The Weekly Rip 2.25.24 [The Blue Dot]
A story that describes the obsession we deal with on a day-to-day basis to land the cards that we need for our collections.
A big thank you to the Card Ladder team for being the official data sponsor of Stacking Slabs. Their team and product is amazing. If you’re looking to make more data driven collecting decisions make sure you check out Card Ladder.
The alarm went off at 4:45 am on Thursday morning. I reached over to my iPhone to get the thing to shut up and then grabbed the baby monitor. Both of my daughters were still sound asleep and I ventured over to my closet to grab my running close and quickly move to the bathroom so I didn’t wake up my wife. We all have routines. My routine drives everything that I do. I’m a big believer in consistency and the comfort that my routine offers. Before I put on my running gear I do my business, brush my teeth, and quickly do an expedited saved searches scan to make sure nothing I need hit while I was asleep. I can’t begin to tell you how routine it is for the quick scan to produce zero results. That’s normal, but this morning was different.
It’s funny when you talk to other collectors about their saved search habits. When you dig into that topic with other collectors you quickly realize how much we love collecting cards. We lose sleep when we dig into sales history on platforms like Card Ladder to realize a card that we’ve been after sold right from underneath us. That’s why many of us are degenerates when it comes to checking our saved searches. Recently, my oldest daughter is on a big Toy Story kick. I’ve seen all 4 movies dozens of times over the past couple of months. The best parallel that I can draw to our obsession with saved searches is how The Aliens view their master “The Claw”. Instead of “The Claw” we’ve got “The Blue Dot” that drives everything that we do. “The Blue Dot” choses where we spend our money. We’re all constantly doing whatever we can to make sure “The Blue Dot” delivers the goods to our collections.
On Thursday morning at dawn “The Blue Dot'' chose me. I typed in my saved search bar “Tyrese Haliburton '' and clicked into the broader catch all search that seems to always have the dot and reads “99+”. I keep broader saved searches because of fear of missing a card. Yes, I have to scroll through a bunch of cards that are commons that I don’t care about, but it all makes it worth it if that one time “The Blue Dot '' delivers a card that I need. When I clicked into the search and saw the first result my knees got weak. It was a card that I had been searching for ever since I started collecting Haliburton. It was Haliburton’s 2021 Revolution Galactic. The card is his first Galactic in Pacers gear.
I’m a big fan of Galactics. I’ve gone through collecting journeys with the parallel. I snatched up dozens of my favorite wrestling cards when Galactics came out for WWE and ended up selling most to fund other purchases. If I PC a player and they have a Galactic available it’s a card that doesn’t leave my collection. There’s something unique and special about the aesthetics of these cards. The way the light refracts off the finish is unmatched. The 2021 Haliburton Galactic was a missing piece in my collection. The 22 Galactic was the first Haliburton card that I bought to kick off my collection. It was quickly followed up by acquiring his rookie, which most collectors would consider his most significant Galactic. There’s something special about collecting runs. I’ve always found these cards to be the stickiest cards in my collection. It’s really hard to break up a run when you’ve got it going.
When “The Blue Dot” choses us we do irrational things. I think irrational collecting is completely acceptable especially when it’s for a card we’ve been hunting. The card was listed at $199.99 OBO. I didn’t pull up Card Ladder to check comps. I didn’t even think about making an offer for fear I’d lose the opportunity at this card at that moment. I did the most degenerate thing possible. I smashed BIN and didn’t even think twice about it. I decided to look back on the most recent comps of this card preparing to write the opening notes of the newsletter this week. It’s safe to say I set the all-time high and then some. You think that I care that I massively overpaid? Nope. I’m damn happy to get this card in my collection.
You can’t put buying cards in a box like so many of the loudest people online want to do. We’ve all got our own measuring stick for how badly we want certain cards. There’s a myriad of elements in play that factor into our decision making. At the end of the day we’re all the CEOs of our PC. If we overpay for a card here or there it just might mean we have to sell a card in our collection that we don’t care as much about.
Just don’t deny “The Blue Dot”....it could be a long road back to that moment.
Your Hobby Community Alternative
I’m really enjoying publishing more collector content than ever before in the Patreon Group. I had a conversation with Chris McGill about the benefits of collecting active players last week. These conversations have been more data-focused and have had a blast facilitating them.
This week we’re hosting our first collector live stream on February 29th for a subset of our members. We’ll focus on collector topics requested by the community. I’m looking forward to it!
Some highlights from this week:
Collecting Active Players is Fun with Chris (@chris_hoj) (Join to watch)
Personal Collection Judgment Day and Approach to Consolidation (Join to read)
The best cards are the cards buried in someone else’s collection (Join to listen)
Collectors are joining to consume exclusive content, connect with other collectors, and promote their cards. I dropped an exclusive episode on defensive players this week for members. Members can expect more data focused, collector content with your membership.
A Collector To Follow
The great state of Wisconsin has an amazing collecting community. If you’re a fan of seeing some of the best cards from teams representing Wisconsin then you’ve got to be following @prison_mike_pc. Every time I see a new card posted on Brian’s page I’m always mesmerized by his approach and full of curiosity with how he continues to land such amazing cards.
The Evolution of the Collector with Mike (@dibs_collecting)
We had another new character unlocked during the Friday collector conversation on the main feed this week. Make sure to check out my conversation with Mike (@dibs_collecting) about his evolution as a collector into a team collector. I was left with a lot to think about after we got done recording.
A Space for Promoting Auctions
A big part of the new Patreon roll out is creating more opportunity to bring visibility to cards at auction. I’m a big believer in the use of consignors. They alleviate so much work for me, but oftentimes can’t offer the promotional treatment for every card that comes through.
Here are some cards up for auction from the group.
2018 Panini Prizm Tom Brady Gold Vinyl /5 PSA 9
An absolute stunner for any Brady fan or ultra-modern football collector. I’m a Prizm simp so this one hits a bit differently than most for me.
2014 Totally Certified Drew Brees Red Autograph
2018 Panini Spectra Drew Brees Neon Blue /75 PSA 9 Pop 1
Happy collecting,
Brett