Mente
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[00:00:00] this episode is brought to you by my wonderful patrons. Thank you so much to my patrons. They make this podcast possible and also very fun to do, because we are able to interact on a private discord where we can talk, discuss topics and just in general, help each other, collect the things that we want.

So thank you so much to everyone who participates there. I couldn't appreciate you more with that out of the way. Let's get to.

Hello, and welcome to the geek out collecting podcast, where we collect Pokemon cards and other nerdy things like damn adult. I am your host, Jess. And thank you so much for being here.

That's why I wanted to get you on, because also [00:01:00] you have some of the coolest Japanese cards. I swear to you. I didn't even know that existed. And to be quite honest, I don't know that much about Japanese cars, so anything cool. I wouldn't know anything, but to get started, I want to hear, from your perspective, how you describe yourself and, what you do online and like how you are as a collector too, so.

Sure. Yeah. Let's see. As far as online. I didn't know. So I started collecting cars when I was a little kid like for all the wrong reasons too. Cause I was, I was very big into like card games, so I used to play magic and you go as like a kid, like the actual card game someone's going to play. I was like, oh, this is cool.

And then when Pokemon kind of came on, like around the school, nobody played the game. Everyone just kind of just collected the cards. No one actually played the Pokemon card game. So I kind of wrote it off like, oh, these people aren't real. At least these people aren't like, and not really thought that life, they don't, they don't want to play the card.

They don't even know the rules of the game. [00:02:00] So I kind of like, like whatever. And then when I was a kid, the rumor around like the playground and stuff like that, my dad I'm like 10, maybe 10, 11. The room was is that if you had a charge, the charge was worth, I think like $400 or something like that. And as like a ten-year-old, I was like, fuck it.

I was like, I can move off the house. I can't get a car. I can do all these things. So that actually spurred my interest in the actual card game, because I always liked Pokemon. I used to play the game board game all the time, and that was a big one to the show, but that is what actually got me into the actual cards.

And then from that moment on, I just started collecting cards back with bags, like the first like 50 cards people just gave me. I don't have any cars to start. So people would just gave me cards and of course, half of the cars were fake. Back. It's really easy to like spot the cards. Like later on I look back at it, I go this, someone definitely just print it out on the computer and gave it to you on some [00:03:00] cardboard.

And then that kind of spurred me into it. And then at that time Japanese cards, so no one ever, no one knew where to get them from. No one knew what any of them said at all. So these are the, the holy grail cards at the time. oh, everyone has all the English, that's fine. But who has the Japanese cards who has that?

And then I found a card shop near my house that sold the Japanese cards. And then I became like the person who had all the exclusive exotic cards. Even though I had no idea what. So I didn't use them in any other car that gives me like that, but that kind of like spurred me. And then I always just kind of kept collecting until like, maybe

I got like into high school and that kind of just stopped altogether, but I never actually got rid of my car. And I, when I went to college, I took the cards with me. Yeah. I have, my, my original binder was like, at the time, I didn't know how to store cards. So I would have [00:04:00] like 10 cards in one slot or whatever.

If it was the same car, like duplicate then, I'll put them as much as possible. And then it wasn't until recently that I got really motivated to it'd be maybe like a year before all the hoopla went on with the Logan Paul stuff. And that introduced me to like car grading. Cause I heard about car grading when I was younger.

Oh, from PSA. The process of getting your cards graded. I thought it was a scam. You just had to send your cards away. Like just send them away. And then that's it. I don't get like a receipt or anything. What if they just keep my cards? I was like, I was like, that's fine. I'll just keep the cards in my mind if I rest.

And then when I was looking it up again, re when, when I started getting back into it again I was like, oh, let me try to have all these cards. I'm going to just try to just grade them. And of course at the time, PSA was all backed up. So I went to CGC because I, I, I actually think these cases look better than PSA's, [00:05:00] but the actual physical slab and the label has gotten better.

But PSA altogether just looks like it's a super ugly to be like, oh, like in the case. Cause I don't, I don't actually buy the car. So to resell them or to sell them like ever just, I just know what going to get messed up. It's easier to protect them when they're in the case. And I think the best looking case is the CDC case.

I'll just go with that one. So I just ended up message sent in almost all my alerts from the binder and a couple of the comments that I just really liked to my surprise, actually, a lot of them came back with like higher than these scores. And I thought for this to be smashed into this binder that I didn't really take them, that really, that good of care of.

So, wow. That's awesome. So like what kind of grades are we talking? Are we talking near. Near mint. It ran from about like six all the way up to like nine actually. Wow. Yeah.

Even with all that, even with all like the scratches on them and stuff like that, but surface will get you. Yeah. But I actually ended up getting rid of most [00:06:00] of them because a lot of those cards, I didn't really care, but I only ever liked me to be too, like always my favorite character, which is, I was like, I'm going to just sell all these cars and they're just giving me two cards.

I don't really, I'm pretty sure someone else would like these cards, one that will cherish for me. And it's like all you post so much MuTu and it's awesome. They're good cards.

We'll have to go and count again. I have at least probably like 50 different mutual cards have a lot of me to guard, but like 50 different ones and at least like two of each one, no. So w what is it? What, how many cars is it for like a MuTu master set? So that would, I guess it depends like what you would consider a master.

Is it just a TGC, a TCG? Is it like the, the card ass cards, the major cards, all those, like other kind of like non TCG cards? There is a lot actually TCG MuTu cards. They're just like under the radar. There's no [00:07:00] one never knows about that. They have no, like playability at all. They're just random cards that came up and like a promo or something like that.

So they're probably at least 200 of them. Yeah. And a lot of them are really just difficult to find or hard to find, like what the name is. Shout out to mobile pedia though. That's actually a really good source to just find where these cards are, but even some of the cards are even one bubble BDO, so. Oh, really?

Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. That's, that's interesting. Because like, you're talking about. Like obscure. Are they always Japanese cards? Not all of them. Sometimes their English. Yeah. So there is like shining that light, that guard. And I actually have that car in French. I have it in, I have other, I have the base card MuTu.

I have that in Italian and there's other than the shiny me too, that I want to get this in German, but they're like they won, which was wonderful, but I will get that [00:08:00] with that's. Cool. That's cool. And you know, talking about grading because like I didn't start grading like just as you is like a year, a year and a half, maybe two years before, like the, who is when I kinda kinda got into Pokemon as well.

And that was also the first time I graded and the first card I graded, I don't have it with me to just grab it, but it was a unlimited base set. And I agree with this seven and I bought it not, was it seven and eight? It might actually been an eight and I literally bought it, bought it in a card shop, like a second hand.

And it was like seven bucks. And the dude I remember, oh my God, I was going to kill this. I was going to kill the guy. That was a check-in like, you know checking me out at the, at the cash register because he was holding the card, no protection whatsoever. And he was folding it upside down like this.

He was going like this, like, like a nervous. Yeah. Like, well, no, I know my bad. It wasn't a car shop. It [00:09:00] was like just a second hand shop where you have books and video games and all that stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had that wrong, but I mean, but he was just sitting there waiting for the thing to go through or whatever.

And he was going like this with the card, like fidgeting with it and I'm like, oh, I'm going to kill this guy. I'm gonna kill him. I'm gonna kill him. But yeah. Yeah, no, that's pretty good. I, I can't agree with, I can't agree with you more on that because it did have some scratches on it. Like, I mean, it, it was a no right card.

It was near mint. Like, I'll take that. I'll take that, especially after that bended back and forth, but it had me. And so like that card is still nostalgic to me. Like, I can't, it's just the base that unlimited, you know, it's like a whatever there's shit ton of them, but it's special. It's special. I would say like my most special card is I have done a rocket me too, like when I was like 13 or whatever, and I it's so vivid.

I remember exactly when I got it, what [00:10:00] we were doing, like what I did when I got it. I was super excited. It was, it was that at that time, when I actually got an EMU from like a vending machine, those two, like I remember like vividly what was happening. It was at that car shop that I was, that was all, we go into the head to Japanese guards and I bought a random.

What'd you call it a random booster pack. all right, thanks. Good. Thanks. We used to somebody walked outside, opened it up. I knew exactly when they were hollow. Was it just jump straight to the Holocaust and see what it was? It was a Rocky retool. I did like a little dance on the corner of the street.

Excited stem a little like, okay, sure. Like I to stay with this tiny piece of cardboard, but I'm glad you're happy about it. And I've had that ever since, and I still have it

blur off because it actually blocks the.

Oh, that's [00:11:00] oh, that's awesome. Oh, that's so good. And this was one of the ones that I just graded when I started greeting two years ago and they came back as a six. I did end up getting I think I attended this as well, but I didn't, I just kept this one too, because I was like, yeah, I'm just going to keep that one.

That was like a special specific. And then the agent. I feel like was you can get those anywhere at point in time when I was younger, then when all the vending machines inside of the Pathmark, they were just giving them a movie theaters. So I had a bunch of them have, like, I have like 10 of them that there's a lot of.

Oh yeah. I mean, that's, that's awesome. I love that. Like the ancient mew is one of those cards that for some reason it still holds a lot of value in the market. Like more than it should, because there's so many out there, like I'm not even going to spend more than 20 bucks on it probably. Cause it's like, they're, they're all, most of the time busted.

It's hard to find them, but it's hard to grade those things properly. This is [00:12:00] completely hollow on both sides. Oh my God. Yeah. I bet. I mean like the, the cards that are reminds me of, you know, that are really hard to grade like that, or for sure, Southern islands. Those reverse hollow, super hard to grade print lines everywhere.

And then also of course, all those e-cards, you know, like just hard to grade reverse hollows, like scratches everywhere. Everyone takes, you know, plays with them. But, but I mean, like for you as a collector, are you like a gem mint collector? Does it always have to be a time when your mind slap? Not necessarily.

I tried to get at least near me, like base level if I'm going to just buy it. When it kind of depends, like if I know what this car is, like super red as hard to get, I kind of just get what I can get, you know, but if it's a car that actually has those grades out there, then I'll get it.

Usually I try not to actually just buy greater things. I like kind of like the hunt a little bit. I was like by like the actual product and you're ripping up [00:13:00] product open and then hopefully getting it that way. I'll definitely do that for like newer stuff. If it's, if it came out within like the last five years, so I'd rather just get the, the actual seal product or whatever it is, and then open up in trauma.

Look. Yeah. There's nothing that, there's nothing like that reason that like, oh, I need to get this specific car. Like all the stuff that I really like is like super old. So all that stuff I have to, I have to actually buy the card directly. Yeah. But if I have like a, a low grade on with some of something, and then I have the money to get a better version of it, I'll just upgrade to the better version.

And depending on what that card is, I might just sell the old one just to help recoup costs, but stuff like the rocket MuTu or if it's like a shining mutual. So like that I've made just keep all of them that I get. Yeah. Oh yeah. You got to keep those. And, you know, I was just looking at it. One of my buddies collections today too.

And, you know, a set that I never, like, I never [00:14:00] collected. Like at the time when it was coming out, you know, those shining cards, a shiny me, two's a shining chars are like all that whole set. Those are those cards and that artwork is so interesting to me. Like at some point I will collect them.

They're just so freaking expensive. But man, especially the MuTu, the MuTu always stuck out to me. You know, when it comes to the shining set, like, I don't know, like he just like MuTu just looks like a bad ass, definitely in the, in the whole, the whole property. That's the coolest car to me. I remember walking in the movie then I'm like, oh, he doesn't, he doesn't care.

He just like, kind of like a rebel feeling, always against a, whatever the order was. I'm like, I, like, I like. Yes, shining too is definitely one of that one. And I want to say the Garrett Hills, the shining darnos those two that I think look the best of those kinds of graduates. Do they bring that back?

They, they, they, they're not bringing back [00:15:00] any of the cooler, like art trends that they did back in the day. It'd be cool. They were by cosmos cosmic, hollows. Like those are actually really cool. I think the, the thing that they're doing cool right now is the, the ultimate arts are really cool looking. But other than that, I feel like it's kind of boring kind of stale right now.

They're releasing and they won't release me to him. So why is that? Is it, is it because the artist was there some issues? Was that the, was that the card that had some issues like the artists had a copyright or something like that? Oh, I don't know. I have no idea about that. That's interesting. That would really suck.

Yeah. I mean, I would, I would love to see some YouTube. I mean, full art are like, those, those cards are pretty cool. I would agree with you. Like, those are definitely good ones, but also too, not very impressed with, with the rest of it. I mean, I'm just in general, not super into the modern. I might buy a box or [00:16:00] two and just keep it just to hold onto it.

And I ripped some celebrations, which was fun, you know, but it was just, it was what it was, but the, but the full art stuff I think is good. I think the trainer full arts are really interesting, like, like that that's been cool. And, and I kind of wish that I would have loved to see like a vintage version of like a full art.

That would be really cool to me, like a vintage version, but just like full artist, something that would be really cool, like that old style. Yeah, I feel like that would probably exist to where it's just super low key and nobody kind of knows about it. There's a, there's a me too card that I probably will never ever get.

They, I forgot the name of it. It's some super long Japanese name, but they gave them out to people who qualified for this particular tournament and that, and the card was their ticket to the tournament. And all the cart is MuTu is called like as a secret, super secret battle, something like that, [00:17:00] a super, super secret battle.

Something. I forgot who it was in the early two thousands. And the part of it was like a silhouette of mutant. And there's only what, I don't know. People have many people got right into that. 100. It's not a lot of them like in existence, so it's really hard to find it. So if I do find it, it'd be great. And now that's a car that will take it.

Any condition. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. I'm gonna have to look that up later just to, just to kind of see, cause the, for sure, the tournament cards, those, those trophy cards, I don't know shit about them. I really don't. But those are some of probably the more interesting cards and I mean, so, I mean, like for you, you know, how do you go about collecting, I guess like, like, do you just kind of stick to the mutans or do you kind of branch out and just kind of buy the things that you like?

A bit of both, mostly YouTube, like a goal to be, to have all the dues, but I [00:18:00] do click other cars. Like I'm like, I'm a big fan of the full arc of the, all of our cards. So I do have a lot of those. I try to go for the Japanese ones. Of course. How'd you think you look better than the American ones? Yeah.

I do have some, I do like the poker king set. I think people know that at this point I have the entire set, like doubled over now. Yeah. I like, I like all of the, the old, like the specialty sets that they came up with of the shiny collection. I have the full set of the tray collection I have I have the seal box of CP one that I'm scared to open.

Cause I don't know. I'm not sure if I'm going to have one of those sets of so small that you can actually cut, almost collect all the cards in one box, but it's not really a guarantee, so don't want to open it. So maybe.

So some of that, I do like the the evolution specifically, like umbrella, [00:19:00] always my favorite and some of the umbrellas are all my like hunt list. Like I want to go to Karen's umbrella, which is one of those e-cards from back then, but it's hard to get with as like in a decent condition. And all of these are condition, ones are super expensive.

I think I saw on can I do a lot of like my shopping on like the Japanese sites? So I got to like a lot of the Japanese shops that they have their own little websites that I, that I order from, or from McCarty, the Japanese version. And they're all like in like the $2,000 range, the range I'm like, I don't want to spend that much money.

Yeah. Oh my gosh. Do you you know, something that I heard and, you know, Interacted with any like Japanese sellers, but I know for them, because grading is kind of a thing, not really like it, it's obviously hard to do an expensive because they have to ship it all the way to the U S but like I heard the you know, raw [00:20:00] Japanese cards when you buy straight from Japan, tend to be more expensive just because like, they know what they have.

It's just not graded, but it hopefully it's at a high quality. Is that, is that the case? Like I, I would say like 50, 50, I think there's more, that's more of a thing that's happening now since everything kind of blew up, but prior to like all of the hoopla they would just give it to you at the price that they think they will.

There were other, they see usually what times out of 10, they're very honest about, oh, there's a scratch here, this scratch here. And it's not like. It's not a perfect card. It's not cause they don't use the same word that we use. Of course they don't use that night. It's like, oh, it's like extra beautiful or stuff like that.

But they're like very honest with it. So, and they're almost always raw. I would just, I would assume if you were to buy a graded car from Japan, it'd be super expensive. But I've noticed like the Japanese does are very honest with like the descriptions. So I've never actually been like screwed and I've been buying for a long time.[00:21:00]

I kind of get screwed more on eBay sellers than I do for the Japanese sellers. Oh man. Do you, do you have any eBay horror stories? Oh, so there was one I bought a Mewtwo, it was a price card from a tournament for like 2015 and I bought it then at the time it was around the time where. Well, I'm not sure you heard that they were like, like ice storms in Texas.

Do you remember

around that time? All the mail got messed up or whatever, and the Japanese sellers. So me the thing, and every time you buy from Japanese, it tastes like a Wallace. You, it always takes like about like a month or so forth. And then like three months passed, nothing has happened. So I thought that sounded like, oh yeah, I never got the card, blah, blah, blah.

And they was like, oh no, there's things going on in, in the us that's missing with the mail. I was like, oh no, that's really true. And I think if it was the case, it would probably affect people more in like the middle of the [00:22:00] new year. Like I'm really, I'm literally at the port and like, it comes to New York and then like, I'm sure if that's the case.

So we had to go through a whole thing with E-bay because it took too long to like, say something. They kind of explained, so it looked like it was, it looked scammy from eBay's point of view. I was like, what? I actually never got the card. I ended up getting him and I didn't give him my money back, but I don't know if it was really worth it.

It took like four months or so for me to get like $50 back was kind of a headache. So after a while it became like a principal type of thing. So I'm not sure if he's just doing this to everybody, not really on the cards. So that was for one, but for those we're pretty good at spotting. Like, oh, I'm not going to bat for this person.

I'm not gonna buy this for us. Like, I'm very diligent with reading people's feedback scores and trying to figure out if it's actually like a real complaint or for some who just got mad. They didn't like, like what they got or something like that. Yeah. I'm very, and then once I find like a person, [00:23:00] I like, I kind of stick with that person, so yeah.

Yeah. I try to save those, those sellers, you know, if they got good stuff. Yeah. I'm with you on that. I'm glad you got your money. It's always scary to, to buy internationally because like, for a while I was trying to buy the anime series cards and I was buying all the slabbed ones. Like I got the chars or under the peek at you.

Like I was trying to get a lot of Peggy shoes. And I was just getting to ride. I'm like the surfing Pikachu with Victor and other airways, Pika Chu. Like I was kind of looking at those cool, like random, absurd sets, like I'm scare sets, but especially with like the airways cards, it looks so pretty. I don't know why they just look so cool.

And I don't, I don't, I don't know why they're not popular. I've not heard anybody talk about like nobody. And I just found them because I was just randomly looking at like old ish vintage ish, Pikachu, like Japanese PQ guards. But when I was buying [00:24:00] all of the, the cards from the enemy series, so it's all, you know, Clips from the show on the card.

It was always from somewhere else. It was always either Italy or Australia. And it just made me nervous because they only give you a month to complain, but they tell you all, but it's on the way, you know, give it some more time. And, and so, I mean, thank God I did end up getting the card like three months later once I had bought it, but it was stuck in Houston for like months.

And it was during that time to where you know, things were getting stuck, you know, like packages, you know, like mine was at the bottom. And so that's how it ended up happening. You know, so it ended up working out, but like, it, it was, it was a little scary. I mean, so, but I'm glad that you had most of the most, for the most part, you know, good experiences with, you know, buying internationally.

Honestly, [00:25:00] I think there's a lot to be said to like, have that figured out. Like there are a whole people that, you know, build side hustles around having those connections and being able to, you know, hook it up with people in the states, because that can be, that can be tough. You know, we have it as a couple of contexts that I have that I know.

You might not even be that she's a pretty big one on Instagram, too. His name is well, good thing was, I'm not sure if it still is really on Instagram nowadays. Tap moon training, I believe. And he is actually like a born American and moved to Japan. So that's kinda like his business model where he's, he, luckily he could speak the language very well.

So he does a lot of like the local. Sharp hunting, and then he will send it back to you. And that's where as an elite, it's always been like super up dude with that. That's awesome. And then I, well, I used to do when I worked from the Japanese shops because they don't usually do international mailings.

I [00:26:00] have a like a middleman down the middle of that sort of, it's more like you ever heard of that sounds familiar. Yeah. They like just like a, almost like a, like a virtual address where you can have things mailed from Japan to there. So it was still local. And then once you have enough packages or whatever, you can bundle up the whole package and then ship it to your actual location.

I use that all the time. And the cool thing with that is that they can kind of check for you. So once they actually arrived to the. Facility, you can send them a message to like, send you a picture of the thing to make sure that you didn't get scared of like that. So you can kind of contact them immediately.

Oh no, you didn't send me the right thing or whatever. And if worst comes to worst, you can have the people that tend to return it, like return it back to the person before it comes back to the U S pro tip right there, pro tip. So then, so then, you know, you like hit capacity or whatever, you got a certain amount of packages and you're like, okay, I want them and they'll ship them and you just pay that for the shipping and you know, all that stuff and [00:27:00] you get it at.

Wow. That is very cool, man. Yeah. That's so pro that's awesome. It seemed a bit easier. And then that way you can actually just deal with like the local shops in Japan, because they usually have a lot of things that I guess they seem to be a bit behind with like the website stuff. So. Then I internationally known.

So unless you are searching like Japanese Google, or you know exactly where to go, you're just not going to use is going to miss the shops. So you tend to get like better deals and stuff like that, because then you're not really competing with everyone over here because you're competing with Japan and Japan is much smaller than the world has there has there protein supply gotten better?

Because I remember about a year or two ago, like people like with like the past, maybe three or four sets, I feel like I remember seeing people like lined up outside outside of card shops trying to get carts. I think that's always [00:28:00] been the case in Japan. Like that's always been like Pokemon has always been big.

So anytime there's a new set, it always just wraps around the block. I think the issue was is that once like American, just stuff like that, new found out about it and found the holiday. What did they directly from like Pokemon center, Japan that's when they had to put in all of those limits of like, they turned everything into a lottery because people were buying it out and all type of stuff.

Which I think is probably gonna be like that forever at this point. Like it's always going to be a lottery before you can just order it and it'll be no problem. I remember when when the shiny star V came out, which is like, what am I more like my likable, like modern sets? I think I was buying boxes for like $35, like $40.

And then. We would find out about it. And then they started selling the buses for like 1 20, 1 40. I was like, oh, well, I'm glad I bought all these boxes, the [00:29:00] price. So that's always nice. That's how I feel about Fortnite cards right now. It's Fortnite, like the card side of it. Bloomingdale. I remember you were like, I think you're the only person I've ever seen actually posted for night guards.

Really I'll see all that I can makes me feel good in a way, like sad, but good. Because you remembered me for like the Fortnite cards and that's cool. Like, I remember I was posting fortnight cards, like when I first started my Instagram and like, no one crickets, no one was talking about fortnight, but but yeah, I mean, you know, so the new set, their third set came out just recently in the past few weeks.

And like, I roughly have a good idea in with the MSF MSR MSRP. You know, boxes, but I'm not seeing them anywhere except for on eBay for like four to six times that price. And so for me, I'm just kind of getting frustrated because I'm like I've been going to different targets. [00:30:00] They're not even going to the targets where I first was introduced to fortnight.

And that was part of the reason why I bought the first set that came out was because it was there. No one was buying it. Nobody was buying it every time I would look. And so, and so finally, when I decided by him, I was like, well, no one seems to be buying it. So I'm just going to get these because they look cool.

I'm gonna try them on. I'm a like them hopefully. But yeah, like the box that you want to get the most popular box, the mega box is what they call it. It's going for like, Like initially, I might've been 20 bucks the first set and now I think it's 25. But now it's hard to find it for any lower than 65, you know, because I don't see it at stores.

Sorry.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I swear to God sometimes, like sometimes I feel like they don't even hit the shelves. Like even, even like at that point, you know, it's kind of been [00:31:00] difficult, but I mean, you know, who knows? Cause I, I don't know enough to, to know for sure. That's just like my conspiracy theory cause I'm frustrated by it.

But yeah, so, so that's been a little frustrating, but at the very least I kinda know, like I do have some peace of mind about it because a, I think there's a bigger print supply or there's a print run, a bigger print run on them. So. There's going to be more to come. There's going to be more waves. So hopefully I can get it at that lower price point.

And two, I'm hoping that with that accessibility, that more people get into the, into the cards. Cause I feel like there's, I feel like it lends itself to the Fortnite players that also like sports cards because there's no playability in sports cards and there's no playability in Fortnite cards.

You're just collecting the ones that you want.

It's just cards and honestly, they look really cool. I I'm a fan.[00:32:00]

Yeah. And I feel like if it got popular, I felt like it was your fault because the only person I was seeing, like, like post about that's awesome. I'll take that blame. I'll take that. I'm cool with that, but

fortnight that's great. But you know, there's, there's been a lot of bigger Pokemon accounts over the past year and a half that I've been seeing, you know, posts about the Ford e-cards, which, you know, I'm cool. I'm cool with I mean, obviously there's nothing, like if I did wasn't there would be nothing I could do about it, but it is kind of cool to see it kind of penetrate because, I mean, I don't know, like I'm one of those people that literally collects everything like.

Comics and baseball and magic. I mean, we haven't even talked about like magic, our flesh and blood. Like, are you collecting those things still? Like, like, cause you play, you play magic. So yeah, I think [00:33:00] that once I started getting into Pokemon, I kind of stopped playing magic. So whatever cards I had at the time or the same that I still have now.

Oh, okay. You're in a binder in a box on there.

Do you remember the, when I said, I remember it was like a joke, said it used to, I think it was called cracked. It was like a bunch of jokes. That they, you couldn't play them, but they had like ridiculous, like silly effects. And like, the logo was like a cracked egg on the, as the, as the local set. Yeah.

And that's the, what's at the Arab members specifically. We're going to even look different. Like the borders were like silver and I guess like the rivers and that they had like a gold border. Did they just look different from all the other cards that had at the time? It was just not very good in the game.

Just kind of like cool art to look at. Yeah.

Oh, I was going to say, so you don't collect them anymore at all? Not even the newer sites. No. Like I never really was like a collector of magic. I literally just play, [00:34:00] only played the game and I got introduced to it at like a summer camp that I went to and they taught me how to play because everyone was playing magic and design.

I was like, I don't know why everybody don't wanna like, kind of like fit in with everybody what's going on. And they taught me how to play. And then I bought those cars and then I moved quickly over to UVM and I quit that for a bit. And then I started collecting Pokemon, Pokemon kind of stuff. And then I got to a point where I just wasn't collecting anything.

I was just like living life. And then I just like held onto the cars. Luckily for me that I did, because I went away to college and like, try it a little to, I would just, it would just be with me, like I never left it at my parents' house for them to throw it out or anything like that. So yeah. Yeah. It can get accidentally thrown out or sold.

That's probably what happened. I would hopefully, hopefully think my dad wouldn't come by when my dad was younger. He used to collect comic books and all his Chromebooks and like a house fire. And they all got like destroyed all of them to this [00:35:00] day. Still every time he thinks about it.

So he understands like the collecting bug, you know? He knows. So then, so then do you still not collect anything else? Just, just Pokemon. That's awesome. Which I kind of like slowly do now. It's not like a, like a thing, like, oh, I'm going to do this every week or type of days like, oh, I'll check.

Like, oh, hold on. Let's just prices. I'll just come back all the time or stuff like that. Well, I'll try to keep up with the news and see what new stuff to come me. If there's anything that I'm like interested in. Here's the last one I was like super into was the heroes one. I was going to ask. Cause you mentioned I'm Brianne.

Yeah. And I have that the, I have the VMX one got lucky. Yeah. Yeah. It always feels better when you pull it. That's the one, all men. That's a good grade too. Yeah. I'm wondering, I don't know if you've heard about all like, oh, do you go to the CGC forums? I'm always like on the CDC all the time. No, not that that [00:36:00] much.

Unless I'm like trying to look for updates on the, on the pop reports, which I know some just came out, but we haven't seen it for Pokemon yet. Yeah. That's at the top of the forums are people they did like as conspiracy that when TGC first came out, they were like giving out like no 10. It was super, super difficult to get like a 10 yet, let alone a perfect 10, just at 10 at all.

And then apparently, most recently people are getting tons left and right. So of the, like the regular there, I think that CGC is pumping the numbers before they released the proper report because they think people aren't going to like lose their shit saying like, oh, there's only one 10 in the world. And it's like 1009.5.

So yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's like big conspiracy theory on the forums. I'm not sure if I believe that. I'm not sure if that, like I get it, but I feel like a lot of people will say now, like [00:37:00] people were kind of jaded and like, they didn't get the grade that they wanted. So I feel like saying that type of stuff, but I don't see why they would do that because he just he's huge and comic books.

So I don't know why they would ruin their reputation or Atlanta for. Yeah, the business is big. Like, I don't, I don't quite understand that, but apparently the proper form, if they fit the last I checked they to come out at the end of March and we're in April and I haven't checked in like a week. So they did say that they update the website.

They have like their own domain now. So there's a CGC cars.com. So I guess. Moving towards that. So hopefully we'll see, definitely been a PowerPoint for like a year and a half now. So I don't know. So like, this is probably the most important question I'm gonna ask you. So all the grading card companies rank their websites best to worst.[00:38:00]

Yeah. That's easy. Definitely. Definitely CGC PSA, BGS. I ate trash. So in addition to collecting all those cards, I used to collect sports cards and there's one card that one sports card that caught the collector that is worth anything to me at all. And I got an autograph Kobe card with a, with a piece of his Jersey in the card, and there were only a hundred of these ever made at all.

And I happened to get one of them and I sent that off to, to BGS to get graded. There's like no communication at all. It's almost like it's like, I threw the car into like a dark alley and I'm like, oh, I don't know what happened. It was like exactly what you thought it was. No, that's not good to, to like at the time, I'm pretty sure it's better now.

But at the time they didn't really have [00:39:00] like an online form, but they did have it online for, we had to get the, get through there through like a series of links to find it, otherwise the paper one. So I finally found like where it was to fill it out. Once I filled it out, there was no way for me to check on the status of it.

So I have no idea. Did it get there? Did it, and then you open it. It's a coming back. It was like a two month process. I think I got to the point where I had to call and I was like, you know what I said, just taking my card back that I don't even want to deal with it. And then at that point they escalated it.

I guess I sent that message and they said, okay, well we got your car. Well, blah, blah, blah. He said, oh, if we send it to you now we can't do these upgrades, but we can get it back out to you. So yeah. And they got it. So we were just sitting on the card before, like you had it wasn't until I complained, because that they said something about it, but yeah, their website is complete trash.

I do like their pop report though. Their proper report is decent, but I think PSA probably has the best spot for, yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm gonna agree with you on that. It's definitely got the better one, but [00:40:00] I mean like, so what are the Cardinal grading? I think it 0.5, 8.5 for connect card, which isn't bad.

I think the highest graded one of, all of the, well, I guess just PSA and BGS. I think it was a nine there's only one of those. The last time I checked, there were only nine graded. And throughout across both of the companies. Oh, wow. So there's still 91 out there somewhere. And I've seen some of the ungraded ones go, go through on evening.

A lot of them certainly from like Singapore and the Philippines and other places like these, I'm not sure if basketball, basketball is big out there or they just like Colby, but I always, always see themselves from there to someplace else. And it's definitely quite a bit, I felt it should be worth a way more for it to be one is Colby, one it's autographed, and there's only a hundred ever made, not knowing they [00:41:00] don't guarantee that they're all a hundred are still in the world at this point in time.

And I think the last one I saw sold ungraded was like $3,000 or something like that. Holy crap. Yeah. Holy crap. It's like in my head, I'm like easy a thousand, but 3000. Is it a computer auto or is it his, for real? I think it was his real for real, but then they copied his, his AutoGravity they put him on all the cards, like, like find my hand, like it, and he sat there.

Yeah. That'd be even cooler because I'm make sense of the conditions too, you know, but, but I mean, Oh, I'm sure it's dope. And like, you know, the thing was sports cards too, is that you notice that they seem to be more delicate. Like whenever I open up baseball packs or I get, you know, baseball cards, like they just seem so much more delicate the edges, the corners.

[00:42:00] Yeah. Yes. Very much. So like this card, I think this card is particularly because it has a part of his Jersey in it, so it's a much thicker card. So the card itself is like very soft. So it was like kind of pliable. You can like push her hard, you can get your fingerprint in it. So it's definitely like a salt the card.

And the fact that I got that card graded when I started grading all the other cars two years ago, so, and I got an 8.5 and that was stored the same way in that crappy binder with like, that would, if I held it upside down, all the cars are full out, all the type of stuff happening.

Like what would it have been if I would have graded back when I got it? Yeah, because that car cards from. Like 2000 and 2000, 2001 season. When did you start playing? When you talk to me, please, don't put that way before that, like 96 97? Yeah. Okay. I was thinking the nineties, cause I think Jordan was still playing, like [00:43:00] he played a year or two into his early career, right?

Yeah. And then did they play it again when he came back for a week when he played with the wizards, right? Yeah, we really don't and also kind of feels like a betrayal too. Cause I mean, I'm a, I'm a bulls fan. I'm from the Chicago area I was watching when they were playing against the, you know, you saw jazz and all men, most games are so stressful, so stressful.

Oh my God. But those were great games to watch. Yeah, definitely. Miss OMBA much. It was more excited for me. I'm watching these games. Well, the super teams. So I mean, you know, and the first thing that I was thinking of too is like this new, I mean, I guess it's not really new, but like the exaggeration like that,

I'm like, [00:44:00] we all saw that we have it on video. Yeah. Before you fell down, you really got hit. Yeah. Oh gosh. Flopping so hard. I don't even, I don't know when it started, but I just, I don't remember it when I was watching, you know, Scotty and, you know, Dennis Rodman. And I mean, I really think it's that big and bleak.

Yeah. He's fun to watch. I can't can't I can't like shit on any of their talents. It's just a different game. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. I mean, I, I'm not gonna lie. I, I don't know whether or not I sound like I've watched a lot of basketball cause I really don't. I really don't. But you know, seeing those, seeing those players, like it would've been, it would've been really nice.

I, I've never gone to a single [00:45:00] bulls game ever in my life, which is sad, but I've also never seen, you know, Michael Jordan or, or Kobe or LeBron play like for real life. I think I might've gone to like one thunder game, but you know, even if you're not super into sports, there are certain, certain people or certain moments that you kind of want to.

Be able to say that you had like a memory of watching him play, you know, I feel like Colby is one of those players for sure now, but I mean, you know, sports are great, but so are Pokemon cards. But, but, you know, I, I feel like we're really similar to when we collect from the perspective of like, you want to kind of keep everything.

I mean, do you have the problem with, like, do you ever find yourself in a situation where you're like, Ugh, I gotta find something to sell or like having trouble, like looking through your [00:46:00] cards and finding things that you want to get rid of you. Kind of exactly what you mean, but I do not have that problem.

Cause I already know the things that I don't want. Like I have like, almost like a separate case of the things that I know for sure. Like, like these of nevermind, like the poker set, all the YouTube stuff like that. That's all separate everything else. I was like, it's all up for grabs and I really don't, it's nice that it's here, but like, I don't necessarily need them.

It's almost like you sell those. And then that's the thing, what I do actually sell those. And then once I have enough money, I'll get the car that I actually want. Cause they kind of just take up space at this point. The ones that I don't want. I definitely do have like a, a crap ton of like just random guards.

Like from back time back when I was kid just have like a bondage, like the first Dragonball Z cards I have I just like drank mostly like, oh, this don't drink liquor. That is what, those had no idea what to do with those. I just store them have like old baseball cards for my dad's. That I don't know any of these, but I just feels weird though.

When I'm away, [00:47:00] it's not like I'm just hold on to these two. So I have like full of just like miscellaneous things that I have and same thing with like what I rip open the packs and I have all this book. Okay. I will do this book. It feels weird just throwing it away. So I just have the bit boxes just stored.

So a bit of a hoarding problem. But as far as like the cars that are graded, that those are set aside for to sell whatever they actually sound like I'm not in any kind of rush. They can go whenever they want to. Yeah. And usually a lot of them are like a lot of duplicates. Like I have like a crap ton of amazing rares of all the guards, like a lot of each like, like 50 or so of each one.

So I was just slowly been selling. I actually liked that. I actually liked that style. They just, I don't know. Bookman said, okay, we're going to make you then just tell me that again, because I was assuming that they were going to make like a museum YouTube version of it, because they were always like [00:48:00] legendary Pokemon that all it's like, oh, I can't wait, but they're working their way up to me.

And they just, they kind of just stopped doing it altogether. All that kind of makes me a little sad. And this is a Japanese set still. I don't know. Oh, damn. I have mostly Japanese of course. But they were in, they were definitely, there was something visual outage. Oh, I forgot the other American. Oh.

And whenever the, the American Virgin you start V was. They were something shiny faces. I think there was like a restroom in there and a couple of other ones, but it was like part of a Pokemon area that was not a part of the one. I mostly know what, like first and second gen with those, like my main ones.

So all the other profile.

Yeah. Like I remember routes and whole noon, like these newer generation ones, but I'm with you. I don't, I don't know the different, I don't [00:49:00] know the different regions and it's not that I looked down on them, but I just, they just don't. Yeah, exactly. I mean, how are you feeling about like the newer sets in general?

I mean, cause I know what you were saying is that, you know, the only cards that, that you've been really enjoying are the alternates, but like do you think these. Three, maybe four sets that have been coming out. Do you think that they'll really hold their own by,

that's hard to say they're not targeting me anymore. It's mostly about these, like, I guess newer collectors and the younger generation coming up, it's kind of, for them. I really don't feel anything at all about them to be honest. Like I really wish they would make like a different, like another hidden fleets kind of set where it's just all getting one gen two, like, oh, that'd be cool.

Just like a specialty set, [00:50:00] kind of a collections with collection, which is like a bunch of old reprinted vintage cards, orient, which is nice to have. But they're also, they releasing a lot of cards. I feel like back when. When I was younger, the system didn't come out as frequent as they do now. Yeah.

So there's like, once you're like in the middle of collecting one set, especially the American sets like the U S that's what, once you start the sentence, so huge, they're like 300 cards, but then there's like 60 secret, rare cards. Like there's too many cards in the sense of, by the time you like, twenty-five percent of the set, the next one has come up.

That's another 4g cards. So it seems like a lot. It's a lot. And honestly, I see the same thing in magic too, because. The Crimson bow sets came out. Like the vampire cards came out and there were like 200, 300 cards. And there was like a little set within the set that you would collect that you could get in the regular packs and the collector packs.

And then the same [00:51:00] thing with the new common gala set that came out. I don't remember the numbers, but I could have swore it said something like 270 and then it had like a little set within it. And I'm just like, holy shit. I can not collect all these cards. I need to find the ones that are like, or like the ones that I like.

And I mean, even, and even with the strict Savan strict salmon, which is a huge set. And then they had this like little mini set where you had all these Japanese , which were really cool, like, and no idea what they said, but they had this very like this very like old traditional, like Japanese art style to them, which I found really interesting, which was cool.

But yeah. Man sets in general are huge. I wish I could compare it to flesh and blood. Cause I can't remember how big those sets are. I don't know about medicine. I doubt they're really that, that as big as that and this was kind of just starting off. So I want to make it, I think it would make sense if they just flooded the market with a bunch of cards.

That really think that it's hard to tell what they're [00:52:00] targeting. I'm pretty sure talking about a targeting it players, people who are playing a game. So I think when having a big, large set Callum makes sense so that you could have caboodle strategies, stuff like that. So no ones all playing the same deck, which probably people will end up playing the same deck.

Anyway, once they find out what the most optimal thing is. But as far as like from a collective standpoint, I don't know. I don't, I don't see it aside from just collecting, just like seekers to them. That's probably the most difficult thing to get. But you have to buy so much to get it. There was another reason why, like the Japanese says they're a lot smaller focused, so you can kind of pick and choose which sets you actually want to go for if you're just collecting.

So I think that the, usually the English sets are like three or four Japanese sets mashed together. I've heard, I've heard. Yes. I've heard that from others as well. That's a really good point. And, you know, sometimes do you kind of think like, you know, like naturally you would assume that it would just be the same [00:53:00] set, but just in the different languages.

I mean, cause that's what we see with the older sets, but w it's designed differently and it, and it makes sense because, you know, to your point, what you were saying about the different markets, like, you know, these are different markets that have to be treated differently. So. You know, who, who are you going to prioritize or who buys your cards more scalpers.

But anyways, I'm just kidding. Only half kidding, but yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point. Like, even with like the, like the old G book monsters, like base set and jungle and stuff like that, even those sets of different from English to Japanese, they upped the number count for the English ones. So I don't know if you remember, like in the English version, there would be a rare version, like a, a hollow version of the card.

And then the hallow version of that in the Japanese set though, it's just, if it was a red card is a hollow, there aren't any, not a hollow version of those color cards. So it seemed like that was just the offset. There was a rational reason [00:54:00] for that. Which I don't remember something to do with like printing or like, and to make sure that they had got the most amount of cards for their money or something like that.

So it made sense why they did it back then? Yeah, like the English tests now they seem to be. Did you kind of just piggyback piggybacking off of the Japanese sets and just like, there's no like cohesion with the sense that I have nothing to do with one another. They're just a bunch of cards just mashed together.

Like a theme, like was literally just the regards. That was it. The whole set was like 70 cards. It was very small. And then I think in the, I forgot what said that came on English. It was called, but it was like Eva heroes. And then the the hero said the set with the dragons. And then I think part of, one of the oldest sets all mashed it together and that was in wovens guys. There you go. Ah, okay. I see what you're saying. Yeah. I think there is something to be said with having a theme. In a set [00:55:00] because that's kind of what you expect or at least, I mean, I guess I can only speak for myself.

That's what I would expect. I mean, because, you know, even like kind of going back to magic, each set for the most part is like a different, you know, region, it's a different burst. Like, so you're getting cards from that area, like Innistrad. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about, you know, vampires and werewolves, you know, in that plane.

And then, you know, now with Kama gala, like Tamagawa like that plane and those, you know, You know, planes, walkers and things like that. Like from that set telling that story, which I always appreciated, even though I said as big, those sets are big. I always appreciated the theme though. Cause it was, you know, those characters, those people like flavor techs, still telling a story.

And then I think on their website, they also do like little side stories and stuff like that. Which it'll be really cool if they start coming out with like content like actual media, [00:56:00] I would love to see media because I've like, I've said this a few times. I can't say it enough, but I feel like I'm, over-hyping arm scared, over-hype it?

But I've never played league of legends and I fell in love with arcane. That's shown I will never play that game cause it's just like, not my style. It's not my style, but anything. Legal hurricane I'm going to get, you know, I unfortunately made the mistake of missing the secret layer that came out for arcane and a secret episode, or no, it it's.

So what, what magic does now, or recently they've been doing these sets called secret layers and what it is is they print a demand. So you have a window of time where you can order however much of it you want. It's like a, it's a very, very small set. It's like five or six cards, you know, and sometimes they do special stuff.

Like when they talk about their numbered [00:57:00] cards and you heard about like magic number cards coming out, they'll randomly put them into like secret layers. So this is like a specialty thing. It has different variations, you know, different price points, but they print a demand. So. Exactly. So, you know, you'll see that this is where they're doing crossovers.

Like they did a street fighter one they did an arcane league of legends. And then they're going to do a fortnight one. I don't know when that one comes out, but I do want to get that. So it's, it's really interesting seeing all these different brands mixing and literally come into the universe images gathering, which makes so much sense, right?

Because magic, the gathering is a multi-verse. And it's always been a multilayer, like always has been it's. I mean, and so, so a brand like Fortnite is, is really interesting too, because it is also so, so you could see, you know, the crossover on that perspective and then, so you can bring people back and forth and I mean, I know fortnight.

Is wanting to, I mean, they are [00:58:00] investing in Billy to media company around their brand, which I think they need to do, you know, I need to see more arcane too. I know it was, it wasn't right. Games that made it, you know, it was for teach the studio, but like, I need season two, but I can wait, cause I know season 1, 6, 6 years, but it would be really interesting to see that with like magic, the gathering sets to me because like they did these little, like with the reasons that came out, they did like these little, like little, you know, like how cold Torrens will towards it.

These like little cinematic, like animations. Do you know what I'm talking about? No. So, so like like nights of the older publican. These, these MMOs, these MMO RPG games with the story within those, those video games, they put together these really lovely cinematic.

Okay. So, so, and those are excellent. Those are [00:59:00] great. Those are fantastic. I want more of them always more, no, less, more. And so I want to see that from magic. I have no idea how I got onto this tangent, but it would be very interesting because I was always interested in like I was like before. Cause I, I started playing while like.

Around Brenda crusade time, but I was a fan of why up to the point, because every single ups expansion, they will come up with that, that five minute cinematic, like what's going on. And I was like, I'm a big fan of like, so before I started programming, I was very much into animation and I was a big fan of the studio that made the cinematics for those.

So I would always follow all of them. I was like, oh yeah, this is great. This is great. This is great. So I noticed I could talk about, I didn't know that they did that for for everything else except for, wow. I don't know that they did that for like any other property. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I want to see is well-made by Activision blizzard.

It is. Okay. [01:00:00] Cause sometimes I get like my big companies confused, but yeah. Okay. Watsi is Hasbro and wow. Is Activision blizzard. Sometimes I get them mixed up, like from a media perspective, but yeah, I mean, they are kind of similar in a lot of ways, but I would, I would love to see, like I would love to see a magic RPG.

Like I, I think it could do really well as a video game because you have your different characters, you can pick in their planes, walkers, they got to be right. It gotta be Planeswalkers walkers. And it's such a rich story. There's so many, like there's so many different stories that can be told within this whole, you know, universe that they create on it.

Yeah, they leave in dollars on the table, but not to me, that was definitely, I don't think I was like super into our team and I don't, I don't really anything to leak at all. I'm so far removed [01:01:00] and I was like, so into that game, I was like, oh, I'm pretty sure was much of, it was a way, a way better experience with you who wants to play all the Easter eggs or whatever was going on in the background.

So I thought like, oh, that's that person that that's, that's that person. But I came with great. Oh, yes, let's go. So, yeah, hopefully, hopefully it's sometime soon, but I don't want to, you know, pressure people. I want them to do a good job because of season two socks. I am going to lose it. I'm going to, and they have a lot to do.

They have a lot to, kind of live up to it's a lot. They, they really do. But yeah, yeah, that, that was, that was a really good one.