Collector Nation - Jackson Dart Is OUT for the Season… So Why BUY His Cards?!

Episode Date: September 25, 2026

Ryan Alford, Bella and Brian Ludden are back for another Collector Nation weekly episode covering everything moving through the hobby. They start with Pokémon’s 30th Celebration, the growing crossover between Pokémon and sports card collectors, the Cooper Flagg 1/1 patch auto auction and the continued growth of the collectibles market. Then the conversation turns to football. The crew breaks down Jackson Dart’s season-ending injury, concerns surrounding Jayden Daniels and Caleb Williams and how injuries can affect different levels of the sports card market. Ryan explains why he may actually be looking to buy Dart cards if collectors begin selling into the injury news. Next up is Five Up, Five Down, including Josh Allen, Jackson Smith-Njigba, Kenneth Walker III, Bryce Young and Amon-Ra St. Brown on the rise, while Drake Maye, Cam Ward, Bo Nix, Cooper Kupp and Jameson Williams are among the names moving in the opposite direction. Ryan also highlights Chris Olave, Christian Watson and Dalton Kincaid as three under-the-radar football card names to watch. The episode wraps with Ryan and Bella battling Pokémon 30th Celebration packs against a 1991 WCW wrestling pack before previewing 2026 Bowman Football, including Arch Manning, college prospects, NFL players and how the market could respond to the next quarterback class. Topics Covered Pokémon 30th Celebration and collector crossover Cooper Flagg 1/1 auction update Jackson Dart’s injury and card market Jayden Daniels and Caleb Williams injury concerns How injuries impact football card prices Five Up, Five Down in the football card market Josh Allen, Bryce Young and Jackson Smith-Njigba on the rise Drake Maye, Cam Ward and Bo Nix trending down Chris Olave, Christian Watson and Dalton Kincaid under the radar Pokémon vs. WCW pack battle + 2026 Bowman Football and Arch Manning 🔗 Links Mentioned in This Episode Collector Nation Website: https://thecollectornation.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecollectornation_ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thecollectornation YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thecollectornation Collector Station Website: https://thecollectorstation.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecollectorstation Ludex Website: https://www.ludex.com App: https://www.ludex.com/download Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ludexapp Ryan Alford Website: https://www.ryanalford.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanalford ⭐ If you enjoyed this episode, follow Collector Nation, leave a 5-star review and share it with another collector.

So Jackson is out of season officially. What that means for card markets and maybe what your thoughts are here on if people should not sell, hold, or if they should react to this. I think it will have an impact. I'll tell you what, I'll be buying in about a month when everybody starts selling because they just think that one injury, he'll be back. He'll be okay. It's a reality of itself, like $20 to $400. But this is part of collecting. You have tons of upside on these guys, but you also have tons of risks.

Yeah, you're either going to go big or go home. I'm Ryan Alford. And I'm Bella Schaefer. And this is Collector Nation. We're curating all of the content in the hobby just for you all in one place. All the videos, all the podcasts, all the reels, all those drops you want right here, right now. What's up guys? Welcome to Collector Nation here on the Collector Nation Network.

Ryan, Brian and Bella back in the saddle. We have B Diddy. B Diddy's back again. I'm back. I'm back, baby. Yeah, we missed you. What's going on with you in Luddex land over in Shatown? Yeah, just a bunch of different things. A lot of stuff going on.

Good stuff. We'll be able to announce something in two weeks. Nice. So you'll hear it here first. There we go. All kinds of things happening in the Lodex Compound, LuddX secret chambers of business operations. You make it sound so great. I mean, when you have a light behind your head like that, it's got to be, it's got to be legendary.

That's pretty much the most dope thing we have in the office. Everything else is downhill from there. That's not true. It felt cool. I haven't been in there. I could see, I used to do the office thing. You go every day, you kind of take it for granted. but it's a cool office.

That's cool. That's true. Stop in. If you're in Chicago, stop in. You get a full tour from Ryan. Free cards. Free cards. Free cards.

Scanny for the life of your visit here. What are you guys been doing? What's going on in a collector station? You know, just running a card shop, man. Yeah. The days of the ends and the outs. We've got, you know, people coming and going, Pokemon's crazy.

going on with this 30th anniversary, which I wanted, or celebration, you know, 30 years, 30th celebration. Don't do a search for 30th anniversary. You got to do 30th celebration to get the search up, by the way. I learned that. I was like, why can I find this? 30th celebration. That's how they do things. I do like Pokemon. They celebrate things. It's like a shiny happy party at all times in Pokemon world. Yeah, it's just like, it's just like Lego the movie, you know, Like the, you know the little, my little pony or whatever that character was? It's always like, everything is so happy all the time. Whatever that was.

I mean, their ETBs, shelf price was $49.99. And they're settling around $172 market price right now. So, yeah, crazy, crazy. I mean, it's been like flying off the shelves. Do you guys have enough of it? We have, yeah, the mafia in the upstate. state for sourcing is in full effect. So people know where to come to get paid and people know where to come to buy product. You know, it's almost like an illegal drug trade, but it's

legal and 100% not drugs. Addicting, though. Yeah. We're addicted to the entertainment. Yeah, I actually haven't opened any of it yet because we haven't been able to keep it on the shelves long enough for me to do it. I opened my first packs last night with now. Ash, open four packs. And it was, it was colorful. And it was better than the average set. But we kind of got cooked a little. It was, we didn't get like anything over like maybe four or five bucks.

We got like a gingar. But it was still fun. It was, every card has like a hollow to it. So that felt more premium instead of getting the flat base cards. So we actually had one that, uh, We bought off of a customer. And so because they're doing like reprints of older variations of cards, we got one of those. I don't know if the camera is picking it up too well.

But I mean, I think they look really cool. Like this one's like all gold and shining. The ones we opened didn't look anything like that. No, you didn't get this one? We didn't get that one. Yeah. That's a card that will keep my AI developers up all night. Yeah, exactly.

17 variations of color. Yeah. Yeah, let us know you get that one. So what's nice about this, though, is it has like the little 30th anniversary Pokemon or Pikachu on it. So at least that will help differentiate between the vintage cards and, you know, 30th celebration. That's very kind of them.

I know that they had you specifically in mind for that. So just have to point that out for you. And I do want to say this for our listeners and viewers. We've had several drop-in here recently. So if you're listening or viewing, and you've been one of the drop-ins, we've had several lately. Hello, we appreciate you coming in.

More should do that. Here at the flagship store of South Carolina, we do get affirmations of that every time someone comes in. So we're not over-hyping that. It's a good experience. But we do appreciate you for that. I'll say this.

And if you came for sports cards, we will talk more about that. Because Nash is into Pokemon. I appreciate the artwork, but it is kind of one of those things that seems like for some people is polarizing, but there does seem that there's more

and more people that kind of split both sides. I'd be curious, Brian, let me put you directly on the spot, but you know your data, at least a little bit. Have you guys seen like the, you know, maybe the sports guys, you know, all they did was sports scanning

or have you seen more crossover scanners that, you know, Tom Smith is, is scanning both Pokemon and sports cards at a higher percent? Or is there more people that do both? Yeah. I mean, what we've seen, it used to be 75% crossover. And it went to 85.

Magic is 85% just scan Mazur. Wow. So magic's a little bubble. Yeah. Pokemon. Pokemon was always 75% crossover with your users. Yep. So like they did both.

75% did both. Did both until about six months ago. It started climbing up. That's to go to, and you know, for not to get into analytics and data, but Brian is a numbers guy and managed billions of dollars and derivatives and everything else. So he's, I'm going to again put him on the spot. But that kind of jump at 75 to 85 is actually a lot. Like that's a big jump, right? Huge.

I mean, it's five million people that we have. have, right, that have scanned a card. And so. To make that jump. Big jump. Yeah. So it does, it aligns with anecdotal, you know, I'd call that the quantitative. And then the qualitative would be like in our store watching what, the mix of that,

that increase, right? Yeah, you're like a scientist. Everybody's like, flip the channel. They're talking Pokemon and lots of data. Let's get to the sports, damn it. Yep. Yes. Well, to flip to sports.

You know, we've talked about it for the last couple weeks, few months at this point. But the Tops Chrome update, Cooper Flag, one of one, patch auto. Wow, that's a mouthful. The auction closes tomorrow. So it will have closed. Yeah, by the time this is being released, the auction will be over. currently it's at 2.7 million. I had predicted 5 million.

Well, and the question is, I don't know, I haven't watched enough of these to, I always see the final number, but I haven't watched it, like, to this level. Did these types of auctions, is it going to double, like, do they get down to the crunch and they double in the last day, or is it incremental towards the end?

I don't have that knowledge. I don't either, but I would assume the big players are not bidding this up on themselves. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. So I think there's like guys who had tops at like each, like half a million. So 2 million, 2.5, 3. Yeah.

Once it goes about three, people fall off, but also people join it. Come on in, I think. Yeah. So you might be right, Bella. I'll see. They'll be holding back waiting. Hell, I didn't know I could get it for 3.1. And then, yeah.

I don't think you get the shill bidding on this like you do on eBay. There's only been 40 bids. Hopefully not. So they clearly have some gatekeeping there. But I am interested, and I was talking to Ryan a little bit pre-show. I feel like they could have done, they did a 10-day auction. I feel like a card of this velocity, this magnitude within the hobby right now, did not need 10 days to get its max number.

And I feel like it's shorter. Yeah, shorter. I feel like you could have done a one-day auction and you probably would get the same price, if not more, because it's so like, you know, people like the chase of like the urgency. I also think they've done not the best job at marketing. Yeah, it is kind of hidden.

I saw how many clicks you said it was and I was like back in my way mentally into that. that's, I would have, you think it just dominate. And I know that, look, for just the marketing, obviously they know that there's like the 0.001% of their buyers that are, that would even qualify or want to buy this. Look how tiny. Yeah. That is on the website. Yeah.

It's pretty small. It's like, but I mean, it does represent probably like the, like the, it's just not an attainable card for, but at the same time, I'd probably be, have it billboarded there. Like, yeah. Just for the marketing. And I don't know. I'm sure that there's definitely some things behind closed doors that we don't know and a reason that they're doing that. But I can sit here on my high horse that can't afford $2.7 million and I can complain about it. You know, I'll give you a loan at 30%.

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. You can afford it. Three of us will go in on that. Daily compounded. I'll be the van of white. And then you guys can be. Mr. Wonderful.

Payday advance loan, 2.4 mil. No big deal. You go to jail for loan sharking. Oh, true. No, it'd be under the table, Brian. Even more. Through Venmo. Yeah.

Benmo. I mean, we're not going to, like, visibly break the law. We're going to under the table break the law. No. But it's interesting. We'll see where it goes. I tend to think it's going to be under four now. But I really have no clue, like, if people are just waiting.

Yeah, we'll see. We will see. And speaking of fanatics, they are opening another flagship store in Paris this October. So they're expanding their reach globally. So I think it'll be good for the hobby. I mean, everybody's going overseas, Brian. You know? I don't know.

Yeah, it's kind of, I mean, it's a worldwide industry. Yes. I would have to look at our France scanning numbers. Yeah. Hey, you could build a shop right next to them. Yes, expansion going up, you know, I guess going north to Canada probably makes sense, which I know you talked about and have some things in the works, but with all that, all the hockey playing up there, but they're into everything.

Canada and the U.S., I mean, we like that much different. There's differences, but there's a lot of common. Okay, so Ryan and Brian this weekend was a tough weekend for some very pivotal quarterbacks in the business. And specifically, Mr. Jackson Dart. But I kind of wanted to talk to you guys about a little bit. What injuries for young players that might not have established themselves in the industry yet and, you know, might have a little bit of question around their durability. What that means for card markets and maybe what your thoughts are here on if people should not, like, sell, hold, or if they should react to this.

Yeah, just any thoughts you have there. I mean, well, it's tough, number one. Most of the guys got hurt, all three of them actually were playing well. And so they weren't like struggling. And then there's a few that are struggling, Drake May, which we'll talk about. But Bo Necks a little bit. But the other guy, you know, between Jaden, Caleb Williams and Jackson Dart, it's the reality of the NFL. There's going to be injuries.

And it's unfortunate. I don't think we know exactly how long Jaden. is going to be out, similar elbow injuries he had a year and a half ago. So Jackson is out for the season, officially. And I think it will have an impact. I don't think it's going to, I mean, it's not going to like, I'll tell you what, I'll be buying in about a month when everybody starts selling because they just think that one injury, he'll be back, he'll be okay.

It's a reality of the NFL. Jayden Daniels is more than my longer-term concern as far as because I've seen. said this all along and I bought his cards to be in a year because I do think he's still the most he might be the most talented and it's between him and Caleb and I'm like a super fan of Caleb so but Jaden's

talent level and moxie and everything that he had from the get in the league combined with what he I think he still has is bar none but his frame I always said I don't know if he's got the frame to stand up in the NFL and so far it's proven that he has and I think his market might take the biggest to hit because it's the third or, you know, third or fourth, you know, injury for missing time. I think it would help if he can get back this year.

But Caleb sounds like he dives a bullet from what I'm hearing. And Brian, you're probably a little close to this being in his market. So I'm going to save Caleb for you. But those would be my biggest concerns. But injuries are reality of the NFL. Like we can talk about ups and downs and all this. And as soon as somebody gets hurt, nobody can predict that. So you're kind of by the market, but I think you've got to play, you know, the long term on the quarterbacks.

Jackson should be fine. It was a freak hit. Things happen. You're going to continue to see the league looking at quarterbacks getting hit. I know people joke about not wanting it turn into flag football. But, man, there's so much money involved and there's so much attention around the quarterbacks. You know, and Jackson would be the one. nothing was illegal.

I'm not suggesting there was anything whatsoever. But man, just getting your league, the faces of your franchise getting knocked out for the season back in the pocket. I don't know what you do about it because you don't, I do not believe in turning it into non-contact, but it's still a problem nonetheless

when the face of your franchise goes out for the whole season, game two. So, Brian, I'll let you jump in here, especially anything you know about Caleb. Yeah, I mean, I was at the game, and it looked like you said Caleb dodged a bullet. It looked like he got shot. He got shot by a bullet and then he dodged one maybe with the prognosis.

I mean. Yeah, that's what it. It looks like the bad ones that you say, like, yeah. Yeah, Gronk had an injury like this too and he was on the ground the same way. Yeah. So it must be like that specific injury that seems so bad. he's back up. And people are giving him tons of shit. I'm like, do you think that guy wanted to go off the field, get in a car, and what he thought was happening? Now all those, the talking heads

have all this information. Yeah. And saying, oh, what a baby. But at that time, I'm like, our season's over. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. I mean, also, you use your hamstring in every step you do. Like, that's not a pain-free injury. Yeah, but those are usually in baseball, it's like three months. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's just football. Yeah, I mean, his card shouldn't take a hit.

No, if they are. If you want to sell, call me. I'm buying. I was going to ask you a question for card shop owners. When someone, I come in with my Jackson Dart, it gives you some leverage on where you can buy it at, right? Yep. So you said you'd be buying DART, watch out a little bit, and Jaden. Yeah.

And I think it's a no-nothing for Caleb. Yeah. I think Caleb took a, was one of the fastest risers of the last like three months. Like all his cars were going up and I bought them before they did. And have continued to buy them. And we'll continue to buy. I think he you might see like a 5% like blip. You know, the people that are just, oh, you know, that we're reactionary because like that first three days like up through today once we see the data.

But I think overall, if he's out two, three weeks and comes, you know, right back at which he should, I don't think you'll see anything out of his market. I think Jadens is going to be truly dependent on how long he's out. So kind of a follow-up question to this. Which end of the market do you think is going to be most impacted? If there is an impact, is it going to be, you know, those $5, $10, $15 cards, those $300 to $800 cards or the $2,000 to $5,000 cards? I actually think it's the bottom of the market that it's the most impacted. Like the scarce of the scarce, the one of ones and all that, again, for Jaden or excuse me, Caleb and Dart, I don't think, you know, the only ones exist, these guys aren't out forever.

I don't think you won't see a ton of movement. I think that middle to low end you might, you'll see the most. That's kind of my take. I think the scarcity and the rarity give you protection a little bit. Yeah, and I think there's less of them. So the people buying the one-on-ones are like, well, they knew the risk when they bought it. And if they don't need the money, they're not going to sell it. Not going to sell it into this market.

No. And as a trader, it's like, I mean, if you bought the trade for that, you knew the risk. Yeah. And you're probably not going to cover right away. I think it's the mid-tier to high, high low-tier. Yeah. I think that, like $20 to the, for $300,

something like, because these are modern cards, where you'll see it the most. But this is part of collecting. Yeah. You have tons of upside on these guys, but you also have tons of risk. So it's like trading the AI engine stocks.

Yeah. You're either going to go big or go home. And I do think it does reconfirm the stability, the strength, the power that is Josh Allen. You know, doesn't get hurt. Yeah, why would you say that? And it's the best player in the league and is playing like it. And he's Superman.

Wow, we can get into that next. All right. Five up, five down. All right. Number one, my man, Josh Allen. Up 12% his market overall. 749 sales last seven days. We got $375,000 in volume through two weeks,

582 passing yards, five touchdowns, zero interceptions, and a pass rating over 130. He's the hero. He's the winner. He's my favorite player before he did it. Annie, yes. Brian, have you guys seen an uptick in Josh Allen scans? No.

I mean, he's been around for, while. Yeah. So steady. He's just a steady consistent number probably. I've had to guess. People are really smart. He looks great.

Hey, this guy's rocking. Jackson Smith and Jigba. His sales are up, volumes up, catches up, yards up, touchdowns up. He is the cleanest breakout of all in the entire league. And he's got a Super Bowl already under his belt. It doesn't matter who's throwing to him. because he's got Drew Locke as a starting quarterback, so it just means this guy can catch a ball from anyone.

If you had Drew Locke on your, if you had Drew Locke on your bingo card, you're the big winner. That's funny. Receivers don't have tons of premium. They're kind of like pitchers minus Paul's schemes. Yes. I think it's like,

but I do think not premium, but there's like a clear tier of like the first rate guys. And I think he's starting to separate himself as like, is that. Because his card values are up. So at least what we're seeing, like 50% up the last 30 days. Now it was pretty low. So it's like 50% of what number. Yeah, exactly.

So two things can be true. Data lies. It doesn't lie. It's just, hey, if you were worth $5. If your $5 rookies are now 10 or $750, they're up, but it's all relative. Kenneth Walker, the third. Wow, that's looking like a smart trade. That guy is a beast.

Anyway, his numbers are big up. He has 398 recent sales in the last 30 days. I'm just looking at that increase. $7,219 in sales in the last 30 days with a 50% increase. in volume. There we go. People are buying Kenneth Walker the third.

That's it. That's all we need. That's all we need. Okay. Bryce Young. Hey, again, if you had Bryce Young on your parlay, you know you didn't.

Everybody wanted to write this guy off. And I said, you better not write him off. I can't say I was like the diehard believer, but he showed signs last year if you were paying attention. And he was, the number one pick.

Yeah, so his numbers look good. He's done it against good competition as well. So he's up 50%. And 648 yards passing six touchdowns with one pick and 113 rating. That's playing good ball right there. Yeah, he started, like you said, last year he started to play different confidence, maybe the same coach for a few years in a row, helped. But yeah, they're starting to look like a real team.

this year because J-Lo isn't getting divorced. And that's their track record is every time she's gotten divorced, they've gone to the Super Bowl except last year. Oh, I didn't know that. So this year they can't. I'm sorry. Who do that? You just told everyone your secret.

Yeah, sorry, chronically online. Collector Nation is not just a podcast. We are your one-stop shop for all things, a hobby. All the best creators, all the best reels, all. all the best content curated for you every day. And if you're interested in learning more, go to thecollectornation.com or download our app on iOS or Android. We'll see you there.

Amma and Ross St. Brown, up 20%. He's having a pretty good year, I'd say. Almost 20 catches, 19. We'll round up for them. On 27 targets, volumes up, touchdowns up. I'm on St. Brown. up. Ironically, his playing mate is on the bottom five, which we'll get to shortly. So the number one and the top three should not be surprises on the down.

Who you think number one down is, Brian? Jaden. Oh, no, probably coming by hopefully probably next week, unfortunately. But you're close. You're warm. You're in the last 30 days. You're in the right draft class. Yeah, there you go. only down 10%.

And I think that's probably accurate. They raise a little bit in a wait and see. You open with Seattle. Okay, we'll give you a little bit of a trump card. Last week, still not great. But I think he's got time to recover, his market might. And Cam Ward has been so-so the first two years. And I thought he was going to have a little bit of a breakout.

You know, coach. You know, I don't know if it's him or the people around them or his coaching. I think he's got the talent. I don't know. I can't figure him out. And Bo Nix, number three. Down in every category, including value and including my collection.

College fund is down. Yeah, the college fund is down. Cooper Cup, number four. I'm surprised he's kind of on here, but he actually has a lot of volume, like normally that I didn't know he had, like looking at these numbers. And then Jameson Williams,

who plays with Amos St. Brown and Detroit, down almost 20%. Not a great year so far. Only eight catches, less than 100 yards. And that dude, I mean, makes the top off. I don't know exactly what's going on there. Yeah, I was thinking maybe Sam Darnold.

Yeah, I think Darnel's one of those that never gets enough credit anyway. So it's like, he's out for a couple games. we're not going to sell them because we weren't really buying them anyway. Yeah, fair. I don't know. And I like Donald. Like,

dude's like not just a scrub. Like, he's legitimately turned into a very, like, top 10 quarterback in the league. Game manager. He is game manager. But I think he's also,

I think he's like a, I give him the game manager plus marker. You know, like he can do some, he can win a game for you if you. need it. There's some game managers that, I'm not sure they're going to win the game. It's not going to lose them. I think Darnold can go out there and win one. So he gets to, he gets the Game Manager Plus award that we don't have, that we now do. The Quetroner Nation Game

Manager Plus Award. Sam Darnold. Sam Darnold. Congratulations. Congratulations. You get a lifetime trophy. All right. Your five up, five down. Yep. All right, and we have our three under the radar players of the week. Yes. So pretty, you know, not mainstream players we got here.

Exactly. Let's hear a little bit about them. All right. Chris Olavé, let me just say, hey, it's Trent. This is all about where the numbers might move. He's quietly the ninth most productive player in all of football. Hey, they've won one game, one lost game, you know, one one lost one. but I think between him and his quarterback,

Tyler Shuck, who's not really flying out of the radar, he's kind of maintaining. It's been a little uneven, but he looks the part that he showed last year, but Chris Haleves is a beast. And it's on a big contract, and he's living up to it. So I think he's won.

Again, here's the deal. If you're a fan of New Orleans, you should already own this guy. You probably do. And then Brian made the point, which is true, that wide receivers, like, total upside typically isn't a ton. That's true. But I do think there's some room to make some hay here because I think he's going to be, you know, several years, this kind of all-pro level from him. So I think he's won a good stash away.

Mike could become a Hall of Fame or over time. I'm not saying he's going to get it going to Hall of Fame after two or three years. What I'm saying, though, is he's got that kind of trajectory and that kind of talent. And then games on for long-term values, especially more rare cards. I'm not talking about base cards here. We're talking about more rare card. That's one thing that's cool about the market where they aren't the quarterbacks. Because if you want to one-on, one-on Jackson Dart, that's half a million million dollars.

You know, that's not attainable for most people. Crystal Lave, you know, one of 10 or one of 25, that's actually in the wheelhouse of a lot of people. Because you're talking about hundreds or low thousands. So it actually can get in there. And if he becomes a Hall of Famer, then you got some nice upside there as far as investment. Another wide receiver, Christian Watson. Mr. Christian Watson, if you get that, you know where that came from.

But from Green Bay, sales are up, catches her up, looks good. I've always thought he looked good in the uniform. Let me just say that. Getting off the bus, Christian Watson looked good. Tall, lean guy runs well. got some good parts around them. You know, he's got a guy named Love, throwing the ball to him. I mean, he wouldn't want some love, you know, every day.

Best last name in the business. Yeah, exactly. But he's looked good. I don't think his cards are 100% reflecting it. Good opportunity there, maybe with him. Again, being a receiver, being in Green Bay, I don't know what your total upside is, more, you know, getting those more rare cards is what I would get.

You know, like, I'm not going, I'm not telling you go, go get the base Christian Watson and you're going to see your empire grow. No, you know, go pick up some out of 25s of him and see what happens. He can make you turn a $100 into $200 or something when he starts really popping off. This is not financial advice? Yes, no. Just personal opinion. Personal opinion.

And, you know, here's what I've learned in life, this last player. You know, like when you want to get a sun tan, you get close to the. sun. When you want success, the closer you get to it, usually it rubs off on you. And this next player is around Superman every day. His name's Dalton Kincaid, and he plays for Buffalo, and he's a tight end. And he's around the best player in the league every day. I think you would give Josh Allen the biggest head if you could just walk around with him for a day. I mean, but he's just everything that, like, he's a great player. He's a big dude.

Like, I've, like, been, like, 100 yards from him, not close, but, like, close. Big dude can relate. I'm a big dude. Have nowhere. None of his skills whatsoever. But just size-wise. And then he's just such, like, there's so many egos in sports. And he's none of that.

He is none of it. He's just living his quiet little life in upstate New York with Haley Steinfeld and their children. I lived in New York, got turned on to Buffalo instead of the, you know, the people I knew were like, you don't want to root for the Giants or the Jets. So I was like, okay. And I went to like a bar that was a Buffalo bar. And the rest is history. This was in 20, 2000, like 13 or something. And then before Josh even got drafted. So I was like a quiet Buffalo fan for a while. You got sucked into the Bill's mafia. I guess it was that. And then once he was there and like the last five years have been all in. I do also love Josh Allen.

And I mean, even from week one, he came out smoking hot and he was throwing absolute nukes. So I'm excited to see where this season takes him. And I really think it could be his year. I'm going to knock on all the good. And somehow poor Dalton Kincaid, he was on the list. It turned into a discussion of Josh Allen. But he looks like a beast. He's the fastest moving tied in in the hobby.

So you've got sales increasing, volume increasing. What's his total upside? Am I saying, oh, yeah, you're going to get rich on Dalton. That's not what this is. It's more, I do think there's some gains to be had. I think he's got to have a big season. And again, you can get, like, low-numbered cards really inexpensively for players like this. And I mean, hey, if Josh Allen brings them to a Super Bowl, his cards are going to go up.

Yeah, exactly. So, you know, could be an exciting year for that. Yeah, so there you have it. Under the radar. All right. We have our weekly pack battle coming in here. Well, I haven't opened any 30th celebration from Pokemon. Yes. Ryan's opened very little, as we said earlier. So we're going to open this little hanger here.

There's three packs. Yeah, three packs in here, obviously. So whoever gets the best pack gets to open the last 30th. anniversary. And whoever gets the worst pack gets this WCW wrestling tag. 1991 wrestling bat. Which is the most random pack we could possibly grab. Yep.

I might would rather open that to be honest. So we'll see. We have a slew of vintage sports cards that are all in our name over there. Oh, yeah. In typical hangar fashion, never open. Never open. It's perfect. You'd think that they would get it, so it just, you know, one fell swoop.

All right. Which one are you feeling? These promo cars, I mean, I don't know about you. I want those stickers, though. Give them to Nash. Okay. All mixed up. Pick your pack.

All right. I've got it. All right. This is the winner's pack over here. Let's see. You want to go first? Ladies first. All right.

I hope you get the Charzard classic card. I hope I get a Mew. Or like a Mew. Yeah. All right. Nothing. Nothing. Let's see.

Pikachu. I think that comes with everyone. All right. But it's shiny. Yes. Congrats on that. And that's it. You did get the Pikachu.

that comes with everyone. Are any of the Pikachu's worth more than the others? Are they all the same? The 30? All right. Number 22. And I don't see anything else there. All right.

Oh, a little cartoon Pikachu action. I don't think... Well, I guess they're all cartoons. I think cooked once again. So, uh... Yeah. Which one looks for? I don't know.

I'm going to open the wrestling pack. You can have that Pokemon. I'm about to retire from Pokemon all the other. But I'd rather see if, I'd really get like a Arne Anderson or a Lex Luger or, you know, you mean Rock and Roll Express like parallel. All right. Oh, I got a full art of Meowf.

Okay. Okay. All right. There you go. Third hack. Should have just waited for that one. You need to wait it out. I got a regular Mew.

and guess what, a Pikachu. No, the Pikachu. But what you didn't get is the Steiner Brothers. The Steiner Brothers. Are you kidding? Off the top rope. Slam right on Mew. Telling you.

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Ricky Morton, one of the Rock and Roll Express. Sid Vicious. Doom. Oh, yeah. Stinger. Oh, yeah. Sting.

Sting. Right there. Are you kidding me? I'm going to do the scorpion death lock right on top of you. The scorpion death lock right on mew. Okay. Dutch Mantel. Wow, we're going right back.

There's the fabulous freebirds. Oh, wow. Yes. El Gigante. Crazy out. This looks like the same pack I opened. Like, oh, two stings in one pack. Oh, man, scorpion death lock for you.

Terry Taylor, fabulous freebirds. The stinger telling you. What would even, what does it hit in that pack? we sting? I don't know if this like his rookie or something. Who knows? Kind of looks like original sting face paint before he got all weird. He going to the dark side. He turned into the crow. All right. So we got meowth and a sting. Sting. I think we know who won that.

Hey, I feel like my full art could be worth, you know, probably five bucks. I don't know. We'll see. 375. But, you know, one of these days, we're going to do one of these past. openings and we're going to hit the case hit of whatever we're opening. I mean, I think you just did. Sting.

But until then, I mean, who else do you want? That's what I'm saying. Everybody watching, it's my eyes. They're shaking their head. Yes. They're going. Yes. Yeah, I don't know if I want to see grown men in tights.

Gros. Fabulous free birds. And like, I think I'm okay with that. Yeah. So I'm glad you took that one. I forgot about the fabulous free birds. And that's going way back. That NWA day.

Yes. All right. For our last segment here, we have what's coming up on the calendar of releases. And, you know, I think everyone's super excited for 2026 Bowman football to come out here in a couple days. We're super excited. And I think it will be an awesome product. Yes. We will have quite a bit of it here at collector station.

So stop in if you're local, pick up a box. We'll have it online as well. But it's going to have both the NIL side of it with some college guys that are playing now. So you're going to see some first cards from guys that don't have cards yet. And, you know, Manning, Arch Manning actually signed an exclusive deal. He's going to be in the product. And then Mendosa, you know. But first Bowman with.

with tops having the license back in 10 plus years, 12 years, something like that. I actually wasn't expecting it to be in here, to be out this year. I thought it might be next year or something before they could. So I was happy with that. So you're going to see the mix of college pro guys. And I think it's going to be a good product. I like the releases. I think this is going to be another one that kind of comes down to like,

okay, what are the parallels? what are the autographs who, you know, they've got all the best signers. I'm sure they'll be good stuff. But I think it's going to come down to like just, you got to rip it and find out. Yep. I'm excited. It's another list of cards for me to relearn. Every week.

Yeah. It never slows down. I truly doesn't. And I feel like I'm constantly trying to play catch up with myself. Exactly. Now it's like I have to watch football. keep track of those stats and keep track of the card stats. Like such a hard life I live, you know?

You never knew you were going to keep up and know what a purple glitter hologram that is and a downtown. My mom, who my parents watch all of the episodes. So shout out if you made it this far and are watching Mom and Dad. But they'll like ask me a question on something and I'll go on 20 minute tangent. And I'm like, I hate that I know the answer. Yeah, yeah. I will say the one thing I do like about this set is it seems to be in that affordability category. So it's like, just hope the hits are there enough.

My only problem with flagship football was hits for far and few between, even if it was affordable. And even my kids were like, I'd rather spend 50 and have more hits. And I'm like, that's kind of what I thought. But we'll see. Hey, but the hangars, at least in our store, were kind of hot. No, they sell well. No, no, no. I meant like the people were pulling it.

Yeah, maybe. Hangers are bangers. There. Oh, yeah. We got a couple more random ones that we picked up, but we'll see where the Bowman falls. But, you know, Hobby Box is under 300. We'll see at that last. I mean, all the prices seem to kind of jump after release.

But I still think there's enough in print of this. It seems to sort of. fulfill all the needs and not double in price, like some things. I also think, okay, here's an interesting perspective. Because this rookie class of quarterbacks specifically isn't playing this year really at all, I'm curious as to how this product performs compared to flagship that all of, you know, those quarterbacks aren't really playing, but obviously they played in college. And I'm just curious.

You're talking about like, well, they're playing in college right now. Are you talking about the ones that are going to be drafted next year? Yeah, yeah. Like I, because I know that that draft class is really good. Yeah. This coming draft class is really good compared to this year. So I'm curious as to how these card prices compared to flagship's card prices just because this year's rookie class was mid.

Yeah. I think you've seen that come back down to Earth with like Ty Simpson and Mendoza. those price values, you know, dropping a bit. But they're still quarterbacks and they're still the only ones that are there. So they're not, they've fallen, but they're not bottoming out because I think, as we've seen with the injuries we've already talked about on this very episode, it is one snap away, you know, from Mendoza playing, from Mendoza playing, from, you know, some other rookie we're not even talking about. So I think it's possible. But, you know, typically speaking, and as you really know we're in that it's collector station here with the train comes by, whatever that was. You never know an easy South Carolina.

It's the truck train. Yeah. I'm just waiting to see like, you know, a souped up escalate go by with train wheels on it. You never know here. But the, it's interesting to me the blend of pro in college. it's not new but it is a fascinating thing and obviously Tops is extending that now

with the Bowman product it's kind of like I don't know how I feel about it but I tend to not like it I don't know if I had feel that strong on it but I kind of want it to be one of the other I mean I think they're they're milking

what they can get out of star players and prospects who you know before when they're just in college, you don't know if they're going to go number one. You don't know if they're going to go in the first round. You don't know that. But now that they're in the NFL already,

you know exactly where they fell in that draft lineup. And now they can just capitalize on them a whole round two. And I have a feeling if this product came out pre this season, I think we would have seen a lot different numbers. And I think Mendoza's cards probably would have been insane. Yeah. Yeah, before. Yes.

I think you're going to see that same thing, and then they kind of level out once their pro cards get available because most people then suddenly don't want it in their college uniform. Yeah. As it happens a lot. A lot of the college stuff drops, ask the fact. But we could also see an interesting dichotomy since none of the quarterbacks are playing, the rookie quarterbacks are playing this year so far,

that the college products might be doing better because they haven't really proven themselves in the NFL, but they did prove themselves in college. Yes, and we'll see. It will be an interesting test to see where they end up getting drafted because there is a lot of guys that look like they can be drafted. Like from this quarterback class, it looks better. I think you'll see a lot more starters next year.

Here to the little break we've had. I will say, I guess it all depends what teams are drafting first. That's right. All right. I think that that's all. Anything else from you for this week? No. Hey, get in there and take advantage of Beckett grading at $17. We got like 100 cards going. Yeah. And we've got what, Colin coming on?

Yep, next week. Can we announce that officially? Sure. Now we can. We make the rules. So, yeah. So we'll see what he has to say about that. Super excited to hear from him next week on that. Feel free to check out the collector nature. dot com and the app on iOS, soon to be up on Android. We have articles talking about most of what we talked about today. So if you want to read instead of listen,

feel free to go hit up those articles by yours truly and Ryan. Yeah. We are curating all the latest collections. We've got checklists, best cards, the hits, the chases, anything, everything you want on every set. for all the major releases. And then, of course, the app has our digital packs. If you want to get in and rip a few,

that's based off all the inventory in the store. So if you've done Arena Club or those kind of experience, similar thing, but it actually has a little spin at the beginning, which is a taste of the actual store. I'll leave it at that. Secret passage is included. I'll say leave it at that. That's last comment.

Yeah, there's a ton of fun stuff. And if you're a creator in the hobby and want to just, join. Feel free to DM us, and we're happy to help you through that. We'd love to onboard some more creators and help grow the ESPN of the hobby. There we go. We appreciate everyone for listening. Thecollectarination.com and Collectronation in the app store for Bella.

I'm Ryan. We'll see you next time on Collector Nation. Thanks for tuning in to the show. Be sure to follow us on your go-to podcast platform and catch the full video episode over on YouTube. Visit us at thecollectornation.com and follow Ryan on Instagram at Ryan Alford. Now get out there and collect yours.