Collector Nation - The Hobby Is Changing Fast: TCG Boom, New Releases & Card Shop Grand Openings

Episode Date: March 27, 2026

In this episode of Collector Nation, Ryan Alford and Brian Ludden break down what’s really happening across the hobby—from shifting market trends to what’s actually selling inside a real card shop. With Opening Day energy in the air, the conversation moves from sports headlines to the evolving dynamics of collecting in 2026. Ryan shares insights from running a shop day-to-day, including the surprising dominance of TCG products like Pokémon and how customer behavior is changing. From wax vs. singles to the rise in grading demand, it’s clear the hobby is expanding beyond just traditional sports collectors. The episode also dives into bigger-picture questions around the industry—are there too many releases, is data helping or hurting collectors, and what trends actually matter long-term? With new products like Bowman U and Pokémon releases hitting the market, the landscape is moving fast. If you’re trying to understand where the hobby is headed—or just want to stay ahead of what’s hot—this episode gives you a real, unfiltered look at the current state of collecting. 🎯 Topics Covered Opening Day energy and sports hype impacting the hobby Inside a real card shop: wax vs. singles and customer behavior Pokémon and TCG dominating sales (and why it matters) The explosion in grading demand across sports and TCG Are there too many product releases in the hobby right now? New drops: Bowman U March Madness & Pokémon Perfect Order The role of data in collecting—helpful or hurting the fun? Market trends, consolidation, and what’s next for grading companies Sponsors  ONIT– Shop now at onitathlete.com and use code COLLECTORNATION at checkout to receive 15% off your first order! They connect fans and athletes through team-based collectibles. Behind its locally-driven and nationally-relevant products, ONIT creates authentic ways for fans to support the teams and athletes they love. 🤝 Connect with Host & Guest Ryan Alford Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanalford Website: TheCollectorNation.com and TheCollectorStation.com Brian Ludden (Ludex) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianludden Down the Ludex App on IOS and Android

TCG is really grown in the hobby, especially One Piece and UPO. One Piece has seen a 700% increase in grading. That's crazy. Back to the store. We hear a lot of people asking for, but 60% of ourselves have been poachshod. When I traded derivatives for 25 years, if someone's been doing it, I just picked the brain because I'm like, that person already made the mistakes. I don't want to make those, so it's cheaper.

And I don't care how many businesses you've opened and run. Anytime you join in anything, there's certain humility and curiosity that needs to happen if you're going to be an entrepreneur. I don't think data has made the hobby less fun. I think the lack of centralized assistive data is hurting. 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 hosts, Ryan Alford and Brian Lut.

Hey, what's up guys? It's our weekly tie-in with On It, one of our great partners here on Collector Nation. And we've got Leonard, who's been here the last guy. I'm not even to, hey, he's just Leonard now. Leonard with On it. What's up, Leonard? Hey, Ryan, how you doing? Good to be back, man.

Hey, man, it's the Champions Week. I tell you what, you guys know how to pick the teams. That's all I'm going to say. I think you loaded it up. Someone needs to get a raise into picking the teams that Onit supports. They're all champions all the time. Sounds like wrestling had a big week. Yeah, big weekend for Onit wrestlers at the NCAA National Championships.

For Penn State, the dynasty rolls on. I mean, fifth straight team title, which is crazy. They wrapped it up super early, like before championship wrestling patches even began for individuals. That's how dominant they were just getting to the finals. So crazy stuff from them. They broke their own. score record that they set last year. I mean, this is a dynasty full-fledged. We saw that too. They had four guys win titles in their individual weight classes. Luke Lidall at 125. Mitchell Messonbrick

at 165. Levi Haynes at 174 and then Josh Barr at 197. So the Penn State dynasty rolls on. But Oklahoma State snuck some titles in there too. A couple of our guys, Jacks Forrest, at 133 pounds. And then Sergio Vega at 141 pounds also picked up titles. So that was pretty sweet to see. Yeah, man. If you're a Penn State fan, I don't know. need to tell you what to do. You need to get out there and get these cards. We've got them here at Collector Station. We sold them at the Grand Opening. We got more and more people asking about this is how you support your teams, how you support. Obviously, their legacy, but guess what? You're not just doing it, like, writing that check for, oh, just something dull. These are cool

cards. We took some great videos. I was telling you earlier, Leonard, before we got on air, like, opening those baseball cards, we had the place lit up because everybody was here for the grand opening. And my friend who's like Clemson Baseball is the greatest fan. was going through those Camarillo or Canelo, I can't remember his name, but one of her favorite guys. And I'm not as close to the Clemson Baseball as she is, but she was like, every player knew who they were. And the shine and the glitter, she got some pretty good hits too.

Yeah, and that's one of the cool things about, like, collecting on-it cards in today's NIL day and age, like you mentioned. Like, there's a lot of people who can and will just write checks straight to universities and athletes. and really all you get in return is whatever the results are on the quarter on the field. At least with on it cards. You got a collectible to go there. Yeah, you at least get something.

I'm looking up the values on some of these, man. I mean, I know that we're not really here to push on it as like, okay, this multi-million dollar, you know, investment that's, you know, like this investment cloud. I know that's not the point of these cards. But let's just say those values are creeping up there, man. Yeah, they definitely are. I mean, performances on the field always help. And I think as more people, like the college trading card space really hasn't been explored in a lot of different ways. You know, you're seeing more and more people kind of pop up and try to do what we're doing right now because of, you know, the monopoly licenses that we're seeing going on at the higher levels.

And, hey, man, March Madness. It was madness. It's funny. Every tournament's different. Yeah, it's rough. We still have quite a few teams left. Thankfully, you know, we're down to, in a lot of these regions, just. one team left on the men's and women's side like the east only got yukon to south we got

Nebraska by the time this episode comes out we'll know whether or not they got past iowa i think they're going to do it i think nebraska could be in the final four this year truly i think they have uh if houston goes down to illinois i think they have the easiest path to walk uh to get to the final four so that would be crazy to nebraska is probably like of all these teams like i'm a i'm a college basketball guy but obviously it's hard to watch every team a lot i hadn't caught Nebraska this year. They have really turned my eye in the tournament. They've looked really, really good, really dominant. And I mean, that's been a, I mean, there are four seeds. It's not like, I mean, they obviously had a good season, but they have looked great. Yeah, they've picked

it up in the tournament, especially kind of, you know, I mean, they started 22 and O and then fell off a little bit down the stretch, but they've looked awesome. Texas has shocked me. I thought Texas was going out to BYU in the first round. I was like, if they beat NC State, whatever, because they're going to lose to BYU and AJ Daibansa. And that obviously didn't happen. And now they're playing for lead eight spot against Purdue. So one of our on-a-teams is going to lead eight for sure. And then on the women's side, all the number one scenes have just been so dominant.

Like Yukon, South Carolina, UCLA, Texas, they're winning games by 30, 40 points. Madison Booker dropped 40 points on Oregon. I mean, like you said at the start of this, the teams that we're picking, the teams that are playing really well. I'm going to go on a limb here, Limberton. At least on the women's side, I think an on-it team is going to win the title. Yeah, when you got all the four number one teams, I think. Yeah, and they're kicking everybody's ass.

Let's just tell it like it is. But I will say this, all right. Yeah, they're definitely, I think, a team that surprised a lot of people just the way they were up and down all season long. And, I mean, if they make it to the final floor, that'd be awesome. Obviously, we'd love to have our teams win a championship like usual. and one of the cool things about our teams winning championships and one of the awesome agreements that we have is that we actually have the opportunity to produce boxes

for national champions. We did it earlier this year. We had an Indiana Hoosier's commemorative football box. We talked about Penn State Wrestling winning their team title. Their national championship box just went live on our website. So it kind of like commemorates the whole season for all these teams. So our men's or women's basketball team wins the title too. That's something that we're going to be very excited to hopefully produce.

as long as it's one of our teams. So, you know, we might have a Yukon men's basketball and women's basketball commemorative box celebrating both of their 25, 26 seasons. It gets real. I mean, Don't say it is how to get them, and they're dialed in right now. I don't know if they're going to be at Yukon,

but I think they're going to beat Oklahoma. We'll see. Anything can happen. But the good thing is, hey, these guys, right, now's the time to buy, and they start going up on one of these wins. So you need to get out, check out on it, come to collector station,

We're on all throughout the store. We've mentioned them. And, of course, Leonard's going to tell you where else you can find them and buy or pick up any of the stuff we've been talking about. Yep.

You can check us out online, onathlete.com. That's our website. You go there. You can peruse the whole selection, whether it's winter sports, fall sports, upcoming spring sports releases.

You can check it all out there. If you're into live ripping ships, we do those on TikTok and whatnot, pretty much weekly as well. On It, Athlete, just all one word on both platforms. You can find us there. If you feel the need to get some Joyce Edwards, South Carolina women's basketball cards in your life, those are the places to go.

She's only a sophomore, man. She's got a long way to climb. That's crazy. Crazy how good. Could be talking about one of the greatest ever. You never know. But hey, what you got to do is get on it. O-N-I-T, all one word.

We appreciate you, Leonard. We'll see you next week. Thanks, Ryan. Always good to be here. See you guys. What's up, guys? Welcome to Collector Nation. It's Ryan and Brian, Brian, Brian and Ryan here on a Friday.

It is opening day week. Opening day week. Yes. Ryan, I mean, you know you're committed when you pull the white socks dirty. The last two times I wore it on the show, you know, they haven't given me a reason to wear it. So I wear it on the show and I put it back in my closet. True fan, true fan.

when you're, you know, somehow Chicago guy ends up away. I know it happens because clearly there's two teams, which is the strangest thing ever. But that aside, it's not easy being a White Sox fan. No, I was born into it. It's a Southside Irish guy. There's no choice. Exactly.

It takes you good with the bad. That's why I wear the World Series jersey from it, whatever, 21 years ago. Do we want to just start the episode with any predictions for the White So Sox that you'd like to get on record here for our show. Well, I mean, the division is decent. Detroit's good. Cleveland's good. So, yeah, I think they're going to win.

What do they win? Like 45 games, 55 games. They're going to win 65 to 70 games this year. We're on that road to acceptability. Hey, you're reasonable. You know, at this pace, if they pick up two games a year, like in 40, in like 20 years we'll be a good team. What is like the reasonable upside for the White Sox?

Like blow things out of the way. Do they have the potential to win 100 games? This year, no, but they get the first pick in the draft next year. There's a shortstop out of UCLA. that's supposed to be the best short stop since 2-0, 2-ilitsky. And they have the number two or three prospect, top 100. They got like seven guys. They're really young, super young.

So this is not the year. Like, they need, you know, they need these guys to grow up. But, yeah, they're a super young team. They don't have tons of outside this year. But, like, I don't mind watching a young team as they grow. The worst is watching an overpaid team fail. Yeah, exactly. Like a bunch of old dudes that there sort of has beens and there's no upside.

And they aren't playing as well as they are getting paid to play. Yeah, they don't give it. They don't give a shit. Why would I give a shit? Yeah, exactly. So we'll see. Who's the best player in baseball right now? Otani.

I mean, I mean, I mean, O-Tonnie's, like, I mean, Trout has just, like, gotten buried, man. Like, in the hobby, like in the hobby. Like in the hobby, his cards are cheap, man. Yeah, I would have never thought that day would come. Like, my son picked up at the card show, like, picked up some trout autos that, like, would have been, I don't even know, 3x, what he, or three years ago, four years ago. Yeah.

So, Otani just, dude, you know what to pitch and hit. I mean, come on. I still, like, I don't know. It's kind of like Bo Jackson when I think about him. Like there's not been to an All-Star and football and baseball, like the ridiculous of how good of an athlete he was. I don't know if we can do enough, like, true service to what he's doing. No, I mean, just one league. He and Dion did it.

I think that's the last ones to do it. But if you're going to do it, it's going to be football baseball. I mean, basketball players are great athletes in the own right. But have you ever seen a basketball player throw out a first pitch? Absolutely not. They're not good. No. It's like 50 cent not good.

Yeah, definitely not good. If you haven't seen that first pitch, 50 second, first pitch. He bounced it up there a few times. I don't know if I've seen it. Yeah, you got to see it. I mean, it went like this way, but then down, like it, like, I don't know if he ever threw a baseball in his life. Oh, God.

That's disappointing. So that was my, when I threw the ball off of the Rangers, that was my. Yeah, you got it there. I saw the real video of that. I can't be worse than that, great? No, you definitely were. You look like you do what you're doing. How's, how was your opening?

Dude, it was great. We, we were wall to wall. We opened the doors. We did 12 to 6. Probably had 30, 40 people in line when we opened. And it was honestly, you know, you do all that buildup. We had some giveaways and different things like that. It was just wall to wall for like four hours.

and my team did great and I was just walking around kissing babies, shaking hands and mean people and you know, had Mike Baker here Mike Baker authenticated. Yeah, should go look that up if you don't know who Mike Baker is.

That's greater on the planet. He was here. Brian Harrips was here. who does, if you are listening or familiar with Brian, he does a lot pretty popular, like going around different card shows. Met him at the National when I met Baker back a couple years ago. And he's making the mint cases that are like the Uber premium PSA cases. They're pretty sweet.

And he brought me my Caleb. I should have that. I'll bring that back. Well, Caleb. Bill is running an errand. I, you picking up Nash for me. my Caleb Williams rookie card my color blast that

graded 9.5 by Mike Baker it's in this case. We'll have that for next week. Do you do, do you take the 9-5 and give it to PSA? Yeah, I'll send it to my mint case in that. It's like a thousand-dollar case.

This thing's like made of glass and kryptonite. It's like, it's heavy, man. It's like five pounds. I don't know. I don't know what he says. It's gorgeous. I'll have it next week for showing off. Anyway, he was here.

We had a good time. We went to dinner the night before. But it was wall to wall, man. We posted on social media thanking everybody. I mean, we had a huge sales day. Everybody really came out to support us. And it was, couldn't have asked for better. So how about this?

I'm going to ask you a couple. I'll answer, but I'll give you a couple. What's something the market is doing right now, the hobby market that doesn't make logical sense but is still working i would say consolidation of grading companies or one manufacturer manufacturing the cards yeah yeah still it's working but how is it really the best what do you think yeah i mean i i jumped on and i didn't stay on long enough to actually hear if it got answered so that's my fault but Jeff Wilson was doing last night a live for sports card his show like at 7 p.m.

It was on me and Nash are, you know, boys gone wild week. Nicole and Hogan are out of town. Older boys are with my ex and so it's just me and Nash. And so boys gone wild. We were just YouTubing it up watching pack openings, opening packs. And literally, Jeff, Jeff, I popped. up. I was like, hey, live going on now. So I watched it. I jumped in there and like I asked them a question.

I was like, because it was like Q&A night. And I asked, you know, who's going to be the AT&T to PSA like Verizon is? You know, Verizon and AT&T, kind of the behemus and wireless. And I spent a lot of time on wireless and, you know, spend a lot of time working on Verizon in particular. And it was always, you know, AT&T was the foil. But it made both companies better, right? Because you had competition. Pepsi cook.

Yeah. Pepsi. Coke. Who's the Pepsi? If PSA's the Coke, who's Pepsi? Who's the challenger? And is it good that they don't have one? I don't know if they ever answered that question. Like I said, Nash's attention spanned. It didn't last long enough on that show. I think there's a vetting process. Like, he's like, that's too complicated. Probably. It was probably too. I was like, even when I read at the back, I'm like, probably too serious. Like, I'm getting down, you know, like, that's a, that's not That needs you wouldn't answer. That's funny.

But, yeah. It's like one grading company. And everyone's grading everything, it seems like. So it's like, I don't know how much. And PSA is even quite about raising prices and doing what they're doing. They're actually saying,

slow down. Nope, days make more money, which is good. So next week is the Topps Industry conference. And it's in Arizona. know and I'm every year they seem to have like a new

announcement there uh that kind of reflects the industry but I don't think they can make anything bigger than what happened to what not you know with that um civil suit so like whatever Topps does now it's like not even comparable to the ripples of what I think the whatnot case could be yeah Bella and I talked about last week when you were traveling.

And we might as well. But you're probably not wrong. I mean, I don't want the government anymore involved than I hate litigious, unnecessary litigious. But I also did agree that there probably needs to be a few guardrails that there aren't. So I can agree. I can agree and disagree at the same time. You know, like not everything's black and white.

Part of me is like, stay the hell out of it. People are buying packs. If they're buying brakes, and they're buying a team, you get that team's players. However, on the repack side of the odds and everything else where it's not crystal clear what you're getting or not, or if what the odds truly were, it gets a little gray. Yeah.

A lot gray. Has data made the hobby more efficient or less fun? I don't know. It's an interesting one. What do you think? I'll say this. I think information is power. And I don't have a problem now as a shop owner with an informed customer.

And however, it can be a little bit of, you know, playing the comp police at all times of, okay, yeah, this one's for 400. Yeah, but 12 of them sold for 150. So I know we like that 400, but there was something either somebody hit the wrong key or that one included a Michael Jordan autograph.

Yeah. I mean, cops are hard. Like, I mean, we deal with it all the time. We're the ones giving cops, right? And people walk in and I left said this, Lelik said this. But like, in the fact, it's all, it's all just supply and demand. And like, it's, you're in front of one person who has to make a decision on their business.

And, like, you know, it's, you can't play the cop game all the time. No. I do think, I don't think data has made the hobby less fun. I think the central is, the lack of centralized assistive data is hurting. Yeah, it's like the financial exchanges. Like, when there was just one, like, the S&P 500s. Yeah. that SMP 500 would be,

um, would be the only pit in the world that has it. Now it's on, um, five different pits. So now you get all these different, these different, uh, everything's coming to one place. It's, there's a, you know,

you know I have all the data. Everyone has the data. It's splintered in cards. Uh, that's, that's for sure. Like, cards are splinter. And, um, yeah,

it's, uh, interesting data is tough. Yeah, exactly. How's your bracket? Did you do a bracket? You're probably too busy even do a damn bracket. Nah, I didn't do. I like it watching that, but. Florida, I had winning the title.

I had a really good look, Brian. I picked 94% winners in my bracket through now. But I had Florida as the title holder. That Florida loss hurt me. If there were a Florida hangs on right there, I am, let's just say I'm in like the 95 percentile on ESPN. If Florida wins. I'm 94% solid, Brian.

Super solid. So 94% winners. But I sit in third place in the collector station pool. Bella's back from getting Nash. I am in dead last. You know what her percentage? I'm going to let her share just because I don't want to say it out loud. Oh, God.

It's, you know, yesterday I looked at it. And it was like 11%. It was really pitiful. You could throw darts at a dartboard Do better than 11%. And usually, like, you know, I can hold my own. I go purely based on vibes. Like, I don't watch basketball any other time of the year except March Madness.

And the vibes led me astray. If you had just picked like high, low, like, low, you'd have done? Like, probably 60%. Well, I mean, so I, 10.6% to be exact. Wow. Is how much I have it correct? I want to know what percentile that is. Is that like five percentile?

Oh, I don't even know. I only have, my max is 930 points. Currently I only have 330 points. Wow. I have like, 1,200. Yeah, you're ice cold.

I had like 1,11 something, I think. But I'm capped because of my champion losing. So I need some, I need some, if I get chaos, we can get like Michigan and Arizona and Duke, we can't have any of them win.

You know, the other three they're probably going to win. Yep. Well, I have another bracket that has Duke winning and another one that has Purdue winning, and those ones are doing, I mean, better than the other one. It's more like March sadness for you. Okay. Okay.

Mr. Dad jokes. You should trade your bracket to March sadness. Yeah. I'll have to do the second chance bracket. Yeah. Something. But, you know, Thompson lost. So yeah, they totally did.

And Furman. So I had to get someone to share the score with me because I see the game. But I heard they did lose. You saw it in the near distance. Well, you say, it's kind of like I saw that train out there, you know. Like, so we went to dinner Friday night. And Bella, all I said was we need to see TVs. And to her credit, there was TVs in the periphery.

Unfortunately, you know, I'm not that old, but it was about 100 feet away. I couldn't even squint to see the scoreboard. I could almost tell which team was which, and all I know is Clemson lost. Okay. See, you can't blame your eyesight issues on me. Okay. Well, it was still clearly 50 feet away at best. But, yeah, I take that up with the hostas, I guess.

But, yeah, but Clemson lost. That's all it matters. just saved me from the agony of having to watch every basket and I go in. Furman also lost. I stayed up until 1 a.m. watching the game. That was a great game.

That was much better. I actually enjoyed watching that game. I wanted them to win, obviously. But they represented the state properly. Yeah. Unlike, I think Clemson did.

Look, we got hurt by our guy. I was freaking Carter Welling blowing his knee out, the ACC. We just weren't deep, we didn't have quite enough talent to lose our second best score. Did you see, UNC just completely fired their coach.

Okay. Let me go on record right here. I told Nicole we were watching that game together. I said Hubert Davis deserves to be fired and will be fired after that game. And I said it actually before the game was over before they actually lost. They got called for a five second call because their guy didn't throw the ball in. They were up four like two or three. It was the deciding factor of VCU even having a chance to get it in overtime.

Yeah. And I said, Hubert Davis should be fired. He should have called a timeout. Right there because his guy to let it get to five seconds where he didn't throw the ball in. They had a timeout. And I said, that's coaching. Coaching to either tell him you should call the time out or you call the time out for him. Yep.

I said incompetence. And look, I don't know, Huber Davis, I got nothing against him, but he's not been North Carolina standard. He played there. Nothing personal, but not good enough North Carolina. Yeah, that was a mistake that easily could have been avoided. especially. And then on top of that, they haven't been where they should be.

I mean, North Carolina has a top two, three program in the country. They should be, they should never dip past like top five, seven. Like bad years should be top seven. They got everything. Got their support.

They got the historic history, the NBA players. I mean, money. Like, there's, North Carolina should be, there's no excuse for two in a year,

three years in a row, first round. Once we, you know, he did great his first year, went to title game, didn't win. But it's been downhill since, and I hate it for him.

Good guy, but that coaching. Yeah, I'm interested to see who they'll fill that position with. Yeah, I think they'll go outside the program. I think it'll be a big name and they'll make a lot of money. Yeah, for sure. And have a lot. Look, now you don't have to replace, you know, Roy Williams. You get to replace the guy that didn't do so great.

So this is perfect for someone. Yeah, I actually like the best. Yeah, you get to come in with like. Yeah, you're saving the day. So you get a little more grace and time to like get it together. And if you're a great coach, which they will hire, then they'll be good. No, that's true. Well, more on the card side of things.

National Women's Soccer League signed a multi-year deal with Panini, which is exciting for women's sports. I think we've seen, you know, in the just past year, year or two, like women's sports is becoming a lot more of a hot topic. So I'm kind of excited to see where they take that. Yeah. You know, I've been a proponent and talked about the WMBA product. Enjoy open those. We've got a lot of those in the store. And I know the soccer players and soccer players as a whole is getting more popular.

And with the World Cup here this year. Yep. So Panini's got to sign some things. They don't have the major sports. So, you know, it makes sense. But, I mean, I think it was a smart move because I think they have a big opportunity there. Like you said, with the World Cup,

and I think it will be good. So I'm excited to see what those look like, especially because I think Panini makes some of the coolest art. Yeah. And so I'm sad to see them go on the football side of things, but I think they'll do some good things there.

It should be good. But also, I mean, TCG is really grown in the hobby, especially One Piece and Yu-Gio. I mean, One Piece has seen a 700% increase. increase in grading. Yeah. That's crazy.

You know, and I mean, back to the store, we hear a lot of people asking for it. We carry a few things, but about a ton. And so we're seeing increases. And then, look, we open the store. It's definitely sports leaning. And my boys and I are more into sports, but we did open Pokemon. But 60% of ourselves have been Pokemon. Yeah.

So, I mean, at the grand opening, we couldn't keep the ETVs on the shelf at all. at all. I mean, they were gone like halfway through the event. I know. So it was, it's, it's big and the grading thing is now hitting like every facet. So everybody wants to know what they have and what, you know, the quality is. And they want to see that bump in value. And everybody thinks they have a 10, even though they're likely eights or sevens.

We know this first thing. I'm curious as to how, like, obviously, you know, TCG, they're made to play. Yeah. So I'm curious as to. what percentage of people, because I'm sure when like Pokemon first came out and stuff like that, people were obviously playing mostly more than just trading them.

So a lot of those cards are either destroyed or like heavily used. But now that there's so much upside value to them, I'm curious as to what the percentage of people who are actually playing the games versus just collecting the cards. I would say, guess,

would be like 60% collecting and 40% playing. I mean, I also think it depends. It depends. Like I know like magic, the gathering has like... Yeah, I think it's more playing. Yeah, that's more playing. But Pokemon, I guess 60, 40, 70, 30, collecting versus playing.

And I think, you know, five or six years ago it was probably more playing. But now in the last 10 years, especially, it's probably more collecting. So... We're like playing in penny sleeves. Yep. Exactly. Well, that's true.

I think we'll do that anyway. I think. I don't know. And I personally, never played. I tried to play Magic the Gathering once and almost cried out of frustration. So it's just not for me. That's okay. But we do have the tops 2025, 2025, 26 at Bowman, you now March Madness Basketball, and it's direct to consumers. So that's dropped or dropped two days ago. Yeah. And it's highlighting men's and women's college stars, three autos, three numbered

parallels. So I think that that's a really, really good set, especially with everything happening in college sports right now. Yeah, it would be interesting how those sales compare to tops, chrome basketball in general. I mean, obviously the university product, but, you know, I still think it's somewhat limited. I think the printing runs on this stuff. So it's probably going to be popular. I was kind of in a wait and C-mo, but the problem was with this top stuff, man, if you wait-in-s-s-mode, it was gone before you get, if you decide you want to have in the store, it's already sold out everywhere. Okay, I have a question for you.

Yeah. Do you think that across all the brands, too many, like, different releases are happening all at the same time? Because I feel like every week there's at least three releases that are happening in any given week. So does the market just become oversaturated with releases that half of them don't mean anything anyway? Topps would probably agree with you. I think that's why their goal is to reduce skews. But you also talk about different sports.

That is true. Basketball, football, baseball, soccer, Pokemon. I mean, you got a lot of variety there that's not, that somebody collects basketball, there may not be into football. I guess it's hard having a store because you see, like, it's constantly, like, we have new products coming in, like, every day. Yeah.

And so I guess maybe it feels like there's so much, so many releases happening all at once. It does. And there are, and it's a lot to keep up with the store. I think sometimes it feels like there's too many, but I do think if you really look at someone that collects only basketball, that often, they collect only football, only baseball, you know, and there's, so there's a lot of sports, but a lot of coverage. And you get college and you got non-colle, you know, pro.

And so a lot of variation there. but I don't know. I'm also the type that, hey, there's new ones. Yeah. And I guess that that's probably like, you know, you want the new shiny, sparkly thing. Yes. Yes, we do.

Yeah. So, I mean, they're just capitalizing on that. So I get it. So as this show releases, perfect order, the new Pokemon mega evolution set. Supposedly, our in-house Pokemon expert, Cole says it's kind of a dead of a set. said.

Oh, really? Not going to be very popular. So I still think it'll sell well because everything Pokemon sells well. True. But looking at some of the values and things like that, it's kind of on the... Well, I mean, because they just released Ascended Hero. So it's like, that was such a huge release. Well, we need new stuff every few months.

I know, I know, I know. Oh, and like the 30th anniversary, I know they're coming out with release on that soon. and I'm sure that that's like going to be bigger than even ascended heroes or prismatic. Yeah, it will be. And I think demand will still be there on some level, but I think the sets kind of, yeah, that's what I've seen that looks that way. It'll be interesting in like a year seeing like the data of which products kind of withstood the test of time and which ones were just like, you know.

As it for sure. and it's like for me, as a store owner, I don't care. Like, I want to sell whatever people want, provide variety, and don't, and want to serve the customers. But as a collector, I have been Pokemon for the chance at the most valuable card. And also, I like the art. I enjoy opening it because art's cool. But it's really about what's the lowest priced pack I could open

with the highest probability of a high card? Isn't that the age-old question? Yes. And Perfect Order has a lower percentage so far. Their top-in cards aren't like what the new, like, like, Send Heroes, you can get a $1,000 card. I pulled it. Yep.

The Gingar. And you didn't record it. Yes, but it happened. And it's in the case where it was, unless we sold it. No, no. And so, okay. It's a good price to possibility ratio. Then versus,

versus literally opening something, okay, the upside's $10. I think $1,000, but I do think it's only maybe like one couple hundred dollar card or something there so far. That's kind of like that. I get me excited, but I'm not just a pure collection.

What if we can run, like you remember a few years back when everyone on Reddit made GameStop, like stocks go through the roof, what if we can do that with some, trading cards. Take, like, base cards. Yeah.

I don't know about base cards. That's not going to happen. Base cards. Nobody wants base cards. Except for Nash. No, no. I'm just messing. Ash offered love some base cards.

Nash just walked by. That's my son. He doesn't like base cards either. I just thought, I was thinking, oh, you know, little kids will like these base cards. No, they don't. They throw them away, too. Yep.

We have, for the listeners, we have a huge bin of just a bunch of base cards. Yeah. kids can take. And they're not like the worst ones either. There's some decent ones. And it's like, nah, they don't want that. Yeah.

My roommate's a teacher, so I'll shovel them to her. And the next day, it looks like the bin hasn't even been touched. Yep. But there you have it. We've got some big releases. Store opening was great. Brian had to run. He's got to run a company, man.

He's got things to do. Any final thoughts or anything else we need to cover? No. I got nothing. All right. Collectornation.com. The collector nation. Yep. Dot com.

Download our app on iOS and Android. Yep. It's all there, all the content, all the highlight clips, ways to get touched with us. And Thecollectorstation.com, if you want to see the inventory we have in the store, or buy singles or sealed product. We'll seal it to you.

And hey, it's all good. Got a lot of good selection. A lot of getting the website up to date. We've got probably eight. 85% of singles on there now. So we got a few more coming. But updates it regularly. And we get a lot of stuff, new stuff in.

As we're talking, we're evaluating collections. We've got a lot of stuff. So, Bella, I appreciate you jumping on the end and all the hard work on the show. Of course. Love to be here. We appreciate you guys. We know you have options. We appreciate you for making us one of them.

We'll see you next time. I'm like your nation. Thanks for tuning into 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 collectornation.com and follow Ryan on Instagram at Ryan Alford. Now get out there and collect yours.