What We Learned After 50 Episodes With the Best in the Hobby

I feel like we've done that.

“Over the last 50 episodes I have sat down with some of the most influential voices in sports”

and the hobby and collectibles, creators, founders, disruptors, straight-up hobby legends. So today we're doing some special. Welcome to the Collector Nation podcast here on the Collector Nation Network. Whether you're chasing Grails or calling Bluffs, take you inside the hobby. Here's your host, Ryan Allford.

Yo, what's up Collector Nation? Ryan Allford here and welcome to episode 50. That's a big milestone for us. We appreciate you for listening. Whenever, wherever, however you have been, it means the world to us to watch the numbers go up. It's not lost on us. Thank you. When we launched this show, we wanted to bring you inside the hobby.

I feel like we've done that and the best is yet to come. The people, the plays, the business. Over the last 50 episodes I have sat down with some of the most influential voices in sports and the hobby and collectibles, creators, founders, disruptors, straight up hobby legends.

So today we're doing some special. We're going to do the best of those first 50 episodes.

So if you've been watching a listening grade, you're going to get a summary of what's been happening and if you haven't, then you get the best of all of our great guests that have already been on the show. King of cards, cow cravets, Gary Vee, Josh Looper, Brandon Steiner, Mike Baker, just a few of the names. We had King of cards on. We talked all kinds about what he's doing in the hobby, what it's like being an influencer in the hobby. I'm going to call him that, whether

he wants it or not. And look, this is the deals he's making and how he's documenting it and how my boys and I are watching him on YouTube every week was the moment call when you said, I'm going to turn the camera on. It's very hard at first. That's a whole another world you're entering. It makes you vulnerable. It all happened by mistake. I was not a content creator. We document what I do. We turn the camera on and that is what you see. I was going to local shows. I was

“going online and I was figuring out if I could do this legitimately. How do you market yourself?”

And that's when I realized that if I was going to have a chance to do something that so few are lucky enough to do, I had to do what they weren't doing. So I turned the camera on myself. The collecting versus business is a fine balance of those two things. And for you, I won't, it's kind of two-part question like how you balance those things for yourself. I mean, I don't know if you can and you want it's like, is there anything not for sale in the King of

cards deck? Of course. Yeah. He easily separated. I'm a collector first. Like I said, my business happened by not by accident. It certainly wasn't the intention. I wanted to make that money using what I knew about cards to afford and keep the cards I wanted to keep. Kids are walking around. They're almost like the dealer. You know what I mean? Like everybody thinks they're the dealer because they're at all in business in a way. Are we raising a generation

“that's truly collecting or just trying to figure out how to turn 10 into 12 every time?”

The people that are in it just on business, they're missing out on the fun of the collecting side.

I think that every kid has a favorite player has their favorite teams and that'll always connect

for them. What's your, what's the best card like your favorite in your collection now? Is it that Johnny Manzo? It's one of them, but for me, I think the one that takes the cake. I have his gold PMG. The best looking card of his is his PMG and so he has a precious metal gem. I have the gold and it's jersey number two of 10 in a bag of nine five. I lost that card once before. The card popped up on eBay and I was like, I will do whatever it takes to have it and I never put my max bid in

and I got busy for like an hour and a half as we all do in the auction and I did and I sat there like this and I thought about that card for months. Sure enough months later the card ends up on eBay. It got listed for auction. Oh, I said whatever it takes. When I tell you my bid on this card, thank God nobody else been. I paid on this card so much higher than what I'm in for. It would scare some people. hobbyist. You sort of turned the mindset into a visible badge. The embodiment

of what you're trying to do. You're being transparent in the deals. This is a business but there's that collector and nostalgia and I don't know. I think there's a warmth to what you're

in those exact sentiments. There's a lot of opportunity for businesses to make money. How many of

“them are collectors? How many of them actually care about something outside the bottom one? I feel”

like I can run that all the way up and crush it on the business side. But I can do it at the same time while having a positive impact on the community. I'm in caring for it, giving back to it. What deal, what dollar figure am I going to hit in a deal or the bank account that's going to make it worthwhile? I don't think it exists. For me, what makes it more than enough and wants has me wanting to keep going and building on it and enjoying it. But what stands out to me is

the impact we're having and it's wild to me. I'm the way this is. It's reaching people and changing lives. Then my man, Gary Vee, Vee friends. He's been talking about the hobby for a while if you follow his content. Talk to about what he's done with Vee friends. Where it's going, the legacy that he's building and ultimately a really cool positive product that we need out in the marketplace.

You've had your figure pinged on this for a while. What led up to this? I've always thought about

intellectual property. It's always been a fascinating industry creatively and business-wise, Disney, Marvel, Lucas. And I wanted to have my own world. This has obviously been a whole different animal because tops is the iconic brand in the industry. And this is just kind of, you know, year four of a journey of building this intellectual property that I'm very excited about. We live in this digital world, but physical cards are still booming. Six, seven years ago,

eight years ago, people were like, Gary, why do you still write books? You're so

“Mr. Digital. And my answer always was because people read them. Life is gray.”

Everything is the middle. So of course, physical cards and comic books. And I'll do toys like because the world is physical. But the world is also digital. And the world continues to become more digital, not less digital. I think Vee friends is probably an end up being the biggest business I ever built. I think the characters represent the things I most care about in the world. And so patient panda will take the baton in helping

people learn that patient matters. I've done a lot as a human and put myself on the map,

but I'm not going to reach all eight billion people. Meanwhile, a Vee friends cartoon that

talks about tenacity and hustle and kindness can be dubbed in Italian and be running on Netflix Italy in five years. And I'll be accomplishing the same ambition. I was born and raised in a manner that has a lot of compassion. I feel feelings. I do care about my fellow man. I do not want to win at the expense of someone else. I want to be better than the businesses I'm competing with. But I don't want bad for them. And then there's a billion other people, billions of other

people that are in businesses that have nothing to do with mine. And I cheer for all of them. I do not understand envy and jealousy. You, you shoulding on someone else and saying they're not as good as, you think they are, does not make you better. And until people figure that out, we will continue to have a lot of people who spend all their energy and being instead of building.

“What's your feelings on the overall hobby? I think the consumer right now is more educated than ever.”

I think that they're being more thoughtful. I say a lot that people will not buy jacks and dart rookies the way they bought Mac Jones rookies. And I use that analogy as not that I think jacks is better or worse than Mac. It's that people are starting to be more strategic and thoughtful. And I think that's really good for the hobby. The hobby is probably in the best place it's been in a very, very long time because there's so much content, podcasts, social media, breaking platforms.

All this stuff really is helping. I mean, I'm willing to live by curiously with my kids and teach them business and everything else. So it's got a lot of, I don't know, there's sort of their stigma that goes with it. But I think the positive outweigh the negatives and I think you can teach it. And the negatives are controllable. Like this is just good parenting. Like the positives and social media outweigh the negatives. Yet the whole world is decided to spend 100% of its time

worrying about the negatives. The negatives in a hobby is you allow your kids to treat it like gambling. And all they really care about is opening up expensive packs, hoping for a miracle lot of reticket. If someone was disciplined and educated and put in the work, the amount of money people can make by going to dollar boxes that shows and stores. Buy and cards for dollar and selling them for $4.99, $6.99, $9.99 on eBay. If you really knew your shit, the fact that you think $100

and turn that into $20,000. In a year, I've only buying one dollar cards and flipping them for five to 10 apiece, which is all day long with these dollar boxes that shows and stores. You teach your

arbitrage, market dynamics, marketing, putting in the work ethic on tedious behaviors and things

to get to a goal. So, you know, you're in control. I've always wanted to do something like this.

Now I'm doing it. Never, ever, ever give up on your dreams and execute on them. And so whether it's leads to you being a collector of your friends and the value of that, or if this leads to you creating some version of your own be friends and a different form factor and a different dream that you've had, I hope one of those two things happens. I've had all these accomplishments. I've done all these things, but, you know, I'm invigorated by being in a new chapter and doing new stuff and I just really

hope it motivates people to realize you can change your script at any point in the movie. Josh Looper, of course, came on. Stock X. I got my new stock X. Actually, arrived today. My new Jordan's, but Josh's previous company that he founded. Yeah, now doing ghost right. Where he's talking

about all the latest collectibles. His content's great. We talked about his son collecting. My son

“collecting tons of fun. I can't keep up. You're touching everything that I like. How'd you do it?”

Hey, I just get to make businesses around things that I like and that's it. I just happen to be the right age for the right history of the products that we grew up collecting. We didn't know that this career path existed when we were, you know, we grew up before the internet. We grew up before all of this and it's fun now that to look at, you know, we both have young children. We both have young boys and, you know, and watching now what his view of this isn't like he just loves

Pokemon cards more than anything else, right? And so now we get to be there to sort of guide them and talk about the business side of it. Like that. By the way, that is like the most fun part of all of this for me is like we had a conversation literally last night because he has Pokemon cards that he wants to get graded and I told him that he has to fund it. Stock X, the real business is not sneakers. It's the bid ask model. It's the pricing model. It's the marketplace part of it. And it was just

for two of us to me that maybe the only other person in the whole world trying to do the exact same thing at the exact same time happens to be one of the most successful business people in the world. Talk about that bid ask and anything you want to expand upon on that last point I made. At the most basic level, anyone who's ever used eBay understands and eBay is what's called a listing based marketplace meaning that anyone can go list whatever they want. We create what's

called a product based marketplace meaning that the product is the page and as opposed to listing and we create that catalog on Stock X and that creates the efficiency and the transparency around the dollars and the data. I left for the sole intention of trying to acquire the licenses for trading

“cards and ideas are worthless. Execution is the only thing that matters and I was fortunate to find”

the perfect person to partner with to go and do that and then we were able to acquire all the licenses for baseball basketball football cards as everyone knows at the end of 21 beginning of 22 acquired tops just having the leagues as equity partners in their own product that should have been that way for decades. It's their product. It's their business, right? Talk to me about the name goes try it goes till stories I'm a writer myself so it immediately resonated with me and then

you know there's a uniqueness but also I don't know some mystery intrigue in the whole thing. Goes try is a as a blank canvas collectible so this three printed goes was the entire business plan in 22 and a ghost has no face it has no gender the ghost itself is not a character this is a blank canvas the physical form of the trading cards is the same every single time the value is about who's on it the condition the scarcity but it's a blank canvas product. What makes people want

to collect is that just like everybody's just a natural collector you know it's like I don't know it's like I mean I'm a dude hanging out with guys I got four boys you know like but guys just like to collect shit you know I don't know man they do Gary Benachuk is a friend and investor and he thinks that collectors and and are gonna be sort of a new pillar of culture next to music art fashion sport that is a big statement and I certainly think that there's some

like real potential that it becomes I mean you know who do you collect I collect a lot most of sort of my like primary goal on a day day basis is I collect black prism NBA black prism

from 2013 to 2021 true black 101 basically any any players I just think that prism is the

“most important brand of the last you know 15 years and they're going away or at least NBA”

prism is going away and then brand the standard a true OG one of the pioneers of the industry and Brandon got wrong real we've had him on a couple times just listen lots of good insights about what's been done what's coming and ultimately the lessons that we can learn anytime I feel like we can educate people a little more or share views visions it helps the business grow I'm all for it

taking down many stadiums including hockey stadium giant stadium master square garden I was in this game before it really became a game listen I started signing sports with 4,000 bucks I don't hope it's a good example for people to know that you don't need a lot to have a big dream and get started but I'm worried a little bit about the leadership as this business gets bigger and also the ability or the lack of ability to collaborate with some of the bigger companies and also making

sure that the small collector has a big voice you know the guy who has a table at some car show or some small little car chop in a small town they need to be respected and be taken

care of that's the hardest soul of business I think it's the challenge and also it's always

the challenge when you grow is making a lot of money easy staying who you are is hard being who you

“are staying who you are and that's what I'm urging some of the larger companies to do and that is”

you know don't overproduce don't say things are worth more than they are let the small guy make some money when everybody makes some money and you know I see that the way grading prices are it's very troublesome to me because the market's up and I see a lot of greed I see a lot of overproduction in it with some of the card companies and I see tops way way overproducing and confusing the market but you know like my new company collects machines we take people's collections

on and it's so heartbreaking when people come in with 200 balls and I'm like most of these balls

are worth nothing you've brought a bunch of garbage because you got caught up in the night

buyer beware but buyer be educated no it's some of the stuff you're getting be aware of it deal with quality people that are really passing on quality opportunities for you to buy stuff that's good quality maybe goes up and value but you don't want to buy something that you've overpaid for or things

“worth a lot more than is that's what's heartbreaking what is it about collecting that”

brings people together and keeps them so interested I think what treats people about collecting is remembering the moment and I think that really people really enjoy that remembering the moments that matter is kind of memorabilia moments that matter and why not collect around them that's big part of the growth of the business is this mistake of can I make a lot of money so I get that bit in the other hand like the best way to make a lot a lot of money is starting with love and

passion and purpose about what it is you're doing not how can I make a quick buck and if you play the long game and you buy quality things and they won't go if you want to end up with the music stuff without a chair I don't have a problem with somebody buying something and they get most their money back or make a little lose a little and every now and then you find somebody make a lot of money but I think there's a lot of stuff being bought right now that you're not

going to make any money and you're going to be losing substantial amount of money on your stuff and that really breaks my heart again if there's going to be one let's have all of the best companies and all the brands under one umbrella versus them just going away or be one person you want to talk about it when I believe their production they want to control who sells it they want to control who gets it they want to show where you sell it they want everything on their

side these card stores are hardworking they're the ones that have built this business all these years that's my point they're not just jumping in right now they've been there for years and they're like I'm sorry what do you want our audience to remember or know first of all you use the collectals for joy and happiness the money is good but you know collectals is supposed to be about joy happiness fun remembering the moments sharing moments experiences with family and friends

and make sure that's a big part of your portfolio and lastly Mike Baker my good friend the original OG grader from PSA he was the head grader at PSA now doing Mike Baker authentication Mike's a great guy I love the technology and things that he's bringing into the grading process and the transparency so I love what Mike's doing he's going to be a regular

of the show in 2020 I think that's when you started was that always the the path in your mind when

you you know hit it out there did you think you were going to start your own thing yeah well no to be honest you know the project kind of was born in the early 2000s and thought hey well what don't we do like a Mike Baker line it got shelved it got taken off the shelf so to speak in the late late teens I thought we were actually going to start in 19 we had some delays and then we started in August of 2020 and then COVID hit and it was like oh my gosh you know like you can't

go to card shows it wasn't for the Dallas card show you know a lot of the industry would have been probably a different space but being able to kind of continue the momentum and still going to more shows and trying to you know tell everybody that this is what we're doing this we're providing

“because everyone already had their card graded so like what why do you need to go and send it off”

for get a sticker on it to you know blah blah blah and time after time you get this and

in the same grade so what we've done is basically platform those special cards and bring a tension

to them and celebrate them and with that the premiums have grown and everyone now after five years is getting to the point where when you get a silver or gold or a black you know what you're getting how would you compare your grading versus the other guys out there and just talk a little bit about that product I think the differentiator with what we're doing is we're adding greater notes or what we call a heat map so when I'm a car gets graded I highlight the areas of concern

you get the card back you can go look at the report card basically and it'll be highlighted upright you can put the little magnifying lens over that area and kind of identify what kind of

“kept the card from going into a higher grade and that's what I love about what you do like you said”

doing the whole heat map you get to understand you get educated on what the flaws were what drove the grading if you don't become the market leader the next 10 years I'll be surprised I mean I'm just saying I know that sounds probably impossible to you but what you're doing though the transparency that you're having why hasn't that been done and am I just crazy to think that should be the standard? Well it's costs and efficiency especially at a PSA level would be

interesting I mean it can be done they do offer it for a fee and I understand why you have to charge for that because it slows the process down in that that level that it's a machine and anything

“that goes into that process is going to add time I'm doing it in part of kind of the ethos of”

why we did it was to ensure the transparency because it's appreciated number one two it'll save more time with customer service answering those questions rather have it be on doing more business then talking about business has already been done so if we can narrow that gap make you more educated about how things are graded what's going on that's going to make you a more educated buyer going to spend more money probably deliver more business with us in the day. What cards are we

great man I want to be specific for everybody listening as you guys flip on more of the retail or send in stuff or you get more access you start growing doing new old all-sports poke pokemon

“what are we grading tell me what makes a good grader you know patience and temperance not thinking”

that you know everything because there's always somebody out there that knows probably a little bit more

than you you got a love your job too because it's monotonous most people their eyes are getting tired the fatigue you know it's mental fatigue too because you're you're not everything's a 10 so that was easy you can just be a button pusher you know peers but when you're when you're running the the gamut from vintage to to modern shiny cards all that stuff and trying to adhere to a standard and you know your the calculations are big you know which is why I see how AI can definitely be

a thing coming in the not-too-distant future I know for some it's already here I haven't seen

anything yet that can pick off alterations and you know be consistent ultimately AI is top by humans

so that as good as the I is has to come from the human component to make that I what it is these are just interviews these are blue prints and lessons that show how fast this industry is moving I'm pumped to be in it pumped to bring the life collector station which is launching over the next week and of course right here on collector nation let's celebrate 50 episodes the best is yet to come we'll have all the links in the show notes and of course

on the website the collector nation dot com we're bringing you the best the brightest the coolest the innovative of collectibles and trading cards here on the network we appreciate you we'll see you next time on the collector nation 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 collector nation.com and follow Ryan on Instagram @RyanAlfred now get out there and collect yours