the. So much more fun. And that's another part of, like, you know, why I ultimately decided to kind of jump in a little bit here, you know, with what you do is because I'm here one-of-one and being here. But being on the sidelines is nowhere near as fun as being here and getting in the game. And I think that being able to walk around and actually feel like you're part of the community, you can feed on the energy of everybody else. Suddenly you're part of the thing, and that is fun. Just being part of that community is fun. The number of people who stopped and handed me a shack card is so fun because everyone knows that's what I'm looking for, the dealers. And then at trade night, people say, oh, here's my pickups. What were your pickups? And I Actually can say, well, here's my cards I found today. And suddenly you have this, like, just reason to connect with people in a real environment, which is something we don't get to do all that often these days. And so I think that, you know, it was so much more enjoyable to be here. And I, in many ways feel like this was my first national, even though it definitely wasn't, but understanding the experience and really enjoying it, this was the first time for that. Yu-Gi-Oh that's cool. That's cool. How does this compare, you know, from what you've seen, you know, where. Where this is today, like, the Whatnot experience? How do you think this is, and where do you think this should go? Oh, man. You know, I think that. I think that it is still extremely overwhelming. I think that the only reason I have survived is because I have somebody to lean on. So I do think, as a new collector, this is a difficult place to start. I'm not sure I would tell a new collector to come to the national. I feel like there are better places to start, like, smaller shows that are a little more friendly and less overwhelming. It's fun, don't get me wrong. But, like, it's difficult to start here because. I agree. I think that there's just so much. It's quick. It's very easy to become overwhelmed here. So I don't know if there's a solve for that, but I do think that that would be nice because it is really fun and there's a lot to it, but there doesn't seem to be much in the way of, like, catering to someone who's new at it. The prices here are all really high. You know, me, I found. You know, I found a few cards here and there that were sub $100, which is, you know, or sub 1,000 even, was kind of hard. Like, it just. It is. It is not easy to be here as a new. As a newbie. So I would love to see. See some way that this becomes a little more, you know, just a little. A little less difficult for. For a new collector. I don't exactly know what that is. Maybe you do, but I. I do find that to be a little challenging overall, though. I mean, the energy is great. The city's great. You know, there's restaurants and different things you can go to that are nearby. That part's all fun. There's other things besides this that you can do with the family, which is nice. You know, if you kind of make this a little bit of a trip, that part's nice. Nice. So I think that overall this experience is. Is great. I just do think that it's. It is difficult if you don't. If you don't have a little bit of knowledge coming in. I think, I think for a newer collector card, shows are a great way to learn and to discover. Yu-Gi-Oh I would start with a local show. Local show. Go to a small local show. 40 table show, 80 table show, something like that. Because it's not there, the dealers will spend more time with you too. The dealers are so crowded here, they're crushed. They can't take the time to, like, have long conversations with you when you're at their table, and they can't educate you. And that's a bummer because they're, you know, almost all of them extreme experts in what they do. And they're usually, if they have time, they definitely will help explain, like, here's how I came to this price. Here's, you know, whatever. But to your point, when there's a line, you know, seven people deep, trying to buy something from them, they're just like, Yu-Gi-Oh I got to do this, like, transaction and move on. So that's kind of unfortunate because. Because I think they are actually a wealth of knowledge and generally a really nice group of folks who will help you learn as you go. Yu-Gi-Oh I agree. Asking. I mean, the, the hobby community as a whole, I think is friendly, welcoming. There's a lot of dealers that are friendly, welcoming. Not. Not all. Sometimes you get kind of the jerk dealer who, you know, and then you can just move on. Just move on. There's plenty of dealers who are nice who will take the time to explain and educate and have conversation if they have time. Yes. It's harder for them, once again, to do it here. Easier at local shows, smaller shows. Yu-Gi-Oh for sure. Yu-Gi-Oh Well, where do we go from here? I mean, you. You just bought Shack cards at the granddaddy of them all, you know, the national. Like, what's. What's next on this card collecting journey for you? I mean, I guess we're gonna go to some more shows, right? We gotta. We gotta go to some more shows. I think that I need to keep, you know, my next. Like, I. I did a lot of buying here. I didn't. Oh, well, let's see. I did no selling, so I need to kind of There, you know, there has to be, like, some, I think, balance between the two, you know, where I'm trying to figure out, do I want to trade up into bigger cards? You know, what can I do with the cards? That I have so far to kind of improve upon my collection. And so I need to put some thought into that and practice that skill a little bit, and that can be a little intimidating. I mean, the kids are great at it. But, you know, for me, I think, like, feeling more comfortable with walking up and saying, here's some stuff. Would you be interested in trading? You know, that kind of thing? I think that's kind of the next frontier for me. It's pretty easy to just, you know, whip out your Venmo and buy a card. Like, that doesn't take a lot, but, like, the negotiation and really understanding the value and being able to level up, like, though that's kind of, like, the next level, I think, for me, where I can try to put some. Some effort into improving. All right, well, we'll. We'll work on that. Hopefully there is. Maybe Harrison will do some Mac mock transactions with me. That would be amazing. I can, like, pretend I'm negotiating. Negotiating with Harrison. He probably will never give me a good deal, but I can try. Yu-Gi-Oh you're gonna lose when you go up against that guy. I know. I know him or Reeves. You're gonna lose when you go up against both of them. Reeves might go easy on me. Not never Harrison. All right, well, anyways, we can practice that and. Yu-Gi-Oh go to some more shows and look for some more Shaq, I guess. Look for some more Shaq. Cool. Well, it's been fun having you here. It's been cool. You know, the family aspect of getting to do this together is something that's really special, and I felt that more this year than previous years, because previous years, it was always, like, me and the boys running around. But this year, you and I got to run around some together, and you got to run around some yourself with the boys. Yes. And that was pretty fun too. That was awesome. Reeves took a lot of time and walked around with me and, like, would send me a text, like, oh, I see this card. You might, like, come over here to this booth, that sort of thing, and. And then, you know, they would come back here with whatever they had, you know, bought or traded for, pulled or whatever. They would run back to the booth to show me, and I felt like, you know, they'd always done that because they were excited, but this year, it was different because I understood what they were talking about, and I can be excited with them from an authentic place. That was a little different than previous, where I just kind of am like, Yu-Gi-Oh Now it's like, oh, no, I really understand. You know what happened here and I understand the excitement and like I was able, I think, to connect with them over that a lot more. And Yu-Gi-Oh they spent tons of time with me. Harrison spent a ton of time with me, walking around just one on one time with them, which is, you know, hard to come by where, you know, you have a mutual desire in whatever activity you're doing. And know for us both to want to walk around here and look for stuff was great. We had a great time. So that was really fun. I continue to maintain that cards, getting your kids into cards, experiencing cards with them is one of the greatest educational tools for the youth. In this case. Educational tools for you? Yes. Although I mean, truthfully, like I've negotiated million dollar deals. Like I did run a very successful multimillion dollar software company. So it's funny because like I know how to negotiate a contract. I know how to negotiate. You know, in business, doing so over cards is a different situation because what you realize is that good negotiation comes through knowledge, knowledge of what it is that, you know, the subject matter that you're negotiating. And so for me, like, I need to build up confidence and knowledge in order to get to a place where I can negotiate confidently. So that that's what I'm really trying to do. And I think that is probably the biggest hurdle for a lot of people getting into cards is because, I mean, you know, it's money, right? Like, you don't want to waste your money, so you want to make sure that you're confident when you're walking up and spending it or you're negotiating. And I think that's really the next frontier for me is to understand enough about what I'm saying and do the research and put in a little bit of time. So that when I approach a dealer with a number, I'm very confident in it. And then that's what makes a good negotiation. I mean, that's why the boys and you, that's why you guys are great at this, is because you know what you paid for something, you know what its market value is, you know what you're willing to pay for it and when you would walk away. And that confidence coming into the negotiation is why you're good. And so I know all of that. I just don't actually have all of the background just yet. So I think that that's where you, you know, I've got to put in a little bit of time and you know, some research and like really understand, you know, where the market is headed and what my collection is Worth. And then I think the negotiation hopefully will come a little more naturally to me. Well, starting with a niche makes all of that easier. And you know, we talked earlier in the video and I don't have to learn everything about every card in the world. So starting with a particular player or a particular type of card or something, something like that makes it easier to understand the world better and learn it. And so I love your pursuit. Your pursuit, your niche is Shaq and specifically like 1990s Shaq cards. Yes. So that gives you a much more finite, tight, tight window. And then you will become more of an expert over time, more quickly because you've kind of narrowed in that area. Yes, that is my plan. Just stick with that for now. All right, well, stay tuned out there, everybody, for the continued journeys. You're going to continue to see. Kim, in our content on Sports Card Investor. We're going to continue to be at card shows together in the future. Probably maybe a Dallas show here in the next few months. Love that Dallas show. Yep, Dallas is a good one. So we'll get out to another one of those and then go exploring. We got to get to some international shows. Yes, please. The people from Macau are here. I met on the way in this morning the people who run the card shows in Australia. Oh, cool. I would love that, too. I've never been to either of those places. Australia would be great. Macau travel is my love language. Also met at the Market Movers Happy hour the other night. People who set up regularly at the card shows in both London, which that one's gotten really big now, and Dublin. There's a regular card show in Dublin. That would be a good trip. Yes, yes to all of that. There you go. All right. Travel in the future. Okay. All right. Well, thank you out there for watching, everybody. Hopefully, if you didn't get a chance to get at the national yourself this year, hopefully you got to enjoy it through our content from the show Fleer We appreciate you watching all of it, actually. Still some more content to come from the show Fleer that you're going to see on our channels over the next week. Actually, some great videos which we have yet to release that you're absolutely going to love. So stay tuned across all of our channels for the next couple days to see some of that stuff. And in the meantime, make sure you're subscribed to the Jeff Wilson Show Everywhere on YouTube on the Jeff Wilson show as well as on Spotify and on Apple Podcasts. Thanks for watching. See you soon in the next one. Take care.