Collector Nation - Josh Luber on Fanatics, Trading Cards & the Future of Collecting | Hosted by Ryan Alford

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

🎙️ Episode Summary In this episode of the Trading Cards and Collectibles Podcast, host Ryan Alford sits down with Josh Luber, co-founder of StockX and Ghost, to talk about innovation, entrepreneurship, and the future of the collectibles market. Josh shares how StockX disrupted the sneaker and trading card industries by applying stock market-style mechanics like bid-ask pricing and authentication. He also dives into his latest venture, Ghost, a customizable collectible toy brand that’s capturing attention with blind box formats, rare variants, and long-term collectability. This conversation explores the psychology of collecting, the educational value for kids, market challenges, and the cultural significance of collectibles—from sneakers to trading cards to toys. Whether you’re a collector, entrepreneur, or fan of pop culture, this episode delivers insights into how collectibles connect communities and shape culture.     🔑 Key Takeaways Josh Luber’s journey: From childhood collector to co-founding StockX and Ghost. StockX revolution: How bid-ask pricing, authentication, and standardization changed the marketplace. Trading cards challenges: Why liquidity and standardization make them tougher than sneakers. Ghost’s innovation: Blind box collectibles, player personas, and cultural storytelling. Education through collecting: Teaching kids supply, demand, and financial literacy. Market insights: State of the trading card hobby, Fanatics’ role, and the psychology of collecting. Future of collectibles: Where sneakers, cards, and toys fit into culture and commerce.

All these products, they're all the same. All hype economy products. They're all supply and demand driven. Just having the leagues as equity partners in their own product, that should have been that way for decades. It's their product. It's their business. 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. Yo, what's up? Welcome. We appreciate you for tuning in. We got a treat today, folks. You like collectibles. We're going to go top to bottom here. We're covering the gamut today, guys. We got everything from shoes to toys to cards. He's had his hands in all of it. He's the co-founder of Stock X, the co-founder of Ghostright. He is. Josh Looper. I can't even keep up. You got you touching everything that I like. How did you do it? I just get to make businesses around things that I like, and that's it, right? I just happen to be the right age for the right history of the products that we grew up collecting, and then we're so lucky, everything else, and happy to be here, but this is the fun stuff to talk about.

I know, man. And I think, like, every kid growing up, if they were going to, you know, how you have to do in, like, third, grade, fourth, what do you want to be when you grow up? I think if the job description and path that Josh Luber took, I think 98%, and maybe little girls now too, but definitely little boys. Like this guy would have down the path that Josh Luber's taking. I would like to have that. I mean, dude, I mean, it is, you get to do the things that you grow up collecting and loving. I know you got a deep history there. But it's just cool, man, that you've, I don't know, made this ridiculous.

And I know nothing's easy. You've worked your ass off. But it's just crazy, the things that you've touched. It's almost like overwhelming knowing where to start with the successes you've seen. But congratulations. I appreciate it. We didn't know that this career path existed when we were, you know, we grew up before the internet. We grew up before, you know, all of this.

And it's fun now to look at it, you know, we both have young children. We both have young boys and, you know, and watching now what his view of this is. And he understands some of this. He understands some of what Stock X is and meant, but like he just loves Pokemon cards more than anything else, right? And so now we get to be there to sort of guide them and talk about the business side of it. Like that, by the way, that is like the most fun part of all of this for me is like we had a conversation literally last night because he has Pokemon cards that he wants to get graded. And I told him that he has to fund it. So he has to figure out what card he's going to sell to pay for his grade.

like and him going through the math of well if i get a nine on this and sell that i mean like how cool is that it's so cool man that's so cool and i'm so glad you went there man because like part of why i started this show like i've been doing podcasting and what and doing stuff that i think it's pretty cool for most dads you know but they didn't really want that dad's a podcaster and owns a marketing agency that's cool they didn't really want anything to do with it and then they started getting into the hobby a little later this is probably a 18 months a year ago. And I started using my connections, like just to get us in experiences, like, you know,

calling a friend or somebody that's been on the show. And then it all snowballed into doing this show that I'm blessed to do. But the biggest rewarding part has been teaching them supply in demand, teaching them e-commerce, teaching them, you know, in a cool, fun way because they want to collect and they want to know, you know, what's worth. And you're exactly right. Hey, if you want that, you got to sell something to make. make it happen. And that's been really cool and something that I really want to expand upon on this

show, but it's through that lens. So I love that you're a dad and you're teaching him these things because, I mean, shit. I mean, but he gets to say my dad started Stock X. Is there a bigger play for him that's cool than that? He doesn't realize that yet, but I have in a couple years, I think he's going to figure that out. My daughter, who's a couple years older, like she's starting to figure that out. And as kids start to understand what shoes people are wearing, but But we all grew up. Like our first businesses, we're all flipping, trading cards and buying and selling cards when we were a kid.

And so now to get to do that with my son and part of it is it's exactly right. You know, you mentioned this sort of, you know, education of the economics of supply and demand and having those conversations, which obviously is we as parents, we all want to help our kids, you know, grow and become smarter and learn these sort of things. But I had this realization early on at Stock X when, you know, we were very fortunate to be asked to come and speak at a lot of different places and because it was sneakers and I would go in I would talk at many different places all over the world and by far the best ones were always when I got to go speak at a school, high school or college or middle school. And, you know,

even though they all came, they wanted to hear about $30,000 sneakers or the time that I met Eminem, when I got into the economics of it all, you could actually see them like refocus and be, super interested in that part of it as well. At least most of them, some, you know, still to goof around in the back. And then the line afterwards of people that wanted to come up and talk to me. And some of them were about what's it like to meet Eminem, but most of them were, what do you think would be a good idea if I, if I bought this and sold this or whatever? Like really, and like, and then, you know, 10 years later now for me having that conversation and doing it with my son is, is obviously super rewarding. But like, that was a realization early on in terms of what we were

doing that was like, oh, okay, this is a really good, like, entree into education and everything else. What led to starting Stock X? Let's talk a little bit about that story before. I want to spend the majority of the time talking about Ghostrite because a lot of, you know, people can find the Josh Loeber story on Stock X, but for our audience, for people, you know, sit in the table, talked us about that and, you know, the damn shoe game, man. It's insanity. Yeah. There's obviously a lot to that. I'll say one of the most important parts of sort of my story of starting stock X is that, you know, I'm an entrepreneur. I've started and run, I don't know, maybe a dozen companies at this point. And there was a probably good four or five

before Campas, which is the company that became Stock X. And all the companies that I started before that, none of them had anything to do with sneakers or collectibles or trading cards or any of my personal passion. And almost intentionally, like I almost intentionally tried to avoid creating a business related to sneakers so that it wasn't just an excuse to play with sneakers. And also, you know, sort of pre-social media at a different time with sort of the businesses you could build online. It was like, well, am I going to build a sneaker store? There wasn't as clear of as many opportunities. But it wasn't until I created campus, which was a side project while I was at IBM. I always, in between every business, I had some corporate job to pay the bills and sort of jump to the next one.

And so I was at IBM as a strategy consultant and I was running campus on the side, which was like a, you know, the Beckett for for sneakers, right, the price guide for sneakers. And that was, we started working on that in 2012, and it wasn't until 2015 that I met Dan Gilbert. So I was doing this on the side for three years, nights and weekends, just trying to grind in and trying to create something and do something and just really find a way of what was going to be my next business, how do I leave IBM, what is this next business that I can create? And I wasn't exactly sure what it was going to be, but I had a pretty good, you know, sort of, at least path with what I'd created in Campless,

of now trying, is there a real business within the sneaker industry? And I talked to everybody in the industry, Nike, eBay, Foot Locker Complex, you name it. And there was never a good fit of who to work with and who to take Camp Las and evolve it to the next level. And it was really just, you know, there's a lot of just luck and serendipity involved in anyone's success story. But for me, you know, in April 2015, I met Dan Gilbert, Dan, who's the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Quicken Loans and pretty much the entire story.

city of Detroit. And the short version is that he was trying to build the same thing. He was trying to build a marketplace for sneakers based on, you know, stock market mechanics. And that's an even longer crazier story because Dan's got no ties to sneakers whatsoever. But, you know, he understood the value of the, you know, stock X, the real business is not sneakers. It's the bid ask model. It's the pricing model. It's the marketplace part of it. And it was just fortuitous to me that maybe the only other person in the whole world trying to do the exact same thing, the exact same thing, at the exact same time, happens to be one of the most successful business people in the world. And so I ended up selling Campless to Dan.

That was sort of the data layer. And then moving to Detroit to work with him and his team to turn that into Stock X. And so I moved to Detroit in 2015 and then we launched StockX the next year. But it was very much a granular step by step, had no idea where it was going other than in this direction. And I got lucky that I met Dan. And we got lucky that we had an amazing team that we worked on it with it at StockX. And here we are. But yeah, it's the whole thing is nuts.

What's something that maybe people haven't heard or known about that story, you know, with Stock X? Like what's something that's maybe a nugget as we turn to, I mean, you know, that rocket ship. I mean, I watched that from afar is, you know, someone in, you know, tech and marketing and my kids that were younger, but got where sneaker heads pretty cool. fast. I mean, I wrote you a lot of checks indirectly. Sorry, not sorry. I know. I know. And maybe what's a scoop or something that was there a turning point with Stock X? Like, what was the day that you went? You knew you're on. I mean, look, you just nailed it. Like, the biggest thing is like, Dan Gilbert happened to be doing the same thing. And then, you know, but I do say smart idea is find fortune and luck. And so I think you found,

You made your own luck there, but I think, you know, talk to me about something that's maybe not out there or something that was just the game change or turning point. Yeah. Well, so I'll give you two, sort of one in the beginning and then one sort of the day that we knew that this was going to work. So first of all, you know, business is just people. That's it. And I was unbelievably fortunate that the team that Dan had in place, and in particular, the guy who was the CEO of that that company, company before I got there, Greg Schwartz, who then became the CEO and my co-founder in building Stock X, he and I ended up being perfectly complimentary in every way. And, you know, in skill set,

in temperament, in personality, and sleep schedules. I mean, like, we were effectively co-ceoes and, you know, running that company. And I didn't know them before. And I mean, it could have gone wildly the other way or could have just been not as great. And so much of our success is a function of our partnership and being on what to build that company together. That's starting it. But, you know, we got together in June of 15. I moved to Detroit. We launched Stock X in February of 2016.

And then in September of 2016 was the first time after we launched that there was a big Nike drop. It was the Jordan 1 bread, the black and red. sort of OG color way. And from February of 16 when we launched until September of 16, we were grinding out two trades a day, four trades a day, six trades a day, just slowly, you know, a couple more sales every day. And by the time we got to September, we were doing about 60, 60, 60 sales per day. And it was like, we're grinding and just trying to figure out if this thing's going to work.

And that day, we sold 301 pairs. And from the moment the drop happened in the morning, and we started seeing just a higher rate of sales every day. You know, we had all dashboards on our phone that we can see all the metrics for the company. And we were glued to our phone all day. And we just realized that like, you know, this is, I mean, it's a company jumps 5X that day. And it was the realization that we always knew that the power was in the model, that it was about the pricing model, it was about bid ask. it happened to be that we were selling sneakers. And to see what had happened was there was so much liquidity that came into the market at one time from Nike, right, that for us, all of a sudden, then the spreads between bid and ask were getting smaller.

And so the trades were moving quicker. And to see all that happen kind of in real time, the data in real time and the customers and the people on Twitter and everything else, that was the moment that said, oh, this is going to work. Like, this is a better model, period. And we didn't make up the model, right? All we did is copy parts of the stock market and areas of finance and apply it to areas of commerce. But that was the, this is going to work. Now, we had no idea that it was going to be the size and scale and success and brand that it was. But that was the moment that we knew the model was the right model and that it was going to work.

And by the way, just for a context, you know, so we did 300 sales that day. I've long since, you know, I left Stockex in September of 20, so almost five years ago. go, you know, when I left, we were selling somewhere around 35,000 sneakers a day. So, you know, we were nowhere near scale or success or anything in when that release happened. But it was understanding the mechanics of supply and demand and the model that it was like, okay, we're on to something here. Yeah, man. There's brilliance in all of that. I'd love to you to explain just briefly. The whole eBay model, which is, you know, for some people like bidding and, you know, you establish value by how much someone will bid versus your with the bid and ask.

So that'd be part one. But I, just a comment, like the way you guys tied into these cultural moments and I'd call it borrowed interest until you created your own. And it's like, because you have all these large brands, you know, Nike and doing these, the shoe releases. And feeding into that and having this engine. damn it was smart i mean in it it everything makes sense that's successful you know it's like damn why don't think of that you know like after the fact you know you don't appreciate the grind and the doubt you know everybody believes it when they see it not everybody believes it though before they see it yeah and that's to the fruit come the spoils but talk about that bid ask

and anything you want to expound upon on that last point i made well look this is my favorite part of all of it and you know i've sort of become I'm an accidental economist through all of this. But the model is really the collector and economist, Josh Luber. That part is true. At the most basic level, anyone who's ever used eBay understands eBay is what's called a listing-based marketplace, meaning that anyone can go list whatever they want. And so if you want to buy a pair of Jordan 1 Freds, then you will go and you will put in the search term.

And you will get thousands of listings of everyone selling theirs. and, you know, this one has a picture this way and this one has a receipt and this one has a cat in the back of it. I mean, all the likelihood. But the reality is that Jordan 1 bread is an asset. It's a single, standardized thing, particularly if we're selling brand new shoes. You don't need pictures of all different ones. I mean, if you think of if you go buy a share of Nike stock or the New York Stock Exchange, there's not thousands of people saying buy my share, buy my share, buy my share.

Like, it's a standardized thing. We know what a share of Nike stock is. And so we create what's called a product-based marketplace, meaning that the product is the page, and as opposed to the listing, and we create that catalog on Stock X. And so we create one page for the Jordan One Brit. And every bid, every ask, and everything is all at one page.

And that creates the efficiency and the transparency around the dollars and the data. But now you know if you want to buy a pair of Jordan One breads, there's one place to go. and you don't have to go all the way around. And so our goal, our entire goal in building stock X was how do we create a product-based marketplace? How do we create where we can sell up one page? And so everything that you've seen that we've done is a function of that. And in order to do that, you have to standardize that product to be able to sell it off of a stock photo.

That's kind of like, that's kind of your rule. Because if I'm at one product page, I can't have pictures of all the different listings. So you have to have a stock photo. So in order to do that, we had to do a couple of things. First of all, we only sell brand new or dead stock sneakers on StockX. If they're used, you would want to see how used and all the different variants. So it's only brand new. Comes with the box, comes with all the accessories, like we know exactly what that is.

Second, and what was more complicated was we had to authenticate sneakers. And we created authentication centers. And I've since lost count, I don't know, Stock X probably has 14 or 15 all over the world now. And authentication is a value. And if you're a 14-year-old kid who saved up all your money to buy a pair of Yeeys, then knowing that you're not going to get a fake pair, there's real value in there. I'm not saying there's not. But it's really just an ante to play. It's a red herring to the overall value.

The purpose of authentication is, authentication is one part of standardization, and you need to standardize in order to have a product-based marketplace, and you need a product-based marketplace to be able to have bid-ask and that's the business. And so everything drives back to that. And if you look at now 10 years later, the companies that won, StockX and Goat, stock X is a go to a wildly different from a brand standpoint and customer experience and in UI. But at the core, we both have Bitask. They call it something a little bit different. There's like an offrope, but same thing. And it's a product page and it's Bitask and they authenticate.

And that's it. Everything else is, everything else is gravy. everything else's brand, everything else is how you move beyond it. But at the core, it's how do we, and by the way, obviously we're copying the stock market and there's one ticker symbol for Nike. And every bid, every ask happens at that ticker symbol for Nike. And so you never have to worry. You never worry you're going to get a fake stock, whatever, right?

So that's what it means to have a stock market of things to copy the bid ask. And that's really the key of the whole thing. And so that also then became the sort of benchmark as stock expanse. and we added other products, which is, is this a product that can be sold off of a single product page with a stock photo and everything around it? And so, you know, that's really what we built. And it happens to be to start with sneakers. It happens to be that sneakers work really well for that.

But it doesn't necessarily need to be the only thing as we've expanded. And who knows, as they continue to grow, there may be, you know, products that look wildly different that ultimately are sold on that site. Great explanation. And I hadn't, I don't know why I'd never, I don't know if you would have thought I would have crystallized it with a single page thing, you know, now that I'm like, yeah, they do. I bought, I don't know how many things. It's one page, it's always and it's different sellers, but it's all on that one page versus eBay, the Wild Wild West of 100,000 listings. But sneakers versus trading cards, trading cards, they get opened out of a pack.

They need to be authenticated sometimes. but the variability in the quality versus a new pair of shoes, that's a fascinating thing that is pretty obvious once you talk about it, but is actually a very different thing because it's a trading card that's been open out of a pack. Is it ever brand new? I mean, you can say it's near mint, all those things, but that's kind of a fascinating, I don't know, you know, comparison, because I almost am convinced they make them factory better at times than others, you know?

Like there's intentional, I don't know, imperfection in the cards. Well, that's a whole other can of worms. And what's interesting is obviously most trading cards that are made through machines and computers and everything else that go into it. But if you look at all the cards, all the vintage cards, they were all hand cut. And so you have, that's why you have just wildly off-center cards, you know, from the 60s and 70s and 80s, there really aren't too many centering issues anymore. At least there shouldn't be.

One of the reasons why Stock X has not been wildly successful in trading cards is that obviously you can't sell raw cards because raw cards can be whatever condition they can be. Never have one page or it'd be very difficult. Right. And so it's just like a pair of sneakers. So you can't sell raw cards. Now you can sell graded cards and that's perfect in theory. Except for the fact that the overwhelming majority of trading cards have very very, very much. small number of total population of cards in any one grade.

With the exception of like 89 upper deck Griffey and 2018 Prism Luca and, you know, maybe two dozen other cards, you know, and the pop of any one grade of one card is, you know, it's just small. And so with such a small amount of total population, the liquidity for bid ask that happens becomes very small. And so it doesn't work that well. What you need is for any product, you need to have some large number of quantity. When Nike drops a pair of sneakers, there's a million pairs or 100,000 pairs.

It's big. It's not 20. And so, Stock X model works better for unopened wax where you take a box of, you know, that are still sealed because at least that's fully standardized and the quantity is the same. Now, there's other issues because wax generally comes from manufacture and it goes to a dealer, a card shops, and there's other issues. So, you know, this is around the specific nuances of supply and demand for cards and why it works okay but not great for the Stock X model. How have they been? Like, I want to transition to Go straight. But is that been a, is it a growing sector for Stock X, you think, the trading cards?

You know, honestly, I'm not really sure. When I left in 20, the trading card industry was in a much different position, right? This is pre-Fanatics and that was me obviously leaving Stock X to start Fanatics Collectibles. But the amount of cards that were out there, and then we also, then were right in the middle of the pandemic. And then we had 21 and the crazy, you know, everything that happened in 21 and then the crash afterwards. And I think a lot of it, there just wasn't a prioritization for trading cards because of everything else going on in the economy for the core business. And so when I left, you know, the trading card team got at least one person smaller. And so honestly, I don't really know.

But again, if you just go back to the core of. how good it is for the model, it's okay, not great. So it makes sense that management wouldn't overly prioritize that versus products that are great for the model. It's such a rocket ship. We could do a whole show on it, but I want to focus on Ghostrite of both that and Fanatics. I mean, talk about that Rocket Ship Riot on Fanatics and then let's build a Ghostrite. I'm going to let's you kind of take it there. It's all the same story and not just because it's me, because all these products, they're all supply and demand driven. You're all high economy products. They're all supply and demand driven. You'll have finite supply. They all sit at the intersection of culture and commerce. They'll have

then collectors and resellability and authentication issues. And they're all products that are equal parts, you know, consumer good and financial asset. And for me, you know, I happen to get back into trading cards pretty significantly. In 2018, 2019, at the summer of 2019, I stepped down as CEO at Stock X. And then I was spending a lot more time on trading cards. And by then also ramping up the trading core business at StockX. So both personally and at the company, I was spending a lot of time and sort of I got to see what the state of the industry was. And it was very clear that what did happen was going to happen, meaning the trading cards were going to explode or at least significantly grow from where they were in 2018, 2019. And that, too, the current companies in the space

were pretty much relics of the 80s and 90s. It had been the same people, the same team, the same technology, the same structure, and rightfully so. I mean, you know, it had been a call it a sleepy, small industry for the, you know, 15 years before that. And so there was just this opportunity that was pretty clear. And so I left for the sole intention of trying to acquire the licenses for trading cards. And I was actually partnered with somebody else for about two months. And then I met Rubin and we sat down and talked through it. And every serious business person, I've ever met. We spent six hours and for six hours, he asked me the same question in a million different ways, which is how big can this be? At some point, I finally just said, I don't know,

but it's really big. It's way bigger than we think and it's growing. And he's right. And, you know, everybody looks at that size. Basically, is it worth my time and effort to go after this? And we left that room that day, which was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving of 2020. And we said, we can do this together. And it was my idea and it was my vision. It was my sort of plan. But at the end of the day, I mean, it's 95% his relationship with everybody and fanatics and the credibility and support and structure to be able to go out and actually do it. Ideas are worthless, right? Execution is the only thing that matters.

And I was fortunate to find the perfect person to partner with to go and do that. And then we were able to acquire all the licenses for baseball, basketball, basketball, football cards, you know, over the next year, over 21. and then as everyone knows at the end of 21, beginning of 22, acquired tops. And then for me personally, you know, once we realized it was going to be as big as it was, then it was like, great. You don't need me to run this company and I don't want to run a company this big and this much stuff going on. And so we were fully aligned.

We hired Mike Mayhan who's a CEO now. And then I left that summer. And Ruben was the first check in the go straight. And it was, you know, about as, as much according to plan as anything can be. It was, you know, a great success for, you know, for me, for us, for the, for the business. But I really truly believe for the hobby and for the collectors as well to have a company. And, you know, the leagues and the PAs became equity partners in Finanatic Collectibles as part of that.

And I don't know all, I forget all the details and which one is which and all that. But just having the leagues as equity partners in their own product, that should have been that way for decades. It's their product. It's their business, right? And I know why it wasn't. And we thought about things differently and we thought about licenses differently back then. But that's what you want as a collector. You want the NBA to care about NBA cards.

And you want the NBA players to care about NBA cards. And that is just a net positive for everybody as we continue to grow and build that hobby. And so, but for me, you know, I left that summer with a very specific purpose of creating Ghostrite because the collectible toy space, it's big enough to matter. It's big enough to work with all the most important brands and artists and companies and sit at the same intersection of culture and commerce the same way the rest of the products do. But it's not so big that you have these monoliths in the space that already, you know, dominated.

Sneakers, obviously, Nike and Adidas and trading cards, fanatics and the NBA. You know, in the collectible toy space, you have Funko, which you're probably familiar with. There's a company called Bear Brick, which is made by a Japanese company called Mediom. Obviously, everyone's aware of what's been going on with Pop Mart and Lubbubu in the last couple of months. But there's not a whole lot of real big companies that dominate the collectible toy space. But at the core, the economics of it are the same. And so I wanted to be able to have the chance to create a brand based on all the same economic principles of supply and demand and market based pricing and all the things we learned and created at StockX and Finanics Collectibles.

And, you know, as you can see, I mean, literally we're in the process of releasing NBA right now. And the GoStraight NBA set, might as well be a trading card set. Like it is in function and form, it is almost identical. The only difference is the canvas that we play with is a, you know, is a two-inch collectible toy versus a flat piece of paper. But the rest of it is the same. And in fact, the collectors are often the same as well. well. And that's kind of a fun place to be, which is like we get to go after what is, you know, a big market, but doesn't have a lot of big sharks in it yet. Talk to me about the name.

Ghost right. Goes right. Goes tell stories. Hey, I'm a writer myself. So it immediately resonated with me. And then, you know, there's uniqueness, but also, I don't know, some mystery intrigue in the whole thing. Talk to me about the naming and, you know, I don't know, some of that organic stuff. Well, first of all, when we created Campless, which was the price guide for sneakers back in 2012, this was like the blog era. I mean, there were, I don't know, 100, 200 sneaker blogs that were out there at the time. I mean, this is where all sneaker activity took place. And if there were 200, there was 198 of them that had the name sneaker or soul or kick or flipping it, you know, it was sneaker news or, you know, kicks on fire or nice kicks. And it was like, if I'm going to build a consumer brand, I either need to build a brand,

but I'm not going to try to fight through the noise and like which one am I between all the others. And that kind of stuck with me as we named all the other companies, Stock X and Zero Cool and Ghostright. Obviously, Fanx collectibles is Fanatics and Rubin wants everything to be named Fanatics, and that's their point of view on it. So that alone, we knew it was going to be something unique and stand out, but it really is a function of the product itself. So, you know, Ghostrite is as a blank canvas collectible. So, you know, this is a ghost, which is this, this 3D printed ghost was the entire business plan in 22. I just walked around with this.

And a ghost has no face. It has no gender. The ghost itself is not a character. This is a blank canvas. It can be an NBA player. It can be a pencil. It can be, you know, a random design. And that's what trading cards are, right?

The physical form of the trading cards is the same. every single time. The value is about who's on it, the condition, the scarcity, but it's a blank canvas product. And so knowing that and the fact that as collectible toys, we just naturally work with, you know, other partners where we create either IP or characters or other things on top of our canvas. This idea that as a blank canvas, we're now telling the stories of other people. The ghost is not a canvas. If the ghost is not a character, it's the other person's story. and what's a ghost writer, right, as a person. So that's sort of how the ethos of the name came about.

And we obviously then backed into calling these ghosts, which, I don't know, what's the ghost look like? I don't know. But like, you know, this is, what's ghost. And so it is very much, you know, intentional through all of that. And it makes sense as we continue it through no matter what partner we have for ghost right. I'm surrounded here.

If you're not watching the YouTube, you have to watch the YouTube. So get over there and check this out. It's very least. You got to see my co-partner, who's really, remarkably silent. Yes. He's sitting there with a one of one. Yokic, yes.

Probably the best player. That dude might be top five all time. Like if you really look at his skill set, he is unbelievable. It's the best. He's the best. And I've got here on set, Ronald Acuna Jr., we are Atlanta Braves fans. I grew up in the Dale Murphy area. I'm aging myself here, Josh.

Dale Murphy, Bob Porter. Like Dale Murphy, Jersey, which I got upstairs. I mean, I lived in Atlanta for 15 years, man. I'm all about it. Bob, Bob Horner, Raphael Ramirez. Are you kidding me? Yes. And then, but now Acuna is the guy.

I mean, he's got a guy in Universal. But this goes right, is out of 100. He's, I love what you're doing. I think you nailed it. It crystallized it for me when you're talking about the toy. There's no differentiation, really, in the toy thing. It was kind of a wide open market. There's no, there's no tops, you know.

Yeah. And the reason why it's because, almost all collectible toys are characters, their IP. Hardcore collectors will know like Astro Boy or Cause, but it's just like Spider-Man, right? As opposed to having a blank canvas where it can be anything. It can be a kunia, it can be Yokic, it can be a basketball, can be a pencil, it can be, you know, whatever it is.

And it just gives us more range to be able to create those products, you know, with those people. And, you know, that Acuna, by the way, is one of my favorites. What you're holding is, so we did the MLB release in August. We're now in the middle of the NBA release. And for for both of them, we created a limited number of, what we call 400%. So there's three main sizes. This is the same size as a bare brick, which is kind of the leader in the space.

So this size, which actually, hold up, here's a, here's a Jimmy Butler for the set that's coming up. So we call this 100%, but this is basically two and a half inches tall. This is what the primary product is for the sport releases for, we did WNBA in December, major league baseball in August and now doing NBA. And then there's, and they're all sold via blind box, and we can talk more about that. But then there's this size, which you have the Kunya, which is we call 400%. These are 11 inches high. This is kind of the flagship product for your like hardcore toy guy, collectible sort of stock X, you know, customer.

And most of the ones we sell non-sports are this size. And they're in small runs, 150, 75, I mean, small runs. And then these we basically don't make. These are more promotional. They're all one of one of each player. And this happens to be Yokic from the set. And so we do have a bunch of these promotionally at different places, restaurants and events and stuff like that. But we don't sell these Nioa as much.

And so what you have is. But if you want to DM them, you might get in on that. You know, let's just say everything's got a price tag, Josh. Everything has a price tag. We do sell, you know, the one of ones occasionally because we can't keep them all. Right now I'm keeping Yokit. and Embed. We'll see what happens if we let them go.

But what you have is we did a limited run of only seven players from the MLB set. There were 20 players total on the set where we made 400% versions of those. There was obviously big demand. And the other players are Otani, Judge, Soto, Trout, excuse me, Bryce Harper, and Paul Skeens. And those were sold separately at a fixed price. Rice. And so you have one of the, you know, the only 400% of it. And I guessed right, being in South Carolina that you were a Braves fan. So you guessed, right. And then Don Staley. That wasn't lost, Don. I see. That was the other one. I was like, right. I was like, what else do I have South Carolina? So for WMBA, we only did the blind box this size. And for the WNBA, because they have so many great players that have already retired that are part of their collective bargaining, we're able to have Dawn Staley in the set, even though she's no longer. an active player. But obviously, you know, maybe already one of the greatest college coaches, you know, and I imagine, you know, people around there are probably a pretty big Don's Daly

fans. They're huge. And they, uh, everyone will die over that. The, and what's cool though, Josh, is this Ocuna is probably going to sit on this desk in this studio on every episode. Because this looks like the perfect spot. Uh, not only is it cool shit, it is Ronald to Cuna and it's out of 100. This is already like a rarity. I mean, but it ain't going nowhere. This baby ant for sale. It's staying right there.

And look, I'm going to even open one of these. Josh was so kind to send some of these. You've got the best of like pack opening, you know, like, because you have the, you know, you're ripping it. You don't know what you got. You've got the parallels. You never know. This is out of the 2025 MLB season game face.

While I'm opening this, Josh, talk to me about, you know, how many of each of these like for NBA, that release coming up, the dates and everything related to it. So unfortunately, I couldn't get you early boxes of NBA, as that's available shortly, but MLB set, which released in August. And so what we have is they come in, you know, a box like this where you have a case that has 12 individually packaged ghosts in there. And then you don't know what player you're going to get. And obviously, you know, you hope that you hit Otani or Skeens or Coonier.

I mean, they're all stars. There's only 20 players in the same. set, but really what people are looking for are the rare variants like in trading cards. So this is one that I actually hit. This is a Juan Soto gold crown. So this one is number to 10. This is one I bought. This was a Skeen's gold number to 10 that one sold.

You couldn't get a good deal. You had to buy one on Josh? Come on. Well, so one sold on eBay for 1,200. And so then I convinced somebody that pulled another one to sell to me for slightly less. So at least I got a deal versus what eBay was. But I mean, it's... Talk to me about what's in the package.

It's called number to 10, right? Yeah, exactly. That thing's ridiculous. So, God, I'm holding two things that are still foil or, you know, foiled up here. What am I holding? Once a plug figurine or the... Is that what you call them toys or figurines? Yeah, whatever, collect both toys.

It's, you know. So there's a little card that goes with each ghost. And it'll tell you who the player is. if you don't know who the player is and just a little information about it. So is this give away the parallel if it is a parallel? No, it doesn't. It does have on the back all the parallels that exists, but it doesn't give away the parallel if you have one.

Okay. So we start with that to know maybe the player, but then the real reveal happens on the toy. Right. And I'll tell you what, I have an extra box sitting here as well. So I'll open this box. Will you open that one and we'll see that we both get. Yeah, let's do it. The, and then, you know, you know, late's better than never on those NBA ones.

If you, just say, if you want to send. I got you. I have Mr. Paul Skeens. Nice. I think basically, I think Otani's, you're probably the best hit. And then Skeens and Judge look like they're selling second best. And then actually, after those two, who did I just hit? I just hit Verlander.

So we also have one famous fan in the set. Also something we took from trading cards. If you know, you're familiar of like Kobe's FIFA card. So in the WNBA set, which came out in December, the famous fan was Aubrey Plaza, the actress and comedian. And then the NBA set, excuse me, the MLB set is Mark Wahlberg. Mark Wahlberg's wearing a socks jersey. Again, this is the intersection of culture and commerce and sports.

And then the NBA set, the famous fan is Eminem wearing a Pistons jersey. So kind of like full circle on all that. Very cool. I got Mr. Paul skeins. I think that's just the base. I think that he's cool. That is awesome. Head spins.

Very cool. It does. The hat is kind of the ghost look, I guess, like you said, like the crown or that's kind of the calling card, right? Exactly. And, you know, we spent a lot of time. Real number, we spent eight months and we worked with 14 different toy designers until we got to a shape that we liked. And what was interesting about the crown was we wanted something that was, we wanted something that was, noticeable that was identifiable and say, okay, we know that's a ghost, but something that can

disappear in the design if it needs to be and doesn't stand out. And so, you know, sometimes, like, you don't even notice, like, this one has been one of the most popular. This is actually a 3D-printed NBA basketball, and you can actually see, like, sort of made it pebbled. But, like, the crown is almost irrelevant to the design of this. Obviously, when we do the blind boxes, you know, the gold stands out and the parallels are very clear. But otherwise, I mean, this is kind of just Jimmy Butler wearing a blue headband, right? And it's just like, it is who it is.

It's Jimmy Butler. So, yeah. Exactly. And that's kind of how it blends in with skins here with the black uniform and everything. Right. Exactly. He's kind of see him. He's got the custom mustache that is skins.

Well, by the way, the mustache, I'm glad you pointed that out because, you know, again, business is just people. And we got so lucky in that one of the few people who works with us, who I didn't know before. starting this company. Our designer, Pedro, is unbelievable. And the details, like, look at the back of a cune. Look at his hair. Right. Like, how cool is the back of his hair? He's got the, the, the color dreads or whatever you call that. I'm probably not doing justice to what something stylish is these days, but his hair is ridiculous. Right, right. And so, like,

that level of detail and design is, um, is fantastic. And so like, and the NBA set, like, them and M1 has all of his tattoos. And so, yeah, that's kind of the fun. part about this of being able to create our interpretation of the player as a ghost, but also obviously very clearly taking Acuna's real hair and the real way he wears it and pulling it into it. I mean, these guys, the culture, the intersection of culture and commerce is, is so obvious because that's it right there. Like, these guys, the players have their own personas and, you know, Acunia's got these

braids that anyone would, you know, like, that's a cultural and just. I don't know, part of his overall, like, exuding of his star power, you know, and you're bringing that to life on the collectible in a 3D way. And that's what really stands out with these. And how's it going? Like, how's the business? We've only been selling ghosts for a year. We started the company in 22. We started making ghosts in 23, but we didn't sell our first ghost to August of 24, making physical products, and dealing with factories and tariffs and all the other stuff is, you know, it's a joy. So we've only been selling for a year and we're only now ramping up and getting to the first seasons

of the big IP. We've done maybe 10, 12 releases, but the MLB set, which just came out, was only the second and now NBA is the third. And so we've now gone through one season of our big three IP, WNBA, NBA, NBA, Major League Baseball. We also have WWE and UFC and they'll come a little bit later. But now we get to go like in season two and the WNBA season two will come out in December. We'll have a different design. And what you see and you're holding just the, well, actually you can see in Dawn Staley and the MLB players,

they have the same eyes. They have the same look. For this set we call that game face, the idea of sort of like the elevated intensity of athletes. But you can think of that as like Pinini Prism, right? Of like that's 2018 prism. And the next year it'll be 2019 prism or whatever, right? So we'll have one design that goes across all of the leagues, all the sets. So we've now had one that has all three for game phase.

And then there's a new look that will come out for WNBA and that. And each set will make a little bit more. There'll be, you know, different parallels, different chase elements in September. You know, the NBA one, you know, Cooper flags in the set. WNBA, Caitlin was obviously the huge chase last year. Literally that Caitlin Clark has an all. on her shoulder, meaning that this is a rookie ghost. This actually is a Caitlin Clark gold,

which is probably the most expensive one in the set. By the way, the Caitlin Clark one of one sold for $30,000, this size, right? And there's a bounty. There's a $30,000 bounty on the Otani one of one, this size also. The one of one has a fire crown, which I don't think I even have any of them

because they're in packs and you have to find them. And so, yeah, I mean, it's like, it's going great but it's early. What matters more than anything is the long-term value of the ghosts. Right. Like there's a Caitlin gold on eBay right now for like five grand. No one's hit it, but also

you know, one sold for like $2,500, $3,000 last month. So what is this in a year? Is this $2,000? Is it $500? Is it $5,000? Right? Like that's the real like measuring stick of the success of gold. right long term. Same thing with the larger ones, but like the blind boxes, because, you know, we also,

you can also have them graded. So this is a company called AFA, which is the leading grading company for collectible toys. They primarily do Star Wars, G.I. Joe Transformers, He Man, you know, sort of vintage toys. But we, we had them make slabs for Ghostrate. And so in the same way that PSA changed the value of trading cards, you know, this is a sort of an ante to play. We have to be able to grade ghosts, have them, you know, authenticated, created, et cetera. And also just an easier thing to display and sort of look cool on there. This is Diana Tarasi gold number to 10. And so all that to say is like it's early.

It seems great so far, but like it's all about the long-term value and this sort of continued collectability about it. Because as you know, collectors collect. Like they want to collect the same thing every year, every season, every, and one or two times is, okay, it's interesting. But what's really interesting is, like, who's buying the third year? I'm like, I got to collect them all. So that's the idea.

This is built as a long-term collectible. It is not a sort of flash of the pan or one-off thing for us to sell. Like, this is about long-term. You're taking everything that has cooked on, you know, trading cards with parallels and the numbers. You're taking all the things that create that sizzle and create the hype. But then you've added the spin. and found sort of this blue ocean with the toys because there's just nothing like this out there. It's super smart, man.

And it's, I don't see any reason that this won't be, you know, a rocket ship itself in its own way, you know, to, you know, what people want to collect. It's right in there. And I, and you brought it up because I was going to go next. So congratulations on all this. think it's really cool. And, but what makes people want to collect? Is that just a, it's like, everybody's just a natural collector, you know? It's like, I don't know.

It's like, I mean, I'm a dude, hang out with guys. I got four boys, you know, like, but guys just like to collect shit, you know. I don't know what. Man, they do. Man, if I could answer that, I don't know, I'd be the world's richest psychologist or something. I don't know. I mean, Gary Van der Chuck is a friend and investor, and I've known him for a long time. And I also think he's, you know, one of the smartest people I know, particularly in this area.

He said something, usually I, you know, the things he says doesn't surprise me because we think the same way. But he said something that I caught last week about that he thinks that collectors and are going to be sort of a new pillar of culture next to music, art, fashion. sport. That is a big statement. That is a really big statement. And I like to really understand what that means. And I don't know if I fully buy into it, but I understand why. And I certainly think that there's some like real potential that it becomes. I mean, you know, it's never going to be as music and sport, right? Or just music film and sport. It's just, you know, dominates culture forever. But it's interesting, right? Like to think about, the importance and the again sort of like it matters because of its intersection with culture

and these things are all cultural assets so I don't know maybe we get to that point then it's a whole different ballgame I love it man where can uh everybody buy what's going to be coming out keep up with everything going on and uh try to get in early before you know like it just goes like everything else it goes hey wire bonkers the values go up and you become richer than you already are I got to tell you, the way the trading card market is right now, ghost rate is a steal. And if the trading car market keeps going where it's at, I'm selling my cars and just buying more ghosts.

Yeah. So do you think that market is going to come down? I've been listening to everything I can of all the smart people talking about the market right now. Chris McGill, Chris Hodge had a really good pot about the bull market. I want to say that one thing. thing everybody needs to understand is that the last run saw a lot of base cards and things that had huge populations go crazy, right? The Luca 2018 prison PSA-10 hit like $1,400. And now what

we're seeing is only the really true scarce product. Luca PSA-10 was $110, you know, six months ago, it's still $110 or whatever it is, right? Like, that stuff's not moving. It's It's about the true scarce products. And that's a much, much, much different scenario than what happened in 21, where the whole market, including all of these. And then what happened is because then those people that held that had that Luke and sold it for $14,000, then they had money to go back and buy it. Like, it just, so you just don't have that same, like, full market thing happening.

And so I think if there's any indication that this won't end the exact same way, that's it. But, you know, cycles. Things go up, things go down. And, you know, if some of this stuff goes up a little too much more, then I'll definitely sell out of some cards. But actually, the best point that anyone I heard so far is Cage said, and I listened to this yesterday, that one of the best things about bull markets is it brings cards out of hiding that maybe you, the seller wasn't willing to sell before.

They were tucked away in the collection and he did know. And that is awesome. To see some cards that you never thought you'd see or never have a shot to get that pop up. And maybe they're a little more expensive than you want. But that is truly, like, I think one of the best parts about it. And then if the market's hot enough, then you can flip some other cards that you don't want as much to go after that grail that you always wanted, that you never even knew where it was. So that's a great part of this as well.

Who do you collect? I collect a lot. But most of sort of my like primary goal on a day-to-day basis is I collect Black Prism, NBA Black Prism from 2013 to 2021, true black, 101, basically any players. And actually here's like, I just got a package back from, from All that was in the vault. So nothing really special about this other than it's a 2015 Black Prism Palisal in a Bulls uniform. So not as, you know. But I just think that Prism is the most important brand of. the last, you know, 15 years and they're going away, or at least NBA prisms going away.

And then after that, it's all... Where they go away, you think this is the end? Or do you think... Well, it's the end for... It's the end for basketball, right? Yeah. It's the end for basketball and football. What Panis does or what other brand...

What? Well, they still have... They would still have to get the players license, the PA license to turn around and make that, which maybe they do. Maybe they don't, I don't know. I don't have any insight in... That's a whole lot, another episode of just madness. Totally.

And a super interesting one, but it's not. Yeah, it is. Maybe I'll get you on for that. Yeah. A round table of. I sold and left fanatic collectibles in the summer of 22, but I still buy trading cards almost every day, right? Like I am non-stop. I'm still, you know, I was at the National.

I'm actually taking my son to the Dallas card show in a couple weeks. The first time that he's ever been to a card show. so I'm excited about that. And the National is a fire hose. We went for five, I mean, all four or five days, dude.

That is a freaking, I mean, it was awesome and overwhelming at the same time. Were you spending most of the time creating content? Yeah, I was shooting, doing behind the scenes like man on the floor. I walked around asking people,

what's in their case and stuff, getting content for SI. Nice. But then hanging out with the sports card nonsense guys. It's geo and some of the, You know. So it's a little bit of both. But my boy,

I had two of my boys there. So I mean, we got, yeah, it was work and play. And I think I got some national cases here somewhere. I don't know. This is just from the national now.

I've got some, but I picked up some good cards. I was like, it was like a kid in a candy store, but it was like so much candy, you know, it was like over. Holy.

Yeah. It's the best. I honestly, like, I was there at the national. And most of the time I was doing breaks for Ghost Rite. But I like to be able to just put my hat down and go and just shop.

And I just like bouncing from table to table and fight my way in there and see what's going on. That's the fun part. It is. We're going to buy some Ghost Rite. I don't know what price points. If you want to even talk about that or what's, you know, anything you want to do, but let's tell people how to get them.

Well, this is a good place to end for a couple reasons. One, most ghosts are sold direct on Ghost Rite. as what we call a blind Dutch auction. And we don't need to go again. Like I said, I'm an economist now. But we don't set the price for most of the products. It is an auction in which it ends up setting a fair market price where everybody pays the same amount. And you can learn all about it.

And we've been doing this. We did this at Stock X. We did this with FNAX practicals. I think this is the most fair way to release a product where everybody pays a fair price. And the NBA release is going on. The NBA release starts September 16th. But other than the releases that happen on Ghost Trade, a lot of the sport boxes are sold through breakers.

And all the big trading car breakers, break this, Blez and DACA and Cherry and Pac-Man and everyone else. And so there's an opportunity to buy in a break. and buy it that way. And then otherwise, every now and then we do have a few fixed price products that will show up on GoStraight. And so, you know, as we continue to grow the catalog. But we're not going to go down this path, but I will say that the blind edge auction, the pricing mechanism at Ghostrite, that's the real business.

And the same way that Stock X, the real business was about bid ask and single product page. And all the other stuff we talk about is important and it matters. And for a collector, that's what's most important. But for us as a company, as we evolve, that idea of how to bring valuable products to market, that's a really important key point. It's smart, man. And you got to get the rad collective. You know, our eBay live, we need to be breaking some ghost right, you know? I mean the four boys?

You're kidding? Let's go. That's right. I'm talking about. I love this stuff, man. I want to, like, when we hang up, I'm going to be open all these boxes. I can't. I got to save some for the boys.

but, you know, I'm going to go hide this Acuna. And I'm going to take it home just to bring it right back to the studio. Hell yeah. Really appreciate you, brother. Let's stay connected, man. We've got a lot in common. And I love hearing your stories and what you've done, the success you've had and your wisdom in the collectible space.

I know you'd have a lot to share with our audience and love what you're doing with Ghostrite. Thanks, man. Listen, we need more people like you in the hobby. Like, there's so, the ratio of smart people talking about collectibles in the hobby to the hobby, it's got to be one of the smallest of any industry ever. And so the more people of the, like, so this is great. And so however I can do to help as you guys grow, you know, please let me know. I appreciate you, brother.

Hey, guys, you know to find us. Collectibles. Dot show. That's the website. You can link to all the social media content. We'll have, of course, in the show notes, links to Ghost Rite, all of Josh's stuff. and the stuff that's not for sale, this Acuna Jr., never for sale. This is NFS model Acuna, always here on collectibles on SI.

We appreciate you for tuning in here in the early stages. What are you collecting out there? We want to know. Send us what you're collecting. Talk about it online. Drop some comments in the YouTube. And of course, go give Josh a follow along with Ghostrite. We appreciate you for listening.

See you next time. on collectibles. That's I. Thanks for tuning in to 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 Ulford. Now get out there and collect yours.