Is the Hobby Smarter This Time? + Which Cards Get Crushed? + The Hobby Never Sleeps
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About this episode
If the sports card market eventually turns, will every card get hit equally? Jeremy Lee is joined by David Chase, Joe Poirot, Chris HOJ and Josh Adams for a wide-ranging hobby roundtable about what the next market cycle could actually look like and whether collectors are better prepared for it this time. The panel debates whether the hobby has really gotten smarter since the last major downturn or whether there is simply more money in the market today. If collectors suddenly need liquidity, do they sell their best and most valuable cards first because one transaction can raise the necessary cash, or do they protect those cards and work from the bottom of their collections instead? That leads to one of the biggest questions of the episode: high supply versus scarcity. Could cards with enormous populations face significantly more downside if sellers flood the market, while scarce cards, low-numbered issues, one-of-ones and important vintage cards prove more resilient because demand only has to compete for a limited number of available copies? The conversation also turns to the return of football, basketball and hockey. After an unusually hot summer for retired players, vintage cards and 1990s issues, what happens when current athletes begin generating daily headlines again? Does hobby attention shift back toward active players, and could that create buying opportunities elsewhere? The group also discusses whether there is even such a thing as a hobby offseason anymore. Collectors are connected to auctions, marketplaces and their watchlists 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Does it still matter what night an auction ends, or has technology permanently changed collector behavior? Plus, David wonders whether the traditional November and December buying opportunity will return this year, Chris looks at historical fourth-quarter market performance, the panel considers how a potential baseball work stoppage could affect modern baseball cards, and Joe explains why rising prices have him returning to one of the simplest collecting principles of all: finding cards with great aesthetics and character. Subscribe to Sports Cards Live on YouTube and wherever you listen to podcasts. Take the Hobby Spectrum Assessment and learn more at thehobbyspectrum.com. Discover cards across multiple auction platforms with AuctionWire at auctionwire.ai and use promo code SCL for 60 days free. Check out Card Ladder for sports card sales history, market data and research. And pick up Jeremy Lee's book, Pops and Comps: Truths, Insights, and Psychology Behind the Numbers That Drive the Sports Card Market, available on Amazon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This episode is published by Sports Cards Live.
Transcript
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Jeremy Lee in the building and every guest that you ever needed. Sports cards after hours keep the hobby heated. Updates, homie. Talk like you never seen it Sports cards live and who could ever beat it? Sports cards is a lifestyle Sports cards and we live now. Welcome to another episode of Sports Cards Live with your host, Jeremy Lee. Joe, how you doing buddy? What's going on, man? I gotta say, you're every. I just want to call attention to the shirt that Joe's wearing, everybody. Joe has one of four shirts that were ever even made that look like that. That is. That's a fancy special shirt, Joe. I don't want to see that up on ebay at the end of the night. Now that I mentioned that there's only four ever made but looking good, buddy. Looking good.
Well, Yu-Gi-Oh you, you, you stoked me in Chicago with this and I knew I was going to break it out at some point. So Yu-Gi-Oh night. Did you wear it out tonight, Joe, or did you put it on for this occasion? This is its, you know, baptismal debut for sure. Yu-Gi-Oh But maybe tomorrow, you know, maybe for a brunch, David, maybe I'll bring it out to school. I want one comment that came on. Jahan here said this is our. This is about 15 minutes ago. He says, go back and listen to Ken. I think he's talking about Ken Goldin on this show, Sports Cards Live, five years ago.
Happening now. Now, Johan, I don't know what you're getting at. I don't remember what he might have said five years ago. And you made a comment like this, I think last week, too. I'm curious maybe, you know, in the comments. Sure. I don't all see it or be able to get to it, but really curious what that was because I would love to see it. Hello to upstate. What's going on? David, good to see you and everybody else in the chat. Welcome, welcome. We're. Yu-Gi-Oh I figured it was Goldin Jahan, thank you for that. But what did he say? But you don't have to put it in the chat right now if you don't want to. All right. We've also got Mr. Chris Hoge in the back. So let's bring Chris on and let's. Let's have some discussion, guys. Chris, here we go. Welcome back. How are you doing?
Great. Jeremy, which show is going to have the Trailer Park Boys? The. The Calgary Expo here in a couple of weeks? You. You know the Trailer Park Boys. Oh, are you kidding me? I've watched the whole series like three times. Yu-Gi-Oh it's amazing. That's. That is. That might get me across that border. Yu-Gi-Oh Well, come on down. We'd be in my. You'd be right in my hometown, buddy. Right? Yu-Gi-Oh Eric says Joe's mic is loud. I noticed that, too. Eric. Jojo, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. But your mic is definitely very. It's got good, strong pickup tonight, it seems like. That's all good.
I rearranged the studio, if you didn't notice. I kind of flipped things around. So, you know, there's no ocean background. There's a little bit of, you know, over here there's like a Ricky Henderson bobblehead and a Steph Curry bobblehead. And up here there's like a Clay and Steph golfing bobblehead and then a few family heirlooms and pictures. So I hope everyone appreciates it. We. I love it, man. It looks. It's a whole new look. It looks great. And of course, you're wearing all the fancy drip right now at. Only at the expense of card ladder swag. Which, by the way, I got covered tonight. I got the card ladder swag covered for today, Chris, by the way, thank. We. We received our. Our package of swag here. Outfitted my whole family with. With hoodies. So thank you very much for that.
It only took a few years, so, you know, better. Better late than never. I can wait. If my buddy Mike is. Is watching whose wife paints these. These pictures for me. I checked the. My. I went back through my old messages. The. The. There's 20 of them. I have. It took about two years to get 20 of them. The. The latest four that I. I ordered or put, you know, requested. It's. It's over two years. Just. It was like August 27th, two years ago and. And like three weeks later, she sent me this like, picture of the progress. They're almost done. It's been so, so waiting for your hoodies. I've waited longer. It's. It's like. It's like waiting for grading submissions, you know, same sort of.
Hey, looking at your background, Chris, I noticed you've got your. Right. Right there. You've got your Jordan one of one poster up on the wall, don't you? I do, Yes, I do. Yes, I do. Put it on acrylic, which is a great surface for like showing stuff like that. Why is that? Because it. Is that what it's printed? You had it printed directly on acrylic? Yep. Yu-Gi-Oh So. And is it. It just Beckett up on a camera a bit better or why is it so. I don't know actually about. It catches a glare, so that can be actually annoying for trying to photograph or put it on camera, but just like walking by it in daily life. It looks nice. It looks high quality.
We're not busting them up, Skeppy. We're giving Joe all the love. Joe gets all the love. Don't you worry if I appreciate Joe is pure vintage, says John. All right, well. Oh, we've also got Josh in the back. Josh, you. You ready to join us as well? Yu-Gi-Oh Let's bring Mr. Joshua Adams on. We're gonna go five ways now. Look at that. Hello, Joshua. Good evening, fellow Sports Card live panelists. How are you? Well said, buddy. Bring in the class. Yu-Gi-Oh What's happening? What's happening? Well, you know, we're. We're coming off of other for we're. We're an hour 52 into the show and we're gonna. We're gonna keep. Keep the. Keep the party going here, guys.
I'm. Yu-Gi-Oh go ahead. It's just getting started we're, well, you know, this, that's the way the show goes. We're, we're running in segments. I'm looking at my notes. There were a couple things that I think I plan to talk about at the top of the show. I'm just gonna read like and it has to do with where the market's at. So don't feel like we have to talk about the market again, guys. But I'm just going to read these aloud and see if these bring up any comments from any of you. So if you want to speak to them, just signal so I can understand. But you know, are people getting nervous? Was ties into the market? That's one of my bullet points. Will people have the stones, the stones to outlast the next down market? I think that's a key question. We sort of talked about it and then high supply versus low supply cards over the next market cycle. And is that going to have an effect on how you hobby, how you buy and sell and how you really do survive what might be the next turn that assumes all this assumes that there is a market turn coming. And I don't know, like if you guys are comfortable answering if you think a market turn is coming. But just a show of hands, does anyone here feel like we might see a pullback by the end of 2026? No. Josh raises his hand and would you like to expound upon that even just briefly, Josh, because you're usually so long winded.
Just, I don't know. Nothing lasts forever, so, you know, bound to come down. That's just how markets work. Yu-Gi-Oh fair enough. All right, Anything else, Chris, Joe, David, on anything I just said. Chris, go ahead. Yu-Gi-Oh What if there's a middle path this time? What if some things come down and some things stabilize and maybe even some things keep going up because that could allow room for the new infrastructure and institutionalization that's happened to continue to support plenty of market activity that just didn't exist. Those tools didn't exist to support market activity at the same scale five or six years ago. Like, I would look at the grading as like one of the canaries in the coal mine. How like five or six years ago it literally had to get shut down for months and months and months. And now we didn't have to shut it down. We just had to make it more expensive for a while and, and scale which tiers are going to be available for limited amounts of time. And it looks like the gradient is going to be able to get back online faster this time. So you Know, that's just like one anecdotal example of how the way the infrastructure of the industry has continued to get built out, that it can sort of support more stress tests and maybe that will play out at the market level too. You know, the thing that I'm looking, looking forward to as a stress test of the market and of prices is it just, it feels like we had a really long off season. It feels like we had a really long off season of no basketball, no football. We had this crazy bull run that just has felt like, it's just, you know, you start to almost feel like you're implanted in this permanent state where just everything goes up forever and it's really only been a few months. And so what happens when the NFL kicks off again next week? What happens when the NBA comes back? What happens when the NHL comes back? What happens when the baseball playoffs get going? What happens when we have that sort of, I call it the Bermuda Triangle of all the sports going on at the same time. The, the free time of the summer and the leisure months is now being subverted into watching sports, going out, attending games, playing fantasy football, et cetera, et cetera. How is that shift in energy and attention and headlines, how is that going to maybe redirect some of the money that has really gone into discovering and unearthing things during an off season where we don't have the active sports headlines generating interest into all, all of a sudden, you know, now Anthony Edwards just scored 50 points and Patrick Mahomes is 60 and Josh Allen looks like he's going to get his second MVP and you know, insert your hockey headline here, you know, and so on and so forth. So I'm really interested to see how we're going to weather the change in energy that headlines and sports resuming is inevitably going to bring.
What you're talking about is a very short term term, your, your horizon. You're only, you're only looking out until about January, let's say, once the Zebra bowl happens with what you're taught, you're looking the way I heard it was. Yu-Gi-Oh What's going to happen when things ramp back up and we entered the MLB playoffs and basketball, hockey starts, football's up and running at that point. So we are in a bit of an offseason and I, I think that the, the real, the, the real indication of where we're at is basically going to be what happens at the beginning of the next off season. Right. What's going to happen then? Because that's, then we'll I think we'll have a better idea to see like, if, if we, I don't know, like, it's so hard to, to really forecast and project what will happen throughout the, the next basketball and hockey season and football, they all kind of run concurrent, those three. And then baseball is kind of the off season sport, if you will. If the hobby remains hot and healthy through those, through the next, say eight months. And then the off season comes, I think we'll have the same sort of off season that we have right now because nothing has changed. So then you have to look out even further and say if we have, like, because if we have a Downtown in the next, within the next year, like the last Downtown lasted like two and a half, three years sort of thing, is the next one gonna last that long as well? But the thing I think that you said that really resonated the most with me was that middle path. I think this is where and we touched on at the beginning of the show, David and I, in that, you know, the hobby is the hobby getting smarter. It's kind of funny to say is the hobby maturing. But as I said earlier, I don't know if you heard, you know, if I need money in the next year, I'm not starting by selling my best cards. Yu-Gi-Oh I could raise all the money I need with one card, but that's the card I want to keep. I'd rather sell 100 cards and I don't sell any, but if I had to, I'd rather start at the bottom. So if I'm any representation of what some people would do, it's. It's keeping the best stuff and letting the worst stuff go. And I know best worst is subjective. It depends what you like yourself. But to those items that we generally accept as being like blue chip versus more risky and maybe less desirable, that's the, that's how I would go about raising capital I needed to run my life versus getting rid of or moving out of my best cards. Even if they've gone up the most, I think they could go up the most in the future too. So I would keep them because they're going to be so much harder to get the next time. So that, that middle path where things are kind of, you know, they're, they're spreading out, they're no longer just running together. Do we see that happening? Like, let's, let's kind of go around like, Josh, do you see that happening yourself? Sort of catch you by surprise there, buddy. But do you, do you See that yourself. Where the better cards are being held in. In diamond. More diamond like hands than the, the not as, as the not as good cars, I guess I'll call them.
I mean, I don't, I don't know how you would be able to tell that. Like, personally, for me, I guess I don't understand the question. Like, Because in the past, people were collecting and buying just about everything. It feel, it feels like people were buying anything because back in the early pandemic, the late 2000 teens and the early pandemic years, everything was, was going up in value. People were buying everything. So there's, there's a, there's a commentary or a narrative out there now, Josh, that people are saying, well, the hobby's gotten smarter. So in a Downtown in a Downtown the good cards aren't going to just be released. They're in, they're in stronger hands now. So a Downtown might not impact the whole hot. Might not impact all the cards, might impact the ones that are less desirable that people are willing to let go.
So. Oh, I don't think the hobby's gotten smarter. I just think there's more money in it and I think definitely bigger cards will get dumped if people need the money. I think that's the. Probably the first to go is the more expensive card. So. Yu-Gi-Oh hopefully. Yu-Gi-Oh And I. And that, that takes me to, to then who. Yu-Gi-Oh it's like who's gonna survive who and what cards of theirs are going to survive a Downtown David, I, I like how you also when you brought this up at the beginning when you spoke about demand and supply. Right. Because I think right now on most, on a lot of cards, the demand is outweighing the supply. And I think that on some cards that have a lot of ones that have a very high population of cards, I think those are the ones that when people have to sell, that supply could really outweigh the demand. Right. Not like the one of ones, one of tens, one of a hundreds or vintage goats that might not. Because I think that the demand is always going to be there for those kind of cards. But maybe of the 89 Upper Deck Griffey, right. Where there's so many of them, I think that a lot of people will probably be trying to sell those kind of cards and I don't think the demand is going to keep up. So I think that it's an interesting thing with those kind of cards that I do think has the most risk, unlike the special cards. As you were saying, Joe, any thoughts for you, like, you know, and, and this doesn't just go. This is not. This is a topic that you can, you can come at it from the, from the perspective of, like, any time in life when you might need money. What car, what cards are you today in, in today's world, to let go of first, your best cards or your worst cards? And I guess by best and worst, I mean I'm talking value it in this context. Your most expensive cards, that would be the hardest to get back in the future. Or maybe the easy. Maybe. Maybe you'll. You'll be able to have that much more money. You know, if you sell a card for 10,000 now, then buy it back for three. I mean, you're. You're doing pretty well. You just put 7,000 free dollars in your Beckett because you can go buy that card back in a down market, maybe. So I don't know, Joe, how do you, how do you see it?
Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, I, I hear what David's saying, for sure, and I think that's likely. What Josh was saying makes sense to me personally. Sometimes my life is so busy that I will sell a big card just to not have to, like, do a bunch of little transactions. And if you can beat the rush, so to speak, like, if you do notice there's a Downtown and you've been maybe waiting to move off of a card, then a big card, that can be a quick way to sort of liquidate and redeploy and. Or just feel like you've created a bit of a nest egg. I would also say that when, when HOJ was speaking, I was kind of hearing like, we are in the. The sort of Bermuda Triangle of, of like, nothing happening. And, and I think. Excuse me if I'm, you know, inferring something here, Chris, but I. What I heard you kind of mention is, like, people have been looking for other lanes, other opportunities, because there just really hasn't been any compelling sports on for, it seems like, months. I mean, I haven't watched my TV in, like, two months, it feels like. So it doesn't necessarily matter who if it's Ant, you know, if it's Cade Cunningham, if it's, you know, Jokic, if it's Brunson, Luca. What matters is just there is going to be action, right? And people are going to be paying attention. And if we learned anything, like, I think one element that makes this uptick in the market a little bit different is that in the COVID uptick, the. Everyone was highly Whatnot to sports performances and because the goats have already retired. Like, and this, this uptick is more about the goats. There's been a little bit of less. Less. So I do think, like a pressure test, if you will, will be. How responsive will people be? one-of-one football, one-of-one basketball, gets into play, and you start seeing some headlines. You start seeing, you know, Curry hits 10 threes, hopefully a little renaissance. Like, will there be an immediate effect in the market in, in that regard? And I, and I think there could be.
I could see it. Go ahead, Josh. I would say in terms of exciting sports, baseball this season is very exciting. The White Sox have had probably the best turnaround of any team ever. And that's the only baseball story in Chicago. And also the Chicago Chris knows what I'm saying. And the Boston Red Sox are on fire. So, I mean, baseball is extremely exciting this summer. I can't wait for the Sox to go to the World Series. And it'll be a great time. And baseball is awesome because there'll be no baseball next year because they're going on strike.
So, you know, like, and I think Brad here in the comments says, Yu-Gi-Oh as a baseball fan, I have not experienced this off season thing. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, I, I think, like, it used to be in the hobby that you could get deals in the off season nowadays. And I, this comes up all the time with, with when I'm talking to people and they say, like, is it a good time to sell? Or is now is now. It's. Maybe I shouldn't sell my hockey cards now because, you know, in July because the season doesn't start until October. And my thoughts are, well, whatever kind of makes you happy. Do what you want to do. But like, as card buyers, we're always on, like, you know, someone was asking me the other day, when's a good night to end an auction? And I, I forget what we. Oh, it might have been you, John. I might have been talking. Oh, by the way, did you like the 90s auctions banner you're seeing? I do.
Thank you very much. That's very. I like it. You're welcome. We'll be doing a show next week to, to preview your auction. When did, what night does it end this month again? Next Sunday, September 13th. It ends next Sunday, September 13th, guys. 90s auctions.com. but I remember we were talking about, we were talking about, like, the good nights to end an auction. I think you said something, well, that might not be a good night because it's, it's like the opening night of NFL football, whatever it was. I thought to myself, I'm like, you know what? That might be the best time. Card collectors, if you're sitting there watching your football game, you've also got your phone in your hand and what are you doing? You're watching your, your betting apps. If you do that and you're probably watching the auctions that you're looking at. Like, that might be the best time to have an auction is when people are watching sports because they're, they're not doing other things, they're not driving, you know, they're actually able, they're not working. And if they're working, they're still, they're still buying cards. Like, I think we've entered an age of the hobby where it doesn't matter when you buy or sell, whether it's during the day or the seat. Like, is, is Sunday really better than Tuesday or Monday? Maybe there's something there, but I don't think it's that different anymore because as card buyers and technology, we're always watching the platforms for what we might want to buy. Like, am I alone on that? Do you guys sort of. Does anybody feel the same way or have anything to, to add to that? Joe, I see you nodding. I mean, what do you think?
I, I think you're right. I think that it's tightened. I think there can still be a few off hour moments depending on the card. Not for the really big stuff, I mean we, but like, you know, an occasional like random thing that ends on a Tuesday morning. You know, that's not a, that's not a bad play. But Yu-Gi-Oh everyone's. Some people are living this 24 7. I wanted to make one quick caveat statement to my baseball thing. One, I don't do ultra modern baseball, but to the A's are playing in a minor league park in some place called Sacramento, California. I think Greg Miller knows where that is. And, and, and the Giants. I don't even know what to say about the San Francisco Giants. So that's, that's partly the context for my complete off the radar baseball comment.
Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh fair enough. Josh. Josh, are you going to jump in? No. My response to Joe was really just a shot at the other Chicago baseball team that Chris seemed to pick up on. So that was really the whole point of that long winded statement. Well, Molokow here says there is no off switch now. Canucks fan says the hobby is on 24. 7. I mean that's kind of how I see it. That's, that's what I'm seeing as well. I don't know that it really matters what night you end your auction. Whether you're listing something on ebay or you're an auction house looking to end your auction. I don't know that it matters. And a lot of auctions end on Sundays. A lot of them end on Thursday's a popular night. Saturday's a popular. Sunday's a popular night. I mean Mondays I think MC Sports Cards does his, his auctions and on Mondays MC Mondays. I mean that was, that was kind of maybe risky, but it's, it's, does it really, does it really matter? I, I don't know. Doesn't Bob Booze doesn't matter. I'm a fox in the hen house. No doubt about that. Bob Boozle. Just glad you're here. So, Yu-Gi-Oh I wonder.
One quick counterpoint to that is I, I would say probably about half of my online purchases are some form of a bin, right? A best offer or buy it now. Because a lot of times people aren't putting certain cards up for auction. You know, they may be in that in between spot where they, they don't feel confident enough to fully let it hang out in the wind. But they're, you know, they, they know they can get something in a bit more of a deliberate way. What about you guys? Do you, do you use the bin option much?
Anybody? I'm seeing some nods. OBO Ben OBO no, it sounds like not. Yu-Gi-Oh nobody's. Well, no, I do, I mean I do both right? I, I, if I, if there's a card that I love and I think that it is relatively reasonable, I'll buy it now. But a lot of people put the buy it now prices at an extremely high number just to see if they're able to get any kind of nibbles. Right. But I'm always searching for those kind of things and even ones that don't make an offer. I'm also that annoying person that sends them a message and still tries to get an offer on them even if they're not allowing you to do that. And 1 out of 20 sometimes even respond back to you.
So that's been you all this time. That is me. I'm that annoying one that does that. There you go, Joe. My last I just pulled up my ebay purchase history. My last three buys were all two were best offers and one was a bin smash. So one was Stephen Jackson 2014 Spectra Black one of one base card that was a best offer. One was a 2014 Aryan Foster Bowman Green ICE one of one that was the best offer no, actually, I think that was a. No, I think that was. That was a bin smash, right? Because Com C. You can't do offers. That must have been a bin smash. And then the other One was a 2009 Tops Unique Matt Schaub Platinum one of one. And that was a bin smash because it was like 50 bucks. You know, these cards, Joe, when I am browsing and I'm always looking at all different Topps of stuff, and when I'm browsing and I'm seeing really cool cards for 50 bucks, 100 bucks, like it, it's. It's been smashed season, it's been smash season. So, you know, but, but, but to your point, like, if it's like a really special card that, like somebody says, I don't know if I want to try this at auction, I think I'll try to really get the most value out of this by letting it sit at a really high bin and see what offers come in. I usually stay away from those. Unless it's like, if it's a card that just tickles the fancy, I'll wait. But if it's a card that I really need, then they've. They've got their sucker and they're going to be able to extract maximum value.
What's. Anybody. Listen just. If we go around the horn here, what, what else is on our minds right now? Here we are, beginning of September, you know, schools back in for those that have kids or go to school, if you're teachers especially. Again, we're, we're just on the, like, we're. It's the eve of all the sport of many sports starting back up and the World Series or at least the baseball playoffs coming up here. Hockey's gonna start, basketball's gonna start, football's gonna start. It's a really exciting time. And as somebody who lives in a place where we get snow, the one I've always felt like, you know, I love summertime, but going into winter is like the most fun as far as having sports to watch for me. So it's always been like, you know, you get. You take the good and the bad and, and it's helped me withstand many a winter up here in Canada being able to watch all these sports. But here we are, we're on the precipice of all these things starting up again. And the hobby is as hot as it's ever been. The. It's. It's. You know, and we're. A lot of people are struggling with what to do with. With their cards. As we talked about earlier in the show. But I'm just sort of set, trying to set a stage here to trigger thoughts in your guys minds, the four of you and the chat for that matter. As far as what is on your mind right now hobby wise that maybe you know is new, that you've, if you had any lights go off and say, you know, maybe a new take, maybe a look at something, maybe you've seen something out there, you've listened to a podcast that has triggered a thought in your mind that you thought might be an interesting topic. Does anyone have anything like that that comes to mind? And we can always go to Hoag. He's got a, he's got, he's got a list of topics ready to go. Kind of B. Yu-Gi-Oh kind of based on how the show's going. But I want to give David, Joe and Josh an opportunity to bring up a topic as well. I know I didn't prep you guys for this, so I apologize. But if you have anything, David's hand is up. Joe, Josh, think about it while we hear from David.
This isn't really even a topic but it's just been a thought for me is that usually I have done some of my best buying of the year in the November to December time frame online. I feel like that's usually a lull in the market and I'm wondering if we're going to experience that this year because I really usually like, I feel like there's a little bit of desperation from some people that maybe need to get some funds for the holidays or whatever. The reason why that that November to December has that little bit of decrease in prices or buy it now that they might decrease it a little bit lower right before holiday time. And I'm in my mind wondering will that happen this year with the amount of craziness we're feeling right now. What do you guys think?
Well, I'll just start it off really quick by saying I remember having the same conversation like last year, the year before that same thing. What's going to happen at, in the holiday season this year And I don't think anything happened. I don't think there were good deals to be had if I remember correctly. So I'll put that out there. But I see Chris, you're nodding along. Do you have, you want to jump in? Yu-Gi-Oh David is completely right. And eight of the last 10 years have seen like just using the car letter 50 index as a proxy for price movement. They've seen the market decrease, they've Zenith, the price prices decrease. In Q4 measured as from the beginning of Q4 to the end of Q4. And it's usually like 2%, 3%, 5%, something like that. But last year was one of the exceptions. One of the, one of the years that didn't happen. The other year that didn't happen, if I remember correctly, was either 2020 or 2021. It was one of those other bull market years where that didn't happen also. But all the other times Q4 prices dip. So it's a great observation. And I think this year more than ever, it's also going to be based on what segment you're looking at. Like, man, I've been collecting the heck out of Michael Jordan this year. A lot of people have been Shaquille O', Neal, Kobe, Allen Iverson, the, the 90 sets, the, the, the, like, the scoring kings. Like people have been laser focused on stuff like that this year. Is that, is that attention going to sustain when Wembanyama's suddenly being heralded as the next greatest player of all time? For some of us, Yu-Gi-Oh that's not going to push me off of Michael Jordan collecting one iota. But for the people who have a wandering Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh I think you could see even a more pronounced step back in prices for retired players who have been the object of fascination during this summer. But when active basketball resumes and you have current living legends like a Steph Curry and a LeBron James playing, when you have guys who are actively building goat cases playing and you have the up and comers playing too, that's a lot of oxygen that those storylines suck up. And so how are these, these 90s and earlier, how are those cards going to, especially in the niche of basketball, how are those going to weather the new shiny toys competing for attention? I think it, it would be you. It would be very surprising if those didn't take a step back. But there could be other areas that step up. Like look at the run and I hate to bring this up, Josh, but you actually made me think about it. Look at the run that PCA has been on this year. He's going an MVP right out from underneath Ohtani. During the peak of Ohtani's prime. You know, this guy, his market is, is off to the races and he's, he is a great storyline. People who are collecting him, people who are following him, people who are prospecting on him becoming an all time great baseball player and soon to have that coveted first mvp. You know what could be more exciting than that? I know it would be very difficult to convince one of those, one of these people who are riding the PCA wave to say well let's slow down and look at Albert Pujols cards for a little while. All due respect to Pujols, who is very underrated and all time great player. So I, I think we have to be mentally prepared for some of that to happen, especially in the domains of NBA, NHL and NF and NHL. What I say mlb, NBA and one more time NBA, NFL and NHL when those three professional leagues start up again, that we should be mentally prepared for a lot of the energy to go back to the the current headlines and you're speaking to modern cards, ultra modern cards, active players, which is really just like half of the whole hobby, if that's even the, the right way to break it down. Because do do all the of these current events impact the modern or sort of the, the vintage side of things? The retired players? I don't think they do so much. But it does tie into a comment here. Cage asks here modern baseball, how does the impending work stoppage and lockout impact cards? I think a lot of people are wondering this. I, I mean it might hurt modern baseball cards but in turn as a result of that and people may be getting pissed off at baseball, modern baseball, current baseball, could that move people to other sports, other eras? I just posing the question because I know that if I was as a collector, a lot of us were not going to stop collecting unless it's all you collect. Unless that's the only thing like Dylan was saying on his show with Adam earlier this week, if all you collect is one thing and that one thing is modern baseball, which can still be broader, let's face it. But if that's all you collect, Yu-Gi-Oh you're probably going to sit it out for a bit and there's nothing, there's, there's no new signals coming in telling you to go, incentivizing you to want to buy anything and maybe not to sell either because you know you'll be selling at a loss. So what I don't know. The impending work stoppage. I, I think to answer Cage's question or to his presenting the topic, I think it will have an impact on current modern baseball cards and maybe the ones that have gone up the most because people might get nervous, The Shohei's, the PCAs, the other guys, they might, they might get a little nervous and start offering cards for sale. Depends on how long the stoppage lasts as well. But the other part of this question, I don't know if Cage Is thinking this or not? I'm guessing he was. Is that. How does any negative impact on modern baseball. What does that mean for the other segments of the hobby? Any thoughts on, on that from any of you guys? Because I, I don't know what's, what's going to happen there. David, any thoughts? I'm just going to pick on you guys now.
Yu-Gi-Oh I think, I think it's healthy for the other segments in the hobby, and I think that we're in a healthier place in the other sports than we were during the last baseball strike. Right. I just think that right now football and basketball and hockey and maybe even non sports are at a very different level right now. And I just think it's very easy to go from one to the other. I just agree with you. I don't think it's going to destroy the hobby in any kind of way. And I think it could hurt Shohei cards or it could hurt some modern baseball, but I think that's a very thin lane in today's world. And I just feel like I don't usually hear people saying that they only collect modern baseball. Like, I just think that that's very, a very thin lane to collect, if that is what you're going for.
Well, either that or they're just not on social media as much because I have to think a lot of them. I do. But we might just not hear or we're not traveling those circles, which is very fair and possible. But I appreciate your comments, Joe, what do you think? I'm not sure. I. I think it's. It's a really exciting time and, and I'm just paying attention to what's happening more than feeling like I can prognosticate. I, I will say, like, just to get back to your original question of kind of like, you know, what's on your mind? Like, what's on my mind right now is I've been really leaning into like, aesthetics, like kind of getting back to basics, like in the absence of being able to go out and, you know, get like these grail cards. I've just been looking for cards that have like, character or something about them that maybe I didn't notice. And the, the era that I've been noticing that in for me is like 2000 to 2006. Like there's a little window there and there's some interesting issues that I was aware of because I was going into card stores at that time, but I'd kind of forgotten about and I don't know all the parallels and I don't know. So, you know, I'm just looking for new, exciting things for myself. Same old same old. I have no idea what's going to happen with any of the markets.
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