Collector Nation - Gary Vaynerchuk on Why Trading Cards Are the Ultimate Investment Opportunity | Hosted by Ryan Alford

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

SUMMARY In this episode of the Trading Cards and Collectibles Podcast, host Ryan Alford welcomes Gary Vaynerchuk (Gary Vee) to discuss the VeeFriends trading card series with Topps Chrome and the evolving world of collecting. Gary shares the inspiration behind VeeFriends, how digital and physical collectibles can coexist, and why the hobby is more than just investment—it’s about community, storytelling, and family connections. From NFTs to the post-COVID market shift, Gary offers insights into where trading cards are headed and how collecting can teach kids responsibility, patience, and life skills. Whether you’re a longtime collector, an entrepreneur, or a parent introducing your kids to the hobby, this conversation delivers powerful lessons on business, creativity, and meaningful relationships. Key Takeaways: Gary Vee’s journey with VeeFriends & Topps Chrome How NFTs are shaping the collectibles market The emotional value of collecting for parents and kids Post-COVID trends in the trading card hobby Why storytelling and intellectual property fuel Gary’s projects The future vision for VeeFriends as a cultural movement 🔗 Explore more at veefriends.com  

It's clear that you are selfish, mother-going after your legacy. You know, we're animals. What do you want for me? I'm sorry. We're not robots. Exactly. I've had all these accomplishments. I've done all these things, but I just really hope it motivates people to realize you can change your script at any point in the movie. Welcome to the Trading Cards and Collectibles podcast on the Radcast Network. From chasing grails to Colin Bluffs and going inside the hobby. Are you ready to collect? Let's get at it.

Here is your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome. We are talking a business of trading cards, investments, opportunities. And look, we're talking opportunities. A new, better person to call than my good friend. Gary Vaynerchuk. He is the creator of Vee Friends, the hottest, newest,

Topps Chrome trading card that is out. And of course, the CEO of Vayner Media. Gary, what's up, man? Thanks for joining the hobby series, man. I had to have the king of the hobby. I've been watching you for 20 years, talk about trading cards. So appreciate you joining. Thanks, Ryan.

I really appreciate it, man. Hope you're well. Yeah, man. Life is good. It's been exciting watching. You've been talking about, you know, you've been going to garage sales, going and talking trading cards. And I grew up collecting cards.

It might have been the first reason, you know, between the wine. It was wine to start, Gary. I got to admit, I was in New York. We traded places. I'm in South Carolina. I was in New York. You were talking wine. I like this guy.

And then you started talking trading cards. So now it comes full circle. But you've had your hand, you've had your finger pinged on this for a while. Yep. You know, set this table for our audience a bit. We'll get into V friends. And congrats, man. It's a big deal.

I mean, it's not lost on me what you're doing here. So congratulations, number one. Thank you. Set the table for our audience that, you know, as you, but with trading cards and what led up to this? You know, I've just, I've always thought about intellectual property. It's always been a fascinating industry creatively and business wise, Disney, Marvel, Lucas. And I wanted to have my own world. And when the NFT thing happened, I saw that as a really smart place to create the providence because I could mint these characters on the blockchain.

And I believe in digital collectibles. I still do. I know so many people think that NFT were a fad or baloney, but if you look today, it's stunning how many NFTs will sell today. Like I was saying back in the hype in 2021, 99% of NFTs were going to go to zero, just like 99% of trading cards and comic books and watches and toys and sneakers are not worth anything. Same with NFTs. But so I saw that and I launched this Befriend's world in that manner, but I knew that I was going to do comic books, cartoons, trading cards, and This is actually our third series of trading cards. We had a series one and series two with a company called Zero Cool that Tops bought.

But this has obviously been a whole different animal because Tops is the iconic brand in the industry. And Topps Chrome is such a big platform. And so, you know, this is just kind of, you know, year four of a journey of building this intellectual property that I'm very excited about, Rye. Yeah, man. And congrats. It's a big deal, especially the Tops Chrome. if anyone's into collecting, it is the iconic brand of Topps meets the new and hottest thing that the collectors want, the Chrome, the inserts, the parallels, all that stuff.

I love how you've sort of embraced the, you know, part of me, I think some people might would ask, well, why Topps Chrome and why this and why the parallels and all that? Oh, I get it, man. I feel like you've created something uniquely original while tapping into sort of the hype and interest that already exists with some of these products. Talk a little bit about that. Yeah, I think to your point, obviously you're a little bit deeper and you're knowledgeable. Like there's a lot of inserts and structure to this checklist that honors the Chrome model, the red refractors to five and 50 gold and the super fracture one of one.

And then there's uniquely new stuff. We did something really smart. Our main character, the very, very, very, very lucky black cat has yellow. eyes, but we did an insert a variant where you could get them with green eyes or blue eyes or white eyes or red eyes. And that's the little head nod to Pokemon's original set with the Pikachu. And so there's a lot of really clever things. There's a one in every nine cases insert called Erupt that I'm very fond of.

That is a hat tip to the Kaboom inspired by that great insert. and we found the original artist of that Kaboom set and he designed the characters. So it's, you know, I think it's been fun because even people that, let's say, are cynical to this project or even me in the hobby of trading cards

because it's a very insular kind of protective community, which I respect and love, have been giving flowers to how thoughtful the checklist is, and that has been rewarding. Yeah, man, smart is what I'd call it. Where does what gets me, you know, you brought up the NFT thing, but we live in a digital world. Yeah. And you're an attention arbitrage guy.

Yep. Where does V friends fit and, you know, two parts for you in attention arbitrage and building your long term, you know, legacy? Yeah. Where do you see V friends in that? And then part two of that, you've got to, we live in this digital world, but physical cards are still booming. Yeah. I mean, I'll do the second part because it's so easy. Six, seven years ago, eight years ago, people were like, Gary, why do you still write books?

You're so Mr. Digital. And my answer always was because people read them. Like, I don't know why the world is obsessed with ore. Yeah. Right? People love ore. People are like, even in politics, blue or red, right? Like, you know, digital or physical.

You know, like the life is gray. Everything is the middle. So I, of course, physical cards and comic books, and I'll do toys, like, because the world is physical. But the world is also digital. And the world continues to become more digital, not less digital, right? So, you know, all those hours today that are being played on Roblox, 40 years ago were kids that were outside playing physically. So, you know, things are changing, but not to zero. We're not in Ready Player 1 full time yet.

True. That's why I keep doing those things. Where do I see VFriends sitting really at the center? I think VFriends is probably going to end up being the biggest business I ever built. You know, I feel like it's a very substantial intellectual property, collectible business. I think the characters represent the things I most care about in the world. So I think these 250 characters are going to allow me to extend all these things I want the world to know about. And so patient panda will take the baton in helping people learn that patience matters,

not just Gary V's content, the one that you've been consuming for 20 years. I've done a lot as a human and put myself on the map, but I'm not going to reach all 8 billion people. Meanwhile, a V friend's cartoon that talks about tenacity and hustle and kindness can be dubbed in Italian and be running on Netflix, Italy in five years. and I'll be accomplishing the same ambition, which is my whole life has been about really a framework of selfish and selfless behavior, right? Selfishly, I'm an entrepreneur. I want to build things for me and my family.

I think I'm allowed. I think you're allowed. I think everyone's allowed. However, I do like leaving a positive impact. I want other entrepreneurs. I get pumped when entrepreneurs come up to me that basically make more money than me taking my learnings and applying them. I'm like, good for you.

That makes me happy. That doesn't make me unhappy. So I think that's kind of the goal with the framework here. Yeah. And when people have asked me, you know, how you describe Gary V, I say, well, he's got the tenacity of a cougar. But the dude's really empathetic if you go watch his shit, man. Like, it is.

Like, I see it. You live and breathe it. You couldn't have spoken any better because it's clear that you are selfish motherfucker going after your legacy. However, if you really pay attention, The way you do it is truly empathetic. And the messages that you push are positive. And I commend you for that.

Thank you, brother. I really do. I do not see a world where you're like, I believe that all of us as animals, especially us men, we want to protect and provide for our families. Like I don't know. You know, we're animals. What do you want for me? I'm sorry. We're not robots.

Exactly. But at the same token, I was born and raised in a manner that has a lot of compassion. I feel feelings. I do care about my fellow man. I do not want to win at the expense of someone else, Ryan. You know, like, I want to be better than the businesses I'm competing with, but I don't want bad for them. And then there's a billion other people, billions of other people that are in businesses that have nothing to do with mine. And I cheer for all of them.

I do not understand envy and. jealousy, you shitting on someone else and saying they're not as good as you think they are does not make you better. And until people figure that out, we will continue to have a lot of people who spend all their energy envying instead of building. Collectibles. Show is where you'll find all of the channels and learn more about what we're doing. And ultimately, hey, we want to hear from you. You do case hits at collectibles.com. Show. I want you to send in your favorite pulls of the week. And here's the difference.

This isn't about just value. Hey, we want to see some $10,000 hits. Had a couple of those myself a few months back. But it's not just about the values, about what you're collecting. What means something to you? Share a story, share a video of you holding up the card that you hit last week. That was your favorite player and you nailed it. So case hits at collectibles.

So send in those videos. I want to know the stories. We're going to bring into life here on the show. We're going to do a segment each week. Once we get rolling and get some videos in, where we share that on the show with us. We won't feature you on Collectibles show. Yeah, I think, you know, what's going to be fun about this is I recently joined the board of Spin Master, which owns Paw Patrol and all these great, it's the third biggest toy company in the world behind Hasbro-Mattel. And I'm just in this great chapter in my career, kind of making this more broad for a lot of people that are listening.

I've had all these accomplishments. I've done all these things. but, you know, I'm invigorated by being in a new chapter and doing new stuff. And I just really hope it motivates people to realize you can change your script at any point in the movie. You know, and I really, I'm challenged and I'm invigorated and I'm enjoying it. And I hope it inspires others to try some creative ventures, some different stuff that's been on their mind. It's like, I don't know, you know, back to us being 49 and 48. I could you imagine if you and I told our 22 year old selves that same fire that you have in

your stomach right now you'll have it at 49 we would have been ecstatic to know that true to be true 100% I wouldn't have believed it yeah it would have been hard you know I don't know how I thought about age and all that I've always been pretty a wisdom oriented kid I was patient but it might have been too hard to believe it I would have been like exactly the same and yeah And then I would have said to myself, yeah, exactly the same. No different. No, every day. Gary, talk to what's your feelings on the overall hobby?

You know, this series is about the hobby. Yeah. V friends fitting right into it. It's a huge launch. Everybody, hey, go out there. We're going to hit all the channels where you can do that. And if you're in South Carolina, I'll send you there. But talk to me about what your feelings are in the hobby overall.

I think the hype of 2020 COVID, you know, 2019 into 2020, COVID. And then the bubble bursting when we all came back to real life and had other things to spend money on, besides cards on eBay during COVID, I think that that was really good for the hobby of where it's at now. Because we're only a couple years removed from a lot of rookie speculation and other speculation losing a lot of value, I think the consumer right now is more educated than ever. I think that they're being more thoughtful. I say a lot that people will not buy Jackson Dart rookies the way they bought Mack Jones rookies. And I use that analogy as, not that I think Jackson's better or worse than Mac,

it's that people are starting to be more strategic and thoughtful. And I think that's really good for the hobby. And I think that the hobby is probably in the best place it's been in a very, very long time because there's so much content, podcasts, social media, breaking platforms, all this stuff really is helping. Yeah. Speaking of Breaking Rad, that's my boys and I are breaking.

You see something you like in our pack rips on the show? Check out the Rad Collective eBay Store and eBay Live shows at eBayLiveStore.com or at breakingrad.com. All the cars we rip on the show will be available on both platforms. It's fun. I mean, you know, I'm living to live vicariously with my kids and teach them business and everything else. So it's got a lot of, I don't know, there's sort of the stigma that goes with it. But I think the positive outweigh the negatives. And I think you can teach your kids. And the negatives are controllable. Like, you know, like this is just good parenting. Like the positives and social media outweigh the negatives. Yet the whole world has decided to spend 100% of its time worrying about the negatives. You know, like I feel as though the negative. in a hobby is you allow your kids to treat it like gambling and all they really care about is opening up expensive packs hoping for a miracle lottery ticket. But for example, let me give you my favorite thing about the hobby. If someone was disciplined and educated and put in the work, the amount of money people can make by going to dollar boxes at shows and stores, buying cards

for dollar and selling them for $499, $699, $999 on eBay. Somebody with $100 listening right now in a year only buying dollar cards for the dollar box, if they put in the hours of, you know, because you've got to be really knowledgeable, you can't look up every card at a show or at a store, it'll take you too long. But if you got really good, even with AI, even with image, if you really knew your shit, the fact that you take $100, and I'm serious about this, and turn that into $20,000 in a year,

by only buying $1 cards and flipping them for $5 to $10 apiece, which is all day long with these dollar boxes at shows and stores, you teach your son's that, your daughter's that, that is a skill set that they'll take with their whole lives around arbitrage,

market dynamics, marketing, putting in the work ethic on tedious behaviors and things to get to a goal. So, you know, you're in control. There's good and bad to everything in life. You're in control. What's it been like working with tops? It's been, I mean, in many ways, it's been a dream come true because, I mean, it's the, it's the company that, like, I most looked up to as a child.

And in other ways, really the only negative was they didn't believe how much demand there would be for the product, so we didn't make enough. I was trying to tell them the whole year. I was like, I'm telling you, we're not making enough. And so I'd be lying if I didn't say I was disappointed that these boxes have gone from $99 a box on pre-sale to now close to $500 a box. That has been a bummer because I know that that has kept it out of the hands of many people who can't afford a $500 box who would and could afford a $99 box. So that's my one, you know, regret slash RAS at top. I wish they listened to me a little more.

But I was empathetic to why they didn't. They didn't know. They weren't sure. They appreciated my conviction. But they had to make their own business decisions. But I'm excited for, for 2026 version of this set. Yeah. Anything you can say with what would be changing for the next round?

You know, hopefully they'll make, we haven't really, like, there'll be, so there's 250 characters plus in V Friendsland. This set only has 100. So I'm comfortable in saying that we'll have most. if not all of the characters that were not in this set. And there's a lot of big ones. Rare robot, resilient Red Devil, motivated monster. There's some big, very popular characters that were accountable.

Aunt Gary B., my personal favorite, were not in this set. So that I can say for sure. And I can also say that we'll have a bunch of cool inserts like we did in this. But we still got a couple more months of building the process. How many texts you get a week for people asking you for cards? These first, you know, came out two weeks ago. In the first two weeks, it's dozens a day on text, email, or DM from people in my life that I'm more acquaintances or random acquaintances with than, let's say, friends and family

or fans on social. So it's definitely, it's hitting for sure. Yeah. Now, how many do you keep yourself? you got to have some stocked away yeah i do i have a couple cases sealed because i want to keep sealed product forever um and then i'm building a collection i'm collecting the erupts that very rare insert i'm going to try to collect the whole set of that it's um it's definitely uh it's i want to wait a little bit because if i'm going to buy it on the open market i don't want to like impact the market

too much you know yeah yeah so i'm kind of i'll wait on a couple more months and let the storm settle, but I'll be collecting for sure. So if I get some hits with my kids, can I get Gary V to sign? Can I send your team some cars to sign for their collection? A hundred percent. Make their year. I told them I'm talking to Gary Vee today. They're like, you know, you're V friends.

You're not Gary to them. Like, you know, you're Gary to me. I'm like, yeah, you know, V friends. Yeah, I don't have V friends. Like, you idiot? Yeah, I know V friends. Have they seen the. eBay comps yet, right?

Uh-uh. No. You've got to show them what these things are selling for. Their heads are going to spin. Yeah. They, I've almost kept them away from it because I wanted them to just kind of Yeah, organic. Take in the organics a little bit of it.

You know what I'm saying. Yeah, of course, because once the commerce part comes up, it eats up the oxygen of the room and they're not the message. I get that. Yep. Yep. Any final thoughts on this product and what it means to you? Honestly, I'll flip it.

and what it could mean to all of you. I've said already, I am telling you right now, if you're a dad like I was, where you're constantly thinking about shared interests with your children, some come easy, some don't. My son is my carbon clone

and likes every single thing I like and it's the easiest thing in the world. My daughter has different interests. I cannot explain to someone who's lucky enough to have somebody who's four to eight, four to ten in their life right now, this is a hugely awesome collectible. Having common interest with your children, I think, is one of the great gifts in the world.

So my final thought is, if you're looking for an interest with your child, listen, let's talk about a bunch of bros who get sad when their boys aren't into sports. I have a couple buddies like this. Yeah. You know, maybe they're not into sports like you are with basketball cards or football cards, but maybe this is something you could be in with. And then the other final thought is not about them, being collectors of V-Friends,

but V-Friends inspiring them to do their version of V-Friends. I've always wanted to do something like this. Now I'm doing it. Maybe you've always wanted to open an ice cream store down the shore or at the lake because your grandpappy did and you've been dragging your feet for seven years talking about it.

How about this interview and me doing V-Friends inspiring you to go, you know, rent some space and opening the ice cream shop? Like, never, never, ever, ever give up on your dreams and execute on them. And so whether this leads to you being a collector of your friends and the value of that, or if this leads to you creating some version of your own be friends in a different form factor, in a different dream that you've had, I hope that, I hope one of those two things happens. I'm going to let that breathe on its own, brother.

Thank you, Bill. Where can, obviously, it's hard to find, but any calls the action for everyone. Yeah, I mean, you know, if you're V, E, E, E, EFriends.com is definitely the site to go to. We have free cartoons, free stuff for kids. You should definitely check that out. And eBay, type in VFriends, go to completed, sold items. You'll get a real sense of the market.

If you're a flipper collector like I am and you're curious about getting in, that's the way to do the homework. Always gracious with your time, brother. I appreciate you. Always happy to support, brother. Talk soon. All right, brother. See you. When I started this series, it was all about the business. But Gary brings it back to what this is all about

for me, my four boys teaching them business, also teaching them great characteristics like Gary talked about, hustling, getting ahead, repetitive tasks, learning business through the lens of this. It's an incredible hobby for investing and learning and collecting and doing different things. And I couldn't be more proud to talk with Gary today about V friends and everything he said and he's doing with these characters in a positive way, bringing into life these characters that teach our kids and different people traits of accountability, responsibility, and empathy. And again, I can't thank Gary enough for coming on the show. You know where to find us.

All the highlight clips from this incredible series, links to V friends, Gary's info. And we appreciate you. We couldn't do it without you. Thank you for making us, number one. We'll see you next time. Thanks for tuning into the show. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast platform. And don't miss the full video version on YouTube.

You can find us at www.comlectables. Show or follow Ryan on Instagram at Ryan Olford. Now get out there and collect yours.