Collector Nation - Sports Card Investing Tips That Actually Work

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

SUMMARY In this episode of "Trading Cards and Collectibles," host Ryan Alford welcomes Kunal Ahuja, founder of Sports Card Invest. They discuss the evolution of the sports card market, from the pandemic boom to recent, more sustainable growth. Kunal shares insights on balancing high-end and accessible products, the unique appeal of Pokémon cards, and smart investing strategies like buying undervalued players. The conversation highlights the importance of passion, market trends, and community in the collectibles hobby. Listeners also learn where to follow Kunal and Ryan for more tips and updates. TAKEAWAYS Kunal Ahuja's background in sports card collecting and investing. The impact of the pandemic on the sports card market. The evolution of the sports card market over the past 18 months. The shift from speculative buying to more calculated investments in high-end cards. The role of international markets in the growth of sports card collecting. The importance of balancing scarcity and accessibility in card products. The differences between the sports card and Pokémon collecting communities. The challenges faced by companies like Topps in creating popular card inserts. Investment strategies for collectors, including the importance of market trends. The significance of patience and strategic buying in card investing.  

I think a lot of people are like chasing the current products instead of looking at what's next in terms of like overall trend-wise. So for example, like Caitlin Clark, she obviously was out for the season. And if you just look at Google trends, like her trend was up to 100 and now it dropped to zero and now it's coming back up a little bit. It's just kind of a simple supply and demand thing. It's like, look where people aren't looking. So when people are looking at your player. I think Pokemon's like, it's got such a wider demographic. The collectibility is incredible.

And I think every time you go to a show, you see, I guess, like, just passion in the Pokemon industry. And it's a little bit annoying as a sports card fan going to these shows. And now it's like, damn, 60% of the tables are taken up by Pokemon. Welcome to the Trading Cards and Collectibles podcast on the Radcast Network. From chasing grails to Colin Bluffs and going inside the hobby. Are you ready to collect? Let's get at it. Here is your host.

Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to trading cards and collectibles here as we close out October. Join today by Kunal Ahuja. He is SportsCard Invest. It's his business podcast handles SCI. Get to know them. What's up, Kuhnaul?

How's it going? I appreciate you having me on. Yeah, man. I'm about 18 months back into the hobby. my four young boys lured me back in and it's been fun. It's been fun.

Yeah. 100%. Yeah, it's a good time to get in. I know. It's crazy out there. All my friends that suddenly I didn't know collect, and everyone in my network seems to collect.

And so it's been fun tying all the pieces together and getting to talk to smart guys like you. Oh, appreciate that. 100%. Yeah, I feel like the last 18 months and the hobby's been so many changes, of course, with like fanatics and everything. So, you know, I'm sure it's been a ride for you. Yeah. I mean, you know, first just kind of the, I don't know, getting orthodox back into,

you know, my time was late 80s, early 90s, and junk wax errors, unfortunately. So, yeah, I've got some cards from the early 80s, some rookies and stuff that are, they're cool. but it didn't, unfortunately, you know, I didn't grow up during the hate where things started get interesting with parallels and everything else. But that's been sort of the by fire and getting, you know, I understand it. I mean, I was pretty deep in it when I was as a kid and teenager. So, I mean, the principles are still the same in a lot of ways, but the variety of cards, brands, and of course, technologies come a long way, finally.

I would say a little slower than I would have thought once I got back into it. But it's been fascinating. And watching, like you said, just the growth of it and hoping that it were not in a bubble. I've seen a few posts here recently. I'm curious to get your take on all of it. Yeah, no, 100%. I think 20. So for me, I started collecting as a kid.

I was local to San Francisco, so the Giants won. the World Series in 2010, 2012, 2014. So that was a time where I was heavy into the sports card industry, more so on the collecting side, too young to think of it as a business, but I really enjoyed collecting, and it kind of was what first sparked my interest there. And when I got back into it in 2019, from more of an investment side, I loved business, I've always kind of been a little bit entrepreneurial, obviously grew up in Silicon Valley. it's an area where all the biggest businesses that you know were founded.

So that's right around the block for me. But yeah, no, I mean, when I got back in, the industry was in a, you know, very interesting spot. The pandemic hits the year after and stuff just goes bananas. Everyone gets in. You know, prices just absolutely take an insane run from 2020 to 2021. It was a lot of euphoria and a lot of, you know, I would say unsustainable growth. And people were throwing money at every.

I remember the NBA bubble, like T.J. Warren has a 40-point game. And the next day, some of his cards are selling for $5,000, $10,000. You know, it would be one game from Luca in the bubble. And his market absolutely exploded at that time, Kauai's market. Like there's, it was such an interesting time for the sports card hobby. and, you know, it was, I was still very new to it, but I knew right off the bat knowing anything about business that that was very unsustainable, kind of just like the way in which people were throwing money at, you know, these cards and stimulus checks and just everything was, you know,

an insane time. And, you know, thankfully, we were able to make a great business and build for the long term during that time. But there was always that awareness that like, okay, when is this going to calm down? And it did 2022 to like 2024, I'd say, was like a pretty slow period for us in our business. And in general, the sports card industry, it wasn't at, you know, close to where it was in 2020 and 2021. This time around, you know, we've seen a lot of great growth over like the last 12 to 18 months. And I would say it feels a little bit more sustainable. I think money is becoming smarter. People aren't just throwing money at base prisms that, you know, are pop 10,000 plus like they were back in 2020 and, you know, chasing after

base prisms and all the young players and just speculation, which I think there still is a healthy amount of right now. But I think the big kind of part that's fueled this growth has been, And obviously one has been fanatics coming into the industry and doing promotions, you know, that way. But I think we've seen a lot of international growth this year. The amount of shows, we've been tracking this and I've been going to these international shows. And every single year, there seems to be an incredible amount of growth in Asia and Europe, which has been super interesting because, as you know, with Asia, they love the NBA. Europe loves soccer.

And the amount of money that they are bringing in and liquidity is a very interesting place that our business is looking at right now. And then a lot of money is going towards the all-time great. So we've seen the biggest growth this year has come from like the Kobe's, the Curries, the Jordans, the LeBron's, the Brady's, Mahomes. So I think a lot of it this time is a little bit more calculated and slow pay. in terms of growing, and it's more so a lot more new eyeballs on the industry and a lot more money being spent towards high-end grail pieces that people hopefully one day look at as Picasso's as opposed to like, you know, people throwing money towards base prisms of the next guy who dropped 40 points in a game.

So I do think it's a lot more sustainable this time. Of course, you know, we've still seen some prices run up. quite fast for some of these all-time grades. And I think there'll always be ebbs and flows in that area. But I overall do feel like this time, this growth is a little bit more. You know, I can wrap my heads around. I can wrap my head around it a little bit better than the 2020 boom. Collectibles. Show is where you'll find all of the channels and learn more about what we're doing.

And ultimately, hey, we want to hear from you. You do case hits at collectibles.com. I want you to send in your favorite pulls of the week. And here's the difference. This isn't about just value. Hey, we want to see some $10,000 hits. Had a couple of those myself a few months back. But it's not just about the value.

It's about what you're collecting. What means something to you? Share a story, share a video of you holding up the card that you hit last week. That was your favorite player and you nailed it. So case hits at collectibles. Show, send in those videos. I want to know the stories. We're going to bring into life here on the show.

We're going to do a segment each week. Once we get rolling and get some videos in, where we share that on the show with us. We'll feature you on Collectibles show. The president of Upper Deck made a comment like yesterday, the day before, essentially said, you know,

it's a lot of the 10% of wealth coming into the game, you know, investors. And it's unsustainable. You know, like when boxes are, you know, when entry boxes are $1,000 or $1,000 a box,

like there's nowhere for it to go, but down. And, you know, what do you say to that comment, you know, from him? Like, it's on what, I'll give you my opinion, then I'll ask you. You know, like, we tend to say these things, you know, and there are times where there's clear bubbles, real estate in 08, the 2020 with, you know, we were printing money faster and we were printing cards, you know. And it for whether it was right or wrong or indifferent, I think,

for the right, you know, we thought it with the right reasons. And it probably was. But we'll stay out of politics and government to do complicated. But the, but for, for trading cards, you know, there's these clear bubbles that, you know, aren't going to last. I don't know that I completely agree, but it does feel like we're teetering in a danger zone potentially. But I don't, I don't know that the genie's going back in the bottle. I don't feel, this doesn't feel like a, this feels like something that's been coming versus just a trend in a box. You know, the COVID was its own thing in a circle.

I mean, literally, you know, like one time, hopefully ever, hopefully. Yeah, yeah. Knock on wood. But, and you have these bubbles of things that just happen in, you know, in this period. This feels like it's been kind of entrending this way with, with investor money and certain things. So I don't know. What's your perspective? Yeah.

I mean, I think, you know, I actually talked to Mike Mahan, who has Finax collectibles about this specifically. Mike met Mike at the National. Yeah. So he had an interesting thing to say, which was I think it's a big balance between making sure that they keep the scarcity, which keeps prices at solid numbers. but also have enough entry-level products. So people who are getting into the industry aren't priced out. Because at the end of the day, if kids are priced out, if a lot of people are priced out of the industry,

it does become hard for the industry to grow. If you have to spend $2,000 to open up your first box, right? It's just not what drives people into the industry. And so how he kind of laid it out was, there's going to be products for everyone. There's going to be high-end, flawless, like products, national treasures like products that tops releases that, like, yeah, this is for the top 1% of collectors or investors or whatever you want to call them,

or the top 5%, the top 10%. And then there's got to be products that are affordable. And I think what could be interesting is, you know, how the dust settles over time because there hasn't been kind of a time where we've had this much of, I'd say disconnect between the average collector and like the top 1%, right? Yeah. Whereas you have guys like Kevin O'Leary, Shine and all these guys dropping tens of millions of dollars on a single card and their index is what, $20 million plus in a couple months.

And then you have these average collectors coming in with $10 looking to spend some money and have some fun. And I think that's where the big balance is. And I think personally I feel like from being in the industry talking to people, talking to tops, fanatics, I think

they're very well aware of making sure, I think a lot of people have learned from the junk wax there and a lot of people have learned from the COVID bubble, which was like how do we avoid all those traps that the sports card industry have seen in the past to where a lot of people lost a lot of money because stuff was unsustainable.

And I think that's going to be partially on tops to like figure out what that balance is. And, you know, now that they have the licenses, it's like how do we get those products that anybody can get their hands on? And maybe those are the ones that the print counts a little bit high. And they're not meant to be, you know, the cards that hold the best value for the long term, but they're a lot of fun for the average everyday collector to join the industry and maybe work their way up from. And then those, you know, top of the top products that the top 1% are going to chase and have a lot of fun with. And maybe those are the scarce cards that can have those

long term, I guess, like investment side, investment upside. So, you know, I think that's got to be where, and I think it is where Topps heads at. And if they're able to do that well, I don't think it will be, you know, like it was during the junk wax era, 2020. But obviously,

companies have the ability, like Tops have the ability to print money by printing more cards, making more boxes. So there's always that give and take, but. I think, you know, the reality is you can't have we've gotten to this

place where I think you know kids or people that are trying to spend 100 bucks or 50 bucks or whatever you don't get a Porsche for 50 you know like there's layers and I think the reality is there's just going to be

these levels and it's okay to have good better best and if you can afford it and it's within your budget and it's reasonable and you want to invest or part of your collection, then you make that choice.

And if, you know, as long as there's an affordable option, you know, this is capitalism. You know, like, it's like, I don't think anybody should be crying over the fact that, well, the, you know, National Treasurers is 10 grand. Well, you know, that's the Cadillac or the port, whatever your choice is for luxury vehicle, you know, we don't all drive Lamborghinis, you know, Like, it is the Lamborghini.

And so you drive a Honda and it's a great one and it's cool and it's reliable. And you're still doing what it needs to do. And so if you're buying base tops and, you know, chasing whatever the chase card might be in that, that's okay. So, I mean, I think some of it's based on what everybody wants to be able to get their shot at the $100,000 car. Well, if you want that shot, then you need to save your money up and buy the Lamborghini. on some level. And so I think it's okay to have choice as long as there's that selection. And so, you know, I do want to get your opinion, the licensing thing.

You know, two things can be true at the same time for me. I can respect Michael Rubin. I can like Mayhan and both of those things are true. And as business people, as people, I've met both of them. I have no problem. I like them. I think they're fine for the hobby and have the, you know, they're, they're owning a business, you know. So as a business guy myself, owning multiple companies, I got no problem.

These guys are killers, man. In business, they're great. I got nothing to the good things. But then I can also be kind of sad, you know, so it's like, man, why couldn't that deal happen so that we have? Because then that deal happens, then you still have down. downtowns and cabooms and everything could have had the license. It had all been owned by Fanatics, but everybody had been wealthy. So I don't know.

It's the nostalgia and wanting it all to happen at the same time, but also respecting, you know, it's business. What do you think about the licensing thing? Yeah. No, I mean, I think I'm in a very similar boat to you where, like, you have to respect it and change at some points. Like, I know people probably felt the same way when Topps Chrome left. in 2009.

Like, what is this Panini thing? And I think it did take Panini a couple years to, like, come out with products that, like, people like nowadays. Yeah. Because I know I talk to- Familiar with, right? That's exactly what I was going to say. I mean, it's like people are going to, anytime there's change and, you know, you don't have

that nostalgia for stuff you've collected for the past decade, it's going to be tough. And there's going to be a lot of critics about the new products that drop. I know like Topps people are saying the new product doesn't look high quality. You know, and I think that's part of like evolving and growing and figuring out. The Topps people talking about their own product? No, not Topps, just people in general on the Internet, like talking about how top, you know, they miss Panini and how the new Topps product isn't giving them the same feel. And I think that's normal. Yeah.

You know, when you look at 2009, Topps Chrome and then you look at 2010, like Panini. standard. It's not going to, it's not the same. Yeah. And I've talked to people who were going through it at that time, right, to where it's like, it's tough to get off of what you're used to. And, you know, I personally would have loved Penny to stay in hops to buy them out and figure out how to keep those iconic, you know, National Treasures, RPAs, flawless. I love one of my favorite products of all time. So, you know, that's kind of just like the growing pains of figuring out how can we get the industry to like a healthy place. And I think that's where everyone's heads at, but it's going to come with a little bit of like getting us away from, yeah, oh, 100%. And I think that's inevitable.

It's going to be tough for Tobs to please everyone. What's Panini going to do? I mean, I just, I know Tops has somewhat gotten by with the unlicensed stuff, but, you know, I joke with Brian Luddin with Luddx and those the show with me on Fridays. You know, I joke that, you know, seeing Wimby in the rec league uniform on that Tops Chrome,

no matter how imposing he was, he's still a little like he was in a Y jersey, YMCA jersey, you know, dunk in the ball because he had no logos on. And it's like, and Tops had sort of the, and Pannini has it two to a degree,

but like, it just ain't the same. And it's not. I don't know what they're good. You know, people will buy stuff. They buy that unlicensed baseball, but I just kind of run away from it. And I don't know. Yeah.

I don't know. What says you with their future? If I'm being honest, like, it's tough. It's just tough because Tops had all that marketing behind all these products. They had all these players signing. They had a lot going on. And it was still tough to, like, get those products much market share. So when you flip it and you have the smaller company trying to make their little lane,

I'm sure they can make a lane, but it's going to be tough to compete with tops having a license. They're promotions. There's players. Their exclusive deals. It's just going to be, I think it's going to be tough for Panini to like reinvent themselves. And I think that's what they're going to have to do at this point is like reinvent themselves, figure out, okay, you know, what can we do here that's going to be. going to get us the most market share or get us at least maybe one product that hits the mark. Who knows what that's going to end up looking like?

But I would definitely say it's going to be a lot tougher for Pinini to try to pull that off than it was for tops. And it was still very tough for tops. Yeah. Yeah. It could be non-sports stuff. Yeah. I think there is opportunity there, especially with emerging demographics, getting into it. more girls and women coming into it.

There's, you know, between movies and other franchise and IP. I think there is opportunities there. I think you'll see more of that, like, starting to come. Talk to me about Pokemon. I mean, what does, what's Kunal collect? So to be honest, I've been a sports guy my whole life. Yeah, I mean, your sports card invest, but I heard something, we talked pre-show a little bit.

I heard Pokemon stuff and the product stuff you guys. I mean, is it, what says you about the Pokemon, you know, industry in general? I think Pokemon's like, it's got such a wider demographic, I believe. And I think it's just super interesting. Every time they have like one of their five-year anniversaries, like 25th anniversary or whatever, those are the years where just like the whole industry takes off and people get back into it and all the nostalgia comes back. And I think it's a super interesting part of the industry

in the sense that like it's all, like, from what I understand, it's so much higher percentage of collectors as opposed to investors. And everyone in the industry, like, genuinely just loves to collect. And I think that's kind of like the culture around it that varies a little bit different from the sports card side. I think the sports card side,

You got a mix of people trying to flip, people trying to, you know, invest for the long-term, institutional money. And of course, you have a little bit of that in the Pokemon industry, but I think it's a lot more collector-centered. You see that at the shows. Like, I see it the shows. Like, the boys have done a few shows. And, like, the people walking around that are Pokemon people, they are collecting, baby. I mean, they are. Like, you know, they're getting their last few in a set.

Like, you can see it. And then the sports card, every 12-year-old's a dealer. Oh, yeah. I mean, especially these cards show. Yeah, every card's for sale. And it's like, they're just flipping city, you know? They're like, go, buying for one dealer selling it the next. Oh, 100%.

I mean, I respect to grind. Like, I'm cool with it. But it's like, it is a different thing with the Pokemon guys. Yeah. No, 100% it is. The demographic pride. Yeah. The demographics-wide and, like, the collectability is incredible.

And I think those are, like, the two things that stand out. Like, every time you go to a show, you see the, I guess, like, just passion in the Pokemon industry. And, you know, it's a little bit annoying as a sports card fan going to these shows. And now it's like, damn, 60% of the tables are taken up by Pokemon. Yeah. But it's cool. I mean, it's great to see the growth. The collectibility is an interesting word, you know, like, let's go down that for a second.

because I think that's Pokemon, you know, by the nature of what it is, the art, different artistic views of different cards and characters. And that's where, you know, the sports stuff, when they've dabbled in it, you've seen how hot it gets. Kaboom, downtowns, downtowns, mango. Color blast, yeah. Color blast. So the desire is there for something different in the sports card market.

But we seem to just set on how many different in-uniform, boring, you know, photos can we take of a player, you know, like sort of in action. I mean, by nature, photography is not as, you know, dynamic as video. And so when you bring in the artistic side, you bring in more collectibility. That's why I love, like, this, I'm just going to, somebody's going to laugh at me. I'm going to get hate emails. I already know. they're going to say this guy doesn't know you saw him out so you're just stick with me but like zenith football this year zenith football that state of the art very inexpensive but i appreciated what they

tried to do there you know a little more artistic it wasn't a five hundred dollar card you know they were like four or five dollars and so that to me like bring give me more of that in maybe more of the more desirable brands or something like in attempts and i know that we've got that there are different things that they try to do, but that felt at least a little thoughtful with the hometown, and it had a little bit of the flare of the downtown, but I don't know, I think there's room

to create more collectability in these sets. Yeah. Oh, I 100% agree. I think Panini did a great job with that towards the end to where they were a little bit more focused on like, okay, I think Mango was a super great addition. Obviously, those were a little bit more recent,

but I think they really started to catch steam, especially with like this last product that dropped, like the mangoes are selling for incredible amounts. People love to collect them. Yeah. They're different. Yeah. No, 100%. You know?

Yeah. Yeah. I personally was the biggest color blast fan. And downtowns and cabooms for me are like middle tier. I like them a lot. But I'm not, I feel like color blasts, just like the look of them where that was my personal favorite, which I'm going to miss. But yeah, I mean, I'm holding like all the, the core.

The quarterbacks from last year, they're a color blast. I got like all this stuff. And I love this. Yeah. Oh, 100%. Especially when they have like the dual ones from this last year. Like LeBron and D. Wade or whatever else. I think it was, I believe there was a Curry and Draymond.

I'm hopeful Topps, you know, has some stuff up. I'm sure they do. I'm sure they do. Yeah. I really, one thing I will give Topps a lot of credit on is I think the debut patches are super, you know, super interesting. I feel like it's like bringing back the logo man, but in a different way and adding like that iconic.

Like each player is only going to have one debut patch. We saw, of course, like the Paul Skeens, you know, the hype around that. So I think it's, yeah, that's going to be very interesting. Have you opened any of the top basketball? Yeah, yeah, I have. I've been in this move the last three weeks. I've just kind of shut everything down, trying to get studio moved. we're opening kind of a mixed-use studio card shop.

Oh, cool. Like pretty much it's like trading cards live. Everything's filmed and on camera. And I got a studio and podcast here, breakers and all that stuff. So it's going to be cool. But I've kind of had all the, I've been watching,

but, you know, normally would have been ripping or doing some kind of trades or deals, but I haven't even opened the first pack. What's your thoughts on it? Yeah. No, I mean, I think for Topps,

it's a good. start. When you look at like 2003 tops or like any, I guess, 96 tops or like other products, I think tops is going to be a pretty standard product. And I think people were expecting a little bit too much out of it. Yeah. But, you know, it's not Chrome. It's not, you know, the flagship. Yeah. No, 100%. I think Chrome's going to be super interesting. I think that's where I'm going to hopefully have a little bit better of like a understanding of where this thing's headed. But yeah, I mean, for a base tops product, it's not a bad product. I enjoyed ripping it.

I think a lot of people enjoy ripping it. I just don't think you're going to, you know, you're not going to pull a million-dollar card. Yeah, you're chasing Cooper Flag and what, Wimbiottos or something? Yeah, I mean, you got Cooper Flagg, Wemby. I think the class is strong and, you know, it's a fun rip like, you know, most base products. it's more so, I think, comparable to like a prism or an optic, probably in between the two, in my opinion, to where it's like, maybe I think Prism did a little bit better of a job, like, throwing in those black 101s and making a lot of stuff.

Like, the gold Prisms became super collectible. And I don't think Tops has cards that replicate that. But, like, you know, it's their first product. And I'm sure they're going to evolve and, like, figure out. I do really like, like, the chrome and, like, the silver lining around, like, how Prism presented it itself and how Topps Chrome usually presents itself. So that's something that I do feel like it's missing with like the paper products. So like Topps papers, it's not going to be as, you know, as collectible in my opinion.

Yeah. They bought all those printers supposedly that Panini hats. Like they should be getting together. Yeah. But it does like, I mean, what's the Topps version of a doubt? or a Kaboom or a color blast. Like, that's, that's kind of like my thing. It's like, they've had the opportunity to duplicate that.

And what's, what is their, what's going to be their version of that? Yeah. I mean, I feel like they're trying with like these inserts, but I don't think, I think, I think it takes a little bit of time, to be honest, for like these inserts to really start to gain popularity. Yeah. And I don't like any of the ones from the last one if I'm being completely honest. I'm not in love with them. like design-wise. But, you know, they've got plenty of more products to, like, try to reinvent that.

And it did take Pinini a while to get there. If you look at, like, the first decade of, like, Pinini printing, there weren't many of those, you know, Kaboom's Color Blass that took off. You know, I think along the years we're probably going to have more of those stick. Maybe it's going to be, like, insert. it's out of Chrome. Maybe it's going to be case hits out of another product. But I think that's definitely got to be something in their mind. I imagine of like, all right, what are we going to, what are we going to do to replicate all these products that people loved? I know you do a lot of

the buy, hold cell, you know, with your show and investing. What tips do you have for the listeners? Like anything, any juicy stuff? Like, what are you, what's research? What's trending? You know what should people what should be on people's radar yeah i mean i think a lot of people are like kind of just chasing what's next um or like chasing the current products instead of looking at what's next um in terms of like overall trend wise so one thing we've started to do to do a lot more recently is like look at google trends um so for example like Caitlin Clark she obviously was out for the season um and if you just look at google trends like her trend was that up to 100 and now it dropped to zero and now it's coming back up a little bit.

So it's like if you can follow the trends and look where people aren't looking by these players when people aren't looking their way and maybe they're injured, they're out for the next six months, guys like Halliburton, that's where I feel like a lot of the value can be made. And where we look a lot is like kind of the low-hanging fruit of like, okay, we know the demand for this player is going to be more in six months that it is today. And we know a lot of people are selling and people are not really holding because this player is not playing for six months. So it's just kind of a simple supply and demand thing. It's like, look where people aren't looking.

Sell when people are looking at your player. So that's something we've really done is just basic economics. Take it back. Okay, no one's looking at this player. In six months, when they're about to return, everyone's going to be focused on this player. Let's buy it now, sell in six months. and, you know, simple, simple, I guess, business tactics. How about a retired player or, you know, a set that, hey,

if you're thinking about dabbling in, you know, the legends market or older cards, and yeah, we can all go think about buying a $50,000 Mickey Mantle or something, but, I mean, you know, like, and probably more than that, 500,000, 5 million. Yeah, yeah. But maybe something reasonable that a player that you would maybe circle. Yeah. I really like 90s basketball. I think a lot of it's overlooked.

So there's kind of this in-between market to where it's like modern, of course, gets all the hype, gets all the eyeballs. And vintage has its market. So like if you look at 60s, 70s, like Wiltz, they're nostalgic enough towards. they've kind of got that fan base of people. Maybe they're 40 to 70-year-olds who are interested in those. And then you kind of have, I guess you could say like Kobe's era. This is kind of true for like football as well and baseball as well, like the mannings. I feel like they are in between being current players and being nostalgic.

Like I guess like I think there is a time where they're going to be looked at in that last batch and that's where there's going to be some growth to be had. So I'm really looking at that era. I think the guys like Iverson, super iconic, but I feel like their collectibility isn't quite where it should be because there's probably going to reach a time where the people who watch them growing up as kids settle down, they have enough money to buy their big cards, maybe they've reached their 40s, reach their 50s, and now that market starts to mature.

It becomes more nostalgic. So that's something I'm definitely looking at. Like players who retire it over like the last 10 years that haven't quite like been put in the nostalgia category but aren't modern players either. I think that's like a break in between vintage and modern that often gets overlooked. And when those cards become vintage is when there's a lot of growth to be had.

So yeah, I think Manning's one of the players on my list. And I'm like for who he was. I think incredibly undervalued. You look at some of his cards compared to whether it's a vintage all-time grade or a modern grade, you know, you can see that they're significantly underpriced, in my personal opinion. Guys like Iverson, Garnett, there's a lot of players from like that era that I think are just wildly overlooked right now. So I guess we'll see how that plays out over like the next 10, 20 years.

But as a long, long-term hold, I think that in between is a place that. not many people look at that maybe more people can look at and do their own research and see what they think. Yeah. Garnett is from our town here in South Carolina. I played with him in high school. Oh, that's awesome. AAU basketball together. Wow. He was a little better. I was good. He was great. Yeah, I mean, it's crazy. Yeah, he's a legend. I think he's undervalue too. There's a lot of guys in that sport A era. It's like these guys are, you know, top 50 to 75 all. time, you know, and it kind of go under the radar. They do.

Hey, man, it's been great talking with you. I'd love to have you on again sometime. And tell everybody where they can keep up with everything you've got going on, website handles, all that stuff. Yeah. Appreciate you having me on. YouTube, SportsCard Invest, Instagram, SportsCard Invest. Our YouTube is sports card or our website is SportsCard's Invest.com with the plural of the

cards with an S. So yeah, I mean, we're always posting stuff for sale. We're always making, you know, newsworthy posts on Instagram, covering topics on YouTube like Ryan does. So appreciate you having me on once again. It was a lot of fun talking with you. Yeah, man. Love what you're doing and keep it up.

And love to partner collab sometime on something fun. And appreciate all you do for the hobby. Yep. Appreciate you. Hey, man. You know where to find us. collectibles. Show, you'll find

the full episode, all the links to Canals stuff with sports cart invest. A lot of good guys in the hobby. He's one of them. They're doing good things, keeping up with ways to invest and do it responsibly

in the hobby. You can find me at Ryan Alford on all the social media platforms at Blue Check before you can buy it, baby. We'll see you next time on training cards and collectibles. 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. Or follow Ryan on Instagram at Ryan Olford. Now get out there and collect yours.