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Welcome to the Stacking Slabs, a podcast for sports cards collectors. There's been a tremendous amount of change to our Hobby over the last few years and the one constant has been the passion from the collecting community. Stacking Slabs is built by the collector and lives to tell stories for the collector.
welcome back to another episode of stacking slabs this is your hobby content alternative i am brett i collect sports cards i run the stacking slabs network over here and oftentimes i jump on the mic and explore a topic that is interesting to me and i'm hoping is interesting to you i love the process of thinking about something from my own personal experience or perhaps something that i have noticed other collectors digging into and talking about and taking a couple steps back thinking about what is interesting about that topic and how can we package it up and deliver it in an episode like this one to you all that's what we're going to do today the question is when does a player's market earn confidence we are going to explore that we are going to talk about goats the hobby loves goats we're going to differentiate maybe greatest of all time player from greatest of all time type of purchase and we're gonna hopefully leave here with a piece of content that digs into something that maybe is on your mind or you have thought about during your own collecting journey thank you for being here there is a lot of options in your world whether it's sports card content or something else i am honored to serve at as a bit of a distraction to you if you're not already if this is your first time listening to stacking slabs make sure you hit the follow button we have new content coming out every day would love for you to follow along if you're enjoying it long time listener make sure you tell a damn friend and we always have new and exclusive content and different formats different mediums we've got video in our patreon you can follow the link in the show notes so there is a sentence that i have heard a lot during my journey as a collector and i have been hearing it more and more during this crazy market that we've all been buying selling and trading in and that line is i am putting my money in goats michael jordan babe ruth wayne gretzky tom brady the list goes on we know what somebody means when they say it they want to own cards of players they believe people will care about for a very long time but i've been wondering if goat is the right word for what they are describing we can spend the next half hour arguing about jordan versus lebron people have been doing that for years and they'll keep doing it that's part of being a sports fan i certainly don't wanna do that here that's not for me but what interests me more is the collector behavior behind that sentence when somebody says they're buying goats i think a lot of the time they're saying i trust that other people will still want these cards down the road and i think that's a different claim it is a claim about demand it is a claim about the depth of the player's market and it is a claim that deserves more work than posting or excuse me and it is a claim that deserves more work than pointing at a career resume or the last auction result because plenty of time great players have cards that don't command the price we might expect and plenty of players who aren't the consensus greatest ever have collector markets that have held up through the years of new releases changing tastes and falling prices elsewhere today i want to think through how the confidence develops what makes collectors come back to a player over and over again how does a specific card become the one everybody knows and what happens after a big sale i'm going to use a few different subjects and i'm not going to talk about the players necessarily that everyone always talks about when they're talking goats because i want to focus in on a set of players that have been emerging or players that i've seen grow more interest than ever before more recently i'm thinking about steph curry peyton manning and barry bonds these are three different players from three different sports with three very different card histories i pulled their all time card ladder profiles before sitting down to record this episode now i am not here to tell you which cards to buy that's not what i do here i want to give you a better way to read maybe what you're seeing because when we're spending money on cards we plan to hold we should know what kind of confidence that we're paying for before we talk about established players we have to admit why we chase the next one it feels good to be early if you were there before the awards before the championships before the rest of the market saw what you saw you get the card and you get the story and i understand that feeling i'm a collector i felt it you can see the impulse in bowman prospecting in baseball you can see it with young basketball players who have a great summer league and a highlight clip that makes instagram reels you can see it every time a rookie quarterback has two good games in a row and people start pricing his cards as if the next ten years have already been written sometimes the player becomes what people hoped a lot of the time the price gets ahead of that player and even when the player is excellent the card somebody chose might not be the card collectors care about later that's one of the things we miss when we say a young player's upside is unlimited we're trying to predict two outcomes at one time we have to get the player right and we have to get the card right and then there's a third thing we have to get the price right those are three different decisions a player can have a great career while a card bought at the wrong price struggles a scarce rookie card can turn out to be the card nobody feels attached to we don't get to skip those questions because we love the player after enough cycles people remember the headache they remember what happened when the player didn't meet expectations they remember trying to sell into a market where the buyers had already moved on so money looks for players whose case has been made on the field there are records championships years of performances people can point to there's a reason to believe a new collector will hear the name ten years from now and feel the same way but a completed career is only the beginning of the answer it tells us what the player did it does not tell us how many people want a particular card what they'll pay and whether that demand can absorb the next copy that comes to market the question i keep coming back to is this how does a player go from someone people respect to someone that they keep collecting i think it starts with a connection that lasts after the games are over maybe you watch curry change what a good shot look like maybe you grew up in india indiana like myself and watched peyton manning do supernatural things with the colts offense maybe bonds was the player you followed every night because you knew one at bat could give you something you talk about the next day you don't have to agree on where any of those guys sit on an all time list to understand why somebody would want a card that brings them back to that time that connection brings the first collector in then another one and over the years collectors grow up gain spending power and come back for the cars they couldn't afford when they were young other collectors arrive from a different generation and find their own reason to care that's how i would hope the market grows not by asking every new buyer to believe a larger projection but by giving people different reasons to participate somebody wants the rookie somebody wants the card from the championship season somebody wants the rare insert they remembered seeing at a shop showcase somebody wants the copy they can afford and keep another person wants the best known version of the best known card these buyers aren't interchangeable a market gets stronger when it has room for more than one of them and i think recognition matters here you can have a card with a tiny print run but if nobody knows what it is the number on the back won't create a line of new buyers a card starts to carry weight when collectors know it talk about it and recognize it when it appears for sale that takes time it takes repetition collectors see the card in collections that they respect they watch the sales they compare copies they learn what makes one great hard they remember the one that they missed i wanna be careful with the word confidence here i cannot look at a chart and know what every buyer was thinking i can look for evidence that people continue to show up over multiple years at different prices for different cards that tells me more than somebody announcing that a player is safe let's start with steph curry the greatest shooter of all time that's statement i just made it might be subjective but you can dig in the analytics you can go by gut feel you can do all the things and i think i can confidently say stephen curry is the greatest shooter of all time the card ladder screenshot that i was looking at before i hit record pulls data from september two thousand nine to september twenty seventh twenty twenty six the player's index is at one thousand six hundred and ninety nine six hundred and twenty six its prior high on the card chart is one point seven million there are two hundred and seventy two cards in that index please hear that number the right way the chart starts at an index value of one thousand that is one point seven million figure in an index reading not a dollar chart for a curry card not his total card market and not money anybody earned by buying in two thousand nine what matters for our conversation is the shape curry's market rose hard in twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two during the pandemic boom then the chart came down a long way now it has climbed back near the earlier high if i only showed you the right side you might think that it has been a straight line up it hasn't people bought into the last rush know that a player can have a lasting place in the hobby and still have a market that gets overheated so what supports the idea curry's demand can live beyond a market cycle i think you start with the player a lot of people who have watched his career can tell you what changed when it came along then look at the cards collectors have had years to sort through curry's rookie options and to decide which ones carry the most meaning to them the two thousand and nine topps chrome rookie is one place people know to look within that one card the base number to nine nine nine and the refractor number to five hundred give collectors different points of entry and different reasons to care then there are other rookie issues early autos and later cards tied to different periods of his career but knowing the card name doesn't mean every curry card shares the same demand we have to ask what the buyer of a topps chrome refractor is seeking does a buyer of a more available rookie want the same thing does somebody who wants a card from a championship year even won a rookie those differences matter when a big curry sells the sale can get people looking through their own curry collections it can cause somebody who wanted the refractor to consider another grade a base version or another rookie that means something to them and that's possible but it's not automatic we have to watch whether the interest travels to those other cards through completed sales and whether it stays there after the first wave of attention curry gives me a useful reminder a strong player story can survive a big decline in prices that doesn't make every point on the chart a good time to buy it tells me buyers did not disappear when the excitement cooled now we talk about manning my favorite football player of all time and i promise you i'll try not to be biased in here but peyton manning it's very personal to me i grew up with the colts i watched all of manning's games attended many of his home games while he played here but if you watch those years you know how much of your life you can attach to one player i don't need somebody to settle a brady versus manning debate before i understand why a peyton manning collector would spend years trying to find the right card manning's player index and card ladder from an all time perspective runs from february two thousand four to september twenty seventh twenty twenty six manning's card ladder index is ten thousand eight hundred and eight compared with a chart high of eleven thousand four hundred and seven it tracks two hundred and twenty cards again that is a normalized index reading compare the movement on manning's chart with his own past not the raw index number with curry's look at the shape a long stretch when the index moved slowly a surge in twenty twenty one a decline afterwards and a rise towards that old high this year this is part of the reason why i'm having these this conversation is that i'm noticing these players had a previous high then a dip and now we're returning to the previous high here is what i find useful about manning his playing career is long finished finished in twenty fifteen after the twenty fifteen season the buyers aren't pricing a possible first super bowl or a possible mvp next season they already know what happened that removes one question it does not remove the question of price a collector can know exactly what a player accomplished and still overpay for a card during a rush with peyton i would want to study which parts of his markets have come back the ninety eight topps krohme rookie is a card a lot of collectors can identify there are refractors there are others sets in nineteen ninety eight he is a great rookie year sp authentic bowman the list goes on and on and on there are autographs and each has its own supply and its own group of buyers if one rare card breaks a record several grades of topps chromes sell around established levels and i would describe that differently from the broad rise across topps chrome refractors or other rookies both events might make a headline only one shows me buyers meeting more of the available available supply at higher prices and i would look beyond the the beyond the biggest room what happens when a decent copy goes up in an ordinary an ordinary weekly auction do people bid what happens when the same card comes down again the next month does the buyer have choices or are there is there so little supply that we have no recent tests peyton shows why a player doesn't have to win a goat debate to hold a place in someone's collection people remember the career some of us remember where we were while it was happening the question for the market is how many of those people will keep choosing his cards and which cards will they choose barry bonds takes us somewhere elsewhere he's one of the most talked about players that we've ever had in baseball people disagree about his legacy i don't expect that disagreement to probably ever grow go away and i don't think a collector market requires everyone to feel the exact same about a player his card ladder player index from two thousand and four february two thousand and four to september twenty seventh twenty twenty six the index is at eight thousand seven hundred and fifty seven which is also a high shown on the chart it tracks three seven total cards this is a different picture from manning's two hundred and twenty cards and curry's two hundred and seventy two with fewer cards represented i would be even more careful about treating the index as a verdict on every bond's card the chart tells us what happened to the cards in that index it cannot tell us that every bond's collector or every part of his market have behaved in the same way still the history is worth exploring the index fell for years after the mid two thousands came back jumped up in twenty twenty one when most cards did gave up some ground and now has moved to a new high that is a long time for a player to stay a part of the conversation what are collectors seeking when they buy bonds some want a card from the beginning nineteen eighty six top traded rookie for example others want the tiffany version where the distinction matters be between the versions and those matter some chase the finest refractors others chase some of the rare and scarce stuff from the late nineties some maybe the early two thousand stuff those choices tell more than a sentence bonds cards are going up but which cards in which grades how many times did they sell did the people bid on a second copy after the big result in fact when i look through current card ladder player pages i see individual cards moving in different directions over a one month window even while these longer player charts look strong that is the sort of friction i think we should all welcome as collectors it stops us from turning a player into a single price bonds makes me think about the difference between consensus and demand you don't need unanimous approval to have collectors you do need enough people with conviction to keep showing up you could observe the sales we cannot assume the motives of every buyer for them now that we've hit the three players this is the part of the conversation i wanna slow down for when we say the curry market or the manning market because it's convenient to say that then we can go spend money on the card that card has a set a year an image a print run or an unknown print run a grade and a population report a sales history and a place or no place in the minds of collectors those details decide what happens when you need a buyer one of the strongest signals i can find is that collectors can explain why a card matters without starting with the latest sale price that was the card i wanted when i was a kid that set changed how i saw cards that is the rookie i remember seeing everywhere that version rarely comes up and when it does i pay attention we have all heard those statements those aren't price predictions they tell us why a person might keep wanting the card after the headlines move on i also pay attention to the difference between scarcity and demand an addition of five has five copies that is a supply fact it doesn't tell me tell me how many people want one or what they are willing to give up to get it and the card that trades often can tell us something a one of one cannot when several copies of the same card and grades sell across different months we see how buyers respond at more than one moment with a one of one the next sale can be years away and the last two buyers can have very different reasons for showing up neither kind of card is inherently better i own cards that are hard to compare i've got cards that might sell more frequently when i'm studying a card i try to ask is this the version people will recognize what alternatives can a buyer choose if this one gets expensive does the grade change the whole collector pool have the people who want this set stayed interested through the different market cycles and conditions and i think the last one matters a player can be loved while a particular set falls out of favor a set can get hot even while most of the players cards sit still if we don't separate those two things we will have to credit the player for a move that was really about the card or credit the card for a move that was really about the player now say a major curry manning or bonds card sells for a number that gets everyone talking i mean i paid attention last week the twenty fourteen peyton manning black finites sold for over a hundred thousand dollars that's a massive sale what happens next i think first the sale gets attention you got people talking about it you got everyone who has finites thinking about how much their cards are worth you got people sharing those posts people who have been watching that card get a new reference point owners might raise their ask buyers might go looking for similar adjacent copies that all makes sense but an ask is not a sale and one sale tells what a buyer and seller agree to pay for one copy under those conditions at that time maybe the card had eye appeal the next copy won't have maybe there were two bidders with unfinished business maybe a collector had waited for years for the exact grade maybe the auction reached a point reached people at a smaller venue that they won't reach we have to study the card and the circumstances around the card to truly understand it and i see three things that are worth watching after a major sale do the comparable copies confirm the new level when they come up later does demand spread to nearby cards such as another grade a base version or a different card for a set of collectors that they already respect and when the attention dies down do people still show up at the next auction i'm certainly eager to see when a twenty fourteen peyton manning gold prism comes up next what does that go for does the finite sale influence the those cards do those cards move up in price those are the things that i'm looking at on those questions if the answer is yes across all three the sale may have marked a wider change in what collectors are willing to pay if nothing else moves it may have been a remark remarkable sale for one remarkable card there's nothing wrong with celebrating that sale sale i do it i enjoy seeing a card get a roomful of attention i just don't want to build a thesis for an entire player around one night the market will give us another questions that are on my mind that i'm thinking about when i'm digging these are the questions that are on my mind that i'm thinking about when i'm digging into a topic like this and maybe talking publicly about it for the first time who wants the player when there is no news when the season is over when the documentary is passed when the big auction isn't in everyone's feed are collectors still seeking the cards which cards do they keep coming back to can we name the sets and the different versions that matter and explain why or is every sale being pitched as rare enough to matter without evidence that anybody wants that particular card and how many ways can a collector participate a market made up of auction level card has different base from a market when people collect rookies inserts autos memorabilia more ways to participate do not guarantee higher prices they can tell us that interest reaches beyond one buyer group what happens on the second or third sale the first big result gets the post the later sale show us what buyers do when the surprise is gone i wanna see that repeat test especially for a card whose price has moved how much supply is waiting population reports raw copies other grades and cards sitting with dealers that all matters a run of sales can look strong when only a few copies reach the market if a higher price brings out a lot more cards we will learn what the demand can carry and what happens after a decline this is a very important part of all of this this is why i keep looking at the full curry and manning charts not only the climb at the end people paid up during the last search prices came down interest didn't vanish that says something about the player connection it also tells us that having a base of collectors does not protect the price that you paid and this is where we can get and maybe we will eventually at another episode but digging into the dynamics of the specific cards and their population and the rarity and scarcity that all impacts an index that we're looking at every day and those questions not a scoreboard where six checks mean you're safe it's not like that it's all over the place there are lot of different factors and variables we don't see every private deal we don't know every buyer's intention and we cannot know how much a collector will pay until the card is put in front of them but the questions make us do something more useful than re repeating a label they make us examine where demand has showed up how often and for what we all spend real money on cards i know i do and i interact with so many of you i i know what your collections are about and i know you do too i understand the desire to put some of the money into players people remember and i understand wanting a card you can enjoy owning without feeling like you have to watch the next game for your whole decision to work but i don't think safe is a quality a player can give us a famous name does not make a thin market deep a chart at a high does not guarantee the next buyer will pay more and a strong collector base does not make an expensive purchase comfortable if the card doesn't mean anything to you what i do think we can do is get better at seeing how trust is built we can watch which cards people keep pursuing we can study what happens after the next big sale we can pay attention when the demand survives the part of the cycle where being a buyer stops feeling exciting curry manning bonds all have different stories they don't need to settle an all time argument for us to want their cards their markets give us a way to ask a better question when the next player market starts to run what are you seeing people who have wanted these cards for years finally finding copies new collectors arriving and staying or people buying because they expect somebody else will want the card next month you might not know right away and i won't either that's a reason to keep watching and to be honest about what we see buy the card because you understand why you want it if the market matters to your decision spend the time to understand who else wants it and why these are things i'm thinking about especially as the market continues to heat up especially as there's a lot of narratives around different players cards and sets we always need to take a couple steps back dig in and examine are you buying goats or are you buying players who you who you think have lasting demand i think thinking about these things trying to understand particular cards the nuances and why people buy what they do and why players' legacies become attractive in the sports card hobby is worth thinking about i'll continue to put out episodes like this things that are on my mind appreciate you being here make sure you're following us at stacking slabs make sure you're following us wherever you're listening to this we'll continue to put out more content like this in the coming days happy collecting take care we'll talk to you soon