Collector Nation - Topps vs. Fanatics | Taylor Swift | $7M Rookie Card | The Biggest News in Collectibles Right Now

Episode Date: October 10, 2025

SUMMARY In this episode of the "Trading Cards and Collectibles" podcast on the Radcast Network, hosts Ryan Alford and Brian Ludden discuss the latest trends in the sports card hobby, including the rivalry between Panini and Fanatics, advances in card printing technology, and Tom Brady’s Card Vault expansion. They share favorite cards, highlight recent market movers, and talk about technology’s role in modern card shops. The episode also features updates on major card sales, interactive giveaways, and ways for listeners to get involved in the collecting community. TAKEAWAYS Competition between Panini and Fanatics in sports card production and licensing. Challenges in printing high-quality sports cards and Fanatics' investment in printing technology. Recent trends in the sports card market, including rising values of specific players' cards. Discussion of Tom Brady's expansion with Card Vault and its implications for the industry. The impact of pop culture on collectibles, including the influence of figures like Gary Vee. The significance of technology in card shops, including inventory systems and e-commerce integration. High-value sales in the collectibles market, such as the Babe Ruth rookie card. The role of unique and customized collectibles in the hobby. Analysis of playoff performance and its correlation with card scans. Upcoming giveaways and community engagement initiatives related to the hobby.

This is what I said Panini should do to get the final to Fanatics. They should have printed so many cards in the last two years and just flooded the market with Panini stuff. And then you're like, all right, Fanatics, there you go. I think the reason why they couldn't do it is because there's not enough printers that can print the quality of what it takes to do sports cards. And I think they ran into it. And Fanatics is smart.

I know they bought at least one of those printers. And that's kind of controlling a lot of it. It's going to be the future of card shops. And the future is going to start with ours. We're going to have the kiosk where we scan all the cards in. We're going to have some technology in there. But more than anything, its ability to then have your e-commerce cycle bigger. If I'm able to put 1,000 cards onto my Shopify account,

and I could share that immediately, now I'm making one money. 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. What's up, guys?

Here we are, Ryan and Brian here for trading cards and collectibles. I can't sound as cool as our announcer, Brian, but, you know, I do my best. You can't be great at everything. I could get into that sports voice or that main stage voice. coming to the main stage. You're better than I am, for sure. What's up, brother?

Hey, it's been a good week. My boys won Monday night. We got some good news on T. Lawrence. We got all kinds of good stuff. Yeah, that was a... I can't say that I... The Chief's losing bothers me. I actually revel on it, so I was a big Jaguars fan.

And you are ruined it for me. The State Farm commercials. Oh. They threw it down our throat, and I was like, I'm so sick of this. So I'm kind of a hater, I guess. Kind of the cowboys of the old or whatever. I'm a Yankees fan, so I might let people say, well, they're the Yankees of football. Well, whatever.

You know, I lived in New York. So, but the, yeah, it's kind of over, they say, what I say? Over saturation, overplayed. Yeah. Yeah. You know, if this, is there ever been anything more? all the popular things altogether. Taylor Swift, most popular artist on the planet,

no matter how we feel about her. I don't hate on her, but she's not my favorite, but just not my favorite. No hate on her. I respect what she's done. But it's like, geez, oh, like this is the Cowboys, the Yankees, and inserts all combined into one. Yeah.

Do you think the NFL is psyched that Taylor Swift is a brand? Yeah. Are you kidding? Yeah. That's free publicity, man. It's called borrowed. That is the highest example of borrowed interest. That's what borrowed interest.

Look it up. It's like when something else you, you kind of mingle with to kind of get some of their shade that's popular typically, that's the most that you can get. The impressions that she accidentally gets is more than most people. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's crazy, man. Collectibles. dot 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. dot show. 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. It 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 it to 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. You know, you've got some data, some of the trending players,

and some I've already teased. Who's the big hitters this week? Well, there's the one before mentioned. We got Trevor Lawrence, up about 53%. Then we got Baker Mayfield up 27%. But the winner is Sam Darnold.

Sam Darnold. His 2018 Optic, Don Ross Red and Yellow, PSA 10, sold for $68 on September 27th, and the last cop was 7th of October for $168. Wow.

You've got some cards with you today, don't you? I do. The show and tell. I'm going to show and tell something. The first one, I'm just going to, this is my favorite card of all time. Yes. Mother's Day patch. Otani.

Look at that patch. Like a perfect corner of the logo. Yes. And then it's a PSA 10, so it's a pop one. So I'm a big Otani fan. But the next one, I'm going to throw up here. I have an idea. So it's the L.A. Dela Cruz rip card.

I will rip this if I get enough likes or comments. I will rip it. And I will do it live here. It's right now. What's it worth unripped? 300 bucks I saw. Yeah. That's like taking three hundies.

And essentially, because it could be, I don't know, I did one of those ones, Brian, and it took me you bringing it up and remind it, like, I remember doing it with the kids. And they're like, rib it, rip it, it, it wasn't 300. But it was probably like an 80 to a hundred dollar card. And I think we got like, you know, Bozo the Brown, you know, common. It was not good. It wasn't a good turnout. like if the wax that exists today it has any reason like a $300 box of wax will you'll yield

80 bucks tops and so this is probably a loser by 30% by fault what's the upside what could it be I don't know I try to figure that out because it is numbered out of a hundred I think so I was trying to go online and figure out like which ones hit the secondary market. I'm not really sure. Comment or like on this. We'll put it on Luddux social media and you'll

you can help determine we get if we rip it next week. Or hey, we can even take longer if we need to. We'll extend it out. Just keep liking. Liking and sharing. And if you want to see it ripped, we'll rip it.

I kind of do, but I don't. You know, like I can't have a saver. I like to save shit. And it bothers me to open it up. But, you know, for our audience, you know, I'll go places that I'm not super comfortable with. Yes. Rip it or zip it. How about your Yankees?

Dude. Yeah, how about them, Yankees? You know, it's just October, man. This is what we do. That was, well, if they were really doing it, well, they're down a game. So, but there's some offense in that series. It's almost like an opposite of what playoff baseball typically is. The Blue Jays are ridiculous.

I mean, I don't know exactly how that all came. You know, I guess they have followed like their trajectory, but like all season. And then now, I mean, it's just like explosion. Yeah. And then the Chicago Cubs down two games, can't say that bothers me a lot. But I was at a bar on Saturday with my wife,

and the first inning, the Cubs hit a solo home run. The whole bar was going crazy. And then I think I was the only one in the bar that was, like, rooting for the brewers. And they just crushed them. I mean, it was like a soul crush. But the playoffs are awesome. I love watching the playoffs.

We got four games on today, Wednesday. I don't watch much during the regular season with baseball. You know, I'll go to a game or two. I love going to games. But like if I have time or I'm in a city where, you know, we don't have one here in G Vegas, South Carolina. But if I get to a city that's got one to go to a day game or night game, I'm in. But during the regular city, I don't watch a lot on TV. We don't have that much time.

I mean, there's 162 games. I mean, it's like watching live breaks. I mean, how many people can honestly watch live breaks with that much time that don't live in the basement or are just like degenerate gamblers? Yes, I know. We might have some of those. So let us do how you find time for it. If you're listening. All right.

So this, we're creeping into this. And you and I actually haven't talked about this on the show. But I'm curious. It's, Tops has taken over the world. Tops and fanatics with these licenses. Officially, you know, some of the last sets for Panini with NB. of coming on. You got football closely coming.

First, we'll talk about a few news line items, but just in general, what's your opinion on all this? Like, and good, bad for the hobby, happy, sad, indifferent. I mean, the public is like, hates it, right? Because this industry, people hate every change. I mean, like, when they went from freaking legal, pads to like people putting their comps on Excel spreadsheet probably had to like turn over you know 50% of this industry so I think in general no matter what happens in this industry

if there's change people don't like it I am the opposite there I think that there's nostalgia to this we talked about my card shop with all those cards I mean top's finest you know all these older older sets I mean now it comes back full full circle for me and And I really like what they're doing. I mean, I think it's good. I think they care about it enough to, but I think the solve they have, Ryan, is it's just about the ROI and stuff.

And like, are we going to, is fanatics and tops going to be able to sustain this valuation, that's enormous valuation that the collect has? Are they going to be able to sell enough of this wax where they don't force it down the live streamers, throat and what if they take the live streamers out? Now you got like real consumers that are smart that will say, you know what, it's not worth it on the wax,

I'm going to singles. And you see it in the repact. Yeah. What do you think? I think a lot of the same as far as like change and stuff. Like I like change. Yeah, we're both innovators. You know, like so it's that.

I like see it. Let's all right. Where's this going? Like, okay, excited, like change. Then, I don't know. I'm not so much, I just feel like they should have made a deal happen. Like, like, then consumers don't even have to know necessarily. Like, let's just say, you might know and there are people bitching about something,

but top spies, you know, Finax spies, you know, Panini, all those, every, then everything would be licensed, I think, right? Like, that's a magical world, like where you'd have all the best and favorites, in tops and Don Russ and in optic and, you know, like, but the thought of optic football with no logos just makes me sad. I mean, you know, like the thought of a downtown, like without a logo, oh, man, like, I'm like, you know, because these are the things, I'm, I'm a year back into the hobby. So like, I've been indoctrinated the last year after taking a little hiatus, getting back with a boy. So I'm knee-deep in the new stuff.

and, you know, I've got early, you know, it's only year in, but nostalgia for like downtowns. The 100 downtowns I bought and sold the last year and thinking that those aren't going to have, you know, the variation. And, you know, Topps does a good job. I've talked about it. I respect the hell out of Michael Rubin and everything they're doing. I got no problem with, like, them. I just kind of wish they had figured that out.

And then you'd have them all winning. There's a story behind it. Yeah. There's a story behind it. Do we want to talk about that? I might know a little bit about it. I'm sure you do. Do you want to?

I know about this much. Sometimes you probably know about that much. Benini should come out with like instead of downtown like suburban. You just have like swim malls and gas stations behind. Suburban. The new the newest card. Parallel suburban. That would be great.

brought to you by Topps, robotics. You know, I don't know. It is funny, like the variations. I mean, you know, you got midnight and cosmic and dynamite and, you know, it's hard to keep up. So many. And it's fun. I enjoy it. We've ripped all of them.

I've got kind of like the best of. I'm still saving for like a live stream that hopefully, you know, one of these players steps up and, you know. And I like the parallels because that's the tech that we built, right? So, yeah, let's get in the parallels and having more parallels out there. I'm fine with that. We just took into the model and we get it. So, but it was, I did not like it in the beginning. Yeah.

But I think it's going to be interesting how it plays out. I saw some of the, I liked the new top stuff I saw that had the, it was, on one hand, like I said, it could be weird seeing Prism or downtown without logos. Seeing tops, basketball. I saw a preview of some of those cards with the logos back. I'm like, that looks a lot better. You know, I'm sorry. You just can't, it's not the same.

Like, you know, when Wimby's on the card, like, dunking on somebody and his logos, it looks like he's in a rec gym, like at the Y. It's like, that's just a blue outfit, you know. My kids wearing that on Saturday at the Y League. So it's just not the same, but they look pretty sharp. But I do wonder if Panis, you know, in one hand, the hobbies popular enough, big enough, and they'll figure some things out. But are they going to survive without these licenses?

I don't know. They got World Cup this year, so that's going to help them. Yeah. And I think pop culture, too. Like, you know, like with Gary V doing his V friends, like we talk about this before. It's like there's there's people out there that I want to get in collecting on different levels. I mean, and so I think they have a chance to, you know, musicians or artists or actors. I think they have a chance to go in there.

I just don't think unlicensed product is like they'll probably make money on it, but I don't think that's like a huge multiple if they want to exit. No. and it would be interesting if they end up selling for less than what they planned. You know, I can see that being where it goes ultimately. No, they should have done. Like, this is what I said Panini should do to get the final to fanatics. They should have printed so many cards in the last two years and just like flooded the market with Panini stuff.

And then you're like, all right, fanatics, here you go. Yeah. The value goes down. You know, like, I don't know. You guys get in the way sometimes. Yeah, and I think the reason why they couldn't do it is because there's not enough printers that can print the quality of what it takes to do sports cards. And I think they ran into it.

And Fanatics is smart. They bought a couple. I know they bought at least one of those printers. And that's kind of controlling a lot of it. So, yeah, whatever happened. Yeah. Tom Brady's expansion with Card Vault and all. I mean, you've got a lot of store, a lot of concept things.

What's say you about Tom's expansion with Card Vault? I mean, it's aggressive, but like the shops are, they're almost like putting module homes up, right? Like they do. It's a small footprint. They have a business model. They could turn them over fast. I mean, if this isn't a handoff to Fanatics, I don't know, like, what company is. I mean, it's like exactly what Fanatics wants, right?

there's no hot, there's no retail stuff in there. You can't spend more than 15 or 20 minutes in the store, but it has a cool factor. I could say one thing. How about this? Dave and Adams spends so much money to get their store in Manhattan. I mean, it's nice. It's a nice store. All of a sudden, six months later, half a mile away, now there's a card vault.

And I would not be happy if I was David Adams because that, there was probably some assurances at some level, but I'm specular. So I know we got some renderings. What's it starting to look like? What are we looking at? Were you pleased? Yeah, yeah. We're on probably the third or fourth rendering.

I'm heading down there next week. I think it's got what I'm looking for in a brand. I think it's got what the Rangers are looking for. And, you know, we just want to be accessible to all, all hobbyists. Are we thinking about LuddX in a group? in the store, beyond, like, obviously, you know, logos and all that stuff. It's the Lodex card shop. But, like, is that part of the vision?

Yeah, I mean, this industry is searching for many things. And there's no question that an inventory management system that is easy to use and can be done by, on your phone, like Lodex, it's going to be the future of, card shops and the future is going to start with ours. We're going to have the kiosk where we scan all the cards in. We're going to have some technology in there. But more than anything, its ability to then have your e-commerce site go bigger, right? So if I'm able to put 1,000 cards onto my Shopify account,

and I could share that immediately, now I'm making more money. And we're 100% pushing that. we will be the first to use it. I think we have some, I think fanatics and tops are looking at us very closely about what the future of the tech shop could be. So yeah, it's going to be different. But honestly, I think it's, it's, we'll be come out with this product in probably another two months.

And that's, I think it's going to change a lot of the card shops and profitability of these car shops. I'm going to tell you the RAD collective is using this. You go to breaking rad.com. Let me tell you how our workflow goes. So we open packs, we scan them with Lodex, we put them in our collection, or we go to the unreleased, what Brian is talking about, the business app, Enterprise, and use the official terms here,

scan them all in. We go to eBay. We have a, we have what currently is in, API set up because I own a tech company, but Brian's probably working on developing this, so I don't have to do it this way. It pushes from eBay to radcollective.com. We have a Shopify site already so that, you know, we can sell on both locations. And so that integration is amazing for running a business and, you know, selling your card. Number one, you know, all happens, you know, 100, 200, 300 times faster and more manageable, but then the integration of all these things.

And so it's exciting times. Yeah, it's out there. That's, you know, that technology exists. It's like, you know, not that you're not a genius tech guy, but like, you can. Yeah, smart people than me can figure this out. And the whole thing with Loddx is exactly that. It's like, yeah, it's like, if you want to stay in Shopify, you can stay in Shopify. You want to go to eBay, go to eBay.

If you want to go to Max, go there too. The bottom line is the scan, it's scan to win, baby, you know. So it's scanned to dollars. You know, you got to start with the scan because that's the way you know what you have digitally. Yep. Yeah, that's the winning formulas, technology into an ecosystem that kind of needs it. So we'll see how it plays out in the next 6 to 9 months. Well, 7.2 mil, brother.

Babe Ruth rookie card. I see these numbers every day, and I feel like they just, kind of roll off of us now. Like, I think even my kids hear that, 7.2. I mean, they're so get, so, $7.2 million a lot of money. Like, I think, yeah, you and I know that, but like, you know what I'm saying. You see billion. And the headlines are billions of this, millions of that. It gets, like, sort of washed away, but 7.2 mil for a piece of cardboard. Do you think they make money on that investment or lose? Um, well, that's what it was, 20, 23. I mean, so now there's speculation that it'll be twice that. I don't know.

And then after that, I mean, if there's multi-billionaires that want something, really what is the difference between $7 million, $14 million or $20? Like, if they want it, they're going to buy it, right? True. Now you've got these funds coming out. Yeah, Mr. Wonderful wants it. He's getting it. Yeah. I mean, it's a fun. It's a long-term play. They don't care, but they're buying an asset that no one else has. So, I mean, if I had the money, that's where I would, that's what I would. But now I have one, I don't have $7.2 million. What are you talking about? It's like sitting on the counter behind you, you know?

Is that, it's in the Lodex vault there. Yeah, it's in the Loddix company. That's where it's at. Exactly. Loddick shop and technology. I know. Yeah, it's how I'm like, yeah, what are you worth? Well, look around.

three of these, four of those. You never know. These Jordans, you know, you want them, you know, size 15, never worn. Yeah. Everything's on sale. Your whole desk is on sale, right? Are you kidding? Anything, except for this Otani.

You know, I'm not Otani, excuse me, Acuna. Acuna, Atani, Acuna Matata, Akuna, you know, Acuna Jr. is not for sale because my boy, Josh Luber, is a personal gift. he's going to just stay around for years to come. Neither is my personalized bat from my boys at dugout mugs. That's not for sale, but everything else is. All right. Yeah.

You heard it. You heard it. Michael Jordan poster are drawing from my boy, Matt Caesar. Hey, Chicago Cubs, remember that name? Yeah, yeah. Series. He's an artist now. Really?

Amazing artist. The 2016 Yeah, he's Amazing artist Does, oh yeah, Bill is going to bring me this. You got to see this. You got to see this.

Customized in my colors, like my shoes, Jordan, right? Literally, he did this. He does all this custom. He's got two the Jordans on.

Oh, yeah. Those are a custom. some radcast colors. That's our brand colors. And so how sweet is that? That is amazing. That's so cool. I love that stuff. I love that stuff. That's so cool looking. And it's also looked like so unique, right? And that's what arts are, you know. Exactly. He's amazing. We had a couple of things last week that we wanted to touch on. One, I owe you pictures of my five million cards in my collection. I may or may not have seen some videos. Yeah, I got to get them a little better.

The second thing is we have the Zion case giveaway. Yes. Yes. And so the Zion case giveaway, the Luddux ones. But I told my friend Clint that I would kind of open up if people don't know, but this is where you put your cards, nice and defect in. Oh, yeah.

It's super light. It's so light for what I didn't realize, Brian, until I went home last weekend after you talked about that. One of my boys won that exact case at the National. Oh, from our booth. Yeah, from your booth. I don't know if it was rigged or not, but we won, they won. I didn't know you well enough back down to rig it for you.

But no, Hogan, one of my sons is very lucky. He wins like everything he enters. He won that exact case. And I was like, wait a second. We're getting away one of those. He's like, yeah, that's the best case I ever had. I'm like, okay. Yeah, he brought it to the Luddix lounge where you guys hung out a lot.

Like, I was like, well, that's cool. Like, how did he get that? And he's like, I won it. I'm like, really? But he, to this day, it's the only case he uses. I get it. So the other thing we had going on is we wanted to accumulate the scans per team. during the playoffs.

So we went back to the first wildcard series, and the Dodgers had 42,000 card scan. The Reds had 20,000. So that L.A. moves on there. And then the Cubs beat the Padres in the series and also scanning cards. The Yankees beat the Red Sox by like a couple thousand, like very close. the Yankees move on. And then the

Tigers beat the Guardians. So every single team that had more scans won the first round. That is really interesting. And if you're listening, you need to be watching on YouTube or Spotify.

We have it on screen, the visual of this, and the fact that it's crazy. That's just crazy. Because there's really, there's correlation, but not correlation. Yeah, right?

It's like, yeah. I mean, the Red Sox Yankees should be pretty, like, I mean, Cincinnati, L.A. makes sense. San Diego and the Cubs kind of makes sense. But, like, Detroit, Cleveland should be somewhat, like, very close. And same with the Red Sox Yankees could have gone either way. That could have gone either way.

And it almost did. I mean, it's not that big of a jump. So you think if you, as Yankees fans, if you scan, just keep scanning, scanning, scanning, that you're destined to come back and win this series. So get involved on this. look, you got to pull for your team, both online, offline, and this is how you do it digitally with your card collection. Go to Lodec.

Go to this app store. Download Lodex, Ludex, search for Lutex, or greatest app of all time that scans cards. Either one of those will bring up Lutex and, you know, get out of all your favorite teams that are still in the bracket. And you'll see this on the screen and go to look at Lodex on Instagram or any of the social channels. So I love this.

This is fun, man. And to round it out, that Luddix case goes out to the person who at the end of the playoffs, the last game of World Series, whoever guesses the closest number to how many Luddux scans were done in baseball during the playoffs, that they win the case. And I might even have a second place and third place gift. You never know. We'll send them a skeins, you know. magic right or something you know like it's a little ghost

another one you know something and and probably something a lot cooler like this lettics hat or something yeah yeah those are hard to get with the tariffs and everything i know i the problem of doing this show all these stuff i want i you know like at home when i'm all the collectibles around me you know you just pick stuff up you're just like yeah yeah like um I'm a little ADD anyway, so it's like, hey, I don't remember why I like this. Shiny shoes. Shiny new toy.

Shiny objects. It's really not that complicated. They're like, oh, why are collectibles so popular? Because they're collectibles. It's just stuff you can look at and, you know, go daydream about. Americana. But let's just say that scan number, hey, you need to be, you know, if you're not listening every week, let's just say it's probably more than you think it is.

If you go back a couple episodes and make sure you replay it three or four times, our advertisers will thank you for that. But more importantly, you'll probably get some clues on just the volume that Lodex gets, which is mind-blowing and exciting at the same time. Anything else we got today, Brian? I think I'm going to watch some baseball tonight. I got to get my game face on for the Monday night football showdown with the Bears and Washington football team.

Last year it didn't work out well. The Hail Mary, the only one that's ever worked in the history of the NFL happened against the Bears. So I hope we get some retribution and then heading out to Dallas next week. Dude, can't wait to see what you get into. You've got to take lots of photos, videos, is out there, anything you can. You don't take Polaroids, whatever it is.

We could film us shoulder too. I might be on location. That would be awesome. If you do that, then I'm just going to be jealous. I'm not there. And I'm moving too many things to get on a plane. My wife would kill me. But nonetheless, go to the app store, look for Lodex, get involved on this stuff.

It's fun. Look, look, this is the CEO of Luttex. This guy's running a multi-million dollar company, innovation happening, but we're just collectors at the end of the day, having fun, doing what guys do, doing what people do in this industry and the hobby that we're blessed to be in. I love it, brother. Amen. Awesome.

Doing well. It's always a pleasure, and we'll see you next week. Hey, guys, we appreciate you. Collectibles. Dot shows where you find us, have all the links to all the highlight clips, all of Lodex stuff, all the rad collective stuff. and you can find me and Brian. You never know what we'll be up to here helping you collect and more.

We'll see you next time on TCC. Thanks for tuning in to the show. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and don't miss the full video version on YouTube. You can find us at www.comlectables. Show or follow Ryan on Instagram at Ryan Oldford. Now get out there and collect yours.