#15: Have you bought cards through an auction house?

👋 Hello, I’m Brett from the Stacking Slabs Podcast and welcome you each Hey week to my newsletter the Weekly Rip. The goal of this newsletter is to elevate the people who make the Hobby better.

How’s it going?

I want to kick off this installment of the Weekly Rip much like I did on Wednesday’s episode of SSP and offer a little gratitude to the reader. Your passion for this hobby fuels my activity and I appreciate you taking some time out of your busy schedule to let me share my thoughts with you.

I start this newsletter off by considering all of the monumental sales that we have seen over the past year. Here’s a few to call out:

• 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle PSA 9 for $5.2M

• 2009 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects Mike Trout Chrome Auto Superfractor 1/1 BGS 9 for $3.94 M

• 2000 Playoff Contenders Tom Brady Championship Ticket Auto /100 BGS 9 for $3.1M

• 2003 Exquisite Collection LeBron James RPA Gold /23 BGS 9.5 for $1.8M

• 1996 Topps Chrome Kobe Bryant Refractors BGS 10 Black Label for $1.75M

These numbers are staggering. These are the stories that make the hobby headlines and are the transactions that will peak interest in for the industry. 

Mainstream media outlets report on sales this significant and it catches the attention of people that have been out of the game and motivates individuals to start the process over again. It happened to me. It happens with many others. 

These transactions are undeniably atypical, but they are good because they bring new people in and give us all confidence in the market where we invest a lot of time and money. The downside to these sales is they can generate greed, corruption, and counterfeit activity.

I don’t like to share commentary over the dark side of the hobby because it sucks and would rather use my platform to share positive news. Also, there are plenty of other investigators out there that enjoy the sleuth role and are good at it. 

Some would say we have had a draught of staggering sales. 

I’d say it was due.

People want to call it pull back. People want to call it the dip.

Some say the sky is falling. Others are chill.

No matter your position in the hobby or your current mindset on the market I think we’ve all shown some resilience over the past couple months. Those that are in it for the long haul have seen this before. It might be more extreme this time because base cards are not longer paying for people’s vacations and million dollar cards aren’t being sold on a day to day basis.

These are the moments where we can all reset and reflect on why we are here.

If you are reading this newsletter you are probably like me. 

Here for the cards no matter what happens in the market. It’s a love for the hobby.

On with the damn newsletter. 

📺A Saturday Night with Nat 

My man Jeremy Lee, Host of Sports Cards Live is becoming a recurring mention in the Weekly Rip. It’s easy to do that when you are chalked full of passion and you continue to deliver excellent content to our industry on a regular basis.

Seriously, if you haven’t met Jeremy I would find a way to consume his stuff and tell him thanks. I pride myself on passion and Jeremy has what I’ve got and then some.

Last Saturday night he provided us with an important conversation with Executive Chairman of Collectors Universe Nat Turner. This conversation was really broken up into two separate sections. 

1. A conversation with Nat the collector 

2. A conversation with Nat the new Chairman of Collectors Universe

I could listen to Nat talk about his collecting and the industry for hours. His mindset and passion for the hobby is undeniable. I’ve been on record saying that his acquisition of Collectors Universe was one of the best things to ever happen to the hobby and I think will be a story we will be talking about for many years to come.

You all should watch the entirety of the conversation because it’s both educational and entertaining. Here are my 3 primary takeaways:

1. There isn’t anything different going on with grading - Nat didn’t institute a tougher grading system. It’s just perception.

2. It sounds like there will be some exciting news coming from PSA in the next couple of months 

3. It sounds like hiring graders is a priority and we can likely expect PSA to open back up in the next few months 

Conversations like this excite me and I’m pumped Jeremy was able to bring this one to us. 

🐐Talking with a Hobby Legend 

When I was wet behind the ears in my early days of marketing I was told by my boss, “Brett, don’t ever get high on your own supply.” Of course he was ripping these lyrics from NWA’s Dope Man. I’m a hip hop fan. I get that, but knew he had deeper meaning behind his words.

He was telling me don’t ever get too caught up in promoting yourself when you could spend your time promoting the work of others. That’s something that I have never forgotten and part of the reason why I operate the way I do with the SSP platform that I am developing. It’s all about learning and it’s all about doing whatever I can to promote the work of others.

This Weekly Rip is a perfect example of that work in action.

However……

When you get the opportunity to be on a legend of the hobby’s show I’m going to take a quick puff and plug it here. I’ll say that it was an absolute honor and privilege to join Dr. Beckett’s Sports Card Insights. I’m like all of you. I read the magazines until my eyes bleed as a kid and never would have thought this crazy hobby we love brings us together.

I got a chance to talk about my collecting, show, and ways to operate in the hobby. My favorite topic. Hopefully, the plug here can get you to subscribe to Dr. Beckett’s show if you aren’t already. 

🏡Auction House Hype 

I’ve been thinking a lot about the auction house wave and what that means for the hobby. 

I understand auction houses have been a part of the community for a long time, but hobby contributors like Ken Goldin have helped take the idea of buying outside of eBay to the moon! 

Typically, I’m not an early adopter to anything. I prefer sitting on the sidelines and gathering feedback before jumping in. I’m still holding out on Clubhouse!

I decided to poll my audience to gather some perspective on the percentage of people who have bought cards through an auction house this year. I’ve recently taken the step of registering through Goldin Auctions, even did some bidding, but have not won anything yet. 

Through my Instagram audience 27% of people said they had bought cards through an auction house in 2021 and 73% had not. I found this interesting. I think there is still a lot of opportunity from auction house owners to educate the community that there are different tiers of products available. 

Goldin just listed the preview for their next auction this week. There are about 3200 products available. Yes, the big cards get the headlines, but there exist plenty of opportunities to buy cards that you desire for an affordable rate in a down market. 

Here is the percentage breakdown of auction houses used:

51% Goldin

19% PWCC

9% Heritage 

6% Leland

3% Probstein 

12% Other 

My feedback would be to educate yourself on all auction houses and decide if any are for you. I’m a big fan of not planting your flag on one platform. There might be cards listed on these platforms that you’ve been chasing. 

I ask you two things in closing:

1. Do whatever you can to use your skills to give back to the Hobby - we need it more than ever

2. Please share this newsletter with whoever you think can benefit