The $16.5M Pokemon Sale Just Changed Sports Cards Forever

A $16.5 million Pokemon card just sold over the weekend. But what does this mean for the sports card market? I'm here to tell you today that I think this might change sports cards forever. And we'll debate why now. [music] >> [music] >> Hello sports card investors and welcome to another episode of Cards on the Table. Teapot. Wait, who's this guy over here? We got a special guest here today. Ladies and gentlemen, this is exciting. You want to introduce our special guest here, >> Teamiliari to me. I think a lot of our audience will know Scotty BC cards on YouTube or also of Spitball and Cards which I do with three other guys and Scott uh baseball savant here including using that website often and um he's joining our team officially. >> Yes, fulltime member of the sports card investor team now. >> Yes, >> we're happy to have you here Scott. Congratulations. >> Thank you. I'm excited to debate all these topics with you. It'll be great. >> So Scott will be on our shows periodically. He's going to continue doing his personal content as well. So if you're a fan of his channels, don't worry. that's still going to happen. But he's part of our team. He's now our director of community partnerships. We're extremely happy to have you. >> Thanks for having me. >> And just in time to talk about the biggest sale in trading card history, cuz that's what we're going to talk about off the bat today. We got some other good stories to talk about too, like a breaker who swiped a one of one card on a giveaway and all kinds of fun stuff. But let's start with this $16.5 million sale. Probably a lot of people saw this over the weekend. This was Logan Paul's Pikachu Illustrator card. PSA 10 sold for $16.5 million. That makes it the most expensive trading card ever sold in history. This, of course, beat the record of the $12.93 million dual logo man, the Michael Jordan Kobe Bryant dual logo man that Mr. Wonderful and Shine procured last year. That was a big topic on this show. At that time, that was the most expensive trading card ever purchased. Sports cards had the record. Sports cards, by the way, have historically had the record. Whether it was Wagner cards or 1952 Tops Mickey Manels or there was a Steph Curry one of one that went for a ton of money or of course this, you know, the dual logo mans. Sports cards had the records for the most expensive trading cards ever sold until now. It has shifted from sports cards over to Pokemon. This record $16.5 million sale is now the most ever. And to put that in context, this card sold for more than two of the previous record holders combined. A 1952 Topps Mickey Manel in SGC 9.5. That was the highest Mickey Manel card ever to sell, right? >> And the T206 Wagner in PSA 1.5. Those two sales combined, >> yeah, >> are not as much as what this card, this Pikachu Illustrator card just sold for over the weekend. Um, big deal, right? And so, obviously, this card was super hyped up. It was featured in it was sold by Golden Auctions. It was featured in Ken Golden's show, King of Collectibles. It had Logan Paul behind it. So, Logan Paul had done a ton of marketing and brought a ton of attention to this card. He owned that card obviously for a few years. So there was no shortage of eyeballs and attention being paid to this auction. Even the even the mainstream media picked it up and that probably helped push this oversized result forward. But my question to you gentlemen today is now that that result has happened, now that it has captured national headlines, international headlines around the world that a Pokemon card can do $16.5 million. What does it mean for the sports card market? Teapot, I'm going to start with you on that question. What did you think of this sale? >> Um, I don't think the high-end market is slowing down anytime soon. That's my first statement. I think it's continuing to explode. And I don't think we're anywhere near kind of oversaturation or full saturation with regards to that. In fact, I think it's just going to keep rolling because obviously you have King of Collectibles, you have Ken on like MSNBC, you have Kevin Olirri on Fox and Friends. All these guys are talking up this high-end market. And the high-end market is it's very different than your everyday commodity cards or even your three and four figure cards. It's a very different beast. It's about scarcity. It's very, very much about status. It's about cultural relevance. It's about historical significance. And there's a lot of narrative that goes into that type of stuff. And if deep pocketed people can be convinced by their friends who they perceive as experts or people who have done their research that this market is something they want to get into, it doesn't matter if it's cards or other, you know, ultra rare collectibles. Um, they'll buy it if it's worth a boatload. The Leonardo da Vinci Salvador Mundi painting sold for $450 million. You could look at that and go, why not 500 million? Why not 600 million? Why not a billion? Why not 1 million? What separates these things? It is a lot of that narrative. It's a lot of the convincing that this thing is is desirable by a great number of people or even just enough to fuel the price and make it a status symbol. And the more they talk about it on these panels and get other people who are of high net worth to become convinced that these are viable status symbols, the more it will just continue to fuel. And we're going to see more and more cards coming out of the woodwork. Ken said himself recently on Fox and Friends that there's going to be um or Kevin, sorry, Kevin, not Ken, said there's going to be some card that's never seen the world coming soon that he hasn't seen it yet, but that it's going to be coming to auction sometime this summer, it sounds like. What could that card be? Is it some kind of logo man? Is it the Steph Curry Super Fractor? Is it who knows? But he promises it's going to like break another record. So, there's a lot of cards coming out. But it's its own beast and uh I think it has no limits honestly. It's just going to keep keep roaring. Doesn't impact me that much at all honestly, but it is drawing a lot of new eyeballs to the space overall. >> And I'm going to disagree with your last statement Tapot because I so yesterday on the Jeff Wilson show I did a a video where I actually talked about these ultra rare collectibles, these ones that can get those outsized returns in the market that can cause people to just go crazy and all it takes is two biders to really want that card. and a card that is a ghost that never comes up for auction and that certain people consider to be like a real grail card, like a must have for their collection. That's all it takes. There are still sometimes opportunities to find those cards for less than $10,000. Point point taken. I bought the Freddy Freeman tops finest gold canary diamond one of one on your advice on eBay two years ago for what was it like $4,000. this guy over here wants to back up the Brinks truck to buy that card from me. And if that I mean that's one of those types of cards that that it it's like it's a one-of-a-kind. It's a true collector's piece. Super fans of that player or that team really want that card. There's only one and it hardly ever comes up. So if it comes back up, watch out. Even even it doesn't have to be a a seven figure card. Sometimes if you if you're careful and you pick the right one, sometimes it can be a four or five figure card that you can suddenly see jump up to crazy prices. >> What he didn't tell you is that I told him to buy the Showi Otani one of one for $20,000 >> and it's now worth seven figures. >> And Scott, you know exactly what I'm talking about because you have some cards like that. You've got you bought like a Show Otani Dynasty card that went crazy in the market and several several times up from where you bought it for, right? So, as you look at this Pikachu sale, what does it mean to you? And and what do you think it means to the market overall? >> The glass ceiling is broken, right? We have the most expensive Pokemon card of all time, which is really crazy. And I don't anticipate it being the most expensive card for long. I think now that we have this sale, the next card can easily break it. In sports cards in particular, it's one of those situations. We have some massive cards that we know about that never sold. Think of the PSA 10 1952 Mickey Manel. That card's never sold. They've always quoted it at 30 million. That's what they're quoting. You know, if it went to auction, they'd quote 50 million at that point. Yeah, they would. >> But it's one of those cards that we have not seen at the top of this market. Uh it's also interesting because if we want to look at baseball a little bit, we can see the Paul SK rookie debut patch autograph from 2024 Topps update um and Topps Chrome update I should say. And that card went for a million dollars. Okay. And I felt at the time that car did not deserve to be a million dollars. Shows what I know cuz I bet you it might even be worth more now with how Paul plays. But it's one of those things where that raised the entire market for the rookie debut patch autograph market. So we have Jackson Holiday going for 200 grand. We have Nick Curts this last week went for over half a million dollars for a Nick Curts card. And at this point I doubt his Bowman Chrome Superfractor autograph would even get close to that. >> So we're seeing all of these cards when they do break a sale that we never thought they could break, it raises the floor for everything. Even Otani has raised Aaron Judge's market. Without Otani, I doubt Aaron Judge would be as expensive. Not because Aaron Judge isn't great, because it's actually showing, oh, maybe he is undervalued compared to Otani when he's selling for 10%. Maybe should be about 25% of Otan's prices. So these big sales, they do impact the market. Realistically though, it's all about marketing. Where Golden puts their marketing dollars. Logan Paul's been marketing this card for years. He wore it on his necklace when he went and boxed. Like all these different things have been building up to this point and it's boiled over. >> I love that. I love that analogy. And now I know, by the way, the price. I'm going to ask this guy for my Freddy Freeman. Scotty, I need $16.51 million. You can have the Freddy Freeman. >> How about this? And a handshake. >> Take it out of my check. >> Let's break the record right now. >> Take $10 out of my check the next hundred years contract. [laughter] >> Okay, we'll see. We'll see. We'll see about that. We'll see about that. Um, yeah. You know, Tapot, I loved your analogy with art because I think that's what this is. And I think maybe it's this sale. Maybe this particular sale is the moment in the history of trading cards where people globally will finally truly recognize and put trading cards on the same level as a Picasso or a Dolly or something of that nature, right? Like I think or a Banksy, you know, to use a more recent artist, right? Like I think this really because because the the the Pikachu card is different, right? the sports cards, it's like, well, you got sports fandom and all that kind of stuff, but Pikachu is almost more of a pop culture icon. This is almost more of a pop culture thing, this trading card. And for it to cross over the all-time threshold, for it to go over $16 million and set all these records, to me, that's like that really puts it in the category with fine art, with the best of the best, modern art. It's a modern art masterpiece. The same way that a hundred million dollar Banksy is a modern art masterpiece, this is that. And I think that that's really going to legitimize the high end of the market across sports and Pokemon and TCG in general. I think this really does take another step forward. So, I'm very bullish. I remain very bullish. I've been bullish for years, but I remain even more bullish today. I really think this helps. I think this one helps a lot. I think this one helps more than the Shine Mr. wonderful sale. This is a bigger deal than the shine Mr. Wonderful sale of the dual Kobe Kobe uh Jordan logo man. >> I would agree with that. >> Yeah, this one more more universal appeal, more national headlines, more attention, more star power. >> This one like that. This this to me really pushes it all forward. >> My sister texted me today about this car. My sister knows nothing about sports cards. >> That's what I'm talking about. There you go. >> Shows a point. >> All right, let's go. I'm gonna gonna go raise all the prices in our showcases. Tapot right now. Resticker the cards. Everything's up 20%. Keep them low for the people. 20. Yeah, we're gonna keep them low for the people. We'll keep them low for the people out there. >> You know what? Let's rip some Arena Club slab packs. Let's celebrate Scotty's first day on set here. Let's rip some Arena Club slab pack. Scotty, we're going to let you go first. What are we ripping here? >> So, I picked baseball >> baseball diamond pack. So, we're we're going high-end today. These are the very nice thousand slab packs from Marina Club. Let's get Let's see what Scotty got here. >> MJ. >> Oh, and a 10. >> Don't expect that in a 10. >> A basketball goat in a baseball. >> Yeah, I got a a basketball player in a baseball. >> That's funny that that was your baseball card. That's funny that that was your baseball card. >> That's awesome. >> Those cards are impossibly tough to grade. Impos. I guess there's a issue with the the hologram on the back and that's what you know that messes them all up. I got one that I thought looked great and it got a PSA 6. [laughter] >> Well, >> PSA 10's impressive. What do you get, T? Let's go. Do you do baseball, too? >> Baseball. >> There we go. Diamond baseball. >> Yeah, >> that's a baseball player. >> Oh, that's nice. >> That's the That's the Is that the first uh full card of Ryan? Is that right? >> 69, >> I think. So, right, cuz his rookie was 68. Am I right? And so he shared the rookie. So, that's his first. So, that's that's a that's a sign certainly a significant card. Yep. >> In the PSA 6. >> A good looking card. A little off center, but good. >> A little off center. All right, let me let me do one. I'm going diamond baseball as well. Let's rip a slab pack. Here we go. >> Come on, Arena Club. Oh, that's sweet. [applause] Jeff, >> rest in peace, Hamate. Ham eight. >> That's good. Look at that. To >> is down >> to 25 wave to 25. The Corbin. >> I like him. I'm a big fan of Corbin Carol. >> Yeah, I'm a big fan of him as well. Yeah. >> All right. >> He's out for the season. You know that >> Carol's out for the season? What happened? What happened to Carol? >> His hammate >> are not out for the season. >> Yes. They said he's done for the season. He's done for he's he'll be it's only a six week recovery from >> he's out for the season. I heard this guy got injured. I think he was out for the season. >> He'll be back for in April. >> He's out for the World Baseball Classic season. He's out for the W season. >> It's the hook in your hand and that breaks, but it's it's a six week recovery, but you could get back to >> Didn't they say Jackson Holiday was out for the season, too? >> It says it says uh Corby Carol is expected to be back for opening day. >> Dude, I got to scared me. I got you almost made [laughter] me panic sale my arena club card. >> I am now deleting my ESPN app. >> I no longer trust Jeff P. >> I'm out for the WBC season. I thought you were trying to make Jeff feel I'm not. I really thought What are you doing? I pulled the banger and you're okay. Anyway, all right. Hey, listen out there. If you would like your own Arena Club slab pack, it is good news. If you'd like your own Arena Club slab pack, promo code SCI, that's what you want to use. It's going to give you 20% off your first purchase on Arena Club. Download the Arena Club app or go to arenaub.com and then use promo code sei when you check out for 20% off your first purchase. Okay guys, let's jump to our second story today. We got some breaker shenanigans. We got I don't know what happened here. People probably have seen some of the videos maybe sprinkling around social media over the last couple of days, but there is a breaker. This this guy was on whatnot. And he was doing a customer appreciation break. That's that's how he titled this. He was going to open a box and give it all away to his customers. And he was doing giveaway spots by player in the break. He was giving all the cards away. Now, there's there's a young soccer player named Max Domen who is apparently a pretty big deal, a prospect uh that a lot of people are very very high on. And wouldn't you know it, but during this appreciation break, the breaker pulled his one of one card. Max Domen's rookie one of one comes out of a pack. I've heard this is like a $30,000 card. I'm not an expert on the Max Dolman market, but I heard this could be like a 20 $30,000 card, something of that nature, maybe more. >> Allegedly, it's already been sold for that amount. >> Has it really? >> That's what I saw on really making the rounds on social media. >> $30,000 card. So he appar the guy says should he should he change someone else's life in the in the chat or should he change his own life. Now in fairness to him Domen Spot wasn't claimed. So people had to like you know people got the giveaway slots and they claimed the different slots of like what player they wanted the giveaway for of the player came out. No one had claimed Domen. Like no one had been assigned to this guy in this in this thing. It's a little the whole thing was a little confusing but that detail >> but nobody was assigned to him. So that was an open slot in the giveaway break. So he's he's got people assigned to other players. No one signed to Domen. And then he pulls the Domen. >> Huh. >> While people are still getting assigned to slots. >> Yeah, that doesn't make sense. Why would he not assign the best player to people for free? >> Very interesting. >> I don't know. >> It's weird. I didn't. >> But but but what happened was he made the decision. He said, "I'm keeping the card. >> I'm not going to give it away to the audience." Then he like kind of blamed his wife that like she said he [laughter] had to keep the card. Then then he immediately got an avalanche of criticism. So he then deleted all of his social media, his whatnot. He's gone. Poof. He's nowhere to be found anywhere. >> What do you guys make of these breaker shenanigans? >> Well, that that little detail of unclaimed >> sort of changes my stance. So let let me start with if he had given this to a spot, this hypothetical, because >> this has happened in the past. Backyard Brakes refused to give away a gold kaboom Trevor Lawrence card. Yes. Like three years ago. >> Yes, they did. That was a bad look by then. So that backfired and they ended up back. It was terrible. Yeah. So >> I don't know how that would work, but to me hopefully maybe I don't know what the I don't know what the terms are. I would hope that whatnot could look to putting something into their seller terms and conditions that actually makes it a legally binding contract that you could prosecute someone for, sue them for what you're rightly do. I imagine it's already baked in there for the breaks that you can't hit a life-changing super fractor of Roman Anthony and then just be like, "No, I want this or a million-dollar, you know, top debut patch auto or something and just be like, I'm bouncing." At least hopefully there would be some legal recourse to actually go claim your card and and fight through that system. >> And it's mercury here because no one actually was assigned to that. The problem is, and I don't know if that applies to giveaways the same as it does to other things, but >> overall this is this is terrible. Look, if somebody had been assigned without knowing all the details, >> people in the chat were saying because it was a customer appreciation, he should have randomized it to the chat and he said, "I've decided to keep it." >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, if I don't I would expect that if somebody is going to make that decision to do that that they would then disappear. Like it wouldn't try to stick around and be like, I still want to be your neighborhood breaker and have a social med like I Yeah, that makes sense. I just whatever. >> That's a lot. I mean, I I I don't know anything about this. I didn't know about this breaker. I didn't know anything about this guy before I started seeing all this circulating on social media a few days ago, but like >> isn't that a lot to like give up your entire business, delete your entire life for $30,000? >> Maybe. >> Like, depends. Depends what his financial situation is, how often he was breaking and what he was making on whatnot. There's a lot of factors, I'm sure. It's a douchy move. I just It's just terrible. Like I don't Give the card away. You said you said you were giving it away. Treat that as your own code of ethics and conduct and say, "Congratulations. You know, I'm giving this card away." >> Imagine if you had given it away, Scotty. How much buzz would have gotten? >> The flip side flip side of all this, right? >> What are your thoughts on this? >> How much is your integrity worth? >> Yeah. >> Is it worth 30,000? Was it worth 100,000? This guy, it was 30,000. And it's one of those things again like Ty said, you can't fully say this guy's terrible because he didn't take it away from somebody he was actually like expected to give it to. But it's one of those things where like you mentioned Jeff, it would be big for business. I think you're basically sacrificing your integrity. You're sacrificing your brand. You're sacrificing everything you've built. You can't be in sports cards ever again. And it's not really worth $30,000 in the short term in my opinion. That's just how I feel. Like if I were to open up a box and I pulled a $100,000 card, my immediate thought would not be, "Oh, I need to change my life." I'd be like, "Oh, good for this person." Yeah. Right. And so this comes back to like vetting the breakers, making sure you have on your platform is really good. Making sure you trust your breakers. Make sure you know who you're dealing with because sometimes the less quality breakers, the more likely situations can happen. And not saying this guy's less quality. I don't know who it was that well. So I want to be careful with with saying that, but I can say it wouldn't happen if it happened. SEI Jeff. >> No, no, absolutely. We would turn one of those things. >> I would dream of pulling a $30,000 card during one of our giveaways. Can you imagine that? Like during our, you know, virtual virtual holiday where or our ar our arena break videos that we do every month and then we give all the cards away and whatnot. >> We would turn if we pulled a $30,000 card to give away. We would turn that into the biggest marketing splash you can imagine. And I would so happily give it. And that's what I got to imagine like especially if this guy was a small breaker. if if $30,000 actually meant something huge to the guy. Like imagine if he had then actually said, "You know what? This is a free $30,000 advertising boost to my business. I'm going to give this card away because I'm going to turn this into $30,000 worth of free publicity for my business by way of giving it away." I bet it would have boosted his business like that multiple times over and he would have gotten that 30 grand back pretty easily. >> Totally. >> Yeah. I don't know. All right. We pulled a 101 yesterday in the market movers event. >> Phoenix 101 last night. So excited. >> Give that away. Imagine if it was a $30,000 101. How excited we would have been. Fantastic. >> I would have been running around. >> I hope I I hope that happens. I hope we get to do that sometime soon. I also hope this next story happens. Becket Teapot Teapot Becket >> expanding their grading capacity and their customer service team by 3 to 5x. Now, this is according to an interview with the new general manager of Beckett, uh, Colin Hudson on Neo, uh, Cards and Comics on that YouTube channel. Um, so Neo had Colin on the channel. Obviously, we all know that collectors recently bought Beckett to much audience reaction with many people proclaiming this was the death to Becket and collectors was going to drive Becket into the ground and all these types of things. Well, here comes on the general manager and and and the story that he tells is the opposite. The story is that he says that that he that they are reinvesting in Beckett. So much so that he he is charged with growing the grading and customer service teams by three to five times, which would be a significant reinvestment certainly in Beckett. And and of course, Beckett is very they're very far behind right now. In all of 2025, Beck had graded 824,000 cards for the entire year of 2025. SGC was close to double that at 1.42 million, even though SGC's capacity has been pulled back considerably by collectors. CGC was multiples of that at 4.92 million. And then you have PSA at 19.26 million. So PSA was more than 20x Beckett in terms of the cards that they outputed in 2025. So 3 to 5x that would be a significant number. It still wouldn't obviously get Beckett anywhere close back to PSA like how things used to be where Becket and PSA were neck andneck, but it would actually cause Beckett to probably sail past SGC and maybe start rivaling CGC for the second place company in the market, which is how things always used to be. Teapot, are you buying into this? Are you surprised by this? And do you think Beckett will thrive under this new direction? >> Well, [clears throat] that was my first uh introduction to Colin Hudson. Seems like a genuine guy. He seems well-intentioned. And I really wish them well and trying to to grow this. I do wonder part some people are speculating that this sort of like pivot maybe pivot or maybe it was the intent all along to reinvest into Beckett might or might not have something to do with uh Congressman Patrick Ryan filing an FTC complaint saying that this a monopoly word thrown into the mix. But if Beckett does ramp up to volume that starts to overtake CGC somehow and PSA just continues their trajectory, it seems at some point that does tip the scale in monopoly favor. 90% 95% whatever the grading numbers shake out to be. Um so I don't know how that would play out. Here's what I will say. Like intention's one thing, execution's another. PSA has Ryan Hogue was just on Neo the the day before or two days before that interview with Beckett saying we want to scale. We need to scale. It's just not an easy thing that you can do and flip a switch on overnight. I can't go out and double our number of graders. You have to train them. You have to vet them. You have to make sure they're committed. We can't just build a new warehouse. We can't do all of these things easily. So whatever 3 to 5xing looks like for Beckett, it's going to take them some real time. It's going to take a lot of time. And intention is one thing. Also, just talk. Talk is cheap. Again, I'm not saying he's lying. I think he's tasked with something and it's really daunting. Um, what I will say is I have a video coming out next Monday that I think is going to break the internet with respect to grading and is going to be talked about a lot. We'll probably be talking about my market movers video from next Monday on this next week. And suffice it to say, my most recent experience with Beckett was not particularly good. So, I hope that Colin understands kind of what he's doing, has the ability to do it. He seems like a dedicated, lifelong, passionate collector. Um, but a lot of work to do to rebuild the Becket brand at this point. A lot a lot of stuff has not been working well. >> Yeah, >> there's a reason those numbers have >> down over time. >> Scotty, are you a long-term up or down on Becket? What's your thoughts on this news? >> So, I have been a Becket supporter for years. You know, my channel's been around for 5 years. I've always liked Becket. I put them head of uh the SGC right next to PSA, but I think it's just too little too late, guys. I I don't think there's really anything they can do to fix their brand. Like, not the fix the brand itself, but the brand um the view from the public, right? It's one of those situations where if they did this four years ago, maybe 3 years ago, maybe two years ago, less likely last year seems farfetched. Now, it just seems impossible. I think they're going to have a real hard time convincing people to send to Becket when people were sending to Becket in the first place to not send a PSA, but now collectors owns them both. So, that's one of the reasons gone out the window. That's why CGC still has that small advantage there. On top of that, let me ask you a question, Jeff. You're in a whatnot break in an actual, you know, giveaway and you pull a $30,000 card from a guy that gets sent to. Where are you sending that card? >> Immediately to PSA. >> Why not Becket? bec well I the only the only caveat I would give if if it's a if it's a thick patch card then maybe I would send it to Beckett uh because of the subgrades and everything but for the most part PSA because of the value return on the secondary market that's all they have a guarantee until they fix their guarantee they're still going to get like all like the new high-end cards in there and it's just one of those things like is the goal to make Becket affordable so that way it's an alternative to PSA and they're going to keep rising PSA prices maybe that's the case but it's just one of those things where what would really help Becket is changing their grading scale and he mentioned he's not going to do that right now. So, his hands are kind of tied. Yes, they can increase the amount of employees that they have and and overhead there, but I don't think it's going to increase the demand as much as I think it's going to. Like, I don't see any rationale for submitting to Becket right now. Yeah. >> As much as I like Becket, >> I I just don't see it. >> I've had a theory like we've talked about grading and how can other companies catch up on PSA over the years. My theory has been for a long time that in order to gain that market share, they need to have more slab, it's a chicken and egg. They need to have more slabs in circulation that can actually be charted on a trend line to build consumer confidence in the price of those slabs and have that. But recently, as I've been analyzing the difference between PSA 10s and CGC10s in the Pokemon market, I've realized that theory of mine is just bunk. It doesn't actually make sense because there are a lot of CGCT10s in circulation for Pokemon cards. Any any modern Pokemon card you can find has multiple sales per week in in CGC10 condition. That still doesn't stop the PSA 10 from being 2, three, 5x what a CGC10 is doing literally in on ultramodern cards. So, there's more work to do than just get cards into circulation and quicker turnaround times and good customer service. Like Scott said, I don't know. It just might I just think PSA's got a chokeold on everything. Why don't they just It's collectors, right? Collectors is taking all this money and reinvesting in Becket. Just reinvest it in PSA and like you said, maybe it's the monopoly stuff going on, but it's one of those things where there is a use case for Becky. Maybe I wasn't completely fair. I I'll walk it back a little bit. TCG has the black label. That's relatively possible. >> People love the black label. >> That still goes for 10, too. >> Yeah. But like it's hard to really do in sports cards. In baseball, it's really tough to get a black label. Pokemon, it's a little bit easier. So, there is a use case there. And that's what we're seeing with the amount of cards graded last month. Even they had 66,000 cards graded in January of 2026. 41,000 were TCG. Only 25,000 sports cards. So we had with CGC more than double the sports cards even though CGC is not known for sports cards at all. So interesting situation. >> Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, it's going to be fascinating to keep our eye on. One last story today, guys. This one's going to be fascinating as well. I'm sure especially Scott's eyes are already on this story. tops. There's been some astute people on the internet who look at the pack odds and they compute the pack odds and they figure out what the odds are for um all of these different inserts across all different formats. Of course, Topps publishes a lot of this information and then people kind of compile it and what does it all mean? Well, some of these folks who have been looking at the pack odds for the brand new Top Series 1 baseball, which you know just came out um what about a week ago? By the way, we already sold out of it. >> Cartoon. >> Yeah, I saw that. I couldn't sold I can't believe we're sold out to look to buy one. >> They told me today we're sold out of series We sold out what like five, seven days or something. We sold out of series one baseball. I don't That's crazy. I can't believe we get more. But anyway, um a lot of demand for that product. But the people have looked at the pack odds and they have noted that a few of the super short prints have gotten way more tough. the case the case hits are now way harder than actually a case hit. Like way harder than a case hit. So for example, the all aces, which if you go back a few years ago, the first year they debuted all aces, they weren't that hard to find or get. >> Last year they became quite a bit harder. They were one in every 1,00 and 1,167 hobby packs. Yeah. Which that's really tough. That's way beyond a case. This year there are one in every 13,000 636 or 836 hobby packs. One in 13,000 hobby packs for one of these all aces cards. That's incredible. And then Homefield Advantage, the one that people kind of compare a little bit to the downtowns. You know, Homefield Advantage last year was one in every 240 hobby packs. That made it what? One in every 10 boxes essentially a case. One out of every 10 hobby boxes. This year it's one in every 3,460 hobby packs. So, these have gotten incredibly more tough. All Kings in Tops uh Chrome B or Tops basketball was one in every 2864 hobby packs. So, these things have gone beyond case. These things are super super super super short. Now, Topps has obviously been playing catchup a little bit to Panini on their insert game that Panini was known for with their color blasts and their downtowns and their uh mangas and you know the uh Kabooms and all that stuff. Is making these coveted inserts that much tougher a step in the right direction or not? TPO, what do you think? >> In general, specifically with the home field advantage, I'm a fan of the change. I think that what they when they introduced those though they will refuse to admit it I'm sure they copied downtowns and they made their own version of it. Um and they brought people designers from Panini over to TOPS who brought that idea with them and said let's make our own version and they're ubiquitous. The existing ones are everywhere. They are so many of these those cards that they don't even get a second glance from a lot of people in the same way that downtowns do. Even in recent years when there's a billion downtowns, they've just cemented that that legacy with those cards. So, in general, I think the homefield advantages based on that mystique of this downtown type idea deserve to be 150 to 2000 plus dollar cards, not 30 to $40 cards that you have a whole wall of at Cards HQ lined up of the same players sometimes. Like they they should be more cool. In general, I think Topps has done a lot of cool things creating inserts across the entire distribution curve of pack odds and scarcity and demand. Um, there are I just got done ripping Stadium Club all day with our team at Cards HQ and there are more common inserts that are coming out of them that look really cool in my opinion. They they're actually new inserts in Stadium Club this year. They're not rare, but they seem very collectible. You could build the whole set. That to me is key. having the the the right distribution. You have a a a product like all aces and all kings. Now they're making those even more difficult to hit. In some ways, it feels like a bit of an identity crisis for a product like Topps flagship because it's bringing the price up of a product that needs to be accessible. And I think they're I think they're still missing the mark with that product. I ripped a hobby box and I got smoked. Like really smoked. And uh I think I got two rainbow foil boards and that was it out of the whole box. no numbered, no other parallels, nothing. Um, so it was really rough. Finding a way to get into like Tops Paper so that you have more like what they have in Stadium Club with the Reds, one in every pack so you feel like you're getting something that's better would be a step in the right direction. So I just I think that's sort of the nuance here is make sure that there's something that you can hit at all different levels of rarity so you don't feel like it's like just a box full of paper and or I hit it big and got one of these big chase cards. Now, the only other thing I'll say, >> this year's design of all the years to make a home field advantage significantly more rare. This year's design I do not like at all. I think it took a major step back. Um, and they used the same background for Bo Jackson and Bobby Wit Jr. Like, it's the same card. And let me tell you, Jeeoff, nobody, and I mean nobody, wants a shuttlecock on their baseball card. I don't know why that's there. I looked it up. Apparently, Kansas City manufactures Ben Mitten apparel. Who cares? There's a lot of work that could be done to make those seem as cool as being one in 4,000 packs. >> All right. I I I you got some good good thoughts there. What do you think, Scott? >> It's funny all the things Tai latches on to that he hates. >> I know. I I was like I was like, is that the biggest problem in his career? >> I've never seen Shuttle on Instagram so much in the last two weeks. >> All I know is if you keep saying that word, you're going to get this video banned on YouTube. So stop saying that word. Yeah. Google it if you think we're inappropriate. It's not. It's Batman. It's good. But Ty also hates the Dodgers dance. So they have he the hip displacia. >> Uh, but anyways, so Topps has been making this effort. I actually kind of disagree with Tai a little bit, believe it or not. I think it's a good thing. We have a low-end product, but we want some fun chases in a low end. >> I said it was a good thing. >> You said that you're worried about like the bringing the price up. I don't think that's what's bringing the price up, you know? I think that's more of just the overall market, breakers, everything. But it's one of those things where do you remember the the Elite series at a 10,000? Do you remember those? Those were a chase. people opened up all of this 1991 Dawn Rust product with the hope of pulling those. They never did cuz they were so hard to pull. It's different now. You know, one difference between us and the Junk Wax era is we have a lot more stuff in a hobby box. Let's say our print runs somehow got as high as the Junkwax era. We still have autographs and jersey cards and these really rare case hits that we're talking about, super short prints. I think that's a good thing. Topps is moving a lot of their coolest cards this way. What it feels like they do is they test that card. They'll test it where it's not rare. In 2023, when the first Alasis came out, it was 1 in6 hobby packs, one in four jumbo packs. People like it. These are cool. Let's make them harder. Let's make it more special. And I actually like that move by them. >> You see, I don't I don't That's the one thing I don't like. I don't mind them. I don't mind these being like super short print hits or whatever, but I don't like the fact that they started so common and now they've gotten more rare. And to me, that's just like, >> what if Alter started out one in 24 packs and then went to one in 13, >> right? that it messes it up. It's like because then the other thing is [clears throat] like in the home field advantage design it doesn't like it I I I have not uh like bought enough or collected enough of those to be able to tell you at all at a glance what year is what. I could not tell you. If you put three homefield advantages in front of me and said which one's 26, which one's 25, which one's 24, I would say I I I don't I don't I don't know. >> Can I say the same thing about downtown though? Like I feel similarly. >> Yeah. I can't live with downtown either. I can't really downtown either. So, but if you but here's the difference. If you put three downtowns in front of me, I'm going to say I don't know what year's what, but they're all but they're all valuable. >> If you put those three home field advantages in front of me, >> I say I would say I don't know what year's what. And then you would say [clears throat] >> one of these is super common and one of these is impossibly difficult to find and therefore very valuable. Well, you know, one's a $30 card, one might be $1,000 card. I mean, be like, I don't know which one's which. That's a big problem in my opinion. So you can't you can't keep changing it and make it significantly different year over year. You got once it's established, >> you're going to have normal pack odds inflation, but you got to lock it in. >> I kind of feel that way. I kind of feel that way. So the hidden gems, you guys know hidden gems, the insert. So those are the opposite. Those are incredibly rare. They're in a bunch of different products, but they never caught on. Tops never have a hard time figuring out what should be where. They're trying to fix it. They did the same thing with the Spotlight Bowman cards, the garbage patch kid Bowman cards. >> They did do the same thing with Spotlight Bowman. Those went from being like super common to like super rare. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. So, this is a pretty common thing they do. I don't know if it's intentional or what, but it is what it is. >> All right. I don't know. What do you guys think? What do you guys think of all of this? We'd love to hear from you in the YouTube comments. And don't forget, you can save 20% on your first Arena Club slab pack. Go rip one right now. Go to arena.com or download the Arena Club app and then promo code SCI for your first slab pack. Thanks for watching. We'll see you soon with our next one. Take care. [music]

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