Collector Nation - Tyler “T-Pott” Nethercott: Why Grading Is More Inconsistent Than Collectors Want to Admit | Sports Card Investor

Episode Date: May 19, 2026

Ryan Alford sits down with Tyler “T-Pott” Nethercott from Sports Card Investor and Market Movers for a deep conversation about what is really happening inside the hobby right now. From collection data and curation to grading inconsistency, price comps, hype cycles, and the limits of “last sale” logic, T-Pott explains why the hobby still has major gaps — and why that also creates huge opportunities for better tools and smarter collectors. He also shares his perspective on Panini, Topps, allocation, hobby growth, and why he still believes we have not even scratched the surface. Ryan brings the operator and marketer mindset, T-Pott brings the pricing and product lens, and together they unpack where the hobby is today — and where it may be headed next. Topics Covered - Sports Card Investor, Market Movers, and hobby software growth - Why pricing tools need to move beyond just comps - The role of discovery and education in card collecting - The real problem with grading culture - Condition vs quality in card valuation - Why allocation and licensing still frustrate collectors - How social awareness and exposure affect card value - Why T-Pott remains bullish on the hobby’s long-term growth Connect with Tyler “T-Pott” Nethercott / Sports Card Investor - Sports Card Investor: sportscardinvestor.com - Market Movers: marketmoversapp.com - CardsHQ: cardshq.com Connect with Ryan Alford - Ryan Alford: ryanalford.com - Right About Now: ryanisright.com Collector Nation / Collector Station - Collector Nation: Thecollectornation.com - Collector Station: thecollectorstation.com

This is an industry that has something like less than one in, I don't even know what this statistic is. It's like one in 50 sports fans bought or sold the card last year. People look at it now and they're like, this is nuts. We haven't even scratched the surface. Welcome to the Collector Nation podcast here on the Collector Nation Network. Whether you're chasing grails or calling bluffs, you take you inside a hobby. Here's your host, Ryan Allford. What's up guys? Welcome to Collector Nation here on the Collector Nation Network.

Hey, we're going, you know, I'll just say we're always inside the hobby. But I feel like we're getting close to the sun here. They're doing big things. I enjoy the commentary personally and digest a lot of the content. So it's always interesting talking to people that, you know, I get this all the time. from the business side in my business show. But when I flip the rolls, it's always fascinating.

You'll know them by this name. It's T-Pot. Tyler Nethercott. What's up, T-Pot? Hey, man, what's up? Good to connect. Yeah, likewise. I do enjoy your content.

I was watching a video from last year on my drive-over this morning, you know, listening more than watching. Driving. Here we go. I got kids. A disclaimer. We're listening than that. You were talking about, and we're need deep in tech like you guys are, doing all kinds of things.

And it's like you were talking about how many different cards and variations. I think it was from last year or something. And I was just reminding me how complicated, you know, all this might be for someone that's not in it. But and how wonderful it is at the same time. Yeah. Yeah, it can be pretty overwhelming. I did a video. I think you're referencing the one I did on all the different, what we call prismatic effects.

I think that's the term I coined. I don't know. maybe other people refer to it as that. We will officially register the trademark here, teapots, prismatic effect. Yep, prismatic effects. All the different patterns sort of that you see on cards. Not the colors, you know, not red, blue, gold, green, not that, not, you know, but like we're talking, you know, the straight up refractor versus what Panini's called a prism or a hollow or all kinds of foils and different things into your waves and mojos and all the different effects. And there's, you know, this video I made was almost an hour.

And I went through and showed pictures of them. And then I sort of counted down my top 10 favorites. It is really interesting. It's fun. It's cool. It's also a lot. And the thing that just, it drives me nuts. And I'm not the only one is I don't know why the manufacturers as a rule generally do not print what the card is called on the back of the card.

Makes no sense. They need to start doing it. Come on, tops. Let's go. I know. and no serial numbers and no identify, you know, there's no identification, regular identification. I think there's some purposefulness in that. I'm guessing.

There has to be. Yeah. Conspiracy theory. That's a rabbit hole. We'll go down. Yeah, I know. I mean, we'll come back to that out. I have enough down the lot.

T-pot, sports card investor, what's, for anybody that doesn't know, I think most of would do it. I want to, they can go watch your YouTube videos where you talk about like how you got back into it, all that. Let's, let's cover new ground. But at the same time, let's do set the table. I mean, sports card investor, your involvement, what you guys are up to. Let's lay the land on the SEI part and then dig into some hobby specific stuff. Yeah, been growing like crazy. Everything has been growing. Jeff Wilson, our founder, owner, came to us in the January of 2025. and he said to all of us just before our company retreat that we did, we're going to 10x everything.

We're going to 10x everything that we're doing. And how are we going to do that? And we spent three days offsite on a retreat, doing lots of fun group stuff and bonding and building relationships. Yep. And we, you know, we came up with a whole bunch of ideas about how each of us, within our own respective departments, domains,

what we were doing, we're going to 10X everything. you know, YouTube views and subscribers, market movers, subscriptions, everything. And I would say, you know, what are we, 16 months, 17 months later, we're well on our way. And it has, it has been an absolute rocket ship. Cards HQ has, I would say, surpassed all expectations. It has gone really well. It's difficult to keep inventory on the shelves.

Things just sell fast. The hobby is hot. It's alive. seeing record month over month public, you know, online sales volume numbers from the different websites, eBay and all the auction houses. And market movers has been growing. I think we've only had three days this year in 26 where our market mover subscription total was down from the day prior. So it's just been seeing record breaking growth, signups, which has been amazing. I've been working on the product for six years. I essentially consider it for all intents and

purposes, my baby, my app. I've been working on it for good or bad. Yes. Since day one. And it's, I still have a lot of gripes with it. I still have a lot of things I want to do. I say there's only two things I don't like about working in software development and technology.

And one is just bugs and issues and, you know, infrastructure challenges and things. And the other one is we just can't, no matter what, we can't ever go fast enough. I'm an ideas guy. Ideation is my number one on Strengths Finder. And I drive my team. with all the different ideas I constantly have. And it's impossible. We could have five times as many developers,

and I still think I would outpace them with all the stuff I'd like for us to be able to be doing. So it's been really exciting. The content has been growing. Market Movers Channel has already done like 70% of the number of views through less than five months that it did all year last year, which was a record year. So a lot of really exciting stuff. And honestly, it's really humbling.

It's really humbling. It's been an incredible journey. I don't, sometimes I just step back. I'm like, I don't know how I stumbled my way into getting into this position with Jeff at a time where he was literally just starting to grow a company with no anticipation that we would be where we are today. And it's been a really fun journey to be able to build something that I think is pretty special with him. You guys know I'm deep in the collectibles world. So I'm always paying attention to where people are actually buying, selling, and building community. And whatnot is one of those platforms I've spent real time on.

I've watched live shows. I've seen sellers walk through products in real time. And as a buyer, there's something different about being able to ask questions. See what's actually in front of you and make a decision right there with the other people who are just as into it as you are. That's the thing about whatnot. It's not just scrolling through listings and hoping you find something good. It's live shopping. Whether you're into collectibles, beauty, electronics, luxury fashion, even cookies.

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They've also got tools that help you run email and social campaigns so collectors can actually find your shop. Instead of bouncing between different platforms, everything's just in one place, which honestly saves us a ton of time. Start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify, and start hearing. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash collector nation. Go to Shopify.com slash collector nation.