The 'Veblen Effect': Why Collectibles Get MORE Desired As Prices Skyrocket (An Economic Secret)

How many jerseys of Messys has icons sold over time? I am roughly. We've got 50,000 in total over two decades. This is a lot, but also not a lot. We concentrate on every signature trying to create the most unique or special or interesting way of presenting it, not just banging out the modesty that just gets sold every time. 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 to Trading Cards and Collectibles here on the Radcast Network. We are your number three sports show on Apple Podcasts in the United States. And you know why? Because we go to the best and the brightest, the coolest, smoothest, the best. Hey, hey, hey, we're going to talk some names that you don't know, you should know. But I'm really pleased to have Dan. James had used the CEO and co-owner of icons.com. What's up, Dan? Thanks for that intro, lovely to be here. It's a pleasure. You can get a British and European perspective on all this. Hey, hey, we're a wide baby. The hobby and collectibles and all this stuff. We're here to talk the whole gamut. We want everybody's eyes open to all the collectibles are out there, all the companies are out there. You know, we may or may not bring up one of the most popular athletes on the planet that you guys happen to have the most memorabilia for as I understand it. Opportunities are behind you if you're watching. Which if you're listening, you should be watching on YouTube there. Yeah, number 10, we'll come back to him. But Dan, what's going on at icons? Well, we're always excited. We love what we do. So we've been doing it for 26 years now. I took over a 16 years ago. So it's not all down to me. Yeah, we've been riding away since 1999. We always say we started about four months after Google. So we've been going that long. But memorabilia has always been my passion. So it's great to put the two things together. Why is that? You know, like, why are we such collecting creatures? I don't know, but I have on my Instagram. So if you get a sort of icons on the store, CEO on Instagram, it says, as a kid, I collected Panini stickers. And now I collect footballers. It literally is what I did as a kid. So I just love it. My wife always says it's like, if little Dan and you were talking to him as a 10-year-old, and you were like, what do you mean when you want to grow up? And it would be like, I want to be a football player, obviously. And then, okay, next level down, what would you want to do? But I want to run around the planet, meet my heroes and creating amazing things that people love. And they do. And, you know, it's fascinating to me. I've never known, because I'm one of them. I did as a kid and then got back into it when my kids got into it. And now doing this show and talking to people like you, it's one of those cultural things that connects people and I think it's somewhat some natural human behavior of wanting these relics and pieces of things that remind us of, you know, fandom and our fan support of athletes or teams or clubs. And, you know, there's something just intrinsically built into our, I don't know, DNA, it seems. I mean, I know it's totally universal. So icons has been, I know, trading the world's game as it were. But when you look at our figures, 98% of our sales are outside of the UK. So we sell to 120 countries around the world. So it really is, it's 24-7, it doesn't go dark. There's somebody somewhere is wanting a piece of their heroes. And it's a pleasure to bring it to. But it's a big world out there and there's a lot of sport to go around. Soccer is the number one football soccer. It's my best accent and my southern accent with states. That's as good as I can do. It's the number one sport in the world yet not in the United States where I'm from. I don't know that I've ever been able to quite negotiate why that is other than just precedence and making other things. What do you explain that for that phenomenon? I think things history and tradition, do you guys love your sports? They are amazing. They got saturation and coverage and amazing stars. I mean, I know I grew up watching Lawrence Taylor, smash people to death and Michael Jordan, they were my heroes. So it's, I know, you've got good stuff to look at. I think soccer is amazing and super popular and maybe it's tipping point is coming. I think I visited the states when I started this kind of journey maybe maybe 12 years ago, maybe 14 years ago and I'm sort of talking about soccer and people are that interested. But I'm in a restaurant. People will come out from the kitchen and get really excited because I've got a Leo Messi shirt and the taxi drivers and the locals and the expats and the people who play soccer as kids and it's all kind of bubbling under. I think it's got a critical mass now. I think the Leo Messi, the MLS, the World Cup is coming. There's women's team is the best in the world. You've got a lot going for it and it's such a big country that's the space for everyone. Yeah, it feels like there is a tipping point happening, especially with Messi. One of the most iconic pun intended names and figures on the planet and one that you're the leader in his collectibles market with his memorabilia, is that correct? Yeah, so we've worked with Leo since he was 17. So we're now literally going to be into two decades in a moment. Yeah, he'd only played 29 times for Barcelona when we first did a signing with it. 2006, I think, so that is a long time. But he's basically almost the world's greatest footballer. The other person you can't see is my Diego Maradona. So I'm slightly biased, I'm slightly older, but Leo's astonishing and his growth is our growth and basically we've worked together with his team and with him and with Leo Messi management to grow and just to sort of bring him to the world, he's so popular anyway, but we want to try and always create super high quality and truly authentic merchandise that people love around the world. And it's been a long and successful journey. You know, Dan, I've got an open spot here on the wall. You know, I mean, just saying, if you wanted to send me something, do you own every show? You know, it could sit right behind you and people would go, what's, who's, who's that Messi that looks at that? Big icon and a big icons.com. Come on, man. Yeah, we could spread the word. If we want to get the tide turned, that's how we could start there, you know, just saying. All right, I'm, I'm done begging for a message. Well, talk a little bit about your background, Dan, and building icons, you know, like walk us through that journey. Quite a journey. So how did I describe it? I started off in marketing a bit like it. So I worked in marketing for media brands. So I'm not sure you list as might not have heard of it. But basically, people like the Garden and Observer newspaper, channel for lastminute.com, capital radio, just London's biggest radio station, and I'm sort of working in all those areas. You got to sort of see each one and the thing about brands, which I love is like, basically, I love them too. So if you have to market it, you're basically marketing to yourself. So what are the things I wanted to show you? Oh, yes, I love this. I am. I was the junior in the office, in my marketing office, for the Observer newspaper, and a fact came through, which no one read old school faxes, and it said, would you like to partner with Penini to recreate sticker albums from all the World Cups? And I'm running into the boss's office going, we really need to do this. This is amazing. So many years ago, with the people I work with, we created the recreation of all the back catalogues of World Cup albums. And we can add in contemporary match reports. So the actual match reports from the time, and you collected them each week and you put them in a binder and it was great. And in order to go to the Penini Italian vault, they had to go to the vault to check that the films were the same. So they actually took my genuine child, completed World Cup sets to sit there in the Penini vault to put them side by side and say, right, yeah, this is what we're buying. And they came back, we re-created it, and I've loved it ever since. That is a cool collectible. Yeah, that's a good one. Not many people can say that one. The end of it for a digital company that was the owner of the icons. And icons is in the basement, and they're like, well, you're a strategist. What would you do with this company? And at the time, it was the, it was the personal websites of footballers, which is brilliant idea, and it's, but it was about 20 years too early, where they could talk directly to their fans, and you could get news and updates straight away. It's like, yeah, it kind of works, but they had a memorabilia shop on the side. And it was, that was the thing that was, had a USP and was tangible, and you can really make something out of it. So basically, we redesigned it, we focused on the memorabilia, took more of it in-house, and turned into a retail brand, basically. And then ultimately, they put me in charge, and then ultimately, I bought it out with my, the founder Edward Freeman, and we own it and run it today. That's cool, man. I mean, you got to sort of help it pivot. It sounds like, make a bit of a pivot, and then you get a chance to get ownership. I mean, that's the, so we all want to do, right? Yeah. I mean, it's like, it's the childhood dream, you want to get to play with the train set. Exactly. It built the train set. Be the originator. Talk to me about the clubs and the teams, and building the licensing agreements, and all the nuts and bolts of that. Yeah. So kind of the best clubs and the best brands are the sort of the best way to communicate with the customers, basically. So if you are aligning yourself with whoever's the best and the brightest in the game in the first place, that's perfect. So 2010, we became FIFA's first ever licensee for the World Cup, and we've had that license ever since. So coming to America, Canada, or Mexico next year is just brilliant for us. We've kind of, it'll be our fifth World Cup of Things, and we've really learned how to do it now. We've been with the Champions League for 14 years now, so the official memorabilia brand of the Champions League. And then we start working with the clubs as well. So we've worked with Liverpool and PSG, Man City, AC Milan, and we currently work with Manchester United and Barcelona, and through a partner, Chelsea and Spurs, and soon Newcastle. So basically working with the clubs, creating high quality memorabilia, selling it through their channels and talking to their supporters, but reuniting them with their icons is brilliant for us. We love doing that because it's an excuse to expand our range of players that we sign, and then we get to find new audiences for our stuff all over the world. That's cool. Is icons a 100% soccer flesh football? It is, I'd say, probably 90% soccer, and that's where we originate and do all our own signings. But if we're icons, we have a kind of icons of sport, kind of mentality. So we are the European distributors of Upper Deck, because I know we love American sports too, so we might as well take their amazing products and sell it into our market. We've worked with Steiner, we worked with Fanatics, and then in other sports, we work in with people who do cricket and rugby and so on. So once we've also moved into his tennis, so we've been the well-wide exclusive partner of Carlos Alcaraz, which has been a real experiment for us to move into another international super popular, super exciting sport with like the best icon in that sport, and that's been a fascinating journey as well. He's just been brilliant. He's an amazing man and lovely to work with. What's the, you know, products lineup, like most popular items? I can imagine certain players, which maybe that'll be part B, answer to that, but jerseys, what are the merchandise that is the collectibles and memorabilia that you guys carry? I mean, primarily it's jerseys, so that's the thing they see them in action, people want them, they stick them on the wall and they love them. So you can't really stray from your core idea, but we've sort of been expanding and doing all kinds of different things recently, just just to sort of experiment and see what works. I've got a 10-year-old and both me and him love Lego. And did you ever see that Lego moved into Lego stadiums? So you can build a Manchester United old traffic or you can build a new camp out of Lego, endorsed by the crowd, so they're brilliantly licensed products. But we then got the players to sign Lego bricks that went on the pitch. Oh, that's cool. You get a box and you can build a stadium with your son or your daughter. And then at the end, you get the signed autographed bits of the pitch and you put that in last. That for me is a triangulation of all the things I love, so I was brilliant. And my son got to build them for my office and then we'd take them down and sort of photograph them under flood lights and get it all looking cool. But that's just an example of something where you have to have the sort of mentality of a collector and the mind of a 10-year-old. It's true. There is all of that. You got the nostalgia factor and then you've got the collectibles and then fun. You know, like engaging, right? And that's what it's all about. Any cards, you guys, the baited getting in the cards? The cards are a bit of an international mystery for us, but we did a unique collection with Leo Messy maybe 13 years ago now, I think, where we produced a kind of hundred cards set of all his achievements throughout his life at that point. There were still millions of achievements at that point. But it was basically behind the scenes and family and early photos because we did it in collaboration with his agents and so on. And then we kind of, we brought it out. And then we worked with a Japanese company who also then did a signed trading card version using the IP we'd already created. And we got a number of them all signed. And then that created a box set, a box set that was only sold in Japan. Fast forward whatever, 13 years. So I went to the national in Cleveland last year. And there was a side haul having a soccer trading card, sort of side convention. And I stumbled into my cards on display going for like hundreds of dollars. My God. And then I spoke to like the number one collector of those cards who have been chasing the really incredibly small amount of signed ones. And he didn't believe that I was the guy who was doing it. And I was like, look, I have on my phone. Here's me in the factory in Italy, signing off the original proofs. Here's me in Leo given the cards are good looking at. Here's the his me signing things. And he's like, oh my God, it's like, it's like meeting the guy you created it in the first place. Oh, that works. Is the card thing? Is that, but you know, not to, I mean, obviously you're you're majoring in what you major in with the jersey. Is it just not your lane? So you've stayed out of it. It's just complex printing and things like that. It's complex, but also dominated. So we collaborate with, we collaborate with Topsympleini anyway. So we have exclusive athletes and we have contacts and we have agreements. So we tend to work together with both companies. And they're brilliant to work with. And we got great respect for them. It's a it's a big area and there might be some wiggle room, but I haven't got any immediate plans. There you go. The target with Dan Jamison, he is the CEO and co-founder of icons.com. I mean, let's talk messy a little bit. You've got him behind you, one of the most popular athletes on the planet, highly desirable in the memorabilia space, worldwide. Living in Miami now, you've had a 17 plus, did I hear 17 year relationship? I guess they're 20 now. They're 20. Get grief. I mean, what a ride. I mean, what an unbelievable player, what an unbelievable icon. I mean, talk about that journey. It's incredible. So it's not down to me that we had a guy in Spain called Jesus who was like sort of interconnected to footballers. And he's literally like, there is a guy in Barcelona, you've got a sign, come on over, you've got to get him. So that's why he did a signing with him and he was 17. And you can already tell that this guy was going to be amazing. I can't say he was going to be the go to that point, but I know. And it's both luck and skill. So yes, we picked him and we hung on to him and we've we've ridden the curves all the way up to the top. But it's because we're partners with FIFA, I was lucky enough to be at the World Cup final. So I'm there in Qatar and and me and my colleague are wearing messy shirts. And everyone around us is like, but you're English, why why would you be supporting Leo Messi? Didn't didn't you have a war against the Argentinians? And I'm like, yeah, we had a hundred year war with a French. So we love both countries. Yeah, we're friends now. It's fine. We love football together. But the point was that we explained why we were so invested with Leo to everyone around us. And everyone in the crowd started getting into it with us because I'd say 80% of the crowd was supporting Argentina. And even the French people thought it was quite interesting. So by the end, as he wins, they're all hugging us and high-fiving us just going, what a ride this must be. Like I'm like, I've nearly had a heart attack because he won, he's losing, he won, he's losing. And it's an unrepeatable, incredible moment where we've been the partner of the World Cup for, I don't know, whatever that was, 12, 13 years in the partner of Leo for 20 years. And then it comes together in one magical moment where it all literally, and it seems like you're an overnight success. But that is like two decades of graft to get to that moment. And then he wins and you're like, that's it, man. I'm done. Mike Drop, that's it. Thank you. How many jerseys of Messys has icons sold over time? I mean, roughly. Roughly, I'd say, let's try working out. Probably about about 50,000 in total over two decades. Yeah. But I had an interesting challenge. Also, not a lot, you know what I mean? So that it's, it's, there's scarcity there because I mean, there's having billion people on the planet like, and you know, you've done it for 20 years and in only 50,000 out there, I mean, that's just scared. It's a rare thing to hold. It really brought it home when unfortunately, Pele died. And I'm speaking to people who have Pele contracts and I'm like, can I get something? And I'm, well, like, yeah, okay, maybe we swap some for Leo. And I'm like, I think the ratio is probably about eight to one in terms of value. Now, like, how can it be, Pele is the greatest player that ever lived one three world cups and so on. And I'm like, because you made him signed two million shirts. That's the difference you worked in for so long for so much that actually there's no, there is scarcity, but there's not that much scarcity in the world of it. He signed so many things for decades and decades and decades. And I'm like, well, Leo, Leo signs a contracted small amount every year and supply and demand means the price goes up. But I prefer it that way. I'd rather kind of keep it controlled than mass. And also, you can't make, you can't make more money by just by doing more of it. It's like, we see Leo three or four times a year. I can't see him 16 times a year and it is handed fall off. It just doesn't work like that. So we concentrate on every signature trying to create the most unique or special or interesting way of presenting it, not just banging out commodity that just gets sold every time. That's an interesting point for our listeners and the strategies that go under that because that's what creates value and makes something collectible. It's kind of like this is fine line of memorabilia with collectibility because, you know, because something could be a memorabilia piece, but not necessarily be scarce. But yeah, I think it's an interesting point. So we always try to learn from the best and it's sort of up a deck of God Michael Jordan and up a deck double the price. And they, and I'm saying, that's a bit hard to say. Well, we sold the same amount. I'm like, that's like it's like, there's, I did economics at university. So I always, I was trot this out. Have you ever heard of anything called a VEBALAN good? VEBALAN. I have, I don't remember why, but I have some, I've been in the memory books from something. It's basically, it's a, it's got an inverse demand curve. Yeah. And more expensive it gets, the more demand goes up, the more you want it. If you've got a cut price Ferrari next to a super Ferrari, you're going to distrust the cut price Ferrari. You're going to want to buy the thing that is super expensive. And it works with super high end goods. So like Gucci handbags for 500 pounds, you'd be suspicious of Gucci handbags for 5,000. You're like, okay, that feels right. And you've got to create that value with sort of scarcity marketing and, I know, the skill of what we do. Yeah, it is. And that's what's, you know, but it's what drives value and what makes it a good investment, especially with someone like Messi. Like the jersey behind you. What is that from? That is the 2022 World Cup winning shirt, but I mean, it's a replica. It's not the actual thing. But what's special about it is it's it's dedicated to me and my two sons. So it's the first time I've actually got Leo to write something to my kids. So that's why it's special. And the Diego one is also dedicated to me. So the two goats and that's why they make it into the office. But I'm a Liverpool fan. So all my all my best stuff is red and Barcelona and that's all red and blue. And I had a flat and my girlfriend moved in now my wife. And she's like, your red stuff just gives me a headache. You've got to take it down. So I put it in the garage. And then five years later when we moved, all my dedicated products have been destroyed by sort of damp and mold and it's a good job. I'm in the memorabilia industry and I can see those people again. Yes. But those two are so special and unique that it's kind of like that's amazing. So my first ever major signing was going to Buenos Aires to meet Diego Maradona. And he was supposed to not see us for a while. So we went out into Buenos Aires and got drunk because it's like we're on tour in Argentina. And then at about midnight we get a phone call saying, Diego will see you now. He's at his mum's house. So I was okay. So we drive across town, go into this kind of shadowy place. They've been watching Italian Avello where we're all sitting around. And Diego comes out and it's like, hi Diego, can you start signing these things for us? And he's like, yeah, okay. I'll do it now. And it's even more brilliant in that his, in his divorce, his then wife sort of couldn't get anything tangibly out of him because he didn't really have any assets left. So she owned his name. She owns his name or she did. And so we did the negotiations with her. And she's like, Diego, sign your stuff, go into the kids, get on with it. These guys are good guys that come a long way, sign the things. So, so working with Diego for sort of 10 to 15 years was pretty astonishing. That's crazy. His wife owned his name. Yeah. And one of the things that I kind of was interested, the story fast forwards to three years ago I think. And what other things I always say is that we're authentic as we create authentic products. It's what we do. We always say authenticity is everything and sort of proving, proving what we do is real. But I sort of had an interesting light bulb moment about three or four years ago, which is like actually we're authentic as people. So the people that work in icons are straight, honest, work hard, do what they say. And that goes a really long way in sport. Betty goes a long way in trading cards and the memorabilia. Do what you say, turn up, pay your bills and have long term relationships. That is a, that's a low bar, but that gets you so far because there's so many people with short termist views, ripping people off, not doing the right thing. I know, all those sorts of things. So Diego is in Buenos Aires and he's got an icons exclusive worldwide contract, but it's COVID. So we have to send all the things to him. And it's people are like, yeah, yeah, we got it. It's fine. It's great. I obviously got to send the money now. And we're like, okay, that would yeah go a long time. We'll send the money. We'll trust him. Daniel's going to send it back. First shipment comes back five, I know, five weeks later and it's brilliant. We sell it. It's astonishing and we've done some amazing things and we've got signing videos and it's fantastic. We do it again, send all the money, send all the products. And then we hear that Diego has gone into hospital because he had a brain operation, I think, beforehand. And then 10 days later he passes and I get a phone call going, Diego's gone. And I'm like, oh my god, that's horrendous like it's horrendous, but where's our stuff? And they're like, we'll have to check. It's kind of crazy around here at the moment. And they come back about 10 minutes later with just sit down. We're going to tell you what's happened. And it's like in between his operation and his unfortunate death. He was convalescing and he signed our stuff because he'd had a long term relationship with him. And it was all signed in his house. And during the bedlam, people were like, right, we're going to put it in the office and lock it up and make sure no one takes it or anything goes. And all his people worked incredibly hard and we made it all happen and we eventually got it out of Argentina, arrived in the UK and then we got an email saying that British Air isn't lost it. That was not good. This is with two days to go before Christmas. And then we're like, look, can you just go and have a look again around Heathrow? Try and find it for us. And they came back a day later going, we found it. It's all right. And then he sent it on van and the van was delayed and we're like, oh my god, where is it? And the van had broken down and they're on a highway and they had to send another van. So this thing eventually arrives like Chris on Christmas Eve in our office. And it's like, you know, like Raiders of the Lost Ark and it's trying to find it. This is the greatest collection of so many of you don't want to ship it. You need to kill me. But that's the kind of lengths we go to to try and make sure that we have the world's best stuff. Man, it was a lot. That was a lot I can imagine just sitting on pins and needles like, yeah, you know, a lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of investment. Like, you probably imagine the ups and downs of like, you probably had convinced yourself multiple times that it was lost or never going to happen. Never going to have to chop that one up to life. Yeah, probably a cryover, a beer or whatever, like a few times and then it shows up. That's awesome. It's testimony to sort of long term relationships people doing the right thing and him and his people and it's brilliant. But it does show you the roller coaster ride that is about these things. It does. Well, I hope this is the start of our relationship, Dan. It's been really fun and cool talking with you. I appreciate how gracious you are with your time and I really love what you're doing. Share obviously easy to find icons.com but any other handles or ways that people can learn more about everything you guys are up to. Sure, man. I mean, I have one final point in that we love America so much that we've opened up an American, American art. So we flew in, we sorted out a legal company in 48 hours, hired someone, got a distribution of warehouse. So we're now, we've got a basin in Illinois and we got an American website. We take dollars, can ship overnight into America and it's all getting ready for the world cup and beyond because we're here on a staying and we want to we want to bring our great stuff to the American market. That's awesome. So you hear that overnight, American dollars in the US. Was there a specific, you cannot be found at icons.com? Yeah, if you get an icons.com, it'll know you're in America. So you'll get this special stuff. So almost you can imagine we're now buying shirts off an addicts, taking it to Leo's house, getting Leo to sign it, shipping it to an Illinois, getting it framed. It really is made in the USA. That's amazing. That's awesome because he is in Miami, everything. Hey, icons is worldwide and now in the US, along with Messi directly. So Leo and I kind of bring soccer, memorabilia and all the like here and Dan, really appreciate it, man. No, cheers. Cheers. Really appreciate it. Thanks to everyone. Hey, guys, you're to find us collectibles.show. We'll have links to icons.com. Get out there. I know we got a lot of soccer fans. Look, they're out there. We know you are and with World Cup, Messi's here, icons here, it'll be expanding more and more throughout the states. And look, we're worldwide, baby. So we appreciate you for listening. We appreciate Dan for coming on. We'll see you next time on Trading Cards and Collectibles. 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. What's 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 them to 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'll feature you on collectibles.show. 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.collectibles.show or follow Ryan on Instagram at Ryan Oldford. Now get out there and collect yours.