Why We Became Collectors + What Changed Along the Way + The Cards That Got Away
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About this episode
What made you start collecting in the first place, and is it still the same reason you collect today? Joshua Adams joins Graig Miller and David Chase as we wrap up our conversation with Phil Kronakis and then turn the focus inward. We go back to our earliest memories as collectors, the cards and sets that first grabbed our attention, and how our motivations have evolved over decades in the hobby. From completing sets and chasing favorite players to nostalgia, vintage, rookie cards and finally being able to own some of the things that seemed completely out of reach when we were kids. Then Greg asks a dangerous question: what’s the hobby decision you still regret? That opens up some stories about cards we sold too early, cards we passed on, money we wish we had spent differently and decisions that look very different with the benefit of hindsight. Are the mistakes simply part of the collecting journey? And would the wins mean as much without a few painful losses along the way? Subscribe to Sports Cards Live on YouTube and wherever you listen to podcasts. Discover where you fit in the hobby at thehobbyspectrum.com. Search auctions across the hobby at AuctionWire.ai and use promo code SCL for 45% off your first year. Check out Pops & Comps on Amazon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This episode is published by Sports Cards Live.
Transcript
Machine transcript — exact wording may vary.
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Guys, I'm gonna bring Joshua Adams on with us now, another fellow attorney, Phil, and keep you on for a few more minutes. I know we're already. We're past your time, but if you're good for a few more minutes. Are you? Thank you. Yes. Okay, great. Josh. Everyone, please welcome Joshua Adams back. Josh, please meet your. Your colleague Phil Karnakis. We need more lawyers on Sports Card Live. Greg, your Phil. Phil, very nice to meet you. Greg, Nice to. I met you. I don't remember but I met you at the National.
I introduced you three times to him. Literally three times. Three times. So what's up? Josh's shtick is basically like gambling. Josh, good to see you buddy. How are you? I'm good man, I'm good, thanks. And nice. Nice to see you. So I want to go to this next comment and we'll get everyone's thoughts. Savoy said if ripping wax is gambling, you'd have to say we were gambling. Back in the 80s the hobby had to evolve by adding chase cards serial numbers, one of ones, etc. If not, it would not be where it is today, good or bad. Completely agree with Savoy on this comment. Actually I've always thought because listen, I sorry to anyone who's been here for a while But I remember telling this story a few times over the years now, where I needed one last sticker for my 1983 opichi sticker album back in, you know, 1984, let's say, and I take my two dollar allowance, go buy eight packs of stickers to get that one sticker. If I didn't get it, I felt like a big loser walking home from the corner store to My House because I did not have that last sticker to put in. And I felt bad because that was my one week's worth of allowance gone. I felt as a kid like I gambled. And I remember the feeling. Okay, so I agree with Savoy that, that you could look at ripping wax going back all the way to the beginning of time when you want to complete. When the goal wasn't money. The goal was to complete your set. And if you Goldin do it, you had to spend money to continue to try. And if you continue to not get that last card or the cards of your favorite players or teams, you would feel like you wasted your money a lot gambling, if that makes sense. I don't know if Allah was the per. Right was the right phrase there, but I went with it. So I agree with him that it's always. There's always been an aspect of gambling to ripping. To ripping packs, opening packs, because that's how I felt as a kid. So of course I'm gonna feel that way. Let's go around again. Let's start with Joshua Adams, who's got his finger up and ready to go.
Are you saying you felt you were gambling when you were buying packs of cars as a kid? Is that. Is that what you're saying? What I said? What, What I said was, well, maybe I said that. But what I. What I. What I said or what I. What I'm thinking was the feeling I had leaving the corner store when I was a kid is the same feeling I had leaving a casino as an adult or leaving an LCS as an adult after losing my thousand dollars. Okay, because I. My two bucks was burned. I got $2 a week allowance. I had no job. I was too young to work. I Goldin work legally. My earnings were $2 a week from my mother. And if I went to the store and I wanted to get that, Ken Morrow was the last one I needed. Literally my whole life, I'll remember I needed the Ken Morrow sticker Josh to finish my 83 sticker album, and I Goldin get it. I ended up trading some kid in this at school. All my Traders, and he peeled it out of his book to give it to me for my books. I Goldin find it. After weeks of trying and feeling the same feelings of wasting my hard earned allowance because I Goldin get what I wanted. So, yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. I felt like I gambled and lost because I gambled on getting something out of four packs and I Goldin get it. So.
Okay. Yu-Gi-Oh that's how you feel. All right, let's go. Let's go around that one. In terms of has it always been gambling? I know this one. I know I'm probably in the minority on that one as. As Joshua just sort of insinuated. Greg, let's go to you. It's always been gambling, but the difference between the jackpot and the no jackpot was always smaller. The expected return average was less than it is now. Now you can open a pack and get a million dollar card, and that changes. It's. It's like, you know, if you're at the casino in, in the Denny's, and, you know, the most you can one-of-one is 200 bucks if you hit, you know, a straight royal flush, that's different than the one where it's got the rolling thing at the wheel of fortune and you could hit $3 million. And so to me, the big thing that has changed is the. The disparity between the hit and the no hit. Now it's massive, which is, I think, sort of the. The carrot that is getting the gambler to be more involved.
Appreciate that. Phil, your thoughts. So to Savoy's point, let's just agree on this. Whatever it was in the 80s, it's still the same, you know, Mosaic used to open a pack and still the same eyes to look at the card. If it was gambling then, you know, and if it wasn't gambling, then, it's not now. My belief, and again, I'm a Josh Luber disciple, my belief is, you know, I go by his rules. If the only thing you can get with your money is money, that's gambling. If you can get anything that costs you as a collectible, anything with, you know, cultural significance, because you can't go into a casino, you know, the chips don't have cultural significance. But even you get a single card or you have a real hope to get a card, I don't view that as gambling. What has changed is the following. And it's still the same thing we're doing in the 80s, but there is now intentional scarcity that's allowed. There is now social commerce. That's not specific to the hobby. And there is now a much more complex chase program that has evolved from the mid-90s to the case hit era of today. Again, if it wasn't gambling in the junk wax era, we're still doing the same thing. And my view is it's still not gambling, but it is triggering a lot more dopamine responses, let's say. And Jeremy, your point you made is what you felt was the dopamine rise when you anticipated and the dopamine loss when you didn't get it. That's not gambling, although it sure feels like it. I think gambling is correctly defined by the input output of the particular transaction.
Let me be clear too. I don't care if it's gambling or not. For me, like, I don't care if I, if I judge or a colleague or a lawyer thinks it's gambling, knows it's gambling. Doesn't. All I know is the feelings that I would have felt like I was gambling. Just like, you know, just like feeling it. That's really, that's really what, what I'm saying. Like, so harbor island here says Jeremy just has this odd thing that if he doesn't like it, then it's gambling. Since he lost money, I felt like I was gambling. Was I gambling? I don't care. I don't care if it was gambling or not. I felt like it was gambling. When you go to a movie, you lost money. Is that gambling? Well, I would say when you go to a movie, you spent money well. When you go to the card shop, you spent your money too. The pro. The problem is, is that when you open, when you're buying packs, you don't know what you're getting. When you go to a movie, you may or may not like the movie, but you know you're going to get 90 minutes of entertainment and hopefully you like the movie if you don't. Yu-Gi-Oh you know what? I guess it's the same thing that I'm saying. Yu-Gi-Oh you gambled and you lost your eight bucks to get into the movie because you didn't like it. So you gambled some. You gambled eight bucks and you gamble with 90 minutes of your time. So I, I get that comment. It's. There is a similarity. There is a similar thing there. He says when you go to a sports event and lost money. I don't understand that. Yu-Gi-Oh there's a, There's a fundamental difference between what harbor island is saying. What I'm. But that's just a lack of understanding, I think. Go ahead, David.
Just, you know, this just is bringing me back to memories of opening up packs, which is kind of fun when I was a kid. And, you know, in 1987, when packs were 40 cents each, you know, the cards that you were winning, just like what Greg said, you know, they were a couple of bucks, you know, for the. For the Canseco and the Maguire and cards like that. And then in 1988, the Greg Jeffries, you know, chase ended up happening, which we were all excited for. But I mean, I don't know what that card was. I'm going to guess $5, $10.
Right. And then 89 was the big change. Griffey. The Griffey Upper Deck card. That was like a really fun rip, but that pack was like a dollar. So that was like a cr. That was a big difference for what we were spending in packs to be able to get it. And then that 1990 leaf came out and that was real gambling. That was like way more expensive. But you were trying to get that Frank Thomas and Dave justice, which I'm pretty sure was in the same pack. When you'd hit one, you'd have both of them. So I'm just saying that, like, you know, it was fun back then, it wasn't as much money. And the problem is now that it's a one of $1 million card, your cards are 99% of the time worth pennies. And it's like pennies to a million instead of like a few bucks to 20. And that's the biggest change for me, which we all kind of understand, but it's just fun to kind of relive those memories.
Bill, any sort of final comments on the topic? Look, I. First of all, I want to thank you, Jeremy, and really enjoy talking with you gentlemen on the chance to be here and talk about Steel Wax Nation. My view is the discussion, like this discussion we're having tonight is the most important part. Not that we agree on an answer or even get to an answer, especially about things that are somewhat subjective and evolving, but more that, you know, there's five people right here and there's 5 million more of us around the world who care about the hobby, you know, who want to see it thrive and be a joy for our children and the next generation the way it has been for us. So my view on it is this. There are people who are encountering trouble. That's not debatable, right? And there are people who are getting into trouble. Those people deserve respect, patience, and thankfully, they have Resources like the ones Alex provides at Collectors md I think my view as a collector and as someone who, you know, deals with temptation on a daily basis like you all do, my focus is on recognizing my own weaknesses. My focus is on personal accountability, trying to set limits and trying to celebrate the joy. I haven't bought into a break since 2023. I love watching them. There's lots of ways to participate that can remain healthy or problem free. So that's where my focus is and I'm hoping to see a trade association, ideally Nick's form in this hobby. Because that organization, that structure, that trust, that community, that is how we solve this problem. We don't need people from the outside telling us how to enjoy cards. We have hobbyists, including hobbyists, who are providing resources and those are the people who hopefully lead us to the future.
Yu-Gi-Oh well said, man, well said. It's nice to see the hobby growing up in a way with some of, with these, with Collectors MD and the CTCA and talking about. I agree with you on all that. I think it's, I think it's, it's, it's all quite important. And, and I will say one more thing about the whole gambling thing and the breaking thing. I'm like as a collector who doesn't open, I can't get singles unless someone's out there opening. So who might have talk when I'm sitting here capitalizing on what I think is the gamble out there by people. So I'm just not doing it myself. Maybe you could say that people like me are gambling when we're buying a card that it's going to go up in val in value or down in value. But you know, maybe we don't care so much. We're buying the exact thing we want. We know what we're buying when we, when we cut the check, when we one-of-one that auction, buy that card at the show, whatever it is, we know what we're getting. But I'm really glad I'm, I'm not so, not so much I'm glad but the fact that people open up the packs, the boxes, the cases, the go and enter, the breaks, even going to the repacks, I guess enables me to collect more. It gives me more choice as a collector, more options to buy as a collector. And, and part of me feels like, oh, I don't know, it's a little bit yucky in a way. But at the same, at the other time, at the same time, hey, as long as you are of age and making your decisions, you know, You're a big boy, you're a big girl. Hopefully you can control it. If you can't, there's resources out there, like collector's md and maybe you. You slow down a little bit or get the help that. That you can. That would be necessary and worthwhile for you. So I like that David says the idea that there wouldn't be singles out there without breakers is the biggest croc, Jeremy. David, I never said that. So the biggest croc is that you didn't listen and you commented before listening to me. What I said was the fact that there are people opening packs, opening cases. I didn't say breakers. Maybe I included them with everybody else. But anybody, LCS's, anybody opening any product. I'm glad there are people opening those products, because until those products come out of the packs, just look right behind Phil. Right now, I can't buy singles out of those boxes. David Pastreba. Because they're still in those boxes. I don't need a breaker to open those. David Pastreba. Phil could open them. And Phil is not a breaker. So your comments, just. Just a bit of David. You often have great comments, but that one reeks of idiocy to me. But you know what? Tonight you're not alone in the comments, David. There's been a lot of that in the comments tonight, and I've been able to ignore it until now. Okay, David Chase, if. When you take a break from laughing, what do you. What do you want to say?
No, I'm just having a good time. I want to introduce Josh to Greg. Josh, this is Greg Miller down there. Nice to meet you, Josh. Nice to meet you. Sorry, what's up? All right. Mookie. Chelsea, can someone please get Jeremy at Ken Morrow? Yu-Gi-Oh I had to take a second hand. Ken Morrow, Mookie. But I. I did finally get it from me. Fallow Ball said, then what does the hobby president do? If we're gonna bring in regulation, what does the hobby president even do? Right? And Dino Locobo says, maybe it's not gambling, but opening packs sure feels like it. That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying for me, but doesn't have to be for everybody. And then a while ago, midlife Greg happens to be two places at once, both on the screen and in the chat. Says, when spa grading enters repack space, we'll be dialed in. Yes. Yes, we will be. And yes, Stone Collector Greg is midlife. That is correct. Collectors md. Thank you, Alex, and join the conversation. And he's pushing the, the, you know, the con. All the things that Phil has said that, that you're looking, that, that you're, you know, are important, that it's going on in the hobby. There are resources out there and all that sort of things. Griffy Bomb. I don't know what you're talking about. I'm sorry, I don't see any other comments from you, so I can't, I, I, I'm not ignoring, but I know what you're talking about. Okay. Why, why, what are you laughing at? Josh? What's so funny?
I don't know what this guy's saying. You got, I don't know what his deal is. I don't know who he is. That's the first thing. That's Griffey. His name is Greg. Josh. His name is Greg Miller. No, Griffey. Bombs. I don't know what he's talking about. You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact that you may not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressive save over $900 on average. They make it Zebra simple. Pop over to progressive.com, answer some questions and you'll get a quick quote with coverage options tailored to your choices. Plus you'll see which discounts you may qualify for, like the online quote discount or savings for paying in full. In fact, 99% of Progressive Auto customers earn at least one discount. See if you could save when you switch to Progressive. You'll feel good about making a savvy choice. Visit progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little extra cash back. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12 month savings of $946 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary, so don't ignore me, Jeremy Lee.
I'll tell the professor. First of all, you can tell whoever you want. I don't care. So tell, start your own channel and broadcast that and tell everybody. I don't care if you tell anybody. Okay? I just, you know what? I'm going to turn off the comments because they're, they're the weakest they've ever been tonight for some reason, I don't know why that is, but I'd say the chat is the most disappointing I've ever seen it so. Best part of the show. What's that? Yu-Gi-Oh Well, for you guys, sure. Okay. Phil, thank you very much for, for joining us tonight. Love what you're doing. With Sealed Wax Nation. Bring in the. Bring in some love to the hospitals using your collection to do that. Kudos to you for. For what you're doing. Thank you. Thank you for your contributions to the hobby.
Thank you, Jeremy, for having me. And David, Craig and Josh. So nice talking with you guys. I hope you guys have a great weekend. Likewise. You, too, buddy. Take care, Phil. All right. Thank you. All right, guys. Well, that was fun. Fellas. How we doing? Joshua, Greg, David, we're all good. Hey, Josh, you. You had a topic you wanted to discuss tonight. Why don't you roll that one out and then. Yes, yes. Hold up. I wrote it down because I knew I wouldn't remember it. Okay. Okay, Perfect, perfect.
I have a crippling add. Hold on. All right, all right. I forgot what it was. I'd like to see the piece of paper you wrote it on. I brought the wrong pad with me. He can't find it, which is typical. So. Oh, here it was. Here it was. What was the reason you started collecting cards when you very first started when you're a little kid. And has that reason changed today? And if it changed, why did it change. Now? I'll go last. I want to hear what everyone says. Okay, let's start. Let's go counter. Let's start with Greg.
I mean, I started collecting garbage pail kids because I remember seeing them on the playground and kids fanning through them on the. On the playground. And I was just like, these things are amazing because they were, you know, making fun of Cabbage Patch Kids, and. And I remember I wasn't even really supposed to have them. It was sort of like an underground, you know, project I was working on to acquire them. But, you know, my parents were divorced, and so dad didn't really care. Mom did. So I collected them at. At, you know, dad's house. I did that, and then I did that, and then when. When the garbage pail kids ran out, you know, were no longer on the counter, 87 top showed up, and so I started buying packs of Topps instead. So that's how I got into cards. And at the time, I think when I would open a pack, I remember opening Topps. I wanted Mark McGuire, and I wanted any Yankee. So it didn't matter. Don Mattingly, you know, Dave Winfield, Ron Gidry, it didn't matter which Yankee. So, Yu-Gi-Oh I guess it changed, because now what I do is I collect the cards that I Goldin buy as a kid because I went to all sorts of card shows all over the place, and I would see these cards, I'm like, I'll never own the Dr. J Magic Bird rookie card. And then when, like I bought one, like, I don't know, six, seven years ago, I'm like, oh my gosh, this card was out of reach. So it was like I collected within my budget then and now my budget is different. So I can get the stuff that I always, like, dreamt of having. So that's most of what my collection is, is getting the stuff that I Goldin get when I was little that I wanted. I wanted those things back then. So I don't know. I don't know if I did a good job, but that's what I got.
Josh, give him some feedback. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, I. Everyone's personal, you know, everyone's got their own thing, right? That's, you know, that mean that I'm kind of the same way. I collect stuff I Goldin I Goldin find when I was little. And then I collect stuff that I have a nostalgic nostalgia for. And I like the history of sports and the history of photography and baseball and hockey and football and it's great. I was thinking about you a couple of days ago, Josh, because didn't you buy a Zebra Bowl 1 ticket like a few months ago?
I bought an Ice bowl ticket last year. Ice bowl, okay. Yu-Gi-Oh I was thinking with Zebra Bowl 1 and, and I was, I was doing a video and that came up. So I definitely want one of those. That's a cool ticket. It is cool. Certified, your turn. Well, I collected garbage pill kids just like Gregory Miller, and I loved them. And I ended up going to the Ice Cream man who would come on by. It was 25 cents a pack. And I would get my money and of course I get the ice cream with it. There we go. Represent Greg. I like it. Oh, that's like a, that's a later series. That's like a fourth series or something that's past third because I know one through three the most, right? Yu-Gi-Oh And Yu-Gi-Oh you know, I would love buying those. And just. It was just a phenomenon at my school, like Greg, like our age, for Greg and I, it's like a two or three year period where if you were around our ages, garbage Pail Kids was your life, like at this time of. And we would literally trade. It was the same situation. They were banned from schools. I remember we would always take them and then like they would send letters home to our parents. And that just made it cooler because we were so bad, you know, by collecting Them. And then my dad, who was trying to relive the cards that he ended up selling six for a penny when he was like a teenager, he got nostalgic and wanted to go to baseball card shows. So he would take me with him and I would just go straight to that one garbage pilgrim table while he would walk around the show. But while we were doing that, he would. There was at that time those crazy hall of Famers that were signing at all these shows. So he did it like to his version of teaching me, which man I didn't want to listen. But at the same time, when I was going to go and meet the all time greats and you know, like Harmon, Keller Brew and Willie Mays and Hank Aaron and Mickey Mantle and all these players, I went and met them and got an 8 by 10 signs and shook their hands and he would tell me all about them. And then I thought, Yu-Gi-Oh these are really cool. And then instead of me kind of looking at, I still was collecting like the 87, 88 cards because Jose Canseco was my God. But I had a lot of respect for those older players because I kind of knew a little bit about them because I got their autographs. So then I started buying like a really beater version of like a Don Drysdale card and stuff like that that I could buy for a buck or two. And that kind of got me into the vintage side of things. So that's why the cards that I collect now, most of them are not the older, older pre war. They kind of start for me from Babe Ruth and on, because those are kind of the players that my dad spoke to me about while I was collecting. And we didn't really talk that much about Ty Cobb and Christy Mathewson. We talked about honest Wagner because of that card. But that's what has shaped my collecting style.
Josh, how do you like that? Awesome. Can you repeat the question originally, please? No, I'm just kidding. I would say, why did you start collecting when you're a little kid looking back and has that reason changed as you got older and as you sit here today? Yu-Gi-Oh man, it's a fun question, isn't it? It's fun to kind of look back and think about how your, your motivations have changed over the years. And Yu-Gi-Oh at the be for me at the beginning of time, early 80s through the 80s, was all about completing sets. That was, that's all it was, was completing sets, as I said earlier on the show. And then it turned into completing a theme which was for me, all the 500 goal scorers, career goal scorers in NHL history. I want all of them. When I started that, and I started that collection in 1989 and there were like under 50 of them. Now I think it's a hundred and something that have. Sorry, did I say 500 goal scores? I meant a thousand point men. It was all the thousand point men. And then I thought, okay, I'll do the 500 goal scores of 300 one-of-one goalies. And then I got into the other sports as well and the hall of Famers, and it was always about rookie cards for me. It was about sets, and then it was all about rookie cards. And then the memorabilia card came out and I was in that and pack pulled autographs were like groundbreaking for me. So it changed. And. But you know what? It continues to change. And, and that's, I think my favorite thing about it is that. I don't know, it's, it's sort of my favorite thing and also the thing that frustrates me the most because if I knew what I was going to like 10 years from now, I'd want to pay today's prices instead of 10 years from now prices. But I can't because I don't know what that's going to be yet. But it's similar to my approach to going to a card show. I don't know what I'm going to leave with. Just like, I don't know what I'm going to leave the hobby with in 25 or 30 or 40 years. Whatever it's going to be, however many years I have left on the earth, I don't know what I'm going to leave with. So it, it continues to change. I think that's what keeps it really interesting though. And it, it, it's. We are just evolving as humans with everything, the world around us, ourselves as individual people, and how we hobby and how we, what we collect. Just like our tastes change for what TV shows we like, what movies we like, the music we like, those tastes may or may not change. Depends how you, how you, how you live life. But that's how I would answer it, Josh. It continues to change. I think it will, I think it will always go that way. But I find that no matter where I am, I'm always having my best time. Like, it just keeps getting better. I can, I find, like just when I think this is the best, I love this hobby. Sports cards is a lifestyle. I'm like, I like it more now than I did yesterday, and I liked yesterday more than I did two Days ago. So never really gets dull for me. There's always. And part of it is because there's so many cards that, that you can always be this. Never mind the new cards coming out every year, but we can always discover more and more cards that came out because it's just about impossible to, to be on top of everything. So. For sure, guys. By the way, let me know if there's a comment in the chat I should look at because I, I'm literally not looking at them anymore tonight. I see there's over 50 new ones since I last because it tells me how many there's been since I was last on the comments page. I'm literally ignoring comments right now. So. But let me know if there's something I need to. In our private chat, please. Any other, any other thoughts or comments, Josh, on the topic? I mean, or is there anything good in the chat that I could be addressing? But you know, I'm just done with that tonight. I didn't. Okay, good. Thank you, Josh. Thank you. Good co, good co hosting duties right there, buddy.
That's what I'm here for. All right, Greg, how about you? Did you come with anything specific you want to talk to talk about tonight? I did. I'm a really good student. I always do my homework and so I have a couple of questions and we could talk about them. If they suck, then you could pick a different question. So David and I on the sports card clubhouse, the midlife card chase today I at the beginning of the episode shared that I sold a card like three weeks ago for $660 and it sold a couple of days ago, the same card, same grade for 2000. So it's like three and a half X in like literally like two, three weeks. So my question was can anybody think of a specific regret, a specific card at a certain price that you didn't buy or you sold this particular card for this amount. And, and like any specific hobby regrets that we have, I mean anybody could say, well I wish I had bought the clearance Fleer box wax box for $2 on the clearance shelf. But like any specific card that you passed on almost did, didn't do. And then the other piece of it that I want to consider is like my dad has his. He's gotten rid of some big cards that have gone way up. He had a PSA 91960 tops mantle and what he sold it for versus what that would go for now is like light years different. He had a PSA 10 Joe Montana rookie that he sold that was, you know, 10% of what it would go for now. And in the back of my mind I always wonder what did I do with that money instead? So if you, if you, if you can recollect what you bought instead of the mistake that you made, what was it that you went with instead?
So how long do we have? Why wrote a couple down. So give just the one that the one that burns the most is, I guess, guess where we start and if it turns into two, it turns into two. I think about this sometimes, Greg, you know, maybe this ties back into the whole gambling discussion about, you know, even buying singles can be somewhat of a gamble. I guess probably not a legal like tech, technically a legal gamble because there's all sorts of nuance to that. But I remember 2007, I was in Upper Deck SP game used released the very first ever eight patch cards, two sided cards with four pat, four players on each side, an eight player card and there were six of them in the whole set. And I managed to track down and own all six of them. It, it was, it was a pretty big feat at the time for those who were in the know. Beckett did an article about it. I still have a few copies of issue, etc. Etc. But the big card I, the biggest card I remember exactly was the one with one-of-one Gretzky and Gordie Howe on it. And that card I paid 8100 Canadian dollars for in 2007. I don't know what that would equate to in today's money, but probably a lot more than 80, $100. And if I think about what I could have done with that money in 2007, I think of players like LeBron James and Kobe Bryant and, you know, Tom Brady. I could have taken that same $8,000 and probably bought, I don't know, 100 LeBron James Topps Chrome rookies that would have all graded PSA 10. And now that would be worth, you know, half a million dollars instead of the. I still have that card and it might, it might be worth what I paid for it. Probably not. That's only one example, Greg, that comes to mind because I've thought about that a few times over the years, but there's so many more. And you know, I've been actually focusing on the cards I've kept lately because that's a, you know, that's kind of as many. It's easier to remember the losses, I think, than it is to remember the wins. And sometimes you got to force yourself to remember your good decisions because the bad decisions can otherwise rule your brain. And so in some cases, I think so I'll answer it that way. You ready to go to the next person, Greg, or do you have any comments on that?
I mean, I could commiserate with you, but I appreciate you sharing. I mean it. Again, I think, I think that, you know, it's not all about the wins. And there's a couple of comments and they're saying like, you know, if you focus on, there's Jim defined said, focusing on the regrets of the past deals from the future. And that is true, but part of the journey are the wins and the losses. If you always one-of-one then the wins wouldn't feel as good. Right. Sometimes the losses mixed in actually make the wins feel like more fun. So I think losses are part of it, you know, and they're part of the story. That makes the story dramatic. And if it was all winning all the time, it wouldn't be that dramatic. So I think it's okay to talk about them and commiserate on them and share them and laugh about it in retrospect.
And nobody's going to make perfect decisions all the time, especially in hindsight. So, you know, you can't put too much pressure on yourself to get everything right every time. And we just have to learn to live with that. And it shouldn't, shouldn't be too hard because. And I guess the other thing is hopefully you're in a better spot either from your love for your collection or the financial value of it than you would be, you know, than you otherwise would be if you weren't in the hobby at all, let's say especially on the collection side. But even on, on the financial side, being in, being in the hobby, with as many decisions I've made that I, that would have turned out better financially, I think I'm still better off having been in the hobby all this time, never mind for enhancing my life. But from a money perspective too. Let's go to David.
I, I have two things that I kind of think about when you said that. And one of the things I've. It's so funny, I've never even thought about this until you just mentioned this, which is just. I've never said this story to anybody, but when I was like in 6th grade, my friends and I, we would like sleep over at each other's house and we would gamble for baseball cards. We would actually play five card stud and like we'd put like a card in the middle and then whoever one-of-one the hand would get that card and we'd usually do it with, like, not the greatest cards, you know, like, just for fun, but we would do it, like, late into the night. And then I remember, you know, you start getting a little bit crazy as it gets a little bit later. And I remember one of the cards that I had, which my friends didn't even know who he was, but it was a Billy Williams, rookie, 1961. That was a big card for me. I don't remember what it was, but let's call it, like, 30 bucks or something. But it was a big card at the time. And I remember they were like. They put in, like, tons of cards to be able to match that. I was like, let's do it. They one-of-one I was very upset. But then I was thinking, like, you know what? We're going to sleep over in another weekend or two, and I'll one-of-one it back. But you know what Mike Kosak did? He went to the baseball card shop and sold my card, so I was never able to one-of-one it back. I'm still mad about that Mike Kosak, so don't even come and talk to me about that. I haven't spoken to him in 25 years. But so. So that annoys me. That's my first story. The second story is, oh, and by the way, like, a few weeks later, we were still playing poker, and I one-of-one like, a crazy amount of his cards. His dad walks in while we're playing, like, what are you kids doing here? And then he was like, Yu-Gi-Oh we were playing poker, and David one-of-one all these cards, and he made me give all the cards back.
All right. I'm still annoyed at that. All right, and then the other story, which is kind of more what you were kind of saying. I was at the West Coast Card show with Petty the first time that I ever met him, you know, a year, year and a half ago. And, man, there's a 48 Bowman Mike. And that, like, was a car that I've always wanted, and it was a beautiful version of it. And. And it was a price that was a little high, but it was beautiful, and I. I wanted it, but it's a very expensive card, and I kind of wanted it. And they had a second card that was there, which was a 41 play ball DiMaggio, which was nice, but I knew it wasn't my forever version, but it was very reasonably priced. I thought they priced it incorrectly. And at the same time, I wanted the Mike in way more, but I ended up. I Goldin convince myself to pay that kind of price. I ended up buying the 41 play ball DiMaggio that I thought they had it mispriced and I always have regretted not getting that. Mike and I now Beckett one up so it doesn't hurt as badly. But it's funny because you were saying, what did you end up doing with that? That play ball DiMaggio was not my forever copy. That's the card that I actually brought to Strongsville and I ended up trading that card for the leaf Joe DiMaggio with no black ink. Oh way later. So it ends up that even though that Bowman Mike and didn't work out, which I still regret because I still love it, it was a piece of the puzzle to a part of my collection that I never thought I'd be able to get.
I like that. That's a great story. Now Josh, do we go to me or do we skip me and go to Josh and then go to me because I got at least one me. Okay, thanks for tuning in and being a part of the sports cards live community. Don't forget to like subscribe subscribe and most of all, keep collecting more great content to come. Sports Cars is a lifestyle Are you looking for a new favorite podcast? Are you looking for a podcast about movies? Are you looking for a podcast that strictly covers 80s 90s, 2000s movies? Are you looking for a podcast that's going to be doing movies like so I Married an Axe Murderer, Hot Tub Time Machine, Grandma's Boy and Ghost? Well then you just found it. Tune in to the Confused Breakfast wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, I'm Brett Connors, host of Advantage Connors, an ongoing conversation between myself and my pops, tennis legend Jimmy Connors. Each week we talk about the worlds of tennis, golf, gambling, and anything else that pops into our head. We love to interview athletes, comedians and friends. Listen to new episodes every week on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.