Collector Nation - The Hobby Has Outgrown Its Name | What We Learned at The National

Episode Date: August 7, 2026

The National Sports Collectors Convention has become much more than a card show. After an unforgettable week in Chicago, Ryan Alford, Brian Ludden, and Bella Shafer sit down to share their biggest takeaways from this year’s event. From the growth of live selling and corporate activations to trade nights, vintage cards, and the products everyone was chasing, this conversation captures what it actually felt like to experience the hobby’s biggest week from behind the scenes. Ryan also shares the inspiration behind his editorial, The Hobby Has Outgrown Its Name, while Brian discusses what he learned meeting with manufacturers, marketplaces, and hobby leaders throughout the week. Bella shares her perspective after attending her first National and explains why the community left such a lasting impression.  Whether you attended The National or followed along from home, this episode offers a look at where the hobby is headed—and why the next few years could be the most exciting yet. Topics Covered The evolution of The National Live breaking & marketplaces Trade night insights Jordan’s market strength Favorite National pickups Bo Jackson Battle Arena Corporate activations Vintage vs. modern collecting Behind the scenes at the Ludex Lounge Predictions for next year’s National 🔗 Links Mentioned in This Episode Collector Nation Website: https://thecollectornation.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecollectornation TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thecollectornation YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thecollectornation Collector Station Website: https://thecollectorstation.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecollectorstation Ryan Alford Website: https://www.ryanalford.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanalford Brian Ludden / Ludex Website: https://www.ludex.com App: https://www.ludex.com/download Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ludexapp Top 10 Cards of the Week Sports Card Highlights https://www.youtube.com/@SportsCardHighlights ⭐ If you enjoyed this episode, follow Collector Nation, leave a 5-star review, and share it with another collector.

I ran into one of the vendors there happened to have a his childhood card is now worth $10 million. And it was a Willie Mays card. He paid $200 for it at the time. It was even before grading. It ended up being sold and getting graded as a PSA 10 and now it's $10 million. It was just such a random story. How much do you think was transacted in any given trade night? I mean, if it's not close to seven figures or more, I'd be surprised.

I think it's eight figures. Yeah. It's a lot. Buying and selling, me personally was almost close to six figures. The amount of money being moved around in this business that doesn't get hit the books is one thing. It's a $30 billion. It's a $30 billion industry at the freaking national. Laundering.

Laundering. Oh, did I say that? I hate when I say things out loud. Oh, I don't know. I don't want to say it. Welcome to the Collector Nation podcast here on the Collector Nation. Network. Whether you're chasing grails or calling bluffs, you take you inside the hobby.

Here are your host, Ryan Alford and Brian Lut. What's up, guys? Welcome to Collector Nation here on the Collector Nation Network. You got Ryan, Brian, and Bella. What's happening, Brian? I think I maybe 70% recovers from the National. It's so funny, right? I feel like we're all kind of that way.

It's two or three days removed now. And it's like, it's like, it's both the, it's not a low. It's the high, you're in the moment. It's an adrenaline crash. It is a little bit of an adrenaline crash, even if you're excited about all of what came from it. I honestly talked, I talked from 9 o'clock in the morning till 2 at night. Every single day, I didn't shut up. I mean, I did not show up.

So Sunday, I'm driving home. I left my keys at some bar, or lost my bag at a bar, whatever. But the thing is, I come home Sunday, and I'm like, I couldn't even talk. Like, I'm like, I don't want to talk for like 24 hours. And then, yeah, I just kind of slept. And then now it's back to business on Monday morning, right and early and do it again. Yep. Exactly.

I wrote down, like, what happened was we flew out very early Sunday morning. and I mean it was We were all wide-eyed in bushytale to be at the airport at 6 a.m. I don't know what. I barely remember it. And it wasn't like I got wasted or anything Saturday night or like I mean,

I had some beers and hanging out and talking a lot but it wasn't like, it was just more or just exhaustion, I think, and everything else. So literally I got home on Sunday and I can't remember the last time I was daytime nap. But Nicole took the boys I'm going to pretend she planned it just for me. But she took the boy's shop, like stuff for back to school.

So I had like four hours of home alone. And I'm pretty sure I blacked out on the couch watching like three minutes of like golf or something. And I woke up and it was 4.30. And I was like the first daytime nap. I'm so proud of you. I couldn't believe it. And anyway, but then I proceeded to get up and I wrote down. while I had it fresh, like everything I kind of took away.

Yeah. And so I'll say this. We're going to keep the episode lively and talk about all the highlights and all the cool people. But I did from a business perspective. You can find it at thecollecternation.com, a really, I think, introspective take on the national. And so it's got an audio thing to go along with it. So if you want to know like the insights, what it all means, at least from my perspective, from the hobby. And the name of the article is the hobby has outgrown its name. And so I like that.

I'll just, I'll put that on there. And then the audio version is called, the national didn't change. We did. So. Yeah. Yeah. That's the truth to that. Yeah. And I mean, that's what encapsulated. God, you talk about how many different ecosystems and how many different things are happening under that one roof. It's mind blowing. The economies. Like all the stuff from the Vegas Mobile, which is the live braking area. It's called Mini Vegas. Talk about overwhelming. You still got old school collecting.

You still got the Vegas machine. You've got autograph world. You've got the business world that we lived in and a lot of it being in the Luddx lounge. I mean, there's just so much going on. Something that I kind of wanted to highlight was that I, I think they did a fantastic job balancing keeping the card the hero, but also having experiences and activations that kept it really fun, even if you're not necessarily there for the cards,

like the brands and stuff, the people that aren't necessarily there for the cards, but are just in that environment. I think they did a fantastic job balancing that, where it didn't feel, like if you didn't want to deal with any of that, you did not have to, but if you wanted to be kind of in the more fanatical and more experiential aspect of it, it was very easy to get to that. Yeah. Actually, on that, Bella, I'm really interested to see, like, what your takeaways were,

the positive, the blah, the blah, blah, and the bad. Well, I told Bella, I'll even give her, this is called a creative pause, It allows her to build her idea. Yeah, good job. I'm giving her time to answer that question even further. So she should be thinking through it while I'm talking. That's what I'm delaying even further right now. That's what that's called is delayment.

But here's the thing. I said, oh, I said, you're in the hobby now. You are the hobby. Once you've gone to the national, the kid gloves are off. You've seen it. You've experienced it. It doesn't mean every Mickey Mantle and every card, but now you see what it is,

even if it's sort of on steroids. Yeah, definitely. I would say I loved it. And going into it, everyone was like, yeah, yeah, sure, you'll have fun. Like, oh, you'll probably be one of 100 women, which was true. But I... It was 200 this year. Yeah, maybe, maybe 200.

Stretching it. But I love being a woman in male-dominated fields. It is so much fun. And I honestly felt like people, because I was doing a lot of on-the-floor interviews, interviewing people at trade nights and things like that. And I just absolutely loved hearing people's stories. And like I ran into one of the vendors there happened to have a,

his childhood card was a, is now worth $10 million, and it was a Willie Mays card. It's in one of the MLB team's kind of archives. He paid $200 for it at the time. It was even before grading. It ended up being sold and getting graded as a PSA 10, and now it's $10 million. It was just such a random story,

and that vendor is named Andy Maddick, but it was just so cool to kind of stumble upon him completely randomly and he was willing to do an interview. But I really enjoyed it. And any excuse for me to yap and people can't get mad at me for yapping is a great day. Yeah. I mean, your team did such a great job. I mean, you guys are like such like professionals, A players and added so much, like we really spent a lot of time together. And my team and your team and it was awesome. I mean, having that backroom was like so, so great, sharing the stage with Ryan and all the people we brought up there was amazing. And then, yeah, we just, I think we,

we crushed it. I think it was, it was my favorite national. It was a perfect blend of work and pleasure. I mean, I had my, I had Hudson and Hogan there. And Brian is so gracious, like the Luddick, Luddix was everywhere. Like, they were everywhere subtly, like a premium brand should be. Like, they didn't have to hit you over the head. but you knew they were there. It's like the Rolex of... Yeah, they were. I mean, but it's true.

And it's solidified what I already knew. It already made... I feel pretty intelligent a lot of the time, purely because of the friends that I make. It's, it's, uh, I choose friends well. And it's not because they're connected. It's because they're liked and they're respected. And because they're doing business the right way.

And watching the interactions that Brian had with the brands and seeing how, I don't know, it's clear where Luddex's places and where their opportunity is and where Brian's leadership has got. I mean, it was really impressive. I second all of that. Yeah. And I mean, it was just, every brand or her brand coming at eBay, then Walmart, then tops.

I mean, and sometimes you see things and people are doing things because they have to do it or whatever, But Brian is so engaged with every one of them, and every one of them is listening to him intently. And so kudos, man. I mean, you were in your element. Yeah, it was fun. I mean, it's like it's exhausting at some point. But the thing is, is like when you're agnostic and you're creating technology, the whole thing for me is like, let's be like the infrastructure of this industry. And so like when what I do, what I do when I talk to business people is I ask them, what's your pain point?

What are you trying to solve today? What would be the best thing for you? If you solve this today, that would be your next initiative. And then they tell you the answer. And then like the live streamers need X and the manufacturers need Y and the marketplaces are another one. So if you ask them, they'll tell you kind of the answer and then you just kind of move around. But it took many, many years, many, many hours of, I had to chase them down for two years and just pound them and just hound them and be a pain in the ass for a couple of years. And now it's moved to where we just enjoy spending time together.

And I thank David Marino, I think the National, my team for giving us the opportunity to have that because it's so unique. And when people come in, they're just happier in the back room of the lounge. Yeah, I felt that. I mean, we can talk. I mean, I've done events and, I mean, corporate things. I mean, it's Jerry World. I mean, in Dallas. I mean, I've done activations at jets and the giants and the largest stadiums in the world.

So, like, I know what that looks like. I know what it looks like a well-run event. And they do a great job. And we could talk about one or two. I'll mention one tiny thing at the, end because I'm going to make it about positives. But they do it well. For how many people are coming in and out of there, it runs like clockwork. The people were friendly. I never felt like a single person working there, didn't want to be there. And I've thrown events where I've hired people

and I'm like, oh shit, they don't want to be here. And they're making people feel that way. And I never felt that way. And so, I mean, true absolute kudos to the national. They can evolve. They could do things. We could talk about it. But they are evolving. They are doing new things. They are improving. And but they're keeping the core of the card and the, as good as it can be done with how many ecosystems are living underneath this planet that is collecting. So kind of on that, what was, both of you, what was your favorite activation minus Loddx, obviously? But what was your favorite activation that you saw throughout the show? Create a little fomo here.

I mean, I can, I'll answer, like, it's not favorite, probably the wrong word. Coolest. I was, I thought Topps really stepped it up with that, with their, they felt like that whole activation just felt. I had 100% agree. It kind of looked like the castle and they're the king of the castle. I don't know if there was any sort of connection to that. But it was like,

it kind of like almost like the tops castle. I 100% agree. It was cool. It felt like the hero of the floor. I mean, them and eBay. And like the pavilion and the breakers and whatnot and all that is like its own universe. I mean, they all do it. It's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a car.

Carnival meets Las Vegas. And it's wonderful for about two hours. Imagine you had to stay in there for five straight days. I don't know how they did it. I was so oversaw. I would walk in there for like two seconds and I'd be like, I have got to get out. There's a video of me actually where there was the first time I walked in there. And I was like, how do I leave?

I got to go. Yeah. those are my like and it's just great how many different varieties it's a variety show like i went like the last day on saturday i disappeared alone um be a solid like she did all week i want to thank her she was awesome um and i literally disappeared for two hours on the like vintage area and i got to do that So you can go to that, you go to the Vegas thing, you can go up to the lounge, I don't know, you can experience like you get the whole 32 flavors of ice cream. It wants, whenever you want it. So Brian, what was your favorite activation?

I didn't spend tons of time on the floor. I went to eBay Live and I thought that was just insane. Brought my son Nick to Tops to get talked to those guys and that was great. even like the arena clubs and the courtyards were doing cool stuff. But the thing that shocked me the most was that Bo Jackson battle ground. The arena? Holy crap. And there's like dudes, there's like grown-ass dudes in like these like team jerseys and stuff.

And they're playing this game that like I don't even know. Like I don't even know how many people even know how to play it. But like they stepped it up to a level that was absolutely insane this year compared to where they are. Yeah, I agree. I've been on that early. I've got boxes I've been collecting in the last two years. He has like a stock wild. And look, I had the same thing with One Piece three years ago.

So I know a winner when I see it. And I thought One Piece was going to be it. And it is. I thought I knew Bo Jackson, if they did it right with his name attached to it, could be a winner. And I've been collecting those boxes that are now worth it. Quite a bit. I've got some one-on-ones. So I haven't talked about it on this show, probably enough. But if you ask me, and now sitting there at it, it was coming and it's here. I mean, it's, it's, it's really unique artwork. It's really, I'm not playing the game. I don't have time to play fucking games. You all know that. But like, it's the next big thing, if not the thing right now. It's, you got my homes coming on the next. next release.

They were everywhere at the show for sure, Brian. Yeah, that was amazing. And I love, like, this industry. I love when something different comes in. Like, I got on the V-Friends thing early just because of Gary. But, like, yeah, you, I mean, you hit those two, One Piece and the Battle, Bo Battle Arena or whatever. Yeah, Boe X and Ballerina.

It just shows, like, just the depth of how many different things you can do at this show. And I'm going to say like FOMO or whatever, but if you have a chance to go, and we said it before, we're going to say it again, I've never talked to anyone after the show and said, I wish I didn't come. I mean, said no one ever. I mean, it was like, it was amazing. And yeah, and get your VIP tickets early so you don't have to call me in the last minute. So I have to get like 30 in the last day, which is impossible. So yeah. In hotel rooms. Yep. Well, and it's only going to get bigger because culture and Aces is going to be bigger. Luddick's going to be bigger.

Everything's going to be bigger. And I say bigger, just like going to the next level like the National did. I mean, I was there last year and it felt twice as big. I don't know what the numbers were, but I didn't think it could because it was so jammed last year. It had to be 30% more. Yeah, they haven't released final numbers yet. I don't think they do. I don't think they ever, I don't think they do release them.

No, but didn't it feel like 20, 30% more? Yeah, I was thinking about that. And where I saw, the only thing I could look at is like the, like, when you walk in the main lobby. Yeah. Like that used to be like sparse and some, whatever, but that was jam packed. But I think there's two things happening. It's getting more popular. But the corporate booths are getting bigger, right?

And so I think there's less square footage for individuals. I mean, you could just take the VIP lounge or trade night. I mean, you have that massive thing in the middle, the Walmart kids zone. And that used to be five or six tables. And so I think that it's happening that they're giving corporate a lot more space. And I think they have to be careful of that because it does affect the experience of the person walking around. So I would say that's what, you know, that's what I think happened. Yeah, I think you're right.

And trade night is a, it was a, an economy to itself. What do you think? I wrote a lot about that in my piece and around, I don't know how much money's actually being made, but there's a lot of theater going on. How much, if you guys both had to estimate, how much do you think was transacted in any given trade night? I mean, if it's not close to seven figures or more, I'd be surprised.

I mean, I watch eight. I think it's eight figures. Yeah. I think it's a lot. I don't think Ryan's in left field. I mean, I know what. I didn't even have or bring like nuclear cards or anything, but I had, I mean, I'm, like, all told, not like what I walked away with, but buying and selling, me personally was almost close to. to six figures, like buying and selling.

Yeah. Just one dude. Yeah, just one dude. What I sold, what I bought, what I flipped, what, like. I talked to Knaw with a sports card invest, and he had a $60,000 card. And that was just one of his many cards that you had at a stable. I'm telling you, the amount of money being moved around in this business that doesn't get, uh, hit the books is one thing. But, but actually, it doesn't, hit the comps, doesn't hit the data chart, doesn't hit the industry insiders that try to say it's a $30 billion industry at the freaking national.

Laundering. Oh, did I say that? Yeah. I hate when I say things out loud. Oh, I don't know. I don't want to say. I mean, it was crazy, too, because, like, Ryan had skibled away for a few minutes, so I was man in the table, which is dangerous.

and it's really stressful selling somebody else's cards because not my money. The Bella's texting me like, two grand for this, three game for that. Yeah, anyway, so we ended up, like, the cards were just like selling themselves because I wasn't saying shit. I need these people. But I just have people like, oh, my, what's that going for? What's that going for?

What deal can you get me on that? And I'm like, oh, my goodness. It was, yeah, but I ended up selling like $1,500 worth of stuff. And it was only two things. So I felt a little pat in my back. No, you did good. I saw I had no problem to leave you there. It gave a little change of scenery.

I thought that it was new cards because pretty your face was selling them. Yeah. That's a marketing 101 right there. I mean, that's pretty easy. Yeah. I mean, you're a handsome guy, Ryan. Yeah. What he was doing.

I know what I was doing. And so if you're listening going, What are y'all going to talk about the cards? I mean, here's the thing. It's a case hit world. It's a 90s insert world. It's a Jordan. I put this a very long piece together about Jordan.

And I think here's what it is. It is the nostalgia. It is Jordan being the great. But what I said in the piece was, Jordan is the face of certainty right now. Like, you don't have to explain who he is. Jackson Darts got a lot of explaining to do. Michael Jordan doesn't.

Even Josh Allen has a lot of explaining to do when it comes versus Michael Jordan. And Josh has proven a lot, but Jordan is the face of certainty and growth and of the hobby. And I think that's where you see a lot of gravitation towards it. Nostalgia guys my age that watched him that had posted him, that had post-auby. which is all, yes, all that's coming to fruition. But there's very few things as certain as Michael Jordan cards. Yeah, I mean, his brand. I mean, people still wear the shoes.

They, yeah, there's shows about him, like his brand. And then also, like, it's crazy. Like, when we do our data research, the amount of Jordan's that Asian countries, they love Jordan. Like, love them. I mean, pretty much, oh, sorry. Go ahead. I was going to say pretty much every vendor I talked to with, I was like,

oh, like, what are you selling? What are you buying? And all of them that were in the vintage territory, said Jordan, every single one. Yeah. And I know you're in Chicago. We sell more Jordan than out of our store. I mean, like, it's a, I've sold, I mean, I don't even know how many Jordans. We buy and sell them every week. Like, a lot of them. Like, a lot of them. I sell. I sold a lot of them. I let go of a lot of my inserts that I had. I know. We should hold on to those. I could, by the time I got one for you. I held, I held that one for you. Yeah. Okay. Good.

I want it. I definitely want it. I just couldn't. Yeah. By the time you and I were like looking at cards, I was so spent. You were so spent. You were still like, it was like, you was like the one moment you probably had like somewhat let your hair down a bit. Like I didn't want to like, I was like into it like I want, but I was just like, okay.

It was always like 10, 15. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was just ridiculous cards. God, that storage you. Not anymore.

Not anymore. Yeah. I saw a bunch. Hey, the break that I had never bought into that meant to buy into, it ended up. 1-0-1. Yeah. Or did you, were you in on it? Did you?

I was in on it until my partner. Did you get a fraction of the 101? No. Like, my partner's like didn't want to wait the whole time. So there were three of us for two spots. Yeah. And all sudden I'm like, I see him leave. I'm like, oh, I'll let you what happens on the.

the break. I thought, oh, we canceled it. We want to, we, we want to be here if the break is going on. And I'm like, are you, what? It's like a hundred thousand card, wasn't it? Yeah. I would have won that. I don't know if I would have, but it was fun.

You still had a guy. It's still fun. I saw it on the guy. I'm not going to do him justice. We'll put it in the footnotes. He does the top 10 cards the week. It's sports, I think. Cool guy.

Like his content. I like your content. If you watch ours. So we'll put you in the notes. It's been a long week, so just give me a little slack. He had it, and I saw it. What was it anyways? He does a video where he shows videos in the top ten polls of the week.

And it was in the... There's the Luddox Lounge. I was right there, like, I was showing the guys breaking in the Luttex Lounge. I was like 10 feet away from it. I still don't know what part of it was. I was like, waiting. I saw the curtain behind them and everything. I was like, my bag was probably in...

I guess we had just left, maybe when that got hit. Yeah, I didn't use that. What was it? What card was it? I knew you were going to ask that. We're going to have that in the show notes of Root. We're going to plug it in. I didn't.

I was right next to it and I don't know. Yeah. I mean, there's so much happening. Was it football there breaking? Sapphire. I know they had flawless. They had Sapphire and then they had NBA flawless. I don't know.

It was Cooper Flag. It was Cooper Flagg, one of one, Sapphire or something. Oh, wow. Ruby Sapphire, Cooper Flag. a one-on-one. That was legit. It was, I was like, I just wish it had happened earlier in the day,

because I would have been in on that. I had to cash in my pocket. Brian said, you went on this. I'm like, yeah, I want in. And then like, the boy's like, all right, let's go to bed. And I'm like, okay, let's get a burger and go to bed. I was talking to probably the most interesting guy who, there's tons of people that come into a lounge and he got to meet.

This guy comes in with a belt, like a world championship belt. Yeah, and this guy comes in and they're like, hey, he wanted to come up and he uses Lodax and he wants to get into a hobby and his name's King Kai. And I'm like, so what do you do? And he's like, I'm a six-time world champion bare-knuckle fighting. Oh, God. I saw him. Those are tough guys. I saw him and I was trying to figure out who he was because I saw his belt on his shoulder.

I was like, I've never. Yes, yes, yes. I wanted to tell him he had a cool mustache. King Kai. And he's fighting on August 29th. They're putting the ring on home plate of Fenway. And he feels very confident that he's going to win again. So, but I mean, he might weigh 150 pounds.

And one of the nicest kids. Super nice kid. And I'm like, man, this guy's a badass. Exactly. I wouldn't want to fight him. Yeah. And then Mike Tyson was at our booth. So I'm like, I got like, Mike Tyson over here sitting in a Lodox booth down on the floor.

and they come up. No big deal. Yeah, I saw a picture that was taken and you looked like a kid in a candy store, like just within like arms reach. I brought my Mike Tyson punch out game and let him sign that. Yeah. I used to punk him though.

I punked him the first day I got that in 1987 or whenever it was, it came out. I was beating, I was a video game kid. I was playing sports. I was outside every day, but I could crush. I beat Mike like the first day.

It was hard. He was so fucking good on that game. You should have told him. You should have walked up right up to him and said, man, I beat your ass day one. I always sort of said, hey, Mike, can you sign my game, please? Oh, unbelievable. I will make it about the cards really quickly. He's got to go.

Yep. I got another five, ten minutes. All right. So Steph Curry's cousin came in, the Ludix Lounge. Will Wade? Will Wade. Will Wade was awesome, by the way. One of the most genuine, authentic, like, people I've ever met.

Like, maybe. He was just so down to earth. And we bought a bunch of his cards. Yep, the Canvas Marketing cards. And he had a case or a, I guess it was a case. I don't know. Yeah, that's what I'm calling it. Yeah.

He had four left and he goes, there's one auto of Steph in every box. And there was like four or five boxes. Give me the rest of those, whatever it is. So I bought them. And we opened a few. And Nash, who couldn't come because Nicole needed to work and it was going to be difficult, he's still 10. Next year he'll be there. But I wanted to give him something good.

So I gave him one of the four or five boxes left in the case. Nash is opening. And six-pack, he pulls the auto. Steph's his favorite player. So post-event. And it was a dual auto. dual auto of Will Richard, Richard, he's on the team and Steph.

So dual auto, Nash pulled it. And look, Nash wasn't guaranteed. It only gave him one box because I was going to keep the rest and store him away. He took away a little bit of the value on the auto's thinking, but there's no one I would have rather opened that. He got it fair and square like he's random pulling.

But you should have seen the joy, the national extended past its own borders in the offered house when Nash, ran around the house for 10 minutes yelling that he got that out of. Oh. And those cards are cool, man. And I love the cards. I love how he's hustling and out there. And it helps to have, of course, a cousin that's one of the top 20 greatest players of all time, probably, whatever.

I don't know where he falls. I'd probably put him a little higher than that. I don't know. I mean, some people are saying, oh, he's top seven. I don't know. I'm just going to safely say that, at least that. And he's your cousin. But he's out there hustling.

And he's doing a cool product. and a saint of a person, at least in person. Yeah, I loved him. And love, like, I would seriously collect these. Yeah, they're fun. And the ones I, that he let me rip and he let me open and I opened with him on camera, like those are going to be in my personal collection, probably forever, just because of the sentimental story behind him.

So I hit the floor really quickly. Oh, is my favorite player. I found this press proof of the original, the bow nose card. You don't see those. I'd never seen one. It's authentic. And then I picked up three Hank Aaron's lower grade, not high price cards, but like from two to $500 ones.

That's great. From a guy that was sitting with me at the table, I wanted some Hank Aaron's anyway. He had them. He was a little slow. I was selling a lot, so I shared the wealth and wanted to buy cards anyway. I was like, give me, how many anchoring? Yeah, give me every one of them. So I bought those.

And then, lastly, we did buy a box of the new research. while we were there. It's a hot product. It's a fun product, by the way, rip it. Come to our station, rip it. And I've stayed hot. Let's just say that. I'm not having that much, but triple color patch auto cams gadabot on like the third pack I open. And I think it's like numbered to, like zero or something. It's zero out of zero. No, it's out of 50. Perfect 10 out of 15. A perfect 10 out of 15, uh, fun card. So some like some guy. I, forget if it was the Madden brothers or it was some celebrity and he's like what i want to find is a cam scatabot card auto card and that laces might have been like Thursday night so i can't

and you had it uh yeah yeah you're not if you want to sell it i i i can track uh it's for sale i'm not a i like cam but it's stuff everything's for sale out of 15 triple color patch auto and it's And with being resurgence, like this, if this was like top something like the higher, like this is like a $2,000 card or something, this is sub a thousand probably being

resurgence, but very cool because it's triple color and its player worn. So not just an awesome card auto or sticker. Yeah. So if he still wants it, you let me know if we're, we'll give him a good deal.

I will. Whatever you need it to be. And then a guy dropped off a collection. I'm going through it and I'm finding some pretty sick 90s insert. Let's just say that. And I've got like 17 binders to go through. And I've, I lost three hours of my life last night going through them.

Let's just say I gained three hours of my life. Tom Brady's, Peyton Manning's, Jerry Rice's, like, that original like acetate from 1990. Yeah, I love those. Dude. So. He's like kidding a candy store. I'm like lost in the sauce back there. Well, any final stories, Brian?

No, I mean, it took me like two days to just process everything. And then like now everything's starting to come to me. Unfortunately, it comes to me like at three in the morning. I'm like, oh, shit, I got to reach out to Stock X. I got to do this. I got to do this. And unfortunately, I'm not like thinking during the day. I feel like my brain's not working as well.

But sure thing at 3 o'clock in the morning. But no, I just think that the national was great. I think it was a great time. It was great meeting you, Bella, in person. and sharing our brands and being on stage together. And just seeing, this year also, there were way more kids this year than ever. Yeah, it's great to see young collectors.

And that's healthy. There was a kid that went up and tried to get Ryan on trade night. He was like, I have this $7,000 card that I'll sell for $5,000. I'm cracking up because this kid can barely even see the table. He's miced up. And it was just, like, hilarious that he, like, at seven years old, like, I was not, I didn't even have a concept of how much money $6,000 was. I got, I appreciate the hustle kid, but you're not getting me. If he was coming up, he was cute enough where, like, if it was like $50, $100 cards.

You would have, like, bought it or something. If I gave you money to buy stuff, you would have totally bought it. That's why I didn't give you money. I let you sell my buy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, at least she asked for a lot. I mean, like, it's like. It was crazy.

Eight grand? 10 grand? Yeah. But I will definitely be wanting to go back next year. Never thought I'd say that. But it was probably my favorite weekend of work I've ever had. Brian, appreciate the hospitality and the amazing connections. And again, it's clear.

My pleasure. Where you belong in the hobby. And we're just happy to tag along. Yep. It's my pleasure, man. Much love. Thank you for everything you guys did. For us there, I know we got some video content coming out.

Yeah, it's like our 1,400 terabytes of it. Oh, my God. You guys crushed it. It takes three days, just download everything. Yep. Let's let's let's edit it. But lots of stuff coming, so there'll be more hard talk. There'll be more videos.

And check out thecollector Nation.com to get all of that content. Yeah. And we'll be integrating. hopefully soon with Luddx and that whole ecosystem and one way or another we're going to get it done. And you go to the app store, L-U-D-E-X.

Lots of exciting things coming there, collection management, a lot of things that Brian talked about. We'll show videos of that. We'll have all the highlight clips from the show, LuddX Lounge, the floor, and everything right here on Collector Nation. We'll see you next time.

Appreciate you, Brian. Bella, I'm Ryan. I'll see you next time. Thanks for tuning in to the show. Be sure to follow us on your go-to podcast platform and catch the full video episode over on YouTube. Visit us at thecollectornation.com and follow Ryan on Instagram at Ryan Alford.

Now get out there and collect yours.