Snype, PSA, Fanatics & More — Major Shifts In The Card Market

All these marketplaces, like it's free, it's 1%, I'm like no one gets a shit about 1% commission. There's a reason why I haven't even dabbled in a marketplace. We have 3 million people, 325 million cards, and I'm still not confident that a marketplace would work. It just takes time. And actually last month, there was 2.7 million cards rated, which is the all-time high. And PSA just keeps getting more and more of that. And any in this little industry spots is super important for them to figure out how they're going to do it. What not eBay, fanatics, PSA. You need competitors because they help raise the category overall. It creates more business and more marking and more dollars into elevating and creating demand of the category. And so we need some of those other players to come along. Welcome to the Trading Cards and Collectibles podcast on the Radcast Network. From Chasing Grails to Colin Bluffs, I'm going inside the hobby. Are you ready to collect? Let's get at it. Here is your host, Ryan Alford. Hello and welcome Trading Cards and Collectibles here on the Radcast Network, Ryan and Ryan coming to you as always here on our Friday episode, the Friday before Thanksgiving week. I'm feeling thankful because a good friend, Brian Ludens, here. What's up, Brian? My favorite holiday, by the way. Thank you. Yes, I love Thanksgiving. I like that. You know what? It might be a sign of us getting older, Brian. I don't know. But I think I might like Thanksgiving better than either holiday and better than Christmas, maybe. I don't know. Yeah, first of all, you don't have to buy gifts. There's still there's no pressure. You get the family over, eat good food. And it's like by the time you buy your wife, Christmas, anniversary, sweetest day, Valentine's day, every other day, something, you know, it's a lot of pressure. You run out of things to buy. But Thanksgiving, you watch football and you eat as my birthday weekend. That's right. It's your birthday next weekend. November 30. You know what? I like it. Every reason you said, and it shouldn't be this way, but I'd feel like it is. Thanksgiving, I actually feel like you kind of get almost the whole week. Like, at least for most people, you know, it's like Wednesday to Sunday. It feels like the Thanksgiving. And for whatever reason, Christmas kind of comes and goes. You have Christmas Eve and you have Christmas day. And if that falls on like a Tuesday, Wednesday or something, I know a lot of people take off and I get it. But they're fortunate enough to do that. But it just sort of comes and goes really quick. Thanksgiving, I feel like it's like a five day holiday. You got Wednesday. Even if you work some on Wednesday, Wednesday afternoon, Wednesday night, Thursday all day, then most people are definitely off because Thanksgiving's on Thursday every year. So most people take that Friday off. So Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. It's like a four day true turkey fest, football, sports, family, everything, right? That's it. Like I think you nailed it. I mean, when Christmas is on a Monday, there are Tuesday. It's like you're going back to work that week. Yes. So I'm looking forward to it. You know, it's been a busy few weeks here opening the store, get it well, getting the studio set up and then did get the retail license here. And we do have a name. So we're going to we're trying to also the Brian. I know you're doing it. Look, you're in the freaking Ranger Stadium. We got to go a little smaller here in South Carolina. You know, I'm trying to, yeah, I'm not trying to compete with the LudEx trading card store. It freaking Ranger Stadium. However, for us smallings, collectible station here. I did, I did, you know, I had a couple calls today and I was like, I do want this to be a national destination store. Like you know, if you come through South Carolina and you're a collectible trading card guy or girl, whatever, you don't want it to be something you, hey, on your bucket, not, maybe not bucket list, but on your collectibles list or something. Yeah. So I think we can do that here. So I'm kind of pump up about that. That'd be pretty cool if they did like, you know, like when kids go to Major League Baseball Parks, they give them like a sticker for every park. And yeah, if there was like a shop in each state, if you went to you get a sticker from cops or something, and then if you get them all, you get like a, there's an idea for tops. We'll share that if we get may hand on here to work it on those details. And we'll go like, that's it. The, you know, tops best Americana, you know, tops baseball football trading card Americana store list or something and come out with the, hey, we all get our own cards. We had the Lutics card shop on there, most innovative, like bad ass store. And then mine's more of like a tech meets studio meets small town, you know, train field. Because every time that train goes by, we're going to do discounts. If you're in the store and the train goes by 10% off for everybody. We're by the L tracks in Chicago. So I wouldn't go broke if I did that. Yeah, but I like it. But no, I love that idea. That's a good idea. Hey, right now and now the other thing you're right down, but that's a killer like a bucket list or just it's not that you're saying you're the best card. It's not best like trading card shops. It's just like, can't miss like, destination, like, here's the word I was looking for destination trading card store. There are some amazing shops, even in upstate South Carolina, that I would call great places and great owners to go get your fix in, you know, go, you know, get some cards, make some trades. Absolutely. But I'd stop short and I love all of them, but I'd stop short of going. They're not destination stores though. They're just great transactional good selection. You know, they check a lot of boxes, but it's not a destination. And that's what I want this to be. Yeah, I mean, that's, that's, you know what? Actually, it would be really cool to go to Alaska and Hawaii. Yeah, start there. Exactly. No, hey, all states included and Puerto Rico. Equal opportunity, you know, you know, you know, land or not. Geography doesn't set this, you know, it's all if you're part of the United States in some way, shape or form. That's it. Yeah, we should just, we should just set it up. But you have to, you have to legitimately give like a really good prize away. Like if we did the Radcast and Lottax, you know, partnership and someone does get through there, then I mean, we got to give you something good. Exactly. Make a map and have, you know, points on it. As they get to each one, you fill it up, or you, you do like your, your monopoly board or your bingo board or whatever. Like you put a sticker, like you said, and you fill it up, you fill up the thing, get like one of those calendars that absolute does, like those absolute football calendars, it's like the advent calendar or whatever. Yeah, we just, we bought one last week. Yeah, those things are cool. But do one of those, but with a sticker for each store, so then when you, you complete it, you win, um, two shares of Lottax stock. And that would be, hey, who knows what that would be worth about how that happened. It might be worth, yeah. We can pull this off. That'd be great. That's gonna help. I know. Collectibles.show is where you'll find all of the channels and learn more about what we're doing and ultimately, hey, we want to hear from you. You do case hits at collectibles.show. Watch you to send in your favorite pulls of the week. And here's the difference. This isn't about just value. Hey, we want to see some $10,000 hits. Had a couple of those myself a few months back, but it's not just about the values about what you're collecting. What means something to you? Share a story, share a video of you holding up the card that you hit last week. That was your favorite player and you nailed it. So case hits at collectibles.show, send in those videos. I want to know the stories. We're going to bring into life here on the show. We're going to do a segment each week. Once we get rolling and get some videos in, where we share that on the show with us. We want to feature you on collectibles.show. How about your bears, man? They are the worst seven and three team I've ever seen. They worst in the Broncos at eight and two. They're both kind of the same. They know how to win. Look, the difference is they have coaches that know how to win, right? Yeah, I mean, you got to take a win as a win. And then I felt like what you and I talk about, but at the same point, there's a realistic, you know, you got to be realistic here. And when you're beating really crappy teams, because you have to get the last drive three weeks in a row, I mean, those, you know how seasons go. There's seasons where every single one of those are losses. And there's seasons when they're all wins. And the bears have had bad luck and now they're having good luck this year. But they can easily be three and seven. Yeah. So Jaguars beat the snot out of the chargers. I was happy. That was crazy. Like I've got Herbert's, Herbert's line. I didn't see the game, but I'm like, I've never seen numbers like that from him. Back to those defense. They kind of do core tender in there. And he's, he's been the bright spot. And Herbert's been uneven, but had a good game. And they put it all together. Yeah, I mean, they got, I mean, they're six or they're quiet six and four. And then the Buffalo Buffalo at Tampa Bay, I was more of that game. That was a great game. Back and forth. Yeah, it's good weekend. You know, my, my direct favorite team, my quasi, you know, I don't, I don't want any, hey, don't even DM me and say, oh, you can't have word one team. Yes, you can. Got my nostalgia, all my clips and guys, DTN and Trevor at Jacksonville, I got Buffalo, who's my true favorite team with Josh Allen. And then my, I grew up watching sweetness and all the bears and all the Chicago clubs and Greg Maddox and everybody else, way before he's a, where is way before he's a brave, by the way. And so don't tell me they're asked why I had two stations and one of them was WGM. So suck it. But three teams, my bears, my bills and the Jaguar is one. It was a good weekend. Well, we'll get you a, we'll get you to a bears game one of these days. I can't wait. I'm gonna hold you to that. Yeah, that was, they were the original favorite. Just by the way, for a kid growing up way before the Carolina Panthers existed. Yeah, you know, and they're in Charlotte. They're North Carolina and South Carolina. Look, this is what the Carolinians have to deal with. Oh, look, South Carolina gets to be told that we're not big enough or important enough to have a team in South Carolina. Everything's just Carolina, but it's in North Carolina. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, you don't want that. So I've kind of rooted against the Panthers because of it. It's like, you're not us. Yeah, South Carolina, you're North Carolina. It's like, there's two twins and one's really hot and the other's not. Yeah, I got to want that. They're not identical. You're like, are you all identical? You can't help but hide that expression on your face. Like, wow, you don't think we look like I hadn't. That's what I was saying. That's North Carolina. Yeah, that's what we're talking about. Hey, look, the people are very different too. Let me tell you, there's been some good time in North Carolina. They come from South Carolina. A lot of things are different. It's like the North side of Chicago and South side. If you're in the North side, you're that's where you want to be. That's the attractive female in this case when the South side is not. Yeah. Greenville and Charleston are in South Carolina. Do the hottest, o-temperature and growth and cool factor cities in America and fastest growing and they're in South Carolina. So I digress and Charlottes cool. I like Charlottes and cities, not bad. But anyway, we're not there. We're not the little step cousin here. Hey, what's happening with any news on the trading car store for you? No, man, you know, we're just in build phase, right? We're just building it. We're getting stuff delivered. It's a mess. It's a mess. Just like our office here in Chicago, we're moving in the month is a mess. I feel like everybody goes a mess. That's how I felt for you know how I've been last. You've since the difference in me. You've since how I'm coming back to life like the raya that you know and love. Like, it's because I was living, I called it in a, I get in my car every morning. I go, I'm just disheveled. Every part of my life is disheveled. I don't like being disheveled. Like, that's how it feels. Yeah, and that's how, now you're you're on your up and I'm on my moving offices and building a store. Yeah. Yeah, amongst other things. Yeah. Yeah, you got nothing else going on. You got to tell people, I think you'd be cool because that was cool for me. I was like a little kid like listening. You went into the storage unit yesterday or today. Today. Yeah, tell the story part. So I have a picture. I'll show you a picture of it. It's basically 20 percent of the shop. But I looked on the top of it and I've gone through 10 percent in these boxes. So I look and also, and I see it looks like 1991 tops full set. I'm like, whatever. I mean, obviously, he's got a thousand, I've a thousand of those. I pull it down. It's the whole 1971 set, top loaded. All the grates are in there. I'm like, and well, I was looking at them and like, I think they're between sixes and sevens. And which I think those, that just by itself, raw is like a $1,500 nugget I found. But it's fun going in there. I mean, I have a couple guys from the company like on their off days go there and probably steal shit, you know. Yeah. I have a grab a peat rose or two. That's what I've been looking towards. He's not going to notice. Yeah, there's one million cars. Is it have any stores used in the units? Is it our tractor trailers, whatever the hell they are? It's three units. It's five million cars. So again, if you're just listening for the first time, we've talked about this a bunch, but Ryan bought three storage units, five million cars, and it's still kind of going through the finding treasures every day, not 91, but 71 tops in tactful sets. Big difference. Big deal. Don't quacks, not don't, don't quacks. Like, couldn't be a bigger 100x value different probably. And rarity. Yeah, exactly. It makes up for my 1961 set that got ruined by the water damage. So yeah, you win some. Yeah, it take the good with the bad. Speaking of it, speaking of the good, we've got some weekly movers with our load X data of the week. Got some cards. Who's popping, Brian? We have a new, a couple new guys this week. And then we have one that's been on top of the charts for a while, but number one is Bryce Young. He's up 141%. He was unranked in our top 100. And now he's ranked 64. The next one is Bonix. He's up 68%. He went from 62 to 21. And the third week in a row, I'll let you guess. Quarterback. New England. New England. Yeah, we may again. Third week in a row. Number one, number one. He's up 21% again. And I think his Panini prisms silver PSA 10. I think when we started looking at this was like 600 bucks. Now it's maybe 600. I think it's more than double. I think it was like four something. You think it was in that it was in that Bonix territory. And yeah, that baby's like quadrupled. I want to say like I want to say it. I want to say even like six months ago, it was like three something like crazy. And let me just say for I think I've reiterated this a few times. I'm okay with all these quarterbacks from last year when the offers got back it. We have treasure trove of these guys. If they alternate into all pros, the offers will retire well. We have knowledge. The boys get actually going to college because we have a lot of. And yes, so I'm okay with these guys just rocking and rolling. It gave a little boob that's doing all right too. So hey, it's good. I don't know if they're tanking. I mean, I'll say that. I thought some of them would tank. I mean, Jayden. Some of the some of them aren't increasing values because Jayden's been hurt. But he's dropped. But he's not. He's not done bad. He's hadn't played. He's been injured. It was kind of my worry with him from the start. I told people that last year. I'm like, this kid's pretty thin. Yeah. Very athletic, but I hope he can say healthy. And then Jay Jim Carthee is still coming around. To be seen, but not a nightmare. You know, not a complete train wreck. He's just been a little injured and a little uneven. And Pinnix kind of a little bit of the same, but he's not been terrible. Oh, these guys are all been pretty decent. So I'm good. Well, that was a Sydney Chicago. So I'm probably got shot. So to be here. So you're saying hello. Same. Yeah, exactly. You know, on the opposite side, we did something we looked into this week is the fallers or the people, you know, who actually had been, you know, there's who's been tanking. That'd be Jayden. Jamar Chase. Oh, the spit incident. He's down 11% and he went from 38 to 129. Interesting. Jayden, Jordan Addison downtown, which is interesting, decreased 7% but he dropped from 78 to 218. And Calvin Ridley is down 20% and went from 200 down to unranked. So I guess I don't know what our ranking goes to. I thought it was out of 100, but obviously these guys are well below 100. Well below that. Yeah, I'm scared you get like even Calvin Ridley's getting scanned 10,000 times a week probably, you know, whatever it is a month. And so they drop. But the last two don't surprise me because both those guys are kind of you're not hearing anything. The spitting with it. Look, that just goes to show you that people just don't tolerate that shit. You know, like it's just there's just no place for it. I mean, look, everybody loses their head. I'm not like going to like completely hate the guy forever or something like that. You know, things happen in the heat of the moment, but you just can't do that. No, I mean, it's really low respect for people to get spit on. It's kind of like the throwing stones of just the disrespect. The worst you could do is to spit on someone. You know, like, not cool, not fun, not fun. Hopefully that was just a, but I've never seen that. I don't, I haven't known that to be his character, at least from what I've seen. So, you know, I mean, he sees that a good quarterback is good quarterback. It's hurt, you know, and these receivers, they're pre-Madonna's to begin with. And then, you know, he's frustrating. And that's fine, but like coach it up. Keep it together. No, don't go there. You're too good for that. Don't, don't lower yourself to that. Because it's actually you that gets lowered. Yeah, you think you're spitting on someone and that's like, you know, it all puts out of disrespect to them, but really it's your disrespect yourself. Now he's on the, now he's on the shit list of the shit list. Not going into Christmas too. Oh, we're also up for an award on mantle. They're doing collectibles awards and it goes from like Best Hobby Shop to podcast and we're nominated for innovation. So that's cool. We're doing some things around that. And if you're listening, go vote on mantle for the Innovation Awards for Lutx. Yeah. And every number it matters. All right, Brian. Other news. And I'm going to let you tee this one up as well. Night, which I think I had heard of them. Like what's interestingly enough, I think I'd heard of them because of they do like eBay sniping options, like where you can drop in and get a value in. But obviously, they have a much bigger play than that. What's going on with these guys? Man, I love Rick Probstein. He's a funny guy. He's a friend. He's always interesting to talk to. He's run incredible business over there. I was lucky enough to visit it. And Brian, there's what they are is a massive logistics company and they're really good at it. So, you know, he took on he took on a marketplace. And you know, he's I know how humbling tech is. And yeah, you might think, you know, I got this month. Let's go. Let's know. It's always something. Always something. It's never nothing when you're dealing with tech. But Rico figured out I love the idea. I love what he's doing. You know, he has a following. I think he was the biggest blister on eBay when he left eBay. So yeah, I mean, he'll figure it out. And I do like the concept. What do you think? Yeah, I like the concept. I just hate it. I hate it. No matter how he's handled or whatever, I don't know him. You know him. And you know, I love you. So I go with you. You know, so like your your boys are my boys. So obviously he's got something good. But I also know the tech industry and have been humbled by it myself and or seen clients at the highest level humbled. But it what it takes to launch these things, the complexity that gets sort of ignored and slipped under the rug, the server band loads, the like it's just a lot. And so I hate that he had to go through that and they had some bumps in the road. And you know, there's always going to be people that are going to hate on things. And I don't want to do that with this show. I want to call out real. There's differences between being like raw and real and being hate. I'm not going to hate on anybody. We're you and I think we're just going to but we're going to we're going to not going to sugarcoat anything. If somebody you know, there's a difference. And I think we're going to code more than you probably. Yeah, you gotta look now. I'm gagging a few things with you know, multi eight, nine, 10 figure evaluation eventually with Lovex. Hopefully we know you will. Not going to be friends with everyone. You got to be friends with everyone. I can be the not so what's your one but but I want to be friends with everyone. I don't want because I don't want to be the loudmouth hater and it's business is hard. You know, I and it's not easy no matter what it is. So I don't ever want to be the judge on that. But there's a reason these things take time and energy and you know, the reason I've even slow played myself coming into the hobby is like, you know, trying to be humble and like, okay, I may have done something over here but I ain't done shit here. And like I'm going to kind of you know learn from everyone else while sort of absorbing but also recognizing that stuff is not easy. No, and there's a reason why I haven't even dabble in a marketplace. I mean, yeah, we have 3 million people, 325 million cards and I'm still not confident that a marketplace would work. It just takes time and you know, it's about velocity, volume and trust and like when you swing in this on it, you swing and miss on it. No one's cracked the code yet. My slabs, you know, whatever name anyone like snipe so far, they'll figure out put them. Yeah, there's got baseball cards. There's like all these marketplaces like it's free, it's 1%. I'm like, no one gets this shit about 1% commission because that card will not trade ever. You know, and so marketplace they're so hard. They are. And it's all about having volume like you said, like, you don't have the buyers and all the sellers, like, it doesn't matter what the benefits are. You know, like, yeah, it's like chicken or the egg. And saying I say in marketing sometimes, it's like, well, I mean, we could sell it first cheap as you want, but if we aren't building a brand and building awareness at a large scale, it doesn't matter how big our sale is. You know, like we got to have awareness of people that want to buy the stuff at the sale price, right? Yeah, yeah. So it's, it's all tied together. But we'll say, but look, I think we would agree with this innovation and new and different is good for the hobby. And so if we get there, that's that's that's a positive. It's, you know, it shows a maturing industry also. Yeah. So what I've seen in business is like, you know, you have this, you know, industry that hasn't changed some tech, then tech comes into it. Then it starts growing and then you get the VCs in, then you get the private equity, then you got M&A deals, and then you get, you know, and that's that's maturing of an industry. And we're predominantly VC right now in the industry, but moving towards PE. And I will make a prediction in the next year, just just 16 months, you'll start seeing M&A activity where if a Walmart wants to really take a bite out of eBay, they're going to have to do something fanatics, same thing, CCG to compete with PSA and Beckett. Like these guys have to make moves, right? Like also, they're just going to keep gobbling up. And actually last month, there was 2.7 million cards graded, which is the all time high. So and PSA just keeps getting more and more of that. These, these second guys up in any of these, in this, in any of this little industry spots, is super important for them to really figure out how they're going to do it. What not eBay, fanatics, PSA. Yep, exactly. And, you know, it's funny. I don't know if you'll, you know, I've worked with large companies. I mean, really like Apple, Verizon, Samsung, Audi, Lexus, like they all got competitors. Some of them are leaders, some of them are challengers, you got leaders challengers like in business. You need the competition. Number one, we're in a country where there's not supposed to be monopolies. Notice how I frame that. And there's not any, and this ain't not supposed to be. Yeah, you won't all the pie, but you need competitors, because they help raise the category overall. Because in marketing and branding, you've got BDI and CDI, you get category development and brand development. You're working on your brand, but you need the category to grow. Well, when you have competitors, it brings the category. It creates more business and more marketing and more dollars into elevating and creating demand of the category. And so you need those competitors on some level to kind of raise the bigger pie with which then you can kind of battle for. But so we need some those other players to kind of come along. Yeah, that's a really interesting way to look at it. I agree. 100% like we need that. Yeah. I mean, that's what makes it all work. And hey, you got to have somebody that you can go into the boardroom and get your people fired up. Hey, we're going to battle them today. If you don't have somebody to wrestle, you need a bad man. You know, you need a boogie man. You know, Coke's got to have Pepsi to beat on. And prize it an eight. You know, they go in the boardroom and beat up on AT&T and T-Mobile and sprint and it was next to like, you know, you got to have it helps lead the chart. If you're not, if you're not going against something, yeah, it's great. But where everybody needs their foil. As we close out today, Chicago trading card show, today's a Friday where this releases, if you're listening, what do people need to do now? You're out this weekend, Brian. Yeah, so there's a Chicago sports spectacular. It's in Rosemont, same building as the national. They do. It's the upstairs, probably 600, 600 tables, let's say. A lot of x is there. We're doing the VIP experience running the trade night. If you're in Chicago and the Chicago area, it's Friday through Sunday, come by, say hi, get some swag. And yeah, it's a great show. I mean, obviously, it's a home game for us. Yep. And that's important. So yeah, building our brand and just touching people out there is great. Exactly. They always put on a good thing. The VIP lounge was a blast at the national. So go by, say hello to them, get Brian's autograph. Whatever it might be, he'll sign that hat for you. Oh, all right, dude. Next week's Halloween. Thanks, giving edition in a turkey day, the day after turkey day. So good luck at the show this weekend and look forward to all the updates. Yeah. Thanks, buddy. It's always a pleasure. Yeah. Hey, guys, you know, to find us collectibles.show. So we got to put in www.collectables.show, go to all the highlight clips, the full episodes, links to Linux, links to the rad collective, anything and everything to do with the show and what we're doing to help push along the hobby and to teach you the business, the ins and outs, the news. And of course, go to the app store, download Linux, get your get your whole collection into your digital collection there within the Linux app, check values, go through eBay, really slick integrations. We'll talk more about that as the weeks come along and we appreciate you for listening. And we'll see you next time on trading cards and electables. Thanks for tuning 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.collectables.show or follow Ryan on Instagram at Ryan Oldford. Now get out there and collect yours.