← Collector Nation
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- [00:00]
Ryan Alford
When we launched this show, we wanted to bring you inside 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 something special.
- [00:24]
Ryan Alford (Intro/Outro)
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.
- [00:45]
Ryan Alford
Yo, what's up, Collector Nation? Ryan Alford here, and welcome to episode 50. That's a big milestone for us. We appreciate you for listening.
- [00:55]
Gary Vaynerchuk
We.
- [00:56]
Ryan Alford
Whenever, wherever, however you have been, it means the world to us to watch the numbers go up. It's not lost on us. So 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. And the hobby and collectibles. Creators, founders, disruptors, straight up hobby legends. So today we're doing something special. We're going to do the best of those first 50 episodes. So if you've been watching and listening, great, 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. Kyle Kravitz, Gary Vee, Josh Luber, 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, just 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, Kyle, when you said, I'm gonna turn the camera on?
- [02:20]
Kyle Kravitz
It's very hard at first. That's a whole other 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.
- [02:50]
Ryan Alford
The collecting versus business is a fine balance of those two things. And for you, I. I want. It's kind of two part question, like how you balance those things for yourself. I mean, I don't know if you can anymore. It's like, is there anything not for sale in the king of cards deck? Yeah, of course.
- [03:11]
Kyle Kravitz
And it's easily separated. I'm a collector first. Like I said, my business happened by not accident. It was, but 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.
- [03:25]
Ryan Alford
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 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?
- [03:38]
Kyle Kravitz
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.
- [03:49]
Ryan Alford
What's your, what's the best card, like your favorite in your collection? Now, is it that Johnny Manzo?
- [03:55]
Kyle Kravitz
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 2 of 10 in a Beckett 95. 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. And the auction ended and I sat there like this and I thought about that card for months. Sure enough, months later, the card ends up on ebay again. It got listed for auction. Oh, I said whatever it takes. When I tell you my bid on this card, that thank God nobody else been I bid on this court was so much higher than what I went for. It would scare some people.
- [04:48]
Ryan Alford
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 trying to do.
- [05:07]
Kyle Kravitz
I wanted to Start a brand that was going to represent a lot of what we're doing here in those exact sentiments.
- [05:13]
Brandon Steiner
Right.
- [05:13]
Kyle Kravitz
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 line? 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 a 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, the impact we're having. And it's wild to me on the way that this is. It's reaching people and changing lives.
- [05:54]
Ryan Alford
Then my man, Gary V V Friends, he's been talking about the hobby for a while, if you follow his content. Talked 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 finger pinged on this for a while. What led up to this?
- [06:15]
Gary Vaynerchuk
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 Topps is the iconic brand in the industry. Yeah. This is just kind of, you know, year four of a journey of building this intellectual property that I'm very excited about.
- [06:39]
Ryan Alford
We live in this digital world, but physical cards are still booming.
- [06:43]
Gary Vaynerchuk
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 Veefriends is probably gonna 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 patience matters. I've done a lot as a human and put myself on the map, but I'm not going to reach all 8 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. 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.
- [08:07]
Ryan Alford
You.
- [08:07]
Gary Vaynerchuk
You shitting 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 envying instead of building.
- [08:21]
Ryan Alford
What's your feelings on the overall hobby?
- [08:23]
Gary Vaynerchuk
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 Jackson Dart rookies the way they bought Mac Jones rookies. And I use that analogy as, not that I think Jackson's 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.
- [08:59]
Ryan Alford
I mean, you know, I'm willing to live vicariously 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 the stigma that goes with it. But I think the positive outweigh the negatives. And I think you can teach your kids.
- [09:11]
Gary Vaynerchuk
And the negatives are controllable. Like, this is just good parenting. Like the positives in social media outweigh the negatives, yet the whole world has 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 lottery ticket. If someone was disciplined and educated and put in the work, the amount of money people can make by going to dollar boxes at shows and stores, buying 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 take $100 and turn that into 20,000 in a year by only buying $1 cards and flipping them for five to 10 a piece, which is all day long with these dollar boxes at shows and stores. You teach your sons that, your daughters, that that is a skill set that they'll take with their whole lives around. 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 this leads to you being a collector of efriends and the value of that or you if this leads to you creating some version of your own, be friends in a different form, factor in 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.
- [10:58]
Ryan Alford
Josh Luber, of course, came on Stockx. I got my new Stockx, actually arrived today. My new Jordans. But Josh's previous company that he founded again, now doing ghostwrite, 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 even keep up. You got. You're touching everything that I like. How did you do it?
- [11:25]
Josh Luber
Hey, I just get to make businesses around things that I like, and that's it, Right. 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 to look at it. You know, we both have young children. We both have young boys. And, you know, and watching now what his view of this is, but, 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, like, 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. StockX, 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 fortuitous 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.
- [12:25]
Ryan Alford
Talk about that bid ask and anything you want to expound upon on that last point I made.
- [12:30]
Josh Luber
At the most basic level, anyone who's ever used ebay understands. 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 the listing and we create that catalog on StockX 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. Ideas are worthless, right? 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?
- [13:21]
Ryan Alford
Talk to me about the name Ghostwright. Ghost tell stories. I'm a writer myself, so it immediately resonated with me. And then, you know, there's uniqueness, but also, I don't know, some mystery intrigue in the whole thing.
- [13:34]
Josh Luber
GhostWrite is a blank canvas collectible. So this 3D printed ghost 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.
- [13:54]
Ryan Alford
What makes people want to collect is that just a. It's 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, hang out with guys, I got four boys, you know, like. But guys just like to collect shit, you know? I don't know, man.
- [14:09]
Mike Baker
They do.
- [14:10]
Josh Luber
Gary Vaynerchuk is a friend and investor and he thinks that collectors and, and are going to 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 that.
- [14:27]
Ryan Alford
I mean, you know, who do you collect?
- [14:29]
Josh Luber
I collect a lot. Most of sort of my like primary goal on a day to 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 Prisms going away.
- [14:50]
Ryan Alford
Then Brandon Steiner, a true og, one of the pioneers of the industry. And Brandon got raw and 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.
- [15:07]
Brandon Steiner
I feel like we can educate people a little more or share views, visions. It helps the business grow. I'm all for it. I mean, I've secured over 40 million autographs, sold about $50 million of dirt taken down many stadiums including Yankee Stadium, Giant Stadium, Madison Square Garden. I was in this game before it really became a game. Listen, I started steiner sports with 4,000 bucks. And I hope it's a good example for people to know that you don't need a lot to have a big dream and to 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 card show or some small little card shop in a small town. They need to be respected and be taken care of. That's the heart and soul of the business. I think it's the challenge. And also this is always a challenge when you grow is making a lot of money is 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. Let everybody make some money. And you know, when I see 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 with some of the card companies. You know, I see tops way, way overproducing and confusing the market. But you know, you know, my, my new company, Collectible Exchange 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 bought a bunch of garbage because you got caught up in the hype. Buyer beware. But buyer be educated notes some of the stuff you're getting, be aware of it, deal with quality. People that are really passing on quality opportun you to buy stuff that's good quality, maybe goes up in value, but you don't want to buy something that you've overpaid for or think it's worth a lot more than it is. That's what's heartbreaking.
- [17:15]
Ryan Alford
What is it about collecting that brings people together and keeps them so interested?
- [17:20]
Brandon Steiner
I think what intrigues people by collecting is remembering the moment. And I think that really, people really enjoy that. Remembering the moments that matter is kind of memorabilia's moments that matter and why not collect around them? That's a big part of the growth of the business is this mystique of can I make a lot of money? Yeah, so I get that. But on 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 don't. Don't you want to end up with the music stops without a chair. I don't have a problem with somebody buying something and they get most of their money back or make a little, lose a little, and then 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.
- [18:11]
Ryan Alford
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.
- [18:17]
Brandon Steiner
Or you want to talk about a monopoly production. They want to control who sells it, they want to control who gets it. They will control where you sell it. They want everything on their site. 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. They're like, ah, sorry.
- [18:41]
Ryan Alford
What do you want our audience to remember or know?
- [18:43]
Brandon Steiner
First of all, you use, use the collectibles for joy and Happiness. The money is good, but, you know, collectibles are 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.
- [18:58]
Ryan Alford
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 on the show in 2020. I think that's when you started. Was that always the path in your mind when you, you know, headed out there? Did you think you were going to start your own thing?
- [19:32]
Mike Baker
Yeah. Well, no, to be honest, you know, the project kind of was born in the early 2000s and thought, hey, why 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. You can't go to card shows. If it wasn't for the Dallas card show, you know, a lot of the industry would have been in 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 is we're providing because everyone already had their card graded. So, like, what. Why do you need to go and send it off or get a sticker on it to, you know, blah, blah, blah. And time after time, you get this. And sure enough, you would try to articulate why just certain cards are better than their counterparts in the same grade. So what we've done is basically platform those special cards and bring attention 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.
- [20:43]
Ryan Alford
How would you compare your grading versus the other guys out there and just talk a little bit about that product?
- [20:49]
Mike Baker
I think the differentiator with what we're doing is we're adding grader notes or what we call a heat map. So when 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 upper right you can put the little magnifying lens over that area and kind of identify what kind of kept the car from going into a higher grade.
- [21:12]
Ryan Alford
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 in the next 10 years, I'll be surprised. I mean, I'm just. 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?
- [21:40]
Mike Baker
Well, it's cost 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. And at that level that it's a machine. And anything that goes into that process is going to add time. I'm doing it. And part of kind of the ethos of why we did it was to ensure it, 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 than 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. You're going to spend more money, probably do a little bit more business with us in the day.
- [22:26]
Ryan Alford
What cars are we grading, man? I want to be specific for everybody listening as you guys flip on more of the, you know, you know, retail or send in stuff or it gets more access, you start growing, doing new, old, all sports, poke, Pokemon. What are we grading? Tell me what makes a good grader?
- [22:46]
Mike Baker
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 to 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. And not everything's a 10. If that was easy, you can just be a button pusher and, you know, who cares? But when you're, when you're running the gamut from vintage to, to modern, shiny cards, all that stuff and trying to adhere to a standard and, you know, 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 be consistent. And ultimately, AI is taught by humans. So as good as the AI is has to come from the human component to make that AI what it is.
- [23:37]
Ryan Alford
These aren't just interviews. These are blueprints and lessons that show how fast this industry is moving. I'm pumped to be in it. Pump to bring to 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 thecollectornation.com we're bringing you the best, the brightest, the coolest, the innovative of collectibles and and trading cards here on the network. We appreciate you. We'll see you next time on the Collector Nation.
- [24:18]
Ryan Alford (Intro/Outro)
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.