Heroes in Business - Brian Dwyer, Owner Robert Edward Auctions, world premiere sports memorabilia and trading cards

Episode Date: March 4, 2023

Work for Love. Brian Dwyer, Owner Robert Edward Auctions, the world premiere auction house for sports memorabilia and trading cards is interviewed by David Cogan Host and Founder of Eliances entrepreneur community.  

welcome back to alliances heroes where heroes in business align to be part of our super community and find out more about alliances visit www.alliances.com that's right and thank you too for continuing watching commenting go anywhere're all over, over 50 outlets now, AM and FM. And thank you for the feedback I continue to have when I interviewed Lee Steinberg from Steinberg Sports. So he's the one, the pretty famous guy in regards to working with many athletes. And again, you can go to alliances.com.

That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com. The only place where entrepreneurs line. All right. I'm super, super duper excited about our next guest today. I'm a big fan of their place. And I think you will be too, especially if you're interested in the collectible industry. Because with that, we have Brian Dwyer. He is the president of Robert Edward Auctions.

That's right. Robert Edward Auctions, the world's most premier auction house for sports memorabilia and trading cards. You can reach him at robertedwardsauctions.com. And, of course, we'll have that also too on our website at alliances.com. You know that now, E-L-I-A-N-C-S.com, the only place where entrepreneurs align. All right, Brian, take us back in time and like your path, because I mean, now you're president of Robert Edward Auctions, but like, where did that all start? Like, what was your first thing of just getting into the hobby and then now being able to be president?

thing of just getting into the hobby and then now being able to be president. Yeah. So my, my origin is not too dissimilar from a lot of people. And I trace it back to being six years old when my parents bought me some baseball cards. And I don't recall if it was a birthday or Christmas or what the occasion was, but I just became instantly enamored with, with going through them and sorting them and seeing some of my favorite players. And so then that became a very easy gift for my parents and other family members to give me throughout the years. And about six or seven years later, this website called eBay showed up on the scene. And I loved the idea that me as a kid growing up in upstate New York could buy and sell with people from all around the country and the

world and further my own collection. So that really just got my juices flowing, my collection growing. And then I turned it into a little bit of a side business in high school, expanded it even more in college. And then when I graduated, it was in the midst of a very tough job market. So the prospects in my field were not that great. And I said, let me see if I can turn my hobby into a career. I didn't know if it would be a full-time gig or if it would be a long-term gig, but I thought it would at least get me a steady paycheck. And so that's what I did. I went to work for an authentication company in the field, SGC, one of the premier grading companies in our world. And I loved it. And I was there for

three or four years running their business development team and getting the word out about their services. And the people I met were incredible, but I missed that buying and selling that I had been doing because as a third party authenticator, we were prohibited from buying and selling cards. We were supposed to be this neutral arbiter. And so I left and that was in 2010. And I started my own auction platform because at the time there was not a middle ground between eBay, which was a do-it-yourself, and the major auction houses that existed who served very high-end clients with very high-end items. And so my website at the time was geared towards providing that concierge-level service to collectors at a

lower dollar level and taking the power out of their hands, which is what they wanted. Nobody wanted to be listing and doing photography and shipping their items themselves. And so I did that. And then that was a great, great opportunity for me lasted a little over a year and a half before I caught the attention of the founder of Robert Edward auctions. And he said, I like what you're doing. People like what you're doing. You know, would you consider joining our team? So I always, I always tell people, it was like, I was playing minor league baseball and the Yankees called me and said, Hey, we're playing the Red Sox tonight. You want to start in center field? And so they reached out to you. He reached out to you.

Yeah, he did. So in our community, there's a lot of active message boards and a lot of feedback. It's, it's a large tight-knit community. And so he had heard about what I was doing. We had known each other through my time with the authentication company. And he had only had two employees at the time. He was only doing one auction a year. And so he reached out to me and said, no, if you'd consider coming on board, I'd love to have you. And so that was 2012 when I joined him. Grew from one auction a year to two auctions a year, which was monumental change in his world. And then about seven years ago, he retired.

And he said, do you wanna own the business or do you wanna work for somebody that owns the business? And so I jumped at the opportunity and here we are. Amazing. I mean, absolutely amazing. Now, president of Robert Edward Auctions. What a great career path. You know, there's in the sports memorabilia and trading card industry.

I mean, it's just grown dramatically in recent years. I mean, even with the thing of COVID right afterwards, everything shot up through the roof. I mean, it just kept going and going. What are some what have you seen? I mean, it just kept going and going. What have you seen? Like, what's the secret of why this is happening and what's driving it with this huge growth? Yeah, so you mentioned COVID, and it's hard to ignore the impact that something like that had on our business. You had people staying at home, looking for hobbies, looking to redirect discretionary disposable income, cleaning out basements and attics that they hadn't thought about in years.

You know, people suddenly had a little bit more time maybe than they had had in the past. And they weren't distracted by travel and other things that were restricted at the time. So we saw a lot of people coming into our industry on both sides of the coin. We had people becoming first time buyers because they were rekindling hobbies that they loved. We had people that were becoming first-time sellers because they were inheriting or finding items. And so all of that really coalesced to pour gasoline on an already popular industry. And we're seeing figures now that just have never been dreamed of in our hobby. We sold a baseball card for $6.6 million in August of 2021. And since then, three additional items have eclipsed that. And we're into eight-figure items. We've had two items, a Mickey Mantle

rookie card and a Michael Jordan jersey within the industry that have broken the $10 million barrier. So it's been very interesting to watch this technology and social media drive the interactivity within the industry and people get exposure to our industry and then view it as many times an alternative investment that they can put their money into. Right, right. In fact, now there's sites out there, right, that are out there helping people buy a fractional share of some of these sports collectibles. Absolutely, yeah, that's become very popular.

I think that's an area of the business that'll actually continue to expand as prices escalate. So it'll be interesting to watch. So when it was announced and you became the president of Robert Edward Auctions, again, you can reach him at robertedwardauctions.com. You're listening, watching me, David Kogan, host of the Eliance's Hero Show. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com. What was like, I mean, you're sitting at the chair, you're like, okay, I'm president. This is a childhood dream. It all started when I was so young.

And here I am, like, what's going through your mind? And then how do you decide even what to do next? So I was thrilled, obviously, like you alluded to, it was the realization of a lifelong passion and thought process. I never knew where it would end up. I went to college thinking I was going to be an investment banker or an accountant. And here I am selling baseball cards every day. But I loved it and I relished the opportunity and I really seized the opportunity. So it was important for me as someone on the younger

side of the industry to prove myself. It was important for me to leverage all the years of experience and knowledge that I had to, you know, make our offerings better and make my employees better and make our clients better. And so I really enjoyed the challenge and I really enjoyed the opportunity and what we've been able to accomplish in the last seven years, in my opinion, has been remarkable. I mean, we've grown revenue 600%. We've grown from one auction to 10 auctions a year. Our consigner base is up. Our bidder base is up.

So really every metric, we're very fortunate, has expanded dramatically. So what areas, I mean, it's sports, there's cards, there's bats. There's jurors. I mean, like all this stuff. What should people be looking at now of acquiring? Like what's what's the what's hot now? And what do you see is in your crystal ball that will continue to go up? Well, I always tell people if I knew the answer, I'd be sitting on a beach somewhere. But my best guess is that we'll continue to see the very best quality and the most rare items continue to appreciate. That's what's driven our industry over the last decade or so. People honing in on rare items at the top of the condition spectrum and really paying up for quality.

So I think that'll continue. You have blue chip guys like Mickey Mantle, who's right behind me, and Honus Wagner and Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson within baseball. And then they have peers in the other sports who will always be known and appreciated and dominant, in my opinion, within the market. But I think an area that has started

to get some traction recently, and I've been advocating for it for a while, has been game-used memorabilia. You know, the fact that for many, many years, a card, a rookie card of a player outsold the jersey that he wore on his back was always mind-boggling to me. And so we've started to see some of that game-used memorabilia outpace the cards. And I think that will continue. Brian, why are with baseballs in particular autographs, why are ones that are single signed typically, typically worth more than ones that there's more signatures on it of well-known players, which it seems much difficult to be able to get? Yeah, it's counterintuitive. You're not the first person to ask about that. But I think it all much difficult to be able to get. Yeah, it's counterintuitive. You're not the first person to ask about that, but I think it all comes down to prestige. I think people care

more about Babe Ruth being on the sweet spot and the only signature on their baseball than some of his teammates who they've never heard of. So, you know, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig might be the best one-two combo that you could get on a baseball and not suffer value-wise. But when you start adding some of the journeyman players that played alongside them, collectors just view that as a negative. And in regards to signed stuff, all right, let's take Babe Ruth, Onus Wagner, you know, Ted Williams, the other ones that you mentioned. Should we try to acquire balls, bats, jerseys, shoes? I don't know. Cards?

So I'll give you an idea. And it's something that I've done in my personal collecting journey. And it's something that I've advocated other people do. I love the idea of signed checks. You know, you hesitate to say that they're unequivocally authentic because a wife or a secretary or somebody could have signed it. But by and large, the players were signing their name to those checks and legal documents. And so authentication and authenticity is a big issue in our industry. And in my career, I have seen only one or two checks and legal documents that have not passed muster,

as opposed to dozens or hundreds of bats and jerseys and baseballs, where fraudsters have come in and tried to replicate those signatures. So whatever your medium, ultimately, we tell people, search out items that are authenticated by the best authenticators, whether it's PSA DNA or Beckett Authentication or James Spence Authentication. You know, those are companies that have a track record and would be good long-term investments. So, Brian, you bring up a good point. Should we be having an item authenticated by more than one authenticator, you me top ones that are out the

others and stuff, you kno any additional value if y and the others. So in the I think more opinions is bit of a coke pepsi debat some everybody's got thei and doesn't quite necessarily care what the other guy says. But it doesn't hurt, obviously, in my in my opinion,

more is better when it comes to autographs. And it's such a challenge. What you know, they they've come out now, right with those machines that could do, you know, handprint your auto to send out, you know, greeting cards and all that. So who's to say that that can't be used on other items, right? I mean, it's becoming probably more challenging for the authenticators. Yeah. And so it just goes back to technology, man. Technology is driving our business forward and technology has changed the game on so many levels, but it's also, you know, the fraudsters have access to the same technology. So it's trying to stay ahead of them and trying to prevent them from infiltrating our market that keeps everyone on their toes again love what you're doing brian

dwyer president of robert edward auctions can be reached at robertedwardauctions.com brian i could talk with you for hours i mean i'm telling you like this is just great stuff so what is your prize possession of either autographs memorabilia or, or that? Like, what do you have that you're just like, you know what, I'll never part with this? So I think that I will die with my 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle. That card behind me is a card that I grew up as a kid idolizing and coveting. And I bought my first copy, which was all creased up as soon as I had saved enough money to do it as a 20 something. And I've owned better copies since then. And I've owned multiple copies at the same time. But I can never quite bring myself to sell the first one that I got.

Outside of baseball, I think another area that's undervalued and particularly interesting is historical documents. So I have a 1863 Abraham Lincoln signed document that I'm very fond of and cost a fraction of what I think it's worth in the big scheme of things. I mean, Abraham Lincoln is on that Babe Ruth level in politics. So those are two items that I think I'll hold for a very long time. You can find a ton of balls, right? I mean, just tons. I see pictures of these ones, right? He's got all these balls and just signing away. So there's so many of them out there, yet it still seems to continue to go up in price. Yeah. So there's a tremendous supply, but the demand outpaces that supply.

He was a prolific signer, but everybody wants a piece of him. And I'm guilty, I have one myself. Oh, I love again what you're doing here, truly incredible. And so what's next for REA? Again, Robert Edward Auctions, like where do you see as you need to continue, right, to improve and all that within the company? Like where do you go?

Yeah, so we've been very fortunate, as I alluded to in a couple of minutes ago, in our growth. I mean, it's been very steady and great to watch and great to work on. 2023, for us, we're very bullish on the market. We're very bullish on REA's trajectory. And for us, we're very bullish on the market. We're very bullish on REA's trajectory. And for us, it's expanding our footprint. We just recently added someone on the West Coast. So now we have representatives throughout the country in four different locations. It's continuing to invest in technology to further the services that we can offer our clients. And it's staying up to date with what the market demands. If NFTs become a big thing, it's staying, um, staying up to date with what, what the market demands. You know,

if, if NFTs become a big thing, it's going to make sure that we have the expertise to, to play in that sandbox, so to speak. So it's, it's really doing a lot of what we've been doing, but just staying, staying up to date. Excellent. Well, Brian, you leverage your lifelong love of collecting to continue to grow REA. That's right. Robert Edward Auctions. That's a hero. Brian Weier. Reach out to him at the World Book of the Year Auction House. And trading cards. RobertEdwardAuctions.com. This has been David Kogan with the Alliance's Hero Show. But Brian, you got to dance with me too, all right?