The National Survival Guide: Trade Night, VIP Access, the LUDEX Map and Hobby News

This is a freaking madhouse. You have no idea how big this is. The National is the world's largest card show, right? I was there for five days last year, and I am very good with directionally, like knowing where I am. But just finding the LudX booth, which was like the third largest booth in the whole freaking thing, I've been there for three days. You need this map. download Linux, you'll see a tile that says NSCC interactive map. Hit that and it is an awesome tool to bring you to the national to plan your time to get a lay of the land because it could be very overwhelming. If you had like one thing that somebody who's their first time going should do, what would it be at the national? I would say trade night. You got to come up for trade night. It's cool. It's just a different vibe. There's tons of stuff going on. Go with a plan. Good shoes, the hotels, the trade night and have focus. Leave space to be surprised and delighted. 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 are your hosts, Ryan Alford and Brian Lutton. What's up, guys? Welcome to Collector Nation. Here on the Collector Nation Network, we got Brian Ludden in Chicago, Bella Schaefer, and I am Ryan Alford. That's what they call me, Ryan Alford. That's what they say back here in the South, Ryan Alford. Actually, they say, Ryan Alford. Ryan Alford. You got to bring out your impressions. I know, but that's what I say. We're in the South. You can't tell the accents. What's up, Brian? What's up, brother? And you even got the camo hat on. Hey, you know, that's my collector station hat, you know. You have great swag, man. Great swag. We got even better swag coming. Oh, I haven't shown Brian. I've been tempted to, but I'm going to wait until we press the first one. Okay. And bring him his versions. But we got the custom tees coming for the national. That's awesome. Understanding the big executive that you are, whether or not you can wear them there, I can wear whatever I want. I'm the boss. Ryan's getting real creative with some of the names. You know, I've been known to write a line or two. Yeah, and he gave me a high-level thing, a couple teasers, and they're hilarious. Like, it is pure Ryan offered to make these things up. Every collector is going to want them. There were some of them that I'm like, Ryan, we cannot make that on a shirt. She held me back. So they will come out maybe in phase two. We will see with the Collector Nation merch extravaganza. You say one thing to Ryan and next thing you know, we have an entire merch line that's being launched. Yeah. Yeah. He's a doer. That's like right up my alley. Yeah. You guys see my new background? Oh, yes. Looking pretty angelic back there. Dude. St. Brian. St. Brian, patron state of cards. You know what that doesn't do, Brian? Okay, I was in the Ludox corporate compound there in Chicago, and I was in that room. That is a much larger space than you. That is a gigantic, beautiful sign. Because let me tell you, that is not a small circle. It doesn't do it justice. It's a very, very pretty freaking large, isn't it, Brian? Yeah. Yeah, I think it's probably three feet around. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Exactly. That's not like a little wall clock, like 12-inch. I think it's three feet wide. It's awesome. Thank you. Thank you. If you can't see it on the radio, trust us. It's awesome. It means you need to be on YouTube. Yeah. Got to like, follow, and subscribe over on YouTube. Exactly. Yes, sir. All the upgrades. We appreciate you for watching and listening. Like, subscribe, and follow. That's what all the YouTubers say. So I guess I got to start saying that. And hey, if you do and you DM us, There might be some giveaways at the end. Yep. Yep. Well, we can jump right into it. Obviously, this past week, there was Fanatics Fest, which I personally had some FOMO that we were not at, as I saw Justin Bieber, you know, trancing down stage. And yeah, that was sad for me. And he won the Fanatics game, too. So he won $1 million. Yeah. I had no FOMO that I wasn't there because I knew the Nationals in two weeks. I just wished that it was like three months separated and it wouldn't have to be a decision. Right, Brian? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's like so hectic when you're coming to the National and there's guys that I talked to that were on the road for Fanatics Fest, Comic Con, and now the National. So those are massive shows. They've been on the road for three weeks straight. It's insane. And you can't do it all. Yeah. And so you can, and I definitely saw the people that were, but, uh, I don't know, diminishing returns and focusing not for them, but for us, I think, uh, at this stage, but it's, you got to just focus on what I do. I did hear next year. They're moving back to like June or something for Dax Fest. So you got a couple, two, two or three months separation. I really like the June show because it kind of kicks off the summer. Any of the conversations you have with people there, you can catch back up with them at the National. So I'll be at the June one for sure anytime it's in June. Yep. But they did have some cool things happening. They had Cooper Flagg signed his one-of-one rookie debut patch, Otto, live on stage. Did they just go ahead and overnight that to me? Because I'm pulling it. Yeah, I wish I'm curious as to what that will go up on auction for once it gets pulled. Five mil. Yeah. Three to five mil. I feel like embarrassed to say that like I'm exaggerating, but that's probably where it goes. Right. Yeah, that's crazy. I mean, it's like such a media and advertising and marketing event. They do such a great job with it. Like the first year, the second year was a huge thing, but they found their lane and they're not the national. They don't want to be the national. They shouldn't be the national, but it's a cool event, man. People like it. Yeah. And I think it's interesting because now I feel like people are caring more about the story of the card than the card itself. Like, obviously, that's a big card, but I think that it would probably go for less if it didn't have him signing it live, like videos, footage of all of this stuff of him signing the card. And I think that that just makes it more of a spectacle. And I think that's what Fanatics does really well is that they... play on that. They play on the spectacle of it. And I mean, you've said it half a dozen times that Fanatics Fest is, that's like their whole brand. But I did hear this year that the buyers and sellers were a lot more happy with what Fanatics did because it was more card-oriented than it was in the past. Yeah, I think. I mean, it's still, it's a card show within a marketing event. And I say marketing event, that's like what I think of it as non-market. That's not what they're pushing it to customers. But activation. It's a brand activation event that has a card show in it. You know, versus the National is the world's largest card show, right? It's just two different things. And, I think they do. I had a blast last year with the boys, but it was, again, the cards were like one-tenth of it. And that was okay. Yeah. So different is good. And I do think it's bringing in a different person to cards, you know, like, and that ecosystem. And not 100% because some people are there to care less about cards. But I do think it's an entry point for education and learning about the hobby. for casual fans or big fans of the sport or the players or the celebrities that then get a taste of card culture. They actually did a whole event like teaching people how to like teach people about buying, trading, selling cards. I don't think you're going to. I mean, I'm not saying you wouldn't see that at the national, but you probably don't see that at the national. Yeah, and I think also, too, it's like every single person in the collectible industry should just be like, thank you, Michael Rubin, for doing that. Right? Like, I mean, the way that the category, right? Like, now we're two weeks apart. This is a great year for the hobby. And, like, people are like, it's just growing. I'm like, dude. Like people who don't even know cards are like, whoa, the Phonetics Fest look cool. And then you have the Nationals. So like this is why this industry is growing. It needed to put – people need to put real dollars into it to make it different than a MAPA. And they're doing it. And bravo. Yeah. I mean, top sponsor. Category, the high tide raises all shifts, baby. Like, your category goes up. If I'm Brian Ludden, CEO of LudX, a leading trading card company, a tech company and data company in the space, Please keep spending money on the category, baby. Right. Am I right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Keep it coming. Yeah. Keep it coming. Because when they go to search the category, who do they find? Ludex. See? We hope. So that's good. Yeah. I mean, but that's why it's good. And it's good for anyone in the hobby. So anyone that says otherwise doesn't get it. And it's okay. But that's what it's about. I mean, even my dad called me and he's like... why are you not at Fanatics Fest? And I was like, how do you even know what that is? He's like, oh, they were talking about it on the news. I was like, okay, cool. Small team, we're getting there. Does he collect cards? No, and I think he has a pretty addictive personality, and he's probably going to listen to this. They've become my number one fans. They've been listening and sharing with all the family, and I'm like, oh, gosh. But I think if he got into cards... I think he'd be like addicted to it. It'd be like a little game for him. That's good. That's what we want. We want people addicted to Ludox. We'll try not to really get him addicted, but, you know. Not in a bad way. We want him on Ludox. In a healthy way. Yeah, in a good way. Healthily bonded to Ludox. Let's do that paying tier. Yeah. Best value in trade. Oh, he would. He definitely would. He gets a free one. I'll give him a free one. I'll give your family free. Yeah. Give him the, you know, I used, I owned a card, a luxury car dealership for about a year. So I blew it up. My money mainly lost about a million dollars. We'll tell that story one day. It's all you've ever been told. You can find it on the podcast, the My Business Show. But I will say this. I always had the double half special for all family and friends. Because, you know, everybody wants a deal. And so I would double the price and cut it in half for any friends or family. Wow, that's amazing. And, yeah. They're not good at math. They're not good at math. No, they thought it was a good deal. I was like, hey. Okay. I even created, I think, a sticker for it. Obviously, this is a joke. So if you don't know my humor yet and you're listening for the first time, sarcasm and stupidity are part of my shtick. I literally made a little sticker. People go, hey, can you give me a deal on that? And I'd go, yeah, man, put you in the double half special. That's hilarious. They got D halves. D halves. Anyway, back to Fanatics Fest. We will be there next year, you know, separation of a couple months to kind of plan both appropriately. You know, I didn't want to halfway do both, which I think for our team, it would have been that. And then, Brian, I mean, you're in Chicago. I mean, it's in your backyard. It's like kind of the same thing a little bit, right? Yeah, for us, it's like we don't have the huge team. It's not like we, like, shows for us don't really pay off. There's not a lot ROI in there because, one, like, the internet's not great. Two, it's like to get four or five guys traveling, it's like so expensive. And, you know, we're signing up a lot of people on a weekend with just our socials. paid social. So, for us, it's like, it was a brand play. We went to all the shows for two years and then we had to, we pulled back because it was, you know, that's what we had to do to get where we are. Diminishing returns. I mean, at a certain point. but, with two months in between, it's a little different story. A hundred percent. And, you know, in phase two of Lett X take over the card world that will be happening the rest of this year. It enables a lot for next year, right? It does. It does. Can't wait. Can't wait. I'm always building evil empire, or no, friendly empires for all of our closest friends. Oh, is that a slip of the tongue? Yeah. No, I'm just thinking more superhero lingo. The evil empire. No. Actually, the X-Men. Ludox, I mean, it's kind of like it. You know what I mean? They're good. Ludox, man. They save the day. Ludox saves the day. That should be a marketing campaign. I feel like you could do something with that. Oh, believe me. I already got lots of ideas. Ludox, man. We saved the industry. Here to save the card industry. One collection at a time. Insert your collection here. So Brian, obviously since the National's right in your backyard, you're kind of living, breathing, and eating the National, I'm sure. So what kind of words of wisdom do you have for people gone this year? Well, I was thinking about it before the show, and I'm going to give you my top picks in different categories. So, my favorite casual restaurant, if you're going to the National the first time, you walk through the parking garage and there's a quad. And in that quad, there's probably 15 restaurants that are awesome. Yeah. My favorite is the barbecue place, Bub City. So we'll be there on Wednesday night having some barbecue with the fellas. But that's a great place to go. There's bars, whatever. My favorite thing to do at the National is trade night. I think that's, I'm not like alone in that. Favorite hotel, I'd like to Hyatt Regency because it's connected. Um, and then there's about three or four high end steak joints. So it's Gibson's it's a Morton's it's a Capo grill. And, uh, I forgot the other one, but I like a Capo grill better. That's my number one. And it's not in Chicago. I would say it's a, it's a high end steak joint, but it's like, it's, I would, it doesn't make my five top five in Chicago, but it makes my number one there. Yeah. I went to Capital Grove last year with eBay team and a few other people. I would second that. That was a very nice little spot and walking distance. Everything is walking distance, but that was a... I had some tasty food there. I don't know. I feel like we had like 27 appetizers or something. And then like, you know, and then like a gigantic steak or something. But it was. I haven't been to the Capitol Grill in Chicago, but I went to the one in New York. And yeah, when I was like eight years old. Same. Eating steak. But no, no, no more. Yeah, Bill was privileged. Yeah. The other one, the other thing that I think is important for the national, is after trade night in the hotels, like there's some hotels that just like blow it out for like people on the floor trading until three, four in the morning. The Lowe's are, yeah, is that the Lowe's? Well, the one by Cabo Grill, I think it's a Lowe's. I think it is a Lowe's. But the Hyatt Regency, like it's double floors, escalators, like it is insane. I mean, I don't know how these people do it. It's three. What am I doing up at three or four in the morning? I'm just like, don't ask, but it's, it's not, I'm not on the floor trading cards. I'm just, I'm just rolling in. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I used to be back in the day at the bar hanging out, you know, I was a single man, uh, thinking it was gonna, I was gonna meet my bride or something. Uh, that never happened. Yeah. but yeah I don't know either like you've been on your feet all day at the show and look I love trade night hey I can go to 11 or 12 but 3 a.m. Yeah. I mean, I'm out of things. I'm probably giving away Jordan rookies for like, you know, Tom Glavin or something. I don't even know, you know. The other thing is that the VIP, if you're, if you have a VIP ticket and they're sold out, if you have that, Ryan and I will be on stage. Yeah. Wednesday for an hour, Thursday, Friday, Saturday from like 11 to 1, interviewing industry leaders, CEOs, some great conversation, great people. And also the VIP night. And I'm going to give away something you talked about earlier, Bella. So we're going to do, I'm going to give away three, a party of four. wristbands for the LuddX VIP party in the back room during train night. And it's going to be, it's just an awesome event. It's, it's intimate, but cool. It's free drinks, free food. Um, so we'll give that out. We'll pick, uh, you know, one person to win four or four people to win one, whatever you guys want to do, but it's a, it's a cool event. Well, let me say, yeah, let me say this. Uh, I was there last year and I know what's planned for this year. And, um, This, if I was going to put a value on it, let's just say it's a lot. Like what, like, like, like someone that knew that, like, kind of knows what this was. Let's just say you've, you went for the first year and you're kind of like, I don't, I mean, that's, that's cool. I think I would do it. You need to think it's like 10x that because it's, it's, it is. You never know who you're going to run into. You're going to see the content creators, the Brian Luddens of the world. The Ryan Offers. But the literally, you know, insert player here could walk by. You don't ever know. And it's just first class. Yeah, and I think people want to come and meet Bella. Oh, obviously. They don't care about us. But I was sitting there. I was at the party, and I turned around, and on the couch is Daryl Strawberry and Doc Good just talking. Wow. And I sat down with them. I said, thanks for coming. You know, I'm the CEO of Lodex. Wow. You know, they were just such nice people, but it was like, that was one, you know, it just, the athletes just come in, you know, all the time and say hi and sit on a couch and get away from things. But yeah, so that's the four wristbands for Saturday night and we'll coordinate it with you guys. Yeah, that'll be awesome. I'm excited. I'm really excited for that. So go to Ryan Alford on Instagram. Shoot me a DM. Go to Collector Nation or Collector Station on Instagram. Shoot us a DM. YouTube, put it in the comments. If you're watching this on YouTube, put it in the comments and, uh, we'll pick out anyone that, uh, We'll throw you in a jar. Bella will do this, you know, in the most democratic way possible. I will. I'll pick the winner on Monday before the national. So you have to get in. If you're listening to this before Monday, that's when it's going to be picked. So that's when it closes. I might have a few friends. I'm going to tell them like, you know, hey, this is your chance. Rig it. I would never do that, Brian. No, no. I'll get you some. Brian, I know you hooked me up. You hooked me up. I know someone. In all seriousness, we want y'all to get in on this. And we want to meet y'all. Yeah. So hit us up in the comments. And, you know, if you do this, even if you're not going to be there, just make a note that you heard this. And maybe we'll send you something as a replacement. Maybe something that we pulled today out of an opening or maybe one of these cards in this stack that Bill's going to get to. Yeah. Which you might want. So, yeah, that's, yeah, all this stuff is, the National is just all this giveaways and camaraderie and meeting people. And it's an event that it doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. So come and say hi, tell us what you think of the show and comments. And hopefully we'll see you, we'll see four of you there at some point. I wanted to talk about our interactive map that we did. Yeah, yeah. It's awesome. This is a key. Pay attention now. Here's the cues. If you weren't paying attention and you're going to the next level, now pay attention. So now if you go to the App Store and download Ludox, you'll see a tile that says NSCC Interactive Map. Yeah. Hit that, open that up, and it is an awesome tool to bring it to the national, to plan your time to get a lay of the land because it could be very overwhelming. And there's two floors this year. Last year they had two floors, but they built it out even more. There's corporate up there. But you could go to tables and figure out where to find Ludex on the floor. Where to find a Gary Vee? What is Topps doing at their booth? It's just like, it's so helpful. And this year there's a couple of additions. The additions were the tables were able to put notes in there and add a description of who they are and what they have. So it was a year before it was all about like, do you do sports or trading cards? Now people went in and said, I have the biggest NT collection, rookie autos, On the floor, come and see me. And so you could, you could segment that out and you can plan your whole time because you can take notes in there. So if you do a deal at a table and you don't do a deal and you walk away, you put a note to come back to it. But it really makes this massive thing a lot better. And we've been doing it for four years. I want to thank the National for giving us that opportunity. And every year it gets better and better. I want to do this, Brian, because I think, you know, I'm always kind of, you know, what is it? The pep guy, the rah-rah guy. Like, I'm pep. The hype man. You're the hype man. There it is. I'm the hype man. And sometimes you might, oh, it's exaggeration. No, I only hype what deserves hyping. That's where you'll learn that about me. But let me say this, because I know what, after Brian just said what he said, there were this crowd that might be going for the first time. And they're going like a lot of dudes do. And I might, I probably would have been one last year. Yeah. Who needs a map as an event? You know, like I can find my way around there. You have no idea what you're talking about. Let me just say, if you've never, if you've been, you know what, you're nodding your head right now in agreement to what I'm talking about, what Brian has said. You need the map. This is a freaking madhouse of, you have no idea how big this is and how even if you can comprehend the size of, just knowing where things are. I was there for five days last year and I am very good with directionally, like knowing where I am. And I was, it took me the fourth day just to realize like where the same booth was, like the LudX, like I knew where the VIP lounge was. I was kind of chilling in there with Brian, but like, but when I wasn't doing that, Just find the LuddX booth, which was like the third largest booth in the whole freaking thing. And I'd been there for three days. You need this map. You need to get on the app, go to LuddX, go download the app. You know, this is a public service announcement. This isn't about hype. You took your hype man hat off. Yeah, this is a PSA. It's true. You will use that. You'll use it. Oh, I believe. I am very directionally challenged, and I will walk a direction with the most confidence ever and be completely wrong. So I shouldn't lead anywhere. This is not marketing. This is doing service to the hobby is what Lodex has done with this map. Yeah. I thought it was cool, too, just like having you could see the size of like what brands were going to have what size activation and which brands were going to have the most impact in any given area. And I thought that that was pretty cool because then you can kind of plan like, OK, if you want to go check out VFriends or you want to go check out Onnit or whatever, like you can easily find where they are. Yeah. eBay will have a gigantic activation in the middle, I would imagine. Again, I would think they're doing that same thing. You know, Walmart's coming big this year. They're our partner in the VIP lounge. They have a really interesting thing. We'll talk about it after the National, but it's a pretty interesting, like, activation. And I think it might be in the VIP room, but... I can't disclose it, but it's, you know, stop by their booth and check it out or stop by the VIP room, check it out. But, yeah, it's, there's a lot of cool stuff going on this year. It gets bigger and bigger. New companies are coming in all the time. It's, yeah, it's awesome. Every major retailer that's involved in the hobby is just expanding. Let's just tell you all you need to know. Target, Dix. GameStop. Walmart. GameStop. GameStop. GameStop is now CardStop. I mean, we joked about that on one, but they've pretty much flipped their whole model because games now are downloaded. And literally, it's becoming a card shop quickly. I mean, it saved them. I would say it saved them. Yeah. They made a move. Yeah, those meme stocks went away. Yeah. So, Brian, I have a question. If you had like one piece of advice or maybe one thing that somebody who's their first time going should do, what would it be at the National? Well, I'm going to do like a public service announcement. If you have a hotel that's not walking distance, just make sure you order an Uber. because you can wait in line a long time. And I would say trade night. I mean, you got to come up for trade night. It's cool. It's just a different vibe. There's tons of stuff going on. David Marino has done, and his team has done an amazing job with it. You know, we have our hand put on it during the day and some at night, but I think that's really the thing that you need to see. And then if you're able to stay up, you know, go to the hotels. It's just, for me, it's the best thing ever. Yeah. That's what I would say I would do. Those are two things that if I didn't even go to the show, I would do those two things and be really happy. What was the best deal, trade, buy, sell, whatever that y'all did last year? Well, the honest truth is I brought a handful of cards and we sold like 10 cards. And then we bought packs that we ripped in the hotel rooms. That's just, yeah, that's what me and the boys do. We're the pack attackers, you know. And that's what we did at like midnight. You know, once we got, we did a state at 3 a.m. Once we left trade night at like 11 or something. And so last year, the boys were trading. And then they got some deals. But, you know, it also... God, the number of kids walking around with $100,000 cases. It was kind of like, you know, let me put my $200 card back in my pocket. I mean, I had priced your cards at home, but I was like, I never, I didn't feel like crap about it. But it was more, I was like, taken aback. It just, this is really the. I don't know where everything that you feel and sense in the hobby, like the energy and the growth. And then it's like, this is the Mecca. And this is what, if you had any doubts about what everything else was telling you, the signals, all this coming. You go to the NASH show and it's like... I see the light. Like, this is it. I mean, as far as how big it is, how impressive it is, how energetic it is, how diverse it is, that this is sort of that. And you'll see it. Yeah, I'm excited. One week from today. And then we have a sweet partnership with Collector Nation and Ludox in the VIP lounge. And... Ryan and Bella and their team will be there. Maybe in the comments, you want some live shots? We could, you know, live shots. We'll be posting this on Luddix and Collector Nation. We're going to do our pod from there, right? Yeah. We'll be doing all of it. A week from today, I guess. Unless we choose to just do something crazy. That's the thing. You got to leave room for the unknown. That would be my advice. Go with a plan. Some good shoes, the hotels, the trade night, and have focus. Leave space to be surprised and delighted. Like, and to just follow it, you know? Like, go down the rabbit hole. I was trying to, like, plan things, like, by the hour, and I was like, I don't even know what to plan. We should do a Bella blog. We should do Bella blog at the National. I was going to do some Day in the Lifes, you know? Yeah. We need to know what you're thinking. Like, people want to know. Like, you're going there first time. I'll steal Ryan's Ray-Van metaglasses. My metaglasses. How about POV? I'll have my shaded burr berries if I can find them. Those help me with this lighting, actually, right here as much as anything. I'm blind as a bat. So it's actually really a need at times. But – Yeah, you can have these. Actually, you can have them for some of the time. I'm going to be making some deals with these. These are the perfect, like, break glasses. Or, like, when you're filming ripping packs, not necessarily breaks, but, like, if you're just to not have to hold the camera in front of you or the phone in front of you or have a stand in front of you. Bella, put them on and see how they look on you. Let's see. Oh, gosh. I look terrible. I have a big head. I have a really big head, too. Hold on. Let's see. They're probably unisex, I had to guess. Oh, yeah. You look smart. They just like... Take those off. You look smart now. They look massive on my face. I need to clean these. I don't know. You need to wear them. That's weird. They like echoed in my ears. Yes. Yeah. They do that? Yeah. They have. Did you know they play music too? That's weird. Unbelievable. I'll just be like sitting at the National listening to some music. Sometimes when I get bored with y'all at this show, I have my favorite tune playing on there. When I go on a rant about soccer. You're like, woo! Yeah, I'm soccer. I tune out. Now when Nicole starts yelling at you. Yes. Like, I'm filming right now. Selective blinking. Light blinking. My son was telling me you can supposedly get a Dremel and take out the camera blinking. So they actually did an update on them where you can't do that anymore. And it stops its ability to record because people are doing some nefarious things. Oh, yeah. I don't really want to do it to record people without them knowing it. It's more I don't want to, like, distract from the moment. Yeah, the blinking is a little distracting. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. I haven't seen it, so I'm not going to look. It's there. All right, guys. Now, hey, we are sitting in the middle of a trading card store. I don't know if we remind people of that enough. This isn't just a backdrop. We're not just in a studio. We are at Collector Station in Easley, South Carolina. Best card shop in the upstate. Yeah. Let's call it the state. Let's not undersell it. Or I like hyperbole and exaggeration with my marketing. So this guy came in, he had a pretty beat up binder. And, you know, we have people come in every single day, like Ryan was just saying. You open up this binder, it had like every good basketball card from the 90s that you could want. Kobe Bryant rookies up the wazoo. 90s inserts, baby. 90s inserts. So we have some pretty cool cards. Again, not like crazy value, especially they're all raw. But starting off, we have this Allen Iverson card. I think this one is personally, we'll have it up on screen. But personally, my favorite, it has a basketball texture to it. It's only about a $10 card raw, but I think it's, It's a really, really clean. And all of these are rookies. This one's not bad either. Allen Iverson again, another insert. This one I think is actually pretty clean. Good centering. Good centering. The corners are all in pretty good condition. The rest of them, the corners are kind of a little roughed up. But that's also about a $10 card. Next, we have a $15 upper deck Michael Jordan. This one kind of has, I don't know if you'll be able to see it, on camera probably not but it has almost like a a holographic where you turn it one way and you can see other like shots of him yeah actually playing basketball i i'm hieroglyphic i'm kidding it's hollow this was like the original hollows holographic i think that is cool really cool i've never seen my uh my meta glasses on taking so we'll have this in with the footage um 3D standouts. Yeah. But, I mean, it's only like a $15 card. Yeah. We'd be glad to sell it to you for $30 if you want. Yeah. And then we have another Michael Jordan upper deck. I don't know necessarily what you'd call this one, but it has a little cutout. Pretty cool. That one's about $25. Yep. I like that one. Michael's Viewpoints. Yeah. We have another Michael Jordan. This one is, I don't even, this one's from 1995 Fleer. Pretty cool card. I like this insert. So this is a 97 Kobe Bryant Fleer. Corners are a little rough on this one. Cool card though. What was raw on this? $32. Yeah. We have another Kobe Bryant. This one is a 96. This is his rookie year. I think this one's pretty cool. Only about a $15 card. That's the coolest one in here, like as far as the image goes. I remember this shot, I believe, coming under the basket. He looked a lot. This is when the Jordan comparison started coming in a little bit. Our next one is another Kobe 97. So his second year. And this is a Fleer Skybox. I think that one's a pretty cool looking one. But yeah, I like probably like the other one better. That one's about a $50 card. Money, money, money. It almost looks like money. But it's, I guess, like a metal print there. Yeah. And our last one, another Kobe. This one is from 96. So rookie. And this is a Topps card. But this one's about a $90 card. That's his top rookie card, I think. Top's base. Yeah. So, I mean, it was a, I think we paid like $200 for the whole binder, and this is maybe a third of them. These were obviously the higher value ones, but they were all pretty cool cards, and we got a good value for them. Topps Signature Basketball, one of my favorite releases, opened a lot of this. So I, you know, like I said, I have bad luck with this and I picked this box. So should have let Ryan do that. Let's see. All right. They pick. That's a Pandora. Is that gold? Pandora? Just regular. Yeah. That's cool. That's a Pandora. Woo! Look at that. It's probably like five bucks. Five to seven maybe. I can't break the $5 barrier. You know. It's all good. Nice. Nice looking. You got the chrome Pandora look there. I like that Pandora look. Especially when it's black and one out of five. Yeah. And worth one million. My favorite. Harden, Magic Base. I love that guy's beard. It cracks me up every time I see him. Luca, we got good players out of the base set here. We've got a orange set, Sar. Yeah, Alex Sar. Hey, an unfazed Haskell Siakam. Those are cool inserts. It's one of my favorite inserts out of them. Actually, the way they do the dual kind of most negative look on one side. Yeah, that looks cool. Oh, that's a good hit. That's a bronze Stefan Castle. That's a nice hit. And then a gold Pandora Marcus Smart. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Oh, LeBron. LeBron. Hey. Got a little, another insert there. That's pretty cool. Kevin Durant. What's the insert name? Does it say it? After Image. After Image, yep. See, the inserts are cool in this set. Yeah. Oh, numbered Mike Conley yellow out of 275. Is that number one? Wait, is that jersey match? Let me see. Oh, one off jersey match. It's 11 and he's a 10. Yeah. Oh, damn. Oh, and a brawny refractor on the silver. But Brunson. Ooh. NBA champ, Brunson. Nope. Got Micah painting. Okay. Ooh. I like that insert. Wait, that's colored. That's not the normal insert. Is that numbered? It is numbered. That out of 50. Dylan Harper on the orange pure insert out of 50. I've never even seen that card. Yeah. Wow. Damn! Are you open to it? I couldn't even see it. That's not a jersey match, is it? Let me see. No. I think it's 31 out of 50. He's not 31. He's... I really like that insert. That's beautiful. I am like butchering these pack openings. There you go. All right. Let's see. Hey, Khan. Is that... Hey, Khan on the refractor there. And... Oh, Grant Williams! William! Hey! Hey, Grant. Grant was on the show. You need to get Grant to sign that. We're at the National this year. All right. Last pack. I'd say last pack magic, but I think we hit the magic. Yeah. If you add a 50 Dylan Harper on anything, I think is... We'll have to pull it up on Letox and see what it comps for. Yeah. All right. Another orange. Oh, did you? There's no one. Jeremiah Fears, pure. Is it numbered? It's not numbered, but he is one of the better rookies in there. That's probably $10 or $15. Hey. Hey. That was pretty good. All right. Let's see what we got here. Go back through the hits. Hey, Khan on the Chrome. That's probably $5. Barani. Barani. On the roof factor. We've got, I don't know who that is, Michael Porter Jr. He got traded. Lots of chrome. Michael Conley, 225 numbered. We've got chrome, orange. The unfazed, Siakam is a cool, cool insert. Pandora, hey, Jeremiah Fears on the pure insert. Another silver, I do believe. Yes, it is. Gold, Marcus, March, gold or yellow Pandora. It's hard to keep up with what's gold and what's yellow, but we'll set that one here. Stefan Castle on your bronze orange. We got, of course, Kevin Durant and Sion James. I feel like the Hornets have so many freaking rookies on those. Another insert. And the leader of the class in the dugout here. Really cool. I've never seen the number. The orange out of 50. Dylan Harper on the pure. That is my favorite insert. Yeah, but I'm glad we got something good, you know. Beautiful. I feel like my bad luck streak maybe just ended it. I'm glad I could do that for you. Maybe I just actually have to only open packs when you're in the vicinity. Maybe. Yeah, you pick the box. He's had just like the craziest luck, so. You know, I'm trying not to jinx it because it can go away at any time. Maybe I should stop jinxing it. Maybe if you've been packs long enough, you know it doesn't last. But right now, it's been pretty good. Yeah. Pretty good. All right. There we go. Wanted to show you some things behind the scenes here at the store and ripping packs. Yeah. Come see us at the National and maybe we'll give you some of these cards. I know. We might have some in our hands and some T-shirts. So we appreciate you. Yeah. What else we got in the news here? Well, Pokemon Pitch Black came out. It was. God, this is what happens. I hate this part about the hobby. There's so many releases, so many things that happen that, like, that was five days ago. And it's like, that should still be news. And it is news. But it's like, it feels, because we were preparing, you know, two weeks ahead of time with, like, sourcing and everything else and getting and then it comes and it goes and you're still selling it and it's still popular for the most part but it's like you're out of the next story you know and 17 other releases that tops has this week yeah they're uh the biggest like sports release was the uh tops chrome baseball um which actually has launches today that we're recording is on yes 20 seconds Actually, I was looking at some of the inserts before this, and I really like the minion inserts. I think they're really, they have like. Of course. They're so cute. I know. I know. Again, Toffs is doing a great job. Yeah, they're bringing in. They want more people getting excited. I like them because they're going to be worth a lot. See, I got to find my Topps Chrome Disney at the National. I'm going to try to find Hannah Montana or Livy Dunn. And we're going to, I think that's going to be my goal. I do have, ironically, just to put the final touch on the National before we get into some of these releases that I do want to talk more about. A PSA for PSA. I never thought I'd say that. If you want, they have grading on site. You can get online now. And literally get it all done so that when you get there, you just hand them there. So if, look, it's expensive. And you're not going to get the value grades. This is, if you got high-end cards and you need that thing graded, you got to do it ahead of time. Fill it all out. Go drop them off. But you're going to spend $100 plus on just the basic Express. Because this is Express. You get it back at the end of the show if you do Express. And it's like $229 if you want it next day. Right. You know how they like charge more if the card's more expensive? Yeah. They have those tiers too. Okay. I think that's up to $2,500 value, something like that. The $129, $229. I mean, it's a lot of money. But if you are. They're getting their bag. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I want to know how much money they will make at the night. It's probably an insane amount. Yeah. I'm taking a few. Everyone's, it's insane for everyone. Like there's, there's guys who work tables and this is their whole year. Like six figures in a weekend. That's crazy. That's how much, that's how much people make in this. It's unbelievable. Crazy, crazy, crazy. Buy and sell them. And hey, I'm always buying if you see me. I'm a seller. Brian be selling. I'm a seller. BBS. Back to the Tops Chrome baseball. They also have a one-on-one dual gold logo man, Otto Shohei Otani, that he signed it in English and then in Japanese, which... Wow, that's cool. Yeah. That's really cool. It's a really, really cool card. And one of the logo mans is from last season and then this season. So that's obviously the chase card, but estimated $5 million value. Yeah, yeah. Casual, casual. Pocket change. It's easy. I'll have that on me in singles. I'm going to have guys walking around behind me with briefcases full of singles. Five million worth. Be good content, right? You can go to the gentleman's club with that. What is that? I don't know what that is, Brian. It's for a gentleman to hang out. It's for a gentleman to hang out. Oh, okay. Okay. We also have Topps Inception basketball dropping tomorrow. So we're recording this on Wednesday, so it's dropping on Thursday. I think this is going to be a cool box. The cards are cool. I'm just kind of, to your point earlier, a little bit sick of like every week there being a new basketball product and every week there being a new football product and a new baseball product. I'm like... Yeah. I mean, if they cut the SKUs by 30%, no one would care. No. But they can do it because... Somebody would bitch because they'd be like, that's my favorite sad. Like, okay. I don't know. Always. But they are always going to sell out of all of them. So why would they stop making them if they're always going to sell out? They don't print cards. They print money. Yeah, exactly. They just print money. Yep. It does seem that way. Whatever they print, they sell. Yeah. That's actually really a good way of thinking about it. I didn't really. Printing cardboard, printing plastic. I guess it's really plastic. I mean, I think we should do a special. We should go to one of these tops, plants, tops. We'll talk. Brian, get some of your tops guys to meet us. I've been. We want to do a plant walk around to talk about, like, the making. I know that these videos are out there, but they don't have the videos of me and Brian and Bella walking around doing it. here's the thing. I went to the Pokemon where Pokemon owns a printing facility and you, there was unbelievable security. Like, you had to go through one thing. It was almost like they had to like pat you, they patted you down. You had to put all your stuff in there. Same thing with Topps and Panini because you're seeing stuff that like, you know, you're like, there it is. There's the Logoman right there. You know, and so it's a lockdown, man. It's a lockdown, which, but it's awesome going in there. I'd go in there with these spy glasses of mine. If only they weren't blinking. They've never heard of these meta glasses. They wouldn't know what that is. First thing at the door, all glasses and phones. Your glasses and phones. Yeah, that's why I have my contacts that are meta contacts. You know that's coming. I'm sure they probably already have them. They do. I already have a bionic eye. You know, it's like. Lots of releases. This Inception looks cool. I'll tell you what I've been at. It's ironic that you grabbed this particular box sitting here. We've got Top Signature Basketball Mega Box. I think we're going to rip some of those here in a minute. I'm kind of itching jonesing for them already. I've opened quite a few hobby boxes of this, and it's been a really good product for me. So... See, I should have had you pick it because I picked the box and, you know, that's never good. Not going to happen. Not good. No. I think my goal next week is going to be to open something and actually get anything of value. It's a small goal, but a goal nonetheless. Bella chases value at the National. The girls gotta have dreams. Girls gotta have dreams. Yeah. I just, I need to break $10. Like, it's just gotta happen. Chasing even. The newest series from LudX. I will keep buying. I will buy it. Keep buying it for you until you do it. We'll just keep going. That'll be the video. Brian buys till Bella breaks. Even. Something like that. Yeah. Brian might have to bring those suitcases instead of me. $10,000 later, four days later, we're still good. Yeah. The whole show is just, you know, it could go that way. $200,000. Oh, no. It adds up. Top Scrum Baseball launching this week. It's a big release. I know when things are a bigger release, when I've got the TV on and it's in the background, I'm not really watching, I'm more listening. And if you didn't know it from a media standpoint, TV's radio and your phone is the TV. Just saying, free media tip. The, uh, so, uh, yeah, your audio marketing matters. The, uh, but in all seriousness, everything was Topps Chrome yesterday and today. Like the, the early release guys, Pac-Man, you know, you know all the guys who got the deals. Whoever's, whoever's, uh, opening and ripping packs the day before it releases, they got the brand deals. So, uh. That's such a, that's such a flex. Yeah. It is. It's so. Bam. Yeah, exactly. I just happen to be opening this top chrome day early. I'm the man. But I did watch quite a few of those. It looks like a good-looking product. But I think most of what Topps is putting out looks good-looking. Signature gets a little repetitive with base cards. But the inserts and the on-card Cooper Autos, like I pulled, are my personal favorites. Yeah. those are good ones I'm speaking it into fruition before we open the box that's the strategy here film it let's see what happens pitch black did come out with Pokemon that's a big seller in the store I'm excited for 30th anniversary. Yeah, we're already getting people calling and you're like, hey, you know, I'm just wondering if, you know, like three months away, but can I get on that list and buy everything that you're going to get? Oh, no. Literally. Yeah, we'll let you know. I mean, I saw videos of people like literally throwing punches at each other to get pitch black. So I just cannot imagine the pure chaos and pure hell that is going to be 30th anniversary. And Pikachu punches. Japan actually released a an airport that's all Pokemon themed. Like it has like Pokemon little characters ever. It's actually pretty, it's pretty sick, but. That's nice brain activation. Yeah. Like it's gonna do that at midway. Yeah, that did sell really well at midway. nothing's landing harder than nothing nothing speaks to the south side like Pokemon Chicago people would get that yeah so you know I've been chasing that mega dark ray I ripped through a booster box of this with Did like half with Hudson and half with Nash. Nash is at camp this week. It's been a little weird. I had a little crying moment before the show, actually, thinking about that my youngest was growing up. I did tear up, I'm being honest. Big guys can cry. I mean, I was like, I hadn't talked to him in three days, and he hasn't called because he doesn't have a phone. And boys don't want to call anyways. You have to call now. I know, but I was like, man, he's the youngest. It made me realize, like, I don't have kids. Like, yeah. all right, I'm going to go do the show. Hey, you still got eight more years. I know. It, it goes to phases. There's times where I'm like, when is this going to be over? You know, like the kid phase. But then I'm like, when I really think through it, I'm like, I don't think I want it to be over. Yeah. My son's going to University of Denver. Yeah. Oh, awesome. And I'm like, I can't wait for him to get out of the house. I mean, it's like grad parties every night. He's coming home hammered. I'm like, this is insane. He's like the boss, you know, of the house. I'm like, well, go ahead. Go figure out this world that you already know so much about. You're an expert in everything. He's a great kid, but they're still 18. They need to get out and see the world. Yeah. I love Denver. Nash is still, I have a couple of those too, are getting close to that, I should say, by the day, by the hour, by the minute. I don't mean any names. By the second, actually. But Nash is still, you know, like, he still thinks that I know everything. Yeah. I mean, so. That's a good, that's interesting. Yep. That switch. It does. It happens. You don't know when it happens. It's like, it's just, you wake up and you're like, What did you just say to me? Your boys have really good heads on their shoulders. I know. We beat it into them. When your dad's like 6'4", 220, or 230, he got to have a little more respect. It doesn't hurt. That's for sure. But, yeah. But we've been chasing. We opened that booster box of pitch black, and I will say this. It hit better than perfect order, man. Tell you what, what a terrible name, like the wrong name for the terrible set. I'm just calling it like it is. And when you know, you know. I mean, I tried to open like 20 packs on camera just to hit something and nothing. Not even like, I think the most was like a dollar card. Yeah, shocking. I know. Chaos Rising is better than Pitch, or excuse me, better than Perfect Order. Jury's out. I'm not sure. Pitch Black's. I like the couple of the hits, but the highest value car is like $300. It's like, I don't know, man. Like, it doesn't cost any less at launch. And not that, I mean, you can't compare it to sports. I mean, sports spend so much money. But you got legitimate upside in the sports stuff. You know, you're not pulling Pikachu autos out of a $5 pack, you know. So... It's all relative, but I don't know. I'm going to give it maybe one more 36-packer to figure it out. What if at Comic-Con this weekend, there's Pikachu on a stage, like that, you know, in an outfit, and he signs his 101? That'd be a great spoof. I mean, at least for fun. You know, like I do feel like that, you know, we talked to Brian. We were talking about a million things like we always are. But we were talking about like how there's not much different content in the hobby. There's not much humor in the hobby. And that's why, I mean, I hope people appreciate it. I mean, I know I'm not a comedian, but like I at least try to have fun with it a little bit. It's like, like let your damn hair down a little, you know? Yeah, we laugh a lot on this show. It was just ourselves. I really can't wait for you to see the shirts that Ryan made. Yeah, and I'll show you the designs of the ones that our HR department shut down. Yeah, me. Bella. Yeah. The voice of reason. We should throw them off the stage during our live podcast. Canon launch them. We actually might. And look, hey, good, good. I'm glad you said that, Brian. We will have a few. Yeah. We'll give those. Hey, we'll give. We don't have many. And we got to give them to some important partners of Brian's and him and whoever he tells us he wants us to give them to. But... But we'll hold at least one or two back for if you mention it. Mention it in the comments and we'll send you one. We'll do a drawing for that. Yeah, definitely. Anything else, Brian? No, I'm excited to see you guys next week. And I think it's going to be an awesome show. And I want to thank the listeners and watchers of the show. We can't do it without you. And I hope to meet, I'm going to meet at least four of you guys next week. So I'm looking forward to that too. Chris, Rick, Jason, and Paul. Oh, I mean. How did I know whose name? Ringo. Ringo. John. John. Oh, wait, no, John. John's not going to make it. His name is Dave. Dave Matthews. Have you ever read? You never know who will show up at the national. Don't put it out of question. We appreciate everyone for listening. L-U-D-E-X. Go check them out in the App Store. The best scanning app, collection management, lots of new things coming. We'll be talking about that over the coming weeks. Collector Nation, the app, the web experience will be launching next week, actually. It's awesome. It is awesome. Finally. Definitely differentiated and we appreciate, hey, tell us how you really feel and check it out. That'll be at thecollectornation.com. For Bella, for Brian, I'm Ryan Alford. We'll see you next time. Bye. Bye-bye. Thanks for tuning in to 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 collectornation.com and follow Ryan on Instagram at Ryan Alford. Now get out there and collect yours.