The Hobby: someone should do something! @Paul_Lesko : 15 arbitration cases with 15 more to go.

Born and raised in #2 and wouldn’t catch me dead in #1 city 😭

Sports Cards with Sarah: Garden State Trading Card Show Finds! #sportscards #mlb #tradingcards @AllAboutCards @SportsCardMag @SportsCardRadio @SportsCardNews youtu.be/I4w8QhdZ-Hw

Spyglass porn

Blessed

In general I think the criticism of $GME is largely unwarranted. They’ve survived through an era of video game DTC and when tons of retail has vanished. That’s not easy.

don’t need to check how much the *new* Topps set cost I already know I can afford it

Got my AI comping/bidding on TCG cards I don’t know shit about as we speak! 😂

beauty and the beast

I showed a well known & successful collector on here my ai system for pricing/buying cards. He offered me a job on the spot that I can guarantee is more than what most people are making. Build cool shit, post about it. The world is changing fast, enjoy it.

youtu.be/wcAO795z_-s ANOTHER NEW VIDEO! Panini's shareholders want to sell by the end of 2026, but Fanatics is not a buyer! Special thanks to @SportsCardRadio for their article! @CardPurchaser @CollectorsMD

Solid weekend for the AI buying cards! Fanatics: $1,468 eBay: $442

Don’t know who this soccer player is but the AI bought it for $22.80 on Sunday and I sold it for $32.90 net. Good example of how the AI (with the right data) can determine a cheap market value on cards with no real comps given it was /15 and in a SGC holder.

AI bought 3 cards this week. Next up Goldin on Thursday

My @claudeai comps across 3 sites (eBay, goldin, fanatics) finds patterns (like knowing top grades push the values on lower grades) automatically bids. Plebs still do this manually and pay card ladder or market movers.

The irony is this week @santiagosports_ and @itsgeoffwilson responded to stories that AI found, wrote, published totally on its own. Screw paying Topps guys, a $200/mo @claudeai prints money. SCR is a joke, we’re doing this across multiple businesses right now - get focused.

I'm not surprised my shop failed either. I was still in college and it overlapped the great financial crisis in 2008. The guy who owned the building lost it all, so in many ways I was lucky to not be leveraged. I still had a lot to learn about business and life. Still do. Grateful for the journey I've been on, I've been very fortunate.

The buying/selling aspect of cards is easily transferable. There's supply/demand, arbitrage, seasonality, weird quirks in the market. The same thing applies to other markets. If you like flipping things for profit, cards are a super small market. Cars, jewelry, watches, tickets, houses, car parts, GPUs, used clothing, dwarf the card business. By a lot. I know a dude who buys air conditioners cheap in the winter and sells them in the summer. Prints money. We poke fun of the card business because once you step away you realize how small it is - but the skills transfer. If you stay in cards you have to stop selling to the 1% collector. Guys with twitter accounts, card ladder subscriptions, PSA slabs are the worst customers. The soccer mom prints money. She doesn't comp and doesn't care. She buys what her collector son/husband doesn't have yet. You make her look thoughtful and caring - and she'll pay. She hangs out on Pinterest, Facebook, IG, Yahoo, Tumbler. If you must own a card shop it must be ultra high end or ultra low end in this economy. Walmart, Costco are printing, so is Hermes. Nike & Lululemon (the middle) are getting smoked. So if you have a card shop it needs to be a $1 store or a boutique. Neither require allocation or Topps to do anything for you. No matter what, you're going to work hard. There will be massive ups and downs. It's never easy. That's why the payoff should be massive. Money doesn't solve problems or make things perfect, but having more of it allows you to take bigger risks. An allocation from Topps is playing it safe, that's why the reward is small and for the few.

I was aware of this before fanatics took over, both at the company level and at the distribution (Peach State, GTS, Southern Hobby). Back in the day it was about $10k got you direct. But the underlying problem isn’t Topps, or the employees, it’s the business of modern wax. When it’s hot - you can make money but it’s hard to get. When it’s ice cold (bad RC class, downturn) you can get it but can’t make money. Sure, a handful of breakers and shops will build a good business in that environment but chances are it won’t be you. So as a businessman you have to adapt. I’ve been to all these conferences (Topps, Industry Summit, etc), I’ve had a shop, I’ve had allocation, it’s really hard work and you don’t make that much money. If it’s not about the money, then you let the Tom Brady’s and big breakers do their thing and you carve out a niche. If it’s about getting rich, get the hell out of cards and focus on stuff that is way bigger. Video games, board games, toys, Legos, books, crafts. Flipping tickets, car parts, tools, something else. At the end of the day, owning a shop is not special, not very valuable, and you get paid accordingly. I learned this when I was 23 - unfortunate many of these guys are 40 but never too late to pivot.

Louis treats me like Topps treats breakers. Must suck to be a pleb