Mikey B Breaks Down Breaking Season 6 Ep 11
About this episode
@MikeyBcards joins The Ballcard Show as the first wax breaker interview in the 6 years of that show... that is saying something. Take notes because Mikey B will be dropping knowledge rooted in experience with humility that translates to every hopeful entrepreneur. Keith from @theneuhart cards shares a story of a thief that didn't think through the whole plan.Gary and Jason discuss table manners with deviled eggs and the whatnot arbitration. The Ballcard Show: Jason Otero & Gary Lemaster Business Inquiries: ballcardshow@gmail.com
This episode is published by Ball Card Show.
Transcript
Machine transcript — exact wording may vary.
Hello, and welcome to the Ball Card Show, the sports podcast for the Sports Collector. I'm Jason Otero. I'm Gary LeMaster. This is season six, episode 11, and we're right back in the show scene. One week off, and we're already back. It was glorious. I'm not going to lie. It was nice. You've been on me for years. Man, you need to take a weekend off at least once a month. I don't know that I'll do it once a month. Never you will. But, it was nice. We got to go to a friend's wedding. Shout out to JT, triple crown, 24.
Is now a married man. He's off the market, ladies. I don't think we have a huge female listener base, but you know, just in case you were wondering, JT's off the market. Well, wherever the female collectors are, I'm sure they're looking at us. Not Eric Michael? He is a heartthrob. I heard he's coming to the Ohio area. I heard he's coming to the Ohio area, too. Shoot us a message. We'd love to talk. We've got great questions for our interview. Let's jump in. A couple things. First off, this week, we're going to be in Cincinnati at E-Skate Mall, one of our favorite local shows, around 400 tables, right?
Three to five? 450 almost. 450 tables. Yeah. We're in the middle of the food court, baby, right where we belong. Look for the big white banner. You'll see us there. And Sunday, Grove City Card Fest by B-Sports Card Collector II, the same people that do Ship Shawana Fort Wayne. They will be having their show. You'll see us right when you walk in. Left side, a few tables down from Ryan on the left. Big white banner. So come hang out with us. Sunday, we'll be leaving Grove City Card Fest like 30, 45 minutes early or wrapping up in enough time to get back to my house this week for whatnot.
So be sure to check that out. Let's jump into some news, Gary. Yes. You already gave a story on this, but I'll let you go ahead and deliver the story here. Explain to us this whatnot lawsuit that everybody's talking about. What does it mean? And probably more importantly, what does it not mean? Yeah. So I don't want to get too crazy in depth with it. If you want the full three to five minute take, go jump on IG or TikTok and you can find that video. It's not a lawsuit at this point. It's an arbitration filing.
There are 30 or so people that the attorney, Paul Lesko, you may have heard of, is representing. And what they are alleging is that whatnot is allowing the intentional creation of a unregulated casino type environment, especially regarding repacks and a little bit on the breaking side. There's not a lot of attention being paid to the single side of things. Few things to keep in mind with this. First and foremost, this is not a doom and gloom scenario for the hobby. The economy of the hobby is not going to fall apart because 30 people are pissed that they spent too much money on whatnot.
What I hope that it does is forces whatnots hand even further than what they did last year and takes the repack side of things and really puts a reign on how it's done. There are plenty of people out there who do it the right way. There really are. There are plenty of people out there that will give you the entire checklist, not just the hits. There are plenty of people out there in their show notes that do things the right way. Do some of those people still scream and yell and cajole the crowd?
Sure. It's part of what happened. So do we when a Patrick Ewing comes out. That's right. We get the little lights off. We get crazy. Although I did have the 1970 OJ, I played the cops theme to that the other day on my solo show, which was a lot of fun. I think the important thing to keep in mind with all of this is that what is likely to happen is whatnot is likely to pay a settlement and get these people off their back and make a few changes. This is something that they've been in talks with this attorney on, it sounds like for a while.
At the end of the day, this is just a little bump in the road as markets grow and technology allows for disruption within markets. We're actually going to have here in the next couple of weeks, an interview with a big John Eisner of big John's cards, right? While I'm on vacation, you're going to be having that conversation with him. He is a practicing attorney. He will be able to spell out anything that I said incorrectly there. Yeah. And he's a real attorney. He's not an Instagram attorney like all of you guys on there like this is legal.
We'll talk with an expert. How about that? I would say that, you know, past the bar exam, past high school graduation certification, you know? Yeah. We're raising the bar here on expectations for intelligence when we talk about this kind of stuff. The biggest thing is this isn't going to wreck whatnot, whatnot, not going away. It doesn't matter what platform we're talking about, whether it's whatnot, whether it's eBay, whether it's fanatics, whether it's colleagues, whatever it is, there are going to be bad actors.
It's always going to happen. Right. You've got to find a way to game the system. It's really important to remember that while we get flooded with information about the bad actors, they represent a slice about that big of the overall pie. The vast majority of people selling on these platforms are trying to do things the right way. They're trying to be entertaining. You can find something wrong with anything if you look hard enough. Just enjoy the hobby the way you want to enjoy the hobby. If you don't want to participate in those spots, don't.
Just go to your local shows. Go to your LCS. Go to whatever. Yeah. It's not the end of whatnot. It's not the end of that platform. I totally agree with everything that you're saying there, but you know what I just remembered, Gary? What'd you remember? We took a selfie heading over to JT's. We stopped for a cocktail. This is totally unrelated. I'm going to make sure that you get that image up, but I want to talk about the deviled eggs that you were comfortable leaving on your fingers. No, no, no, no.
That's not how this went down. Let's show the photo first. The photo tells the story. I really enjoy the way you spin these things. What are you talking about? This dude, we're at, there's about an hour and a half between the wedding and the reception and we're like, Hey, let's go. There's a place called Firebirds that we all really like. Let's take our wives. Let's go to Firebirds, have a couple of drinks, have a couple appetizers. So we get there and they do have pretty good deviled eggs. So Jason and his wife, Leslie, they order some deviled eggs and there's one left and Jason goes, Hey man, you want this deviled egg?
Now let me describe. Well, first before we jump into that, that's the dumbest question I've ever asked in my life. You knew the answer. Yeah. Yeah. You knew the answer. But let's talk about how the deviled eggs are assembled and placed onto the plate, right? It is a heaping deviled egg with more filling underneath the deviled egg to hold the deviled egg in place. So I picked the deviled egg up and literally as I'm shoving it into my mouth, I've got some deviled egg stuff on my fingers. Jason hands me his phone and says, let's take a selfie.
And I said, let me finish this deviled egg first. And he goes, no, never. Let's take the selfie. Never said that. So I take the selfie and there's a little bit of deviled egg on a couple of my fingers. Uncle T just a couple of my fingers. And Jason proceeds to see this, think it's the funniest thing he's seen this week, zooms in on it and post the series of zoomed in pictures to our discord for everyone to enjoy. Well, I'm just going to point out five baby chickens made the ultimate sacrifice on your fingers.
It was four ounces of egg yolk. Second thing I want to say is Firebirds is like a steakhouse where it's like the wood fired stuff. Like it's a little more upscale. It's not like a super fancy restaurant, but people aren't slopping around in there. So I can assure you everyone else in the restaurant eating deviled eggs is using the silverware that's been given to them. Not Gary. Yeah. Well, and to that point, a great question. I'm glad you asked it. The reason they would do that is because we are no longer Neanderthals.
And so when you go to a restaurant and you order something and silverware is available, sometimes you have a choice between slopping that all over your hands and using a fork. But I just thought I had this one. I had no foreknowledge that it was going to be slopped all over my hands. And as soon as it was, I said, Hey, let's wait to take this picture. And if he was allowed, if I could tell you guys how many times we've been at a nice restaurant and at some point in the night, Gary is hitting a plate like this for something to lick.
I like food. What's your problem? Now we're being, now we're getting to honesty. I appreciate it. Took us a minute to get there, but I just wasn't going to let that slide without publicly calling you out. By the way, we dropped a photo of that in discord. If you have not yet had an opportunity to join discord, we're close to like 150 members in a month. Kind of crazy. Yeah. We drop exclusive content in there. You're able to ask us questions and you're able to ask Keith Newhart up in Delaware questions about being a shop owner, what it's like to have an LCS.
Matter of fact, let's head up to Delaware, Ohio right now. Newhart cards for shop talk with Keith. Hi, this is Keith at Newhart cards and this is shop talk. This week we're going to do story time. So we have a Donner's optic gold Jack Besh here. This is numbered nine out of 10. We bought this a few weeks ago. It's been sitting in our value boxes, you know, nothing crazy. I come in on Monday after a great weekend. I come in, I look at our purchases. Guess what? There's a Jack Besh numbered out of 10, nine out of 10 in our, in our recent buys that we paid $50 for, right?
Like wow. Now we have two out of the 10. No, no. We bought our own card back. So find out we had a thief amongst us, stole, stole this card out of our value box, brought it back in two days later after he stole it, we bought the card back. You know, shame on us. Yes. But we have thousands and thousands of cards. We have 20,000 cards on eBay. We don't know every single card. So yeah, it was a mistake on our part. The gentleman was confronted. He's no longer allowed in the shop. So story goes. But that kind of led me into something to where every day we buy, we buy cards, right?
We buy on open product. We buy singles. How do we keep our reputation intact? Right? Knowing that some of the stuff coming in may be coming in from a, a non-traditional source, right? So we just have to, we have to be on our game, right? We have to be able to kind of read people. You know, if you bring in a tote of 20, 25 prison blasters and you want 80 bucks for, for 20 of them, and believe me, that does happen. You know, we have to be the standup guy and say, listen, I don't know. I don't know where you got these, how these came about, but I think we're going to have to pass on them.
You know, or single, somebody brings in a two row box of really nice stuff and you can tell, Hey, you know what? These have other, another local shop stickers on them. We have to be able to know that. So knowing, knowing your surroundings, know your other shops, I think that's kind of another key. Just, just be on your, be on your best behavior as a shop. Know the industry, know the hobby and protect yourself. So anybody wants a Jack Bash, it is for sale. This is Keith and Newhart cards, and this has been shop talk.
All right. Thanks Keith. Gary, before we, before we go on to this interview with Mike UB, I'm excited about, is this the first breaker we've had? Just not, not a repack breaker. Oh, so yeah, then it would be our first breaker. It only took us six years. Well, Kyle does repacks, but it's only taken us six years to feel confidence, to meet somebody where like, this person seems like a decent human. They're very nice. They're, they're knowledgeable and a friendly guy. So that's coming up in a minute, but I want to show you, Gary referenced a guy that was kissing cards.
He was saying goodbye to, and I just wanted to give us an opportunity to appreciate them together. So I'm going to show you a couple of these. Some of these are wild. Like they could not make these cards today. No, no. Let me find a, I'm trying to find that a, here we go. So like this was 1967. They did a thing called wacky cards or crazy cards, but they were all perforated and stickered. Like, so here's an example of hostage filled cupcakes, you know, um, hey kids, you know what goes well with a bowl of cereal?
This graphic, uh, minute lice, not minute rice. These are all from 1967, but the color really pops on them. They're kind of cool. So not one of those types of cards, 71, 72, Wilt Chamberlain. It is very, it's nice. Yeah. And then a little gel. I love the old snap cases too. Oh yeah. I actually like these cases. Yeah. They do a pretty good job holding the card and they don't screw them up on the paper. And then some weird stuff from that binder I mentioned before, real quick, super clean on the maze.
These are Venezuelans. So I don't know if you guys have heard of the Venezuelan cards, variations out of tops, but these are both 1967s or Frank Robinson and a Don Drysdale. Now these things are roached on the back, absolutely roached, but they're, they're also kind of impossible to find. And then even a few of the subset of the retired players. So when I tell you like that box had some crazy stuff in it, I couldn't pass it up. It's all going to be on your eBay here very soon. Right? The ball card store.
Yep. Yep. So while we're, while we're talking, well, let's jump in. I'll do an update, but let's, let's, let's jump into this interview with Mikey B cards. Really appreciate him taking the time to join us, ladies and gentlemen. It's time. I'm very excited to introduce to you from North of the border in Grand Rapids, Michigan. With Mikey B cards, welcome into the ball card. So Mikey. Thank you. Thank you so much. I do not reside in Michigan and that probably is a strike against me. Just realized I grew up in Iowa, so I'm a diehard Hawkeye at heart.
So I don't know if that, it makes it better, actually. It helps. It helps. It helps. It helps. Okay. In my opinion, I thought you were in Northern Indiana. I had no idea. So now that we know this, we've addressed it. We can move forward with the conversation. Another thing I'm very excited about, Mikey, you are the very first wax breaker that we have ever had as a guest on the podcast. That means you've like survived our gauntlet of expectations. So that's, that's a, that's a big deal for us. This is a big burden to carry.
I'm going to try to do us breakers, uh, you know, justice here, but, uh, yes, I want people to understand that there are some great breakers out there with great communities and we're not all. Terrible people trying to destroy the hobby. I promise. So hopefully we get a an opportunity to shed some light on those That are doing it the right way. Yeah, awesome Yeah, why don't you why don't you share your story with us a little bit Mikey? Sure, like how did you get into this space? How long have you been doing it? What's the journey been like?
Yeah, so I started like a lot of people in my youth which we don't have to talk about how long ago that was but Is the junk wax era, but when I was 14, I got a job at my local card shop. It's my first job ever I absolutely loved it had a great time I'm trying to like not age myself here, but 9394 finest came out while I was there basketball. Yeah, you and I are about the same age my friend But But uh, so I that's where it started I took a long hiatus in between college first jobs and so forth got back into the hobby around 2017 when I just got curious about cards again Went to a local card shop bought some product open it up and I was like man cards have changed so much autographs Relics just the designs and just fell right into it Yeah, and I absolutely loved it. So discovered breaks shortly thereafter I think at that time there was probably Like maybe 25 breakers like 25 legitimate breakers and maybe five of them that people use consistently So I joined a couple of those Really really liked that formatting of the hobby And then you know, I was kind of watching everybody. I was like, you know There's a lot of people that do this really really well But there's things that I would do differently and I wish that there was just someone that did it like that And I was like, wait a minute. Why can't I do that like that?
So I kind of took the leap and started very very small on Instagram live It was me and like three to four friends. I would go to the card shop. I'd buy a couple boxes We would draft or divvy up the divisions I'd rip it on on camera and then I'd mail it out and you know We did that like every couple of weeks or whatever and that was kind of like our way to split the costs in the hobby and then three or four friends became 10 friends became 20 friends and Breaking once a month became you know Once every week and then multiple times a week and so on so forth So around I think it was around like 2019 the end of 2019. I decided that I was working a corporate job Which was not my favorite thing in the whole world wasn't really super exciting. I was breaking a ton So basically I'd like work my regular job come home and then from like 5 p.m Till 1 in the morning do breaking. So I was like something's got to give that's just way too much stuff way too much stress So, you know, I talked to my wife about it We we looked in crunch the numbers and we're like, you know, if I tried to do this full-time is this something that would work and really honestly just took a leap of faith and Decided let's try it. If it doesn't work out. I can always go find another job It's not that big of a deal or whatever, but really kind of took off So around the tail end of 2019 decided let's give the breaking business, you know, the full-time gig So 2020 rolls around Kovac year the next year. So obviously The hobby just exploded and our business just took off There was nothing else to do people had disposable income. The hobby was growing we Maybe I was not at the right time. Yeah, you know and so You know all that kind of came to a fruition to where kind of we are today whereas We continue to grow our community. We continue to offer, you know products that we've never ripped before We're always learning where I was growing. We're always trying new things And really just that building that sense of community is really kind of what got us to where we are today Yeah, so it's been a very fun journey. It's been full of ups and downs. Not everything I've done has worked out Well, in fact, I kind of like that learning process You're out like hey this work. Maybe we should do it again or yeah Let's not do that Yeah, so I mean that's all part of the process right you live and learn so that that's kind of the 10-second, you know, I told him two minutes. That's the 10-second version of like how we got to where we are today So I mean 2017 2018 I know it sounds silly to people that maybe you're just parachuting into the space But when we're talking sports card years 2017 2018 is considered being around a minute in the space now. Yeah, and I think part of the reason for that is because With all that growth that you're talking about and it was an explosive growth through the kovat times, especially we've seen so much change within the industry and even a ton change within breaking Gary and I reference breaking of We were the Facebook breakers right like we would go we had a buddy that bought one box of series one And we'd split it up to like eight dollars a team and we'd have the time of our lives watching somebody rip a box for base rookies and maybe an autograph later in the year, but the Environment and the community that was there was incredible Well, then kovat happens and now some of these base rookies are worth $30 And now you're getting a spot or you could grab something and there was a lot more money involved and it seems like things began to shift and so the breakers that have been able to kind of Stick with it through that that last, you know, eight years and all the changes It's a little more unique than people realize Like when you look at the different like how many times do you think the industry like how many shifts do you think you've seen?
since 2017 just in the breaking space Does it ever change like are you just like constantly moving? Yeah, I mean, I think honestly It's a it's a never-ending true north, right? So like, um, I Feel like there's there's an influx of people that are into breaking more because they are chasing Cards that they could flip or cards of value. I still think there's a huge community of people that collect that embrace breaking We have people in our group that just like to they just like sports cards in general They they jump in stuff just because they think it's interesting they're like, I don't know what it's worth I don't even really know who the players or the important things are I just know I'm having fun and you know, I've got the I've got the income to Buy a spot or two or whatever. So we've seen several influxes and obviously the breaking community has grown Tremendously, so I mean there are thousands of breakers. Now. There's there's a ton of apps that just do breaking. There's 24 7 There's breakers with multiple channels So there's there's definitely been iterations and that certainly is not going to change in the near future I think like in most industries if you're if you if you're not constantly evolving, I think you're going to kind of get left behind So for us, it's always like thinking like what is that next chapter look like? What are the what are the?
whether it be the the break styles or the the formats or the The stuff that people want like what's going to be the future what what's gonna work and so forth again It's it's just trying new things. Sure, you know, like let's see if let's throw everything at the wall See what sticks and then we'll know where to go kind of going forward I'm gonna be ready to pivot because Lord knows we'll get thrown some curveballs So, you know, I think we're nimble enough, especially since the entire business is represented by everyone in this picture So, you know, I don't sing in a curse, right?
It is, you know, I'm my own worst boss So like but like I'm I'm not afraid to to change things or to do things differently or to look at a different perspective I'm always open And again, I think that makes the job fun is because it's not always the same old same old. It's all right Let's again try to figure out What do we do differently to make us either stand out or offer things that are value-added to our community? Yeah in in that lane and talk about that And this is a question that just kind of came to my mind because we were talking about You know you getting started it back in 2017 making the shift to full-time in 2019 Jason was kind of in and out of the hobby growing up and came back right around the same time Slightly and then really jumped in as kovat hit and I'd kind of never left You were talking about being able to be nimble and kind of You were talking about being able to be nimble and change and things which is really important Do you find that it's a little more difficult to do that now with the way that Supply functions because I remember like for me personally back in 2015 2016 2017 I owned a sign company that for years and years and years Um, I just called peach and said here's my tax id number and my business license and I had a wholesale account in 30 minutes um Those were the days I could buy I could buy a case of a bohm and chrome for 540 dollars right a case And so if I threw that against the wall and it didn't work It wasn't as big of a risk as it is now at you know, 3500 uh wholesale cost Do you find that that ability to pivot quickly?
Is a little more nuanced than it was back then Possibly I mean allocation is always a problem as a breaker, you know Where can you source getting boxes and cases at a reasonable cost so that you could you know? One make margin to operate a business. Yes, but to continue to offer competitive pricing to your community so I think part of it is oh and that is that's always going to be there right and it is Significantly harder to get product now than it was back then. You're absolutely right back then I i'm lucky that I have a large distributor Literally 10 minutes from my house I can drive down there. We've got three card shops here in town so as far as like local product very very easy to get but As you're as to your point It's going to be hard to survive if you're buying at retail pricing and then you have to mark up for your own margin And so forth right? So I think a lot of it is You know making sure that you can get the right products as far as like pricing you're right It's a little harder to experiment because everything is so expensive Yeah, that being said I am never afraid to give something a shot whether it be Uh, i'll use hockey as an example. I don't get allocation for hockey. I'm not an upper deck diamond dealer or whatever I I don't watch hockey. I don't know much about it I can't pronounce half the names or whatever which I think our community loves honestly, but There's just some really cool hockey products and I know that there's a lot of people that collect it So I will take a chance and grab Like a black diamond or the cup or something like that Even though that's those are expensive products because the cards look cool people like it is a great. Yeah So I i'll give anything a shot and if it works out great there have totally been products where we've tried and They just people just don't have an interest in and so forth And so if that's the case again We'll just kind of try to move through the inventory that we've got and then lesson learned next time it comes around Maybe that's just not for us. Yeah But I love trying it. I mean, honestly, I think it's great trying new products And learning about some of these sports or some of these entertainment options that again I might not be a huge part of i'll use spongebob as another example I know a lot of people grew up with that. I did not my daughter's too young to miss that So like again when that product came out I had guys in our community that were like you have got to get as much of that as you can like I will try I have no idea what i'm hoping i've seen the memes. Um, but I'll open it you guys can tell me if it's cool or not and we'll just learn together and we have a blast doing it So, yeah, you know, those are the types of experiences that make the job fun so you've You've obviously in almost a decade of doing this now, which I don't whether I don't whether you ever think about it that way But that's almost where you are Uh almost a decade of doing this now and closing it on that doing it full time you've created a lane you've built a community you've put and If you're watching this and you think that it's as simple as just turning on a camera and telling people you have stuff to sell To build a breaking business to build a community you're out of your minds. It's a lot of work It's a lot of time and a lot of effort, but you've done that And when you look at the the landscape of breaking now um we see a lot of extremes you see the the guys that are making it feel like a A FOMO casino with flashing lights and spinning wheels and lots of colors and and flashing red and blue lights and Stasher pass and all this stuff where it's this like FOMO On the other end you have people that are so boring that they just you fall asleep Do you ever find yourself as you are Looking at your business And your ways to navigate the changing environment How do you?
Like what are the core guiding principles that you have that are like this is how we're going to stay in our lane And still be able to adapt As the business changes, but these things won't change about our community, right? Yeah, right, right Our i'm very blessed to have an amazing community and you're absolutely right. It took years to get that and You know, you can't rest on your laurels that just because we've got a great group now We'll have a great group tomorrow So it's still the constantly getting out there and trying to attract people especially as there's more options, right?
So, you know as a youtube breaker, I might be kind of a dinosaur compared to some of these other apps or whatever You know It's not as easy as just grabbing your phone pulling up an app and you know buying and doing everything right then and there So I have to offer something value-added to somebody to choose me over Something else sure and again I kind of go back to those days when I first started whereas like what were some of the issues That we saw in breaking and one of the things that used to drive me absolutely insane Kind of a two-parter here is one Not a lot of people had like the order of the breaks on screen So I had no idea When my break was going to be I bought into one break. It was blah blah blah football And I don't know if it's going to come up in 10 minutes or if it's going to come up in three hours Or it's not going to even go today, right?
so I don't have the time to sit around for seven hours and watch a stream and hope hope my break goes So one of the first things we did was we're putting the the order of the breaks on screen and it might change and so Forth, but you could easily come into our room at any time and know what's going to go win Or what's already gone? The other thing and I think this is of incredible importance, especially to those that are new Is that I really make it a point of emphasis not to have downtime in my live streams.
Because as you just alluded to, there is nothing worse than going into a live stream and just, you got somebody there for two hours. I don't care if they're awesome and they're entertaining or if they're dry and monotone. If it's two hours between breaks, that is way too long. I am not interested. Nobody has that attention span anymore, right? So for me, and Jason, you got a chance to experience this last week with us, is that it's important to me that one break ends, next break goes. We are moving.
I'll say this to support what you're saying. When you were wrapping up a break and there's a few spots, the first thing I noticed was when you offered fillers to close it, it was literally, it was clear to me first time watching, he's trying to put as much value as possible to get this moving. And by having that mindset, no customer's ever feeling that tug of war between you and them of like, come on guys, don't you want to see, like it's like a mindset of whining. And it can happen selling singles at shows and on Whatnot too, but that's, I want to applaud you for that because that is something that you don't see as often anymore.
Well, it takes a lot of mental fortitude to do that. Like it's really, I can speak from my own experience. Like it's a lot of why I'm transitioning off of Whatnot for my solo stuff. It's really difficult. I wear my, Jason tells me all the time, I wear my emotions on my sleeve. Like whatever I'm feeling, whatever I'm thinking, you're going to see it on my face, you're going to hear it in my voice. Right. Much respect for having the mental fortitude to come into that with the plan of it. This doesn't go exactly how I think it does.
How do I fix it and keep people engaged and happy with the solution? And it felt like a reward. Hey, if you guys want to help me fill this, hey, let's figure this out. So again, and I'm not going to like, I'm not trying to oversell this, but I do think that's a unique thing that you've been intentional with. I don't think that happens by accident. I don't either. And I think a part of it is, is that I understand that we are going to have some nights where everything fills tremendously and there are no issues and the chat is hopping and it's just going to be like, awesome.
But that's not always going to be the case. So on those times where it is a little slower or maybe there's not as many people in the room or the breaks are having a little bit of a struggle to fill, my solution has always been, I'm willing to sacrifice a little bit of margin to offer a better deal to people. Because again, it's more important to me that we keep moving than it is that I crush it every break, right? So I've had nights before where like nothing was filling and I lost my behind and that's going to happen or whatever.
That's just a natural part of it. It's not like that every time. And it's not like everything's awesome every time. It's a good mix of in between. So you take the good and the bad, you get through the live stream and then you can reflect, okay, what maybe didn't work? Was it just the product that no one was interested in? Was it the teams that were left were priced too high compared to the market and I just didn't correct? Or there's always a reason to self reflect. And sometimes you just have bad nights.
So if you can't get over that, or if you're going to be someone who's like, I'm just going to sit here and be stubborn and I'm going to tell this stuff fills and I'm going to whine or complain or whatever to the chat. I was like, again, I think there's a finite amount of time that people are going to be able to like stomach that. And then they're like, I don't want to know. Every time I go in that room, they're begging people to take spots. I'm like, that's just not, people don't like that. Who's providing the service to who here, right?
Right, right. And so I also think it's cool. Like I try to find unique ways to give back to our community. So whether that's like doing giveaways or whatever, sometimes one of the things I really like to do is when I have a night where we're breaking a lot of product and I know that, you know, the breaks are going to fill pretty easily and the margin's going to be pretty good. I'd like to take a product or two and just be like, all right guys, I'll tell you what, I want to reward you for how awesome you guys have been tonight.
I'm going to do this break for free. And I want to try to get as many of you in it as possible. You don't have to join or whatever, or I'm going to do this break below cost or at cost or whatever it might be. And I'm not saying we do that all the time, but I think you have to reward your customers for their loyalty. And there's a lot of different ways to do that. And again, I think sometimes people that are just starting out, they look at something like that and they're like, I can't do that, I'd lose money.
And I'm like, you know, I just think that's money better spent than on some of like traditional marketing efforts or whatever, you know, I'd love to do that. That's what it is. It's a marketing effort. If you're going into any business and thinking that you're going to do it and be wildly successful without marketing expenses, you're outside your mind. Those just exist. Jason, I don't know whether I'm jumping a question here, but I kind of froze out from what we're talking about here. I've heard you jokingly say this, and I'm not going to repeat how you phrase it, but there's a perspective.
Well, no, I want to give you the opportunity to say it if you want to. I don't want to put words in your mouth. There's a perspective within the hobby that breakers in a lot of ways are bad guys. Yeah. Right, like that's a perspective that you have to fight against that the good guys have to fight against. But that perspective exists because there are some breakers out there that do it bad. Sure. And they don't just do it bad, they do it shady. They're actively trying to take advantage of people.
They're lying, they're leaning into FOMO. Obviously, I know that you have to feel frustrations about being lumped into that group. But when you see those things and hear those things, like how do you deal with that? Do you feel frustration about that when you see guys doing it the wrong way? Do you feel like, gosh, just do it the right way, guys. There's a way to do this that you can still make money or do you just kind of distance yourself? How do you react to that? I feel worse for the customer.
If guys want to take shortcuts and whatever, that's on them. Those guys aren't going to be around long. I feel bad for the customer because for a lot of people, it's probably their first foray into the hobby. It's a negative experience. And then they leave and they tell their friends, don't do that, it's a rip off. So I try to focus on the positive and the people that do it the right way. And there are plenty of them that do that. We certainly, as breakers, have a stereotype and a reputation, which I'll tell you guys, my past lives, I worked in car sales, health insurance, and breaking.
So I think I've got the top three most hated industries. So I don't know, I might go into law after this. So, but anyway, shout out to all lawyers, you work very hard to get where you are. But no, I don't take criticism personally. There's a saying, forgive me if I slaughter it, but it's never take criticism from someone that you wouldn't take advice from. So when a random troll or whatever wants to lump all of us in one big basket, we're all terrible and we're all the reason the sky's falling and the hobby sucks or whatever.
I'm like, you know, I take that with a grain of salt. And I'm like, first, it doesn't affect me personally or whatever, I never take offense to that. But at the same time, I'm like, again, I was like, I can't help but think maybe they had a negative interaction that didn't necessarily need to happen. And maybe that's the breaker's fault, or I might say something controversial here. Maybe it's the consumer's fault because they didn't do enough research or they weren't educated or they didn't ask enough questions.
So they bought into something that they didn't understand and then had, you know, negative things. So it's nobody's one fault or whatever. It's, I think we could all do better, but I would advocate for people that like enjoy breaking or just want to experience it. If you actually asked around, if you go to various sites, if you kind of take a look at the community as a whole, it's not hard to find the people that are doing it the right way. It's not. So that always gets the, the bad is what gets hit in the face.
It's the TMZ-ification of everything. Like you open Instagram, you open TikTok and it's somebody exposing the bad, but nobody ever talks about the good. And I say this all the time, like we're single sellers on whatnot, right? We don't break, we don't do repacks. And there are terrible single sellers on whatnot. But it is a small percentage of the overall pie. The vast majority of people who are doing this, who are breaking, are trying to do it the right way. Sometimes we fail. Sure. But at least the effort and the intention is to do it the right way.
Right. Yeah, I want to jump in here because I really like what you were saying about, you know, that emphasis on where it draws attention. And it seems like sometimes those negative things are like the sole focus. Right. One of the things unique to the Ball Card Show is that we try to offer this from a open book business perspective. And so my hope is, there's probably not a ton of up-and-coming breakers, but we probably have some people in this space that have started a card business, they're thinking about breaking, but the constant content cycle they have is this is awful, awful, awful.
And the impression I get with you, Mikey, is you're the type of person that has the ability to kind of be the person that puts your arm around somebody and says, hey, listen, you know, if you want to do this, you can. Yeah. And there's a lot of noise out there. And if you're launching your breaking business and you're tired and you're just trying to do what everyone else is doing, if you could give people just a couple things to focus on as they're starting their breaking business. We're not saying they're thinking about starting a breaking business.
This is somebody that has good work ethic. They're an ethical person and they just don't want to screw it up. They want to build that community. What would be some of the things you'd encourage them with early on that like looking back, if I did it again, this would be the sole priority as I got started. One of the best choices. Yeah. Number one thing without a doubt is build your community. That matters more than anything. That's the advice I give anyone that asks me, I want to become a blah, blah, blah.
I was like, build your community. Cause if you have relationships with people, everything in this hobby becomes so infinitely easier, whether it's selling singles, shows, breaking or whatever. So I would say that if you wanted to try things, find a couple of people that you're close with. Start small. I'm not saying that's the recipe. It worked for me. It might not work for somebody else per se, but I would start small. I think if you're going to try to like go in there and try to like be like the big boys or whatever, I think people don't understand just how much work and energy and effort and how many people go into those operations.
So my first day of breaking, I don't, back again, back in the day, Layton. So Rich Layton, who's a good friend and a very great operation. And they're still very good. Very, very good. I would love to do some of the things that they do. I'm not at that level or whatever. And I didn't try to be at that level kind of starting out. I was like, all right, what are the things that I like? What are the things that my community likes? Let's start there. Let's go small. And then hopefully people have good experiences and then they become your best marketers, right?
That word of mouth, those referrals. And that's what we have today too, is that the vast majority of new people that come to us are people that are referred by our current customers. So if you have that community, whether it's through socials or within your local area, at your card shop or whatever, a lot of things become a lot easier to start and try. And then it just, again, becomes a live and learn. So try things, see what works, what doesn't. Understand that it's, right now, getting into a lot of things in the hobby, there's a much higher barrier of entry in terms of cost.
So you've gotta be comfortable with, you might not be profitable right away or at all for a long time and so forth. But if it's something that you really want and it's something that you're willing to work really hard for, it is certainly achievable. But it is not something where you can come in and take shortcuts and wrong people and expect to have a long life in. It just- Yeah, we're not grabbing 2019 Prism Blasters off the shelf for a quick triple up anymore. Right. Those days are gone. Every Monday is, but yeah, that was, yeah.
Well, and what you just said there is something that we try to drill as well on the show side of things. If you're wanting to become a dealer, either part-time, full-time, it's work. Like this is, I think a lot of people see this hobby and they see a card sell for $10,000 or $100,000. And they think, gosh, this is just easy money. I just need to sell 10 cards a year. I mean, if you win the lottery by ripping, we have a friend pretty well known on IG who has had a legendary streak this week of ripping wax.
He pulled the Otani one of one out of 2021 gold label, just left field. And then yesterday, the new Prism, he hit the black finite Caleb Williams throwback. And so he had himself a nice solid 15 to $20,000 week. Go buy a lottery ticket, Alex. We love you. But that's not the rule. Real quick, Gary, when we have somebody in the breaks that have like a couple of really strong ones in a row, my kind of go-to joke is, I'm like, hey, do you want to go halfsies on a Powerball ticket? Yeah, exactly. You pick the numbers, I'll pay half for sure.
But the reality of it is, is whichever side of this business you're going to be in, whether it's singles, whether it's breaking, whether it's promoting shows, whatever it is, you're going to have to work your tail off if you want to build an actual business. Totally. When you think, let's fast forward now, we're not looking back, we're looking ahead. The landscape has changed. There's no longer 25 breakers. There's a bajillion of them. And there's a lot more competition. So obviously, good on you.
So there's sometimes people will have this almost negative connotation. Well, they started pre-COVID. Yeah, nobody was doing that though. It wasn't the thing. You were taking on a risk early on of like, I hope this works out, but it wasn't a proven model. Now we have people flooding to the space where they may not even understand the car space, but they are a talented personality, or they're good on live streams, or they're- marketers that by you know they're really good at marketing whether or not they're even entertaining the landscape has dramatically changed. Yes. In 2026 where there's more competition there's discussion around how do you find enough of the product you need all that kind of stuff what are the challenges that you see like hey in 2026 Mikey B cards like here's challenges that we I know as I'm looking ahead here's some challenges we're going to have to overcome in the space as it's as the landscape is shifting yeah I mean sourcing product obviously huge challenge you know finding finding that rhythm of what works as far as like timing of when when you're live getting people to your room when there's 900 other places for them to choose where to rip or whatever and then I think a big part of breaking is the entertainment factor again you have to captivate somebody's attention for a long period of time so when most people that ask me what I do I don't say I do card breaks I say I talk to myself you know at my computer for about seven hours a couple times a night and they're like okay and I'm like well I mean honestly that's what it is I mean you're engaging with your chat and there are things that you're doing on screen as far as opening packs but for the most part you've got to be the entertainer so you know I think there's a knowledge component of that I think there's a being able to you know keep things light and have fun you know you've got to be able to be there to celebrate when you know something crazy happens a big pc card or just a big card in general and celebrate within your own means I'm not saying you should you know whatever people kind of go a little above and beyond that but also what are you going to do when you have a break and it sticks and you know or whatever because they're not all great so you know again what are some of those things that you can do to kind of keep people engaged and keep people interested I think is very very important again how are you going to draw people to you versus others and then I think a lot of it too is just you know dealing with customer service issues so you know things get lost in the mail or somebody bought a spot that you double sold accidentally or there's just all sorts of stuff that can happen that you just can't plan for so making things right making people happy you know trying to trying to figure out hey how do I keep the business going while you know buying 50 cases of Bowman or something like that there's a lot of a lot of things that go so again I think that's part of the challenge but also part of the fun is that there's always some new problem to solve or always something new to try that will kind of keep your interest and engaged and if you're interested engaged and you're excited and it's genuine growing the community will certainly come I think those kind of go hand in hand so you need you need kind of one before the other gets there you you and Jason have so much in common personality wise and the way you approach things I'm just over here nodding like yep yep that's exactly and and for me as somebody who uh I'm a guy I'm the guy you were talking about a minute ago Mikey my brain is very analytical I'm very direct and straightforward I have a passion about the things that I have a passion about I'm not the most if this was just me on a podcast without Jason we would not have the following that we have we complement each other well you guys chemistry is amazing but I'll compliment that for sure he is the one who provides that what you're just talking about and as as somebody who has had to deal with the uh in growing my business the emotions of being like why can't I do that and leaning into what I'm actually good at which is why I love shows so much like I love the interactions at shows mostly because there's a table in between me and other people whereas Jason would be just as comfortable in a circle of people like if I could get paid at card shows to walk the room and start conversations and just genuinely be in them if that was a job I'm set I'm sad maybe somebody will write that check one there's a lot of people gotta be some companies out there needing some buyers so yeah I love spending other people's money I'm very good yeah there you go but that that side of things one of the things I would like to tell people that are thinking about getting into doing this um don't get frustrated if what Jason does or what Mikey does or what somebody else does doesn't work for you figure out what works for you in an ethical manner and lean into that and it might not be live selling it might not be breaking but there's still a spot for you within this industry if you've got the right mindset and you're willing to work and you're an ethical honest person yeah not everyone's equipped to do everything right so um certainly there are certain personality types that do better in certain scenarios I think I think you guys touched on this on a previous podcast and um again this is one of the reasons why I love listening to you guys is your your honesty and it's not always just doom and gloom and click baby but you recognize that all right I'm not I'm not as strong when I'm by myself right yeah but the the just the I don't even know the right the right term I'm looking for here but like when you guys are together the banter and the back and forth that you have that's translatable to a table at a show to a show or whatever so I guess I would tell somebody listen if you're introverted or if you're shy or you know you have a problem with you don't have a problem with long spaces of silence which drive me nuts um then I would say maybe solo is not the way to go yeah maybe what you should do is find somebody that you can connect with and that you banter well with because that translates really really well on camera so I'll use an example I've had my wife my friend Brad and other people um in the break room when we do products one of my favorite things to rip every year is pop century from leaf yeah yeah that's fun yeah I I bring my friend Brad and my wife into the live stream when we rip that because they they don't know who any of these people are and it's hilarious yeah to me to watch them try to figure out Burt Reynolds and I was like jeez guys but like they don't know it's so psyched oh he was on friends right and I was like oh my god so like writer right so happy 5-0 and yeah that just translates to everybody's everyone's laughing in the chat they're having a good time and people are like oh I'm really interested in this product now because I want to see them open more because they have no idea what's going on yeah whatever so that might be again you have to look to what your strengths are and you have to really be able to take a good honest look at this is what I do really well this is what I don't do really well and whatever that don't do really well is there's likely something that you can do or change or add to kind of counterbalance that and so again if you have someone that's maybe a little quieter maybe someone again bring a friend in that's maybe a little more boisterous or whatever so I've been feeling like if Jason and I did a show I don't know I think we'd probably be a little nuts right you take three hours to get through a box yeah exactly so like I'm not saying we shouldn't entertain the idea here I like where we're heading with this right yeah we'll figure it out so like uh but yeah I there's there's ways to counter it or whatever it's the sort of thing so again you have to kind of figure out all right is this not working because I don't have the right inventory because my price is off or whatever or is it just is it maybe me or or whatever and I think being able to self-reflect and more importantly trying to do something to counter that is what will help with with businesses to pivot to kind of be like let's figure out what works and what works is when we have two personalities that are friendly but they're different and that kind of like whether it be conflict or or or personality styles make for good viewing that's a good point that even the conflict when it's genuine interaction can be very entertaining and authentic in that moment uh and what we get a lot of times is people walk up to the table and we're fussing over something and they can't believe that it's exactly like the podcast we're like yeah we're just two normal dudes we just turned on a camera yeah it doesn't change when the camera's on or the camera's off this is who we are authenticity goes a long way and people see through fake pretty quickly these days and same way like if people watch me on the breaks and watch how silly I am or whatever and then they meet me at a show or or at a conference or the national or something like that they'll be like oh he's exactly like that yeah yeah it's not a show I'm not putting it's just me that's a great compliment though right like that you're the thing that I'm trying to build and the way I'm trying to build it is sticking that's how you know that that's happening yeah when people come to expect a behavior and they get what they're looking for every time I really hope the people that are that are paying attention here and listening those you trying to grow your business understand the principles that that that Mikey's sharing with us are just rooted in experience and reality and so they're things to take and run with take notes one one little shift before we finish sure if that's okay Mikey I want to talk about shows yeah that's our happy place so um as I mentioned before like we were introduced to you through Mikey B's value boxes Mikey it shows I learned that before I learned Mikey B's been a breaker for a long time so talk to me about you know the role that shows play I know you're not like all the time setting up but you but you set up it uh throughout the year a couple times same guy uh and just walk through why why you're doing that because it's not your primary of your business but it's a piece of it and what are what are the things that you've grown to like or maybe loathe or or what you're seeing in the show scene I uh I love shows um I honestly wish I could do more um this job as an entrepreneur and a solo businessman here is 24 7 I mean there's even in my down time there's something I could be doing and you know unfortunately I can't turn my brain off to wanting to do those things so it's always it's usually a time constraint for me uh that and getting inventory because I don't have time right so occasionally uh what I like to try to do is I build up throughout the year whether it's like purchasing collections consigning with people that are in the breaks um if a product comes out that I'm really excited about I'll try to grab a couple boxes for myself because I still enjoy opening things for myself or whatever but then you know the closet gets a little big it gets a little it gets a little crowded in there I'm like okay time to flip that so you know how do we do that so I I do set up I love Ship Shawana I've known Brad Beaman and Ryan for gosh no forever I'm not one of the day one-ers but I think it was that their second or third show was instantly hooked um there's just something magical about that show and I know you guys have had countless amounts of content around it but it is truly special um I love going to that show I do love setting up that again I'm just a people person so meeting new people the negotiation back and forth with a sales background I love that um even though some people don't want my number or whatever um and really I did it the same way as the breaking business was when I started doing shows you know to me it was more important to move the inventory than to get top dollar so I think what a lot of people saw was I had a good range of stuff available because I opened everything because I loved everything right and then I priced I would say probably aggressively but I was very fair with negotiations and just easy to deal with and so what what has happened kind of fast forward to now is that when we set up literally there will be other dealers waiting for us at our table before we even get through the door and they're very nice and they're patient and I feel bad because I'm like we gotta put everything in the showcases or whatever but like the nanosecond we say all right let's go we just get swamped I was there at Fort Wayne you had them and I was one of the ones in the shadows I couldn't get out boxes and somehow one of them you kind of slid around and it landed in front of me it's like the heavens open you know what I mean and I got a box to myself a great baseball stack but you're not exaggerating I've seen it the only thing I feel bad for is that you know a lot of that stuff gets picked through before the general public comes in but again you know most of our business that shows happens dealer to dealer so which is fine because for us we we make our net like within 30 minutes of setting up and then the rest is just crazy so it's like all right you know let's have some fun and try to move the rest of us or whatever oh and we're happy to let the consumers have that every Sunday at 4 30 eastern on one night exactly nice plug yeah but I again I again I think the way that I price stuff is I want to move it so I can get more room I'll take that cash and use it for something else whether it's to buy a pc card or whatever put it back into the business and then if somebody takes that stuff and they can make a a couple bucks on it good on you great yep whatever you know again like our goal when we go to shows is to not bring as much stuff home um unless it's empty boxes so you get pretty close to cleaned out at these shows if I if I'm not mistaken I remember like that's your your mindset isn't whatever I don't peel through I've got to sell next week so it's like a few times a year I want to liquidate because my next show is going to be like probably in August so and I don't even know if I'm going to get enough inventory for that so it might literally be for me either Fort Wayne in November or Ship Shawana in March again before I set up again so um I'm fine going through things again I don't want to make it feel like oh well I'm just giving my thousand dollar cards for 300 bucks no but I think I'm a little easier to negotiate and deal with than a lot of folks and I think the the reputation that we built when people come to our table they know hey I can offer Mikey a couple bucks off a sticker he's going to say yes and and we can just go it's just transactions or whatever and I'm sure that a lot of people would like a lot more dealers like that oh yeah well I mean one of my favorite sayings in this hobby is if you try to squeeze every penny out of every card you're gonna have a whole lot of cards and very few pennies very true that's just the reality of it um before we wrap this thing up uh first off thank you so much for taking some time with us uh tell the people where they can find you we want to give you the floor You tell the audience, we want to tell our audience, if you're looking for a breaker that does things the right way, that's fair, pricing is fair, and you're going to have a good time, we will fully endorse Mikey B Cards.
Tell them where they can find you. Yeah, so on socials, I'm on X and Instagram at Mikey B Cards. I am trying to learn TikTok. My 11-year-old daughter is helping me greatly. I've grown to love that platform a lot. I think there's a lot of fun things that you can do with that. I think it's like Mikey.B.Cards on there. It's on the other socials or whatever. We have a Discord for our break community as well. My breaks actually take place on YouTube, so YouTube.com slash MikeyBCards. Our website is MikeyBCards.com.
We put up new breaks usually on Monday, Thursdays. I'm usually live on YouTube Wednesdays and Fridays. Sometimes those days differ. It just depends on the release calendar or if we've got extra time available. We're trying to do some more Sunday breaks and so forth. Yeah, again, there's a lot of great breaker options there. I would absolutely love if everyone came and at least gave us a shot. But I think that if you come, I want to set those expectations. Again, it's a good community. We're very positive.
A ton of our people are our families. They're watching with kids. The kids are engaged and so forth. So we try to keep it family-friendly as well. We rip everything, literally everything. If there's something that we don't break and someone has interest in it, I will try to get it and we will figure out a way to do it. We try to offer a lot of different varieties in our breaks. Pick your team or random team or division, whatever it might be. But also it's really important to me to find different price points.
So it's not always gonna be full case breaks. It's not gonna be 20 case player breaks with $1,500 spots or whatever. It might be a couple of bucks or whatever. But I want people to be able to come to our live or come to our website and find something that they can enjoy at their price point. And then again, from above and beyond that, it's just what can we do for surprise and delights? We want you to be entertained. We wanna have fun. We've pulled some crazy stuff just in general. I mean, you open enough product, you're gonna do that.
But I would just tell you, even if I'm not for you for whatever reason, maybe you don't like my personality or what we... That's fine. But do your research out there because there are a lot of great breakers. We're not all terrible people. I promise you we're not trying to ruin the hobby, but it's so easy to get caught up in what you see with the overall, the negativity and the clickbaity stuff and watch how people are doing it the wrong way. It's very hard to find stuff that shed people on, shed light on people that are doing it the right way.
But they are out there and I would encourage you to look for them because once you do, I think that you'll find those communities are worth engaging in and worth your time and worth your money. So yeah, give us a shot. I'd love it. Awesome. Thanks so much, Michael. We really appreciate your time. Absolutely. Thanks guys so much. It's great seeing you. All right. That was some great perspective. Definitely not a space that we spend a ton of time talking about. So it's good to bring in an expert that's like actively working in that space to give their take on it.
Before we wrap up today, I wanna do a little update. We try to be an open book and share our journey with you of what we're working on, what we're trying to improve in our business. And we both have made some recent shifts. I decided to move away from the high volume low end on eBay and Gary's decided to move away from the solo shows on whatnot on a weekly basis to emphasize putting some really cool, unique stuff up on eBay. So I'd love to do an update. Yes. I'll start with you. How's eBay going?
People wanna know. Has it been a good choice? Do you regret it? Where are you? So far, it feels like it's been a good choice. The upside has been that I have been able to set some actual all time high sales records for carts. Things that have not sold for a long time that have gotten interesting again. Some of the old refractors and things like that. Sold a Jeff Bagwell upper deck choice for the highest raw sale ever. Number 200 in 1999. A Devin Hester, I think I talked about before. But what's starting to happen slowly is it feels like just about every day there's at least one or two things selling.
And I'm not selling sub $10 stuff. I think there are two things in the store that are set up for ESE shipping. Everything else is bigger. The encouraging thing to me has been the really interesting, unique stuff is getting lots of watchers. It's getting lots of views, which means it's just a matter of time. There are things that people have interest in that they don't get to see very often. So I think that as the store continues to scale, as feedback continues to roll in, I think that's the biggest challenge right now is that the way eBay's algorithms work, I'm not getting the views that I will at some point.
And you know that better than anybody. You're in the opposite, but with your eBay right now, shifting your eBay, you've got 20,000 feedback or 20,000 items sold, whatever it is at 100% feedback. So you're getting some boosts when you start to put some of that stuff in. But I don't regret the whatnot move. The challenging part to me has been the speed. The nice thing about whatnot is you can move a bunch of stuff and generate revenue pretty quickly. But I am doing more with what I have on eBay. I'm getting more value.
I'm getting stronger things because it's a wider net and the people that are looking for that stuff, that's where they go to find it. People aren't on whatnot trying to buy. That Jeff Bagwell card would have sold for $8. In my whatnot stream. Kicked in the teeth on that one. And it sold for 140, right? Like it would have sold for $8. So it's been a positive thing and I've enjoyed putting some of that stuff out there. Now, some of the messages that I get on eBay have been frustrating to deal with.
We should start doing a segment with that. When you get a real good one, we'll just block the name out and we'll do like a reading and let you respond. I really, I think my favorite one was the guy that wanted like 15 different sets of pictures on a $30 Luka card. It was just like, bro. You didn't have it advertised as a gem, right? You didn't? Correct. It was just eBay standards near men are better. And it was like, I want pictures front and back. And I sent that and he was like, okay, just the one on the left front and back.
I'm like, just zoom in, bro. It's the same card. Like, is that white on the corner? He's trying to catch you slipping. Buddy, I don't know what to tell you. Say one thing that I don't agree with so that I can ask for a partial refund. If you're looking for a 10, you should go buy a 10 or you can buy this and take your shot with it. eBay is not the place to pre-grade. Promise you that. That's been the only frustrating thing about it. Other than that, I've enjoyed it quite a bit. One thing that I would encourage you with too, like you were talking about the instant feedback with whatnot, that's true.
And what I like about whatnot and my emphasis and energy that's going into that is that I learn within three days how the market is responding to new products, certain players. If I bought at a show for whatnot versus eBay, if I knew I didn't do great, I at least extract my money back and get a little bit right away rather than parking it. The trade-off, however, though, I texted you this yesterday, I think, was with whatnot, it's a reset to zero every show. Every time. With eBay, you have scaling.
Because as you add in, especially if you're targeting unique stuff where you're setting the new comp, stuff that's not up there, eventually there's gonna be 500 cards available. And they're all gonna be that kind of card. And at that point, you're not starting back at zero with a fresh sale, I hope people show up today. It's repeat buyers looking for really cool stuff that you have. So I think three months from now, you're gonna be even more excited and it's gonna be, man, I just need to find more of this kind of stuff, which is the bright problem.
Because then when it walks up to your table, you got a place for that stuff, you got a place for the showcase stuff, we have the joint whatnot and all that. So that's really cool. I did my first auction liquidating the eBay store. It was awesome. I enjoyed it so much. It was so fun. Because, so I have each of these SKU bags. I don't remember what's in bag number 1,149. I just open it up and we go through it together. But we ran Pokemon in there, probably like eight lots of it. A bunch of brand new baseball stuff.
I think I saw some Star Wars even. There was probably some Star Wars stuff in there. 19, stacks of 1958s. Beavis and Butthead cards. There was a Power Ranger lot of nothing but the, they were called Power Foil, but it was like the museum collection version of Power Ranger. So it was fun. If you source low end for value boxes or eBay, I'm just liquidating the shop. I grab a whole bag of the cards that were listed in my eBay store. I had to shut down the store because I didn't have time to keep up with shipping.
And I started my five bucks, go nuts. If it goes for five, it goes for five. If it goes for 50, then you guys felt like there was a great value there. Every week we'll be doing that. So take a look on the whatnot show schedule to be a part of that. If you're watching this right when the episode drops on Friday at noon, come hang out. Jason starts that show at what, one o'clock? One o'clock. There you go. Come hang out. It's a fun vibe. I didn't do any giveaways and I didn't feel like it mattered.
Because it was just like, everybody's getting lots for pennies on the dollar. So just keep doing what you're doing, bud. It's fine. All right. I think that's it. Hopefully we'll see you at Eastgate, Cincinnati, or Cincinnati Grove City Card Fest on Sunday, and then a bajillion other shows for the foreseeable future. Daleville, Indiana next week. Two day show. First time doing that one. 27th and 28th, yep. So, all right. This has been the Ball Card Show, the Esports Podcast. For the Esports Collector.
Bye now. Peace.