#6: Mixtapes, Exquisite Collections, and The Great One
How’s it going?
This is a milestone week for the Stacking Slabs brand. We celebrated our 100th podcast this episode this week!
“We? WTF is this dude talking about?”
Words are powerful and I use them with intention. I do mean we or the collective Hobby.
The show, social accounts, and even this newsletter wouldn’t be anything if it weren’t for the collective.
I’m proud of 100 because it’s provided me a vehicle to have conversations with people like you.
I don’t treat this lightly.
I get feedback after every Wednesday episode from someone offering to fill in a blank that I might have missed in talking about specific cards.
I get to learn with all of you every Friday when I bring on guests.
The Hobby Hustle is 45 minutes of free consultation from a Hobby expert that I get to share with all of you every week.
100 means a lot to me. I hope it means something to those that have been day one listeners, new listeners, and even people who have never put their ears on a Stacking Slabs podcast.
What’s next?
I’m not exactly sure and I think that is the joy of having a passion project.
It’s not work because I love it.
Sports cards are amazing.
They make me happy and they connect me to other passionate people.
I talk with my Hobby friends more than my actual friends these days.
Can you relate?
Never lose sight of the happiness that the Hobby brings you.
Always be active. Always be thankful. Always be learning.
Do it for the Hobby and amazing things will happen to you.
I’m a walking, talking, testament of this.
I had 0 followers, 0 downloads, 0 subscribers, and 0 cards this time last year.
It’s amazing where a whole lot of passion and curiosity can take you.
Appreciate all your support and feedback along the way.
On with the damn newsletter!
💿Collecting Like You are Building a Mixtape
I’m a collector of collections.
I have several different passions outside of sports cards and one that dominates my life is music.
This is a shot of my record collection that sits smack dab in the middle of our living room. My wife hates how much space it takes up, but loves the tunes that I curate for her.
I’ve been in the music discovery game my entire life. I love finding the song you’ve never heard and using my platform to support their work.
I love music discovery. When I was in high school I used to spend my weekend at the record store finding records that I could sample from.
I used to DJ battle. I had a pair of 1200 Technics and Vestax 05 mixer. It was art to me and the easiest way to tell stories through several different pieces of music.
I don’t want to dive too deep into the specifics because I could write about music forever...remember mp3 blogs? Yep, I had one.
My wife appreciates my card habit because they take up less space than my vinyl collection.
I bring up my passion for music here because I think we should all consider the different paths of collecting sports cards like building the perfect mixtape.
Remember those?
Mixtapes hit the fan in high school for me when they were actually CDs. I’d spend night and day on Napster and transfer the songs in Winamp and then burn them to a CDr’s.
I’d brand them and they would go viral at my school. My best mixtape was called Vlade Dodi...yep an ode to Snoop Dogg and Vlade Divac himself.
Whether it is player collecting, collecting a set, or diving into a specific parallel it should give you the same satisfaction as curating the perfect mixtape.
One of my favorite books ever is Love is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time. It’s a gripping tale of falling in love, listening to music, and being with your partner when they pass away.
It’s a terribly sad story that uses music and humor to lighten the tone of the message. I think about this book often and how powerful music can be.
I think our card collections can be just as meaningful and that is why having intention behind what we are collecting is so powerful.
Whether we like it or not our cards will be around a lot longer than us.
Let that sink in.
Collect like you mean it. Do it for you and the future generations that might gain access to your pieces.
The more you collect like you are building the perfect mixtape the more unique of a collection that you will create.
Different is good. No song should ever sound the same. No collection should ever be built the same.
💎An Exquisite Collection
If you put a gun to my head and asked me what was my favorite account on Instagram I’d say @exquistecollector.
Want some reasons why?
While I love the incredible cards that are the centerpiece for each of his posts, I appreciate the thought and copy put into telling the story of each of these cards.
So often in the Hobby people share photos of their cards, but don’t provide any context for why they are sharing their PC.
Why is this card significant to you?
What made you feel compelled to spend all that money to acquire it?
Do you ever intend to sell it?
As spectators in the Hobby these are the things that you community wants to know and Exquisite Collector does a wonderful job of taking us along for the ride.
Go hit follow on his account and enjoy the damn show!
👀Sports Cards is a Spectator Sport
We are sports degenerates. Many of us have teams or players who we follow every time they step on the court, field, pitch, diamond, ice, etc.
Many of us use our disposal income to buy tickets to see our favorite teams play.
I love live sports. I’m an Indianapolis Colts season ticket holder and try to make it to 15-20 Pacers games every year.
Then the pandemic happened and I realized something very quickly.
I took going to live sports for granted. I took being a spectator for granted.
I’m glad the vaccine roll out continues and things seem to be trending in the right direction.
I’m hopeful I’ll get to continue by 1 mile walk to Lucas Oil Stadium this Fall to see my favorite team perform on Sunday.
How does this relate with sports cards?
There’s a large segment of people within our Hobby who traded the time spent in the arena to time spent on their phone watching a live sports card stream.
Enter the spectator era of sports cards.
I spent most of Prizm release week jumping on feeds of some of my Hobby buddies who were breaking the product.
I had absolutely no intention of buying into these breaks, but I love seeing new products being opened and seeing what big boy cards pop.
My wife watches Sex in the City as a guilty pleasure. When she’s doing that I am on my phone watching a break.
It’s fun. It’s entertainment. It’s educational. It’s an opportunity to connect with people in the chat. It’s a chance to build relationships.
I can’t imagine how many boxes of Prizm basketball got opened on a live stream last week.
How about how many people filled these breaks?
How about the amount of people who just sat and watched?
I know breaking is a controversial topic, but it’s here to stay.
Spend your money on the cards you want and avoid the risk if you don’t have a gambler’s mindset like me.
Spend some time jumping into breaks of people you know.
It’s amazing how an hour or two of spectating can level you up on new products.
Hell, it might even trigger some thoughts on players, parallels, or inserts from earlier years that you might go back to chase.
Did I mention it’s free?
🕶️Can you smell what The Rock is cookin’?
I’m a massive fan of The Rock. I had a cardboard cut out of The Great One in my room as a kid.
He’s iconic to me. I love his story and I love how he’s become the highest grossing start in Hollywood.
It’s Wrestlemania Weekend. I’ve got to show The Rock some love.
His card market? Insane.
Just in this past week alone his 1994 Miami Bumble Card PSA 10 sold at Goldin Auctions for a staggering $81,180.
Also, his 1997 Panini Rocky Maivia Sticker PSA 10 sold for $34,440 at Goldin.
People call Hulk Hogan the Babe Ruth of the Wrestling Card market.
The Rock is quickly becoming Tom Brady or Michael Jordan.
He’s a star that transcends culture and as wrestling fans should be lucky for that.
You don’t like wrestling cards?
IT DOESN’T MATTER IF YOU LIKE WRESTLING CARDS!
I ask you two things in closing:
Do whatever you can to use your skills to give back to the Hobby - we need it more than ever
Please share this newsletter with whoever you think can benefit
Happy collecting,
Brett (@stackingslabs)
P.S. Check out the new episode with @summertimecards that dropped today