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- [00:00]
A
Once people hold them and see them, it's really hard to go back to plastic. There's nothing quite like handing an athlete, like a Hall of Fame athlete, a card. Their card in a G1 case with a grade by Mike Baker. Those kind of moments are just priceless to me.
- [00:18]
B
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's your host, Ryan Alford.
- [00:39]
C
Today, Brian Pierup is back with us. And this one's a little different. We talked about the Mint before his company, mint. Now the G1 is out, and he's actually launching it across the nation in a way you wouldn't expect. He's going out, talking with people, putting in the hands of celebrities and athletes, and really organically growing the brand. Today we're getting into what that process has been like, all the feedback he's getting from collectors, how it fits in the hobby, and hey, just remind everybody how nice a guy he is. Brian, what's up, man? Pumped to have you. Welcome to Collector Nation.
- [01:17]
A
It is. It's great to be here, Ryan. Thanks for having me again. Real pleasure to be here. How are things?
- [01:23]
C
I'm good, man. I'm glad to have you back. I feel like, you know, we're brothers from another in some way being entrepreneurs. You came to my shop, I appreciated that. I love watching the content. And I do have a beautiful case next to me with your indirectly your name on it.
- [01:45]
A
Dang, that looks good, man. Love to see it there. That's actually a special colorway that we did just for the people in the 100 Club. So you're. There's only about 105 people that have that ability to have that colorway.
- [02:00]
C
It's. It's good to see special and it feels special, man. That thing feels like a million dollars, the mint.
- [02:07]
A
Doesn't it though?
- [02:08]
C
It does. I mean, it's the first thing that's ever done that car justice.
- [02:14]
A
Oh, yeah, yeah. No, it actually, a card like that deserves a lot better than a piece of plastic. I'm sitting here with some of my cards and plastic and. And it just feels like, oh, this is like, you know, these are like five dollar items. And yet, you know, you got a thousand dollar card and, you know, some noteworthy cards here and it just doesn't feel like that once, you know, once I've held a G1 case. And so you're entirely right. It feels like a million bucks the second you hold your G1 and you know, we had.
- [02:47]
C
John, if I would come full circle, we've talked about the mint case, and now you've been on, you know, the road with a real product in hand. You hand delivered this one to me, which I'm so appreciative of. And what's it like, man? I mean, you know, it's the. Clearly the case speaks for itself. But what. What's the process been like for you?
- [03:10]
A
Well, yeah, it really does speak for itself. Every time I show the case in pictures or videos or on social media, people go, oh, that's. What is that a glorified one touch? Is that some sort of an iPhone? You know, these kinds of things. And then. And people never really understand it while they're seeing it on camera. But as soon as I show people the case in person, instantly everybody understands. It's just an instant impact every single time. And so it's been really fun to travel the country. And then just in the last three weeks, I've been in Atlanta, Toronto, Dallas, San Francisco, and everywhere I go I put. That's one of the reasons I roadshow so much is I want people to hold them. You really have to hold them and see them in person to understand. And the second that somebody puts it in their hand and holds it, they go, okay, now I get it. And then the next question is, brian, can you hook me up? How do I get one? It's been really fun because that's what I'm trying to do. I'm changing hearts and minds here. I'm putting them out there in the world, getting people to hold them and see them. And once people hold them and see them, it's really hard to go back to plastic. I always see people with their. They have their PSA slab and then they've got it inside of a slab mag. And so it's like plastic inside of plastic inside of plastic. And it's just holding a G1 in person versus holding like a slab mag with a PSA. It's just not even comparable. It really is the difference between holding like a Nokia flip phone from the late 90s and an iPhone 16 Pro. It just isn't an order of magnitude kind of difference.
- [05:03]
C
Yeah, I mean, it's funny to bring the iPhone. Yeah. I'm sure you hear it. It reminds me of that sort of one of the original iPhone bezel, you know, and. But what you can't always see. And we'll have this in some of our B roll and stuff. So again, if you're listening, this is the episode you Got to go to YouTube and watch. You know, Brian's all over it anyway, but you got to see this thing. And we're going to have some B roll, some images, different things. We've been doing a lot of videos with it to really get an appreciation of the colorway on the case. And, you know, my good friend. Your good friend, Mike Baker authentication here, that just puts the, you know, the bow, the icing, whatever you want to call it, right on top.
- [05:49]
A
Yeah, no, it's. It's a real joy to have Mike grading these initial cases, like having his eyeballs on these cards to verify, authenticate, and to put an accurate grade. There has been nothing short of special. I mean, I've known about Mike Baker for the last 20 years. I've heard his name, and it's weird to get to know him and to discover, wow, this is a really cool guy. This is a guy you want to hang out with, and then you realize, wow, this guy is the guy that kind of started it all. He's the guy that came up with the PSA grading guidelines all those years ago, and he's the guy that's graded some of the biggest cards in the industry, and now he's grading these massive cards that are going into our G1 cases. And so it's been a real honor to have Mike part of the Mint story now. It's been really special. There's nothing quite like handing an athlete, like a Hall of Fame athlete, a card, their card in a G1 case with a grade by Mike Baker. Those kind of moments are just priceless to me. That's. You know, when I started doing this five years ago, I didn't think I was going to be having those kinds of moments. And now those are becoming kind of regular moments and kind of too good to be true kind of things.
- [07:13]
C
So I'm very blessed right now. Yeah, man. Where did you get. When I hear you talk, I don't think I asked you this last time, and I don't know. When I hear you talk and I. The positive energy, the sort of eloquent like, you remind me of, like. And there were a lot of jerks, but the nicest, the coolest, the ones that I wanted to hang out with, like, creative strategic directors at ad agencies and that I really liked and respected. I don't. I don't know where that comes from for you, but, like, it is. It's the highest compliment I could give you because it's like. Not only it's like, the intelligence, but it's like, the nice factor. And it's like, is that. Where does that come from?
- [08:01]
A
Where did that come from?
- [08:01]
C
Is that nature, nurture? Like, you know, like, have you always been that guy?
- [08:05]
A
I've always been that guy. You know, like, I was that guy in elementary school. I'm that guy now. And I've been through some pretty gnarly, you know, tragedies in my life. I've been through some pretty, you know, if people heard my whole story, they'd be like, damn, that's. That's pretty rough stuff. And yet I've just. I've never let those things bring me down. So it's just who I've always been. I always had a. A goal in life was to show people that you can be successful, that. That you can be a just badass entrepreneur businessman without losing your soul and without becoming a jerk. You don't have to. It's not mutually exclusive. You can be a good human, a nice person, and also be extraordinarily successful. It's possible to push hard, hold your team and the people in your world to accountability, but also be kind and generous without being also someone who's walked over. So it's a fine line. And I would say it's kind of been my superpower in my career, and I don't ever. And I always figure if I haven't lost all that by now in career, then that's not going away anytime soon. So as you see, who I am is what you get. People are saying, oh, are you putting on a character on your social media? And I'm like, no, that's exactly who I am. Or people on the other side will go, oh, Brian, you're such a, you know, you're a really nice guy. You're opening all this, you know, junk wax and you're giving away all this free stuff, but now you're charging for a $500 case. You know, maybe you were a grifter all along, you know, And I'm like, no, I actually said day one of doing my social media, that I was, you know, talking about cards I love, which tend to be, you know, junk wax and cards from my childhood. But I also, from day one, always said that I was going to be building, you know, displays and cases that would make, you know, that were the kind that James Bond would want to have on his wall if he collected. And so it's just, you can be a good person, a kind person, a nice person, and also have huge, lofty goals and dreams and push hard to all those things and do what it takes to get those across the finish line. So it's a. It's a real rare combo. But thanks for, for saying that, man.
- [10:30]
C
I really appreciate it, man. I just. Now that I've spent time with you, I consider your friend and likewise and having dinner and like going out and hanging, I'm like, you are exactly who you are. Like, I know that sounds like really. Either really smart or really stupid, but like, to your point of, like the videos and all that, can easy to get caught up in the Persona. But like, no, that's not nice Brian on camera. That's just nice. Brian, who's also built one of the most premium cases that has ever walked the planet, who's also hanging out with athletes and celebrities and doing the coolest shit you could imagine. And it couldn't be happening to a better guy. And I, you know, I had to take time to say that. We'll get back to the regularly programmed outside of the protest here, but. But I did want to say that
- [11:21]
A
and I want to really appreciate that. I really appreciate that. Super kind of you, Ryan. And I do count you as a friend. And I think that it's actually one of my team members called that out actually a couple days ago, because we were in Doc Gooden's hotel room, and Dwight Gooden was always one of my guys that I collected when I was a kid. And there we are sitting in his hotel room. And initially the guy who sent me over and said, okay, you can go meet up with him, he said, you know, bring some. Bring, you know, a stack of bills to give him as kind of a courtesy, you know, and he would appreciate that. And Doc was kind of asking for like, hey, maybe you could kind of grease the wheels here. And I go over there and we, me and my guy Sam, the guy films all my content. We go up to Doc's hotel room and we sit there, we're opening the box of FLIR Update and, you know, next thing you know, we're telling stories. We were in his room for like an hour. There's one moment where he got choked up. He started telling these, like, personal stories of his father and his no hitter and the World Series. And his son and grandson joined us on a. On a FaceTime call. And I'm just talking to him, kind of, you know, just being real with him, but also being, you know, myself with him. And then by the time we finished it, and we were the ones that were like, hey, we're gonna take off now. We actually have to get back to Dallas, he goes, hey, man. Cause I told him about how much I love ribs and barbecue. And he goes, brian, when you're next in Florida, let me know. He goes, I'm taking you out for ribs. And then I go to hand him the cash and he goes, no, man, we're good. I'm not taking your money. This was a real, absolute joy to do this. And so I think that, you know, this, who, who I've always been just kind of can open a lot of these athletes who are used to a lot of, you know, jackasses coming to them and just saying, hey, where's my autographs? Where's my whatever they want out of there? And so I always make sure that every time I go to, like an athlete, I'm giving them something rather than taking away something. And so I know I kind of went a little long there on that topic.
- [13:38]
C
No, but it's. You're living. No, man, you're living what you preach and you. And that's why you've been successful and you will be successful moving forward. You know, on the G1 side, like, obviously you're getting in front of athletes. I mean, I love, like when I get in these discussions with you, Brian, and I watch what you do and I watch what you talk, you know, first I see like, you know, a master artist and like, you know, marketer.
- [14:08]
A
Yeah.
- [14:08]
C
Playing the, the, the, the long game of brand this, this term. Always, sometimes it won't, it won't use. Sometimes catches people. It's like I said, a negative. The borrowed interest of celebrity and athlete. And like, because of how powerful that is and because of how they appreciate the product and the intelligence that you have in doing that. It's fascinating to watch. I really would love to dig into the rollout for G1 and what you're doing now. We've got the national coming up. What's sort of the roadmap for G1 the rest of this year?
- [14:51]
A
Fantastic question. I always have a master plan. My master plan is actually I have a five year plan in place of where all this is going. So it's funny when people compare us to Rare Edition or they're like, oh, you're selling these expensive cases. You guys going to be out of business soon? I'm like, no, there's a, there's a pretty master plan here. And it, it, it's actually, it's kind of fun. I find it. I, I see it as this giant game of chess and, and I enjoy playing chess and I enjoy Strat. I love strategy. I Love thinking, okay, here are my assets, here are all of my resources. Here's my team. This is where we're going to go with it. And I love. There's nothing I love more than somebody saying, that's not going to work. It's like a. I see it as a. I love people going, not. Not going to work. That's never going to happen. And I'm like, yeah, just. Just watch. You're going to see what's going to happen. And so the rollout is. So we did the first 100 G1s and we called it the 100 Club, and we ended up shipping all those. And incidentally, nearly everybody that's on the 100 Club have now bought a second one or a third one. I've got some guys that are now addicted to them and are wanting to turn over their entire collections into them. And so what I'm really doing is I'm trying to keep the G1 niche and special. I'm trying to put it into really big cards. We're getting a lot of whales that are reaching out, saying, this is the future. We know it's the future. And so we want to buy, you know, get the. There's a microchip on the inside of each one. And so we want to be able to kind of be early adopters into this program. So I'm really focusing on athletes, whales. I'm going in person to a lot of these people, talking them through it. I'm flying to San Francisco today, later today again, to go show it to a guy who's quite big in the Pokemon space. And so the goal is to kind of roll this out, keep it special, keep it unique. I don't want to make this a pedestrian item. I want to make this a very specialized, something very special, and keep it in that space. And then later this year, we're coming out with our wall display. We call it the Frame. And the frame is just stunning. Some people have seen one of our wall displays that we featured in a lot of our videos. But the new frame is actually better than. Than what people have seen. It features LEDs, it features magnets, and it's just stunning for people's homes, offices, card shops, or whatever. So I think a lot of people aren't gonna understand what the G1 is until they see it with cases in on the wall. And when they see that, they can put both our hobby cases, which are our entry kind of point for the Mint line, which is our card case for raw cards, as well as the G1 ones. And then the end of the year, we also have another case coming out we call the hybrid case, which is far more of a approachable kind of price point. It's in the kind of $100 price. And that's instead of the G1, which uses steel and glass, the hybrid case features aluminum, which will be the key differentiator. So it's a lightweight construction. The price comes down a bit, but it still has the microchip on the inside. And so all of these things kind of feed into the Mint ecosystem, which all goes back to our tech platform that we haven't officially released yet. And so, you know, and we're also going to be rolling out the Mint line with a couple more graders. Mike Baker is still, I believe, is the premium one, but we're going to bring on a couple other graders to give people more options. And then I'm going to be taking these to. I'm never going to be a guy with a booth. I'm not a guy with a booth at a card show. It's not. It's just not my thing. We're going to be more of having, like, events here in Southern California where we're going to invite certain people, have, like, more of a party atmosphere, have a kind of a specialty event night to roll out our new products. And so we're going to keep ourselves kind of small and contained, bring out the tech platform. So people see, oh, if I buy a mint case, this is how it works. I'm actually, oh, I can watch a cameo frame Frank Thomas talking about his no name on front card by scanning it. And it all links to my tech platform. And now I can see my cards also on the wall display. So we're. We're building this ecosystem slow, rolling it out through the end of. Kind of the end of the year. And then we're going to be doing a monster PR and marketing push, not just in the hobby, but outside the hobby, to the sports world, the crypto market, and doing it in a much bigger way to people outside the hobby. For instance, we're going to be marketing very heavily to women because women are kind of tired of buying whiskey tumblers and golf clubs and, you know, socks and ties for their husband. So we are pre encapsulating a lot of cards of favorite players where the women can buy the G1 cases or our hybrid cases for the man who has everything or the guy who they don't know who to buy the Christmas gift for. So we're going to be marketing a lot to women Outside the hobby, where if somebody's like, oh, I'm a, you know, Ken Griffey Jr. Fan, but I'm not a card collector, well, then we're targeting that person's wife to say, here's a Ken Griffey Jr. Rookie card inside of a mint case that you can buy as just a single one off. And now you have a beautiful piece of art at your house that has nothing to do with cardboard boxes and penny sleeves and submissions and all this. The stuff. And so we're going about the mint ecosystem. And the Mint plan is. Is. It's very unorthodox. I didn't want to kind of do things the way that other card companies do things. I don't want to roll out things slowly. The whole idea is to kind of do. It's all. This is all planned. It's all been kind of finessed. And the nice thing is we know the athletes love our cases and our products. We know the celebrities love our products. And we're going to kind of target that as a start at the high end, and then we'll trickle down with the rest of our ecosystem to everyone else. This is not meant to be kind of a small company over a short amount of time. This is meant to be a very robust business plan. And the funny thing is, Ryan, compared to my last business plan that I did over the last 10 years, this is a cakewalk.
- [21:30]
C
Talking with Brian Burup, you know him as Brian on Instagram.
- [21:38]
A
This is myself, Brian. This is just.
- [21:46]
C
Mint extraordinaire. Entrepreneur extraordinaire. And building empires by the moment. Yes.
- [21:55]
A
You know, if I talk long enough,
- [21:57]
C
you're going to have five new ideas.
- [22:00]
A
I know, I know. That's the funny thing is people listen to me and they're like, brian, you're so full of it. You know, and. And I'm like, no. Compared to what I did before this, this really is much simpler. Like, my last company was that I did the whole of my 30s and into my 40s was I built a television production company and a tourism company. And my television production company was based in the Hollywood Hills, had 100 people working there, and we created the first television series for filming content across the United States for broadcast into China and India. And then we had a tourism component where people that watched the show in China could live the show personally in the United States. Now, that was really hard.
- [22:48]
C
That was really, really hard. A lot of logistics there. What's the education process like with the product and talking to people? I mean, I know you enjoy Talking about and explaining it. I mean, do we feel. Is it harder in the hobby, you know, to sort of break ground on new things? I mean, it feels like, you know, me coming back into it, it's gotten better, but there's a lot of just like, same same old, same old.
- [23:20]
A
Yeah, it's. It's funny, you know, like, Beckett released their new case, and it's. Frankly, it's laughable because it. You can see the picture of the Beckett old case and the Beckett new case, and they're the same case. There's minor differences. Okay. The flip has a QR code now, and it's a little bit cleaner of fonts and whatever, but it's. To me, it's laughable because it's the same thing. PSA did the same thing as well. They spent, like, three years and millions of dollars to switch from their slab from three years ago to their current slab. It's the same thing. It's slightly sturdier acrylic, but at the end of the day, it's the same thing. And so I just. I just never liked those kind of things. I thought, if you're going to do something right, do it. Go all out, do it. You know, really analyze what it takes to make. To protect a card, to display a card, to make it so people can crack out a card. Like, PSA has a problem where people crack out cards, resubmit them, or crack out a Becket card, resubmit it. And so I wanted to solve that problem. Nobody can crack out our cases to go and resubmit. It's impossible. And so we solve that problem. And so it's just. I really enjoy the education element. I enjoy talking to people. Because when, you know, you have a winning formula and you. It would be one thing if I was trying to wrap something up that was. That was terrible. And trying to sell it that would be very hard is if we had a subpar product and we were trying to push it. I couldn't do that. I've never been able to sell something that I don't believe in. It's impossible. I'm just a passionate person, and so I have to really, really believe in something. In fact, we had a working prototype of the G1 three years ago. Three years ago, summer of 2023, I had a working G1 in my hand, and I looked at it and I kept saying, guys, I'm sorry. I wouldn't. I'm not. I'm not. I wouldn't buy this myself. I can't sell this thing. It's just not good enough. And so I went back to our engineers and designers and said, we got to kind of start this thing over until, you know, we got to make sure this thing is better in every possible way. And so we went back to the drawing board and restarted, and we made it that much better. So when I go and take a case around to show people, I actually really believe in it. So the education process is very simple because all I have to do is. Is show the product to somebody, and 90% of the time, they already understand it. They already get it just by holding it. So that's the educational piece. It's just here, hold it, see what it looks like. And it becomes very obvious just immediately as to why we've done what we've done.
- [26:11]
C
What do you consider the state of the hobby? I mean, you made some points there that probably tie into it, you know, with the lack of innovation. I've noticed that people kind of move the ball as far as they feel like they have to, you know, like. But no further, you know, but maybe on a broader sense, you know, Tops has taken over all the licenses for the most part that matter. You got PSA ruling the world. And I don't. I bring these things up less because I'm suggesting I have a problem with it. I actually like some of the things Tops is doing. Uh, but I guess on the broader sense of the hobby, what's the state of the state from Brian's perspective?
- [26:55]
A
Yeah, I actually really do. Like, I like a lot of what Fanatics is doing. I like a lot of what Topps is doing. I think I'm always against monopoly behavior. I don't like monopolies. But. And it's not even that I don't like monopolies. I don't like it when monopolies actively try to crush other people coming into the space. If a company is great and they're just building and they're a monopoly by virtue of they make great stuff, fantastic. But if they're actively trying to shut down everyone else that has some sort of a thing to say against it, then I have a serious problem with it. So I really do like Topps and Fanatics. I think they're doing such a great job with cards and art and getting the players more involved. That's probably my favorite thing that Topps is doing, is involving players. Players never had connection to cards and now players with signing, like, MLB debut patches and the other debut patches across all the different licenses, I think are really cool. I think making cards for F1 and tennis and UFC and Star Wars, SpongeBob and V friends. I think it's really special that there's kind of something for everything. And during the TOPS industry event, the fanatics leadership talked about wanting, understanding and wanting to make sure that they wanted to have entry level product so that kids could afford and not be priced out. And so I believe they're going to be rolling out a bunch of product for this entry level. And sure it's not going to be having patch autos and you know, that kind of stuff. And that's fine because I didn't have patch autos back in the 80s. You just were looking for base cards of players you love. Right. So I think fanatics is. I think they're trying to do the right thing in a lot of ways. Not just because it is makes them a bunch of money, which it's going to, but because it's also cleaning up the hobby and making things better. I like that some of the pressure they're putting on card shops to provide a better experience. And I know it must be extraordinarily challenging to have every card shop on the planet blowing them up about allotments because everybody wants allotments and then the breakers have the allotments and then you're having huge amounts of allotments going to the Chinese. And so a card shop in Tuscaloosa, Alabama might be like, hey, what's happening? And so I've talked to one of the guys kind of in charge of hobby shops and he helped me understand that they do want to keep hobby shops the core of the industry. That was always my biggest fear with TOPS consolidating the building the empires that they would squeeze out the little guys or the mom and pop shops and that it would only be kind of these franchise, you know, Tom Brady card vault kind of places. But I believe the hobby's in good hands with the people that are currently running it because I do believe they do want to keep the mom and pop card shop culture alive, which I believe is central to keeping this going long term. But the state of the hobby I don't like the grading kind of world always bugs me from about a dozen different places. I don't like that kids feel like if you don't have a $10,000 graded 10 PSA case, that somehow you're a lesser person. The thing that probably bothers me, there's actually a bunch of things that bother me, but probably the number one thing is the culture of if you do not have some super auto graded in a psa that somehow you are a lesser person. And so I don't like that element of the culture, but I like where everything I do overall. Love where the hobby's headed. I think it's got longevity. I think we pulled out of the 2000s and the 2010s where it looked like the hobby might disappear entirely. And there's a resurgence. A lot of people and money are coming in. I have people all day, every day tell me that they saw a video of mine, and now they went to the card shop, they bought some junk wax, they saw some of the new product and bought that, and now they're ripping with their. Their sons and grandsons. So I think it's in a pretty good space, and I can't wait to see where it's headed over the next decade. But I'm pretty happy with the health of the hobby overall.
- [31:24]
C
Yeah, it's definitely healthy. The. And I agree with the tops thing. I like what I've seen. I wish they would have just bought Panini, quite frankly, and I know they tried to, and I know it got messy and all that, and there's a lot of things. But I. But I still. I like some of those classic Don Russ panini cards. I wanted just to see. Maintain the license. So maybe. And I still hold out that that might still end up happening and probably, you know, and. And. And I need to get on that allotment list myself. I'm not even on it. My store's booming without Alex.
- [32:00]
A
Amazing.
- [32:01]
C
Yeah.
- [32:01]
A
Well, that's because you have. Honestly, Ryan, your card shop. It was such a pleasure to come to your store and see the community that was there that day that I was there. And I got a lot of messages from people after, you know, the week or two afterwards going, wow, thanks for highlighting that shop. I went by and it was a real pleasure to go and see it. It was fun having the train go by. It's just such a cool part of town, you know, and there's so many card shops that are just like, in a strip mall or they're, you know, that sort of thing. And I love how you have this, like, standalone store, you know, and this small town in South Carolina. It's just. There's something really special about it, and it has such a cool vibe when you walk in. And your team are just such great people. You know, one of. One of the things that makes the card shop great is who is in the card shop, who's running the card shop. And I think that, you know, yourself and Your boys and the. The people that you brought in, like Bella and I think it was Cole. And so you have great people at your shop, and I think that's what makes a successful shop. So even without an allotment and getting great prices on the Topps product and first releases, your card shop, I think, is a great beacon of how things should be. And there's a handful of shops that I would say are in that space for me.
- [33:31]
C
Yeah. So we just got to get the tops people here so they can see.
- [33:35]
A
Oh, they do. They do need to go there.
- [33:37]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [33:39]
A
A matter of time.
- [33:40]
C
I know. We'll have. We'll have those talks at the National. I. Yeah, exactly. I'm gonna be giving. Handing out plane tickets to South.
- [33:48]
A
There you go, man.
- [33:49]
C
Yeah.
- [33:50]
A
All can be achieved with the right amount of moxie. You'll get it. What's.
- [33:55]
C
What's something, you know, I know you're going out. You'll be the national on this media tour. What's something fun or exciting that's coming up?
- [34:09]
A
For me?
- [34:10]
C
It is.
- [34:10]
A
I've got a. Actually, something cool I'm doing in two weeks is I'm going to Citi Field in, you know, at the Mets Stadium, and I'm going to be playing in a poker tournament with Marcus Simeon and Hank Azaria and a bunch of the Mets. And so that's part of the media tour.
- [34:28]
C
Are you a big. I've heard poker a few times on this call today and this. Are you a big poker player, Ryan?
- [34:36]
A
I used to be. I used to be. I do love poker because I love all things strategy, and I love that poker requires skill and luck and analysis. And I used to play a lot of poker when 15 years ago. I was at grad school in England at the University of Cambridge, and the whole of the school was very into the business. School particularly had a kind of a crew of poker players. And so that's where I really kind of got into it because it was a social part of the university, kind of after hours. And I remember playing with these people and going, wow, I'm really holding my own. These are the smartest people in the world right here. And I'm keeping up and having a great time. And so that's where I caught the bus. And so I played for. Played for the next couple years, had a blast, and then kind of lost it for all these years, mainly because I got a lot of the same kicks out of, you know, ripping packs. And so you get that I like the dopamine. Right. And so I like to get my dopamine from somewhere. And so I think the poker disappeared when the cards kind of reemerged. But the poker tournament with Hank Azaria and Marcus at Citi Field is completely. That'll be my first poker game in, like, five years. So we'll see how it goes.
- [36:07]
C
I could see you on the World Series of Poker, man. Like, sunglasses on. Ryan looks like a rock star or. Or movie star, anyway. And it's like, I could see you at the World Series Poker, like, you know, sunglasses on. He's at the last table.
- [36:20]
A
Yeah. No, I do have a lot of fun. I kind of. I either go out fast right away, or I'm in it to win it.
- [36:30]
C
I think that's how it always is. Let's meet the blackjack table.
- [36:35]
A
Yeah. So I love it. I love. You know, I've had a couple. I actually intend on putting together kind of a group of people here in Huntington beach and having a poker night. I'm also putting together now, you know, a baseball team or a softball team for my company and a couple of the local card shops. We're going to form our own kind of team and start playing in one of the Huntington beach leagues. So I just. I love people. I love hanging out with people and finding excuses to. To do something fun and interesting.
- [37:04]
C
What's the plan? So you'll be at the National. We talked about that. Yes. I mean, you're not a booth guy, so I guess. No, not a booth guy. Yeah. And that's how I met you. Last year I was at Baker's. Baker was doing grading, and I go. And I was.
- [37:18]
A
That was a lot of fun. Yeah. We were. Had just dropped off Mike Baker. Acts asked us to. He had a Babe Ruth card that he wanted to have put in a G1. And so we were dropping that off for him. And the timing was cool to have met you and your boys. So, yeah, I'm actually bringing the whole team this time. This is the first time I'll bring the entire mint team to one event. I just want to give everyone kind of this baptism that hasn't had the opportunity yet. And I'm bringing my fiance with me, and I know Sam's bringing his girl with him. And so we're going to have this crew just rolling around in our. Most likely in our black mint hats. And we're just going to roll around, say hi to everyone. Because it's kind of like I was saying to Bella earlier, it's kind of like going to the nationals. Going to like, a High school reunion. You see all these friends, you know, from different parts of the industry. And after you've been in the industry for a while, you start going, wow, I actually like a lot of these people and I can't wait to see them. And so we're going to probably just every. What I've done with the team is every single person on the team now has their own personal G1. There goes the train. That's cool to hear.
- [38:30]
C
Oh, yeah.
- [38:32]
A
So everyone on the team has their own personal G1 with their favorite card in it. And so all that we're going to do is everybody's going to just walk around the national, say hi to people, shake hands, take pictures, put the G1 into as many hands as possible, and then go up, say what's up to Mike Baker, high five him at his booth, you know, leave maybe a G1 with him at his booth. So if anybody wants to see one, they can go and roll by, say hi to Mike and grab the G1. It's going to be fun though I
- [39:01]
C
might to bring mine.
- [39:03]
A
Yeah, it's cool, man. It's fun. You're part of a small club right now, man.
- [39:09]
C
Dude. Yeah, now I'm a card. Card carrying one of 100 member.
- [39:15]
A
You are, man.
- [39:17]
C
That's entirely correct, Brian. Let's drop some details. It does, man. It's, it's, it's hot. Let's drop some deets. Where can everybody learn more about Mint? Learn more about Brian. Brian Rips, also known as Europe. It looks like Rips. So he's got the perfect last name for the hobby.
- [39:38]
A
B. Rips. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So my, I mean, our website for the company is Mintiverse.com. it should be Mint.com but there's a nightclub in China that has my, has our domain. So I'm gonna roll into China maybe in next year and see if I can go and buy the domain from them. But we're Mintiverse. It was kind of a, you know, there's a moment we're sitting around going, well, we can't have mint.com so what do you call ourselves? And I think Metaverse was kind of having some real traction at the time. And one of my team members, Colin, goes, we should call it Mintiverse. And so that's Mintiverse with a 1 instead of the I. And so that's our website. All my channels are all RyanPearup, you know, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and then the Mint. Mint has its own kind of Instagram and all These kinds of things, it's all Mintiverse. Anybody just googles Mintiverse, you're going to find us. But yeah, we are mint. And I put the one instead of an I because every single case we make, every single product we make, there's unique identifiers. And so it's all. Every piece has a one of one kind of nature to it, which I think is cool.
- [40:57]
C
M1NT. M1NT Mint. The Mintiverse. Hey, and one hell of a nice guy behind it. Brian. I appreciate you, brother.
- [41:08]
A
Hey, thank you so much, Ryan. And congratulations on the shop, man. I love seeing it. Love seeing the studio, the shoes, the, the vending, the Pepsi machine. People should just go to South Carolina to go just check out your incredible doorway. That's a Pepsi machine. And people should also go and say, what's up to Bella? Bella is like a sunshine in your office every day. And so she also makes the place a better place. And so it's a, it's a. You're doing it right, Ryan, I love, I love what you've done with the shop and look forward to on some future road trip rolling through town and seeing what you've done with the place. But I mean, who else in the world has their own golden drive through? So nobody has that. So.
- [41:53]
C
And the is now the Chase Lounge. Sick. Sick.
- [41:59]
A
I can't wait to check it out, man.
- [42:02]
C
Hey guys, you know where to find us? The CollectorNation.com we'll have all the links to Brian and all that he's doing with M1NT, Mint and the mentors, all the links, the YouTube videos, you gotta go follow him. It's fun. I've had more comments from people about the videos that Brian did than about anyone. And I've been doing this for 10 years with a lot of celebrities and everyone else. And he makes it fun. He's got a good eye for it. And more than anything, you're supporting one hell of a guy. We appreciate Brian. We appreciate you. We'll see you next time on Collector Nation.
- [42:37]
B
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@collectornation.com and follow Ryan on Instagram at Ryan Alford. Now get out there and collect yours.