We sit down with Johnny Amendola, founder of Mintink, to discuss his hobby history, his vision for the ultimate hobby experience, his mental health and charity work, building a business and a brand, the trends he is seeing through the store and its customers, his thoughts on grading companies PSA, BGS and TAG, does he see cards as investments, how has he been received by others in the industry and more so join us live and bring your questions and comments as they will be in play.
Leighton Sheldon of Just Collect and Vintage Breaks joins for the “Vintage Spotlight” segment!
Saturday June 22 @ 7:00pm PST / 8:00pm MST / 9:00pm CST / 10:00pm EST
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[Music] [Music] Sports CS is a lifestyle Sports Cs and we live now Jeremy Lee in the building and every guess that you ever needed sports cards after hours keep the hobby heated updates hobby talk like you never seen it sports cards live and N could ever beat it sports cards is a lifestyle sports cards and we live now welcome to another episode of sports cards live with your host Jeremy Lee [Music] what is up everybody Welcome to episode number 230 of sports cards live it’s Saturday night June the 22nd 2024 my name is Jeremy Lee and I would like to thank everyone who watched and listened to last week’s episode with David Haro we talked about sports cards and Taxation definitely worth worth your watch or listen guys tomorrow night pwcc weekly hockey show is back with Josh Madigan of The Gong Show and Monday night in addition to being game seven of the Stanley Cup finals it is also the monthly MC showcase auction on eBay MC Sports Cards will be covering the auctions as they countdown live here on Sports Cards live next Saturday on the show our guest is Mike Lusa he’s a passionate Golf Card Collector and the host of the fondling cardboard podcast guys filth bomb breaks offer live offers live case and box breaks they do so through responsibility and integrity if you enjoy group breaks and are looking for a company to break with check out filth bomb streaming on Fanatics live on four channels seven days a week and if you are looking to add a Grail into your collection make sure to check out fund your cards the Hobbies leading consolidator they will help you finance the purchase with your own cards visit fundou cards.com and tell them Jay Le senta that’s a that that’s a spoof on Lanny McDonald here on Calgary all right shout out hobby News Daily . check them out every day for your daily dose of hobby news and information and Leon Sheldon from just collect will be joining us tonight for the Vintage Spotlight segment everybody and guys remember this show is also available on Spotify apple or wherever you get your podcast please follow And subscribe for free and leave a rating or review on your podcast platform and thank you as always to our loyal viewers and listeners if you are not yet subscribe please take a moment and do so and thank you for your ongoing support and as always your comments and your questions are in play Let’s get to it everybody tonight’s guest started in the Hobby in 1989 when his mother bought him a couple packs of hockey cards and he went on to spend his whole allowance every week after that hunting for the Joe sakic rookie card in 2018 he reimmersed himself into the Hobby and he opened up Min Inc in 2020 his favorite players of all time are Pat La Fontaine Michael Vic Alex McGill Tom Brady and Draymond Green and his favorite teams of all the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Buffalo Bills originally from oshaa Ontario and currently hailing out of Toronto Ontario let’s bring him out Johnny amandola welcome to sports cards live and how are you doing today I’m great Jeremy thanks so much for uh for having me it’s uh I’m super humbled to be on your show so thanks and thanks for the Stellar intro I’m just like thinking back to Joe sakic and you’re making me smile it’s a great card man it’s a it’s a great card you were probably buying the OPI little did we know back then that that be like the one year in the 80s where the Topps card is actually the more valuable and more uh chased after card but who would have known that back then did you were you collecting the OPI or were you doing the tops no like everybody else I was I was after the OPI I won’t pretend anything different it was it’s funny because now you know 70s opi’s baseball is insane and then it would have been the same who’s buying OPI versus so it never happened in hockey year 100% right it was such an anomaly that year I have a random OPI baseball card on my desk here Kell rien Jr 83 tops I believe yeah 83 tops the same year as the bogs and sanberg and Gwyn rookie have that sitting here on my desk listen man it’s good to have you on the show I remember the first time that I became aware of mint Inc and yourself Johnny amandola would have been at I think it was the first Toronto sport card Expo after the pandemic had shut things we were back up and running and I go into the Expo it was in Hall three which was kind of a a hall that we’re not used to being in and I see this big fancy installation I’m hearing music coming from it you’ve got a you got a breaker booth in I’m like who are these guys and it ends up being you do you remember that show and what was that what was that card show like for you guys what was that Expo like for you that was like um so yeah definitely remember it it was like a big uh we had done the virtual Expo with Steve and his team a few months prior and it was it was a lot of fun but for us that was like a big you know um Coming of Age moment almost like it took me a year and a half to open the store just with with the pandemic happening and not being able to get permits so the show and the store kind of happened at the same time almost and um yeah it was still like semi kind of lockdown so getting everything there and being able to get in and set it all up and we brought everything you know first time we were crammed in and it was it was chaos and I might have been a little crazy during the setup and everything else but I’m blessed with a great team then and now and we got it done and I was talking to umh Katie and Jason from players choice in Colona about it and she was uh we’re were talking this CDD conference she’s like same thing she’s like and then there was just this loud noise and now you know fast forward a few years and it’s uh you know I think um it’s enjoyed the the the upbeat kind of vibe that that we bring but yeah U met you and a whole bunch of other great people um some of the the people up top here like Kar from slab sharks and whatever and yeah here we are three years and six or seven Expos later and and uh on your show on a Saturday night which is which is awesome right on big hockey game last night Johnny I mean the Oilers going first they beat Dallas which was a that wasn’t an easy series but they did it it wasn’t you know they could have had more trouble than they did they go into the finals against Florida they go down three nothing it seems like who who are these Oilers how did they ever get past Dallas they go down three nothing and now they’ve come back and tied at 3-3 for game seven I said it on my story post today and this is a term that Carvin Chung I believe I attribute it to him coin but the you know we talk about goats in the Hobby and we talk and Carvin Chung talks about to be a true goat you have to have had a goat moment Sydney Crosby has the Golden Goal and so on but I I think that Conor McDavid you know and again we don’t want to jinx it I think he’s in his he’s in the midst of his goat moment right now what do you think so I I th% agree with you it’s I said this to somebody the other day if you you know um and he gets so much slack and that’s okay he’s the best in the world and when you’re the best at anything or even really good at it that comes with it but there was a really cool stat I saw and it was assists in the playoffs and it’s it’s let’s say they take the top eight and seven names were Gretzky the other name was Lemieux and now six names Gretzky one’s Lemieux and mcdavid’s in there so people are like oh we didn’t score or whatever um there’s been a lot of phenomenal phenomenal hockey players since grety and Lemieux that have been in the playoffs perennial like they’re there every year a lot of Detroit and Colorado players New Jersey players uh you know guys like Eiserman and sakic that had 101 15 you know probably chances none of them are on the list he’s on the list like and I’m with you to come back it’s history in the making I don’t want to sound cliche but it’s uh it’s history in the making yeah I think we’re we’re lucky this game seven on Monday is going to be absolutely crazy the whole country behind him oh God yeah yeah for sure it’s it it’s pretty nuts all right well I want to get into a bit more about your hobby history then we’re going to make a little surprise announcement here tonight for everybody who’s with us and then we’ll get to comments so let’s go through a bit I I talked about you know your mom bought you a few packs when you were a kid you’re chasing the The Joe sack rookies but tell us a bit more in more detail about your hobby history from then through until now uh talking about covering local shows and Gretzky and Jordan sure so I’m um um you know I’m I’m bald so I have I have some experience like you so how dare you be bald yeah yeah how dare I so it actually did start you know 1989 I was 10 um I’m an only child single mom so you know didn’t really have uh you know um Madonna records were playing before the hockey game was on when I was eight nine 10 I didn’t even put skates on till I was a teenager but we were leaving Melanie Pringles one night for dinner popping to the convenience store got some cards and then I was kind of hooked for about the next 10 years right up until the end of high school a The Collector my first job was actually at a place in Whitby Ontario called The Daily Planet which was like um magazine stand confectionary and the mall had an arcade so it was very like trendy at the time right so now I’m 145 I’m working in a card shop in the mall like with one of the best arcades in like the East End of of the GTA so tons of fun um in the mid90s into the late 90s we were we were um selling on eBay power selling there was no real automation at the time so back to mom she’s helping me write labels and stuff a couple of my buddies got involved um as the card Market kind of shifted a little bit we jumped into just pop culture as a whole video games all that kind of stuff um right up until 20034 um I started my media agency then I I done some work for um some national media and about 20078 I kind of stopped Al together up until then I was still doing some toy auctions I’m a big I like to collect gi. joee and Transformers and um Hulk Hogan so uh 20078 uh I pursued a passion of mine in publishing open a bunch of community papers and I completely shut the hobby off I still collected the odd thing just because I’m a bit of a pack RP but you know nothing serious um 10 years later I I I was really lucky um I published a bunch of newspapers in the GTA and there there’s a couple guys around here that have been running shows forever like Steve like the sports card Expo and in my local community newspaper in a region called York Region we would cover um these card shows a couple times a year so as the publisher of the paper I’d be scrolling through and I kind of stop and I wouldn’t read everything but I would always gravitate read oh one day I’m going to go cover those events so 2018 I go out on a Sunday I cover an event and sort of I dive back in a little bit um and then I started to play around some Investments you know I’m a little older now I’m bald so I have some disposable income I start buying up some Gretzky Jordans did okay with them maybe more than okay um and leading up to um q1 Q2 of 2020 I was sort of dialed back in starting to sell on eBay again buying into some breaks and I kind of saw like the new age of of hobby that was blooming if you will and uh was chatting with a few people and and basically before I could do anything the pandemic hit and uh a month prior um I was I was actually talking to my wife about you know I’m going to pursue this a little bit more and that allowed us the opportunity to to do it I mean at the end of the day I had a great big brand new office and some staff that I needed to find something to do with and uh we literally um at a boardroom table in a conference room that was about 700 feet within a few months I turned it into a studio set that was a card shop we started going live six seven days a week for8 10 hours a day through the entire lockdown a year passes and again um here we are we we just went all in I looked at my wife and my partner’s summer of 2020 at that point we were pretty deep and I and yeah there’s no going back to where we were it’s only forward now it worked out great the the pandemic wasn’t good for our other stuff and you know what one door closed an awesome door open man living my dream at 45 now is is pretty amazing yeah sounds like a ride that you have been on and uh so you’re all so mint ink that’s the business that you’re in now is that the only business that you’re in now uh we still operate our marketing agencies um I have a great team uh blessed over the years um there’s a little bit of integration like our media company sort of is very integrated with mint in you you can see we’re very content uh driven but we still operate a boutique Ad Agency so happily mtin as a client if you will but we’re we’re really internal now but yeah they still exist much different scale um most of that team is now fully integrated with with mink which is super exciting okay well good I appreciate the the background we’re going to get into mint in and the launch and really the vision and all that right away let’s go to comments and then we’re going to just do our a little announcement here Johnny want to say hello get good dad is with us on X what’s going on Jake doll as always one of the most loyal viewers we have Bill Betts what is going on Sullivan from North Dakota how many how many weekend trips did I take to Fargo or Grand Forks as a kid from Winnipeg Jeff McMahon another great guy who’s always here what’s up Jeff get good has moved over to YouTube very nice Redemption yes game seven on Monday Larry what’s happening Mark santui uh somewhat surprised that it is going to game seven after being down three nothing but after they won game five I thought how do they not win the Stanley Cup at this point well one game left it’s it’s there’s one game left it it all comes down to that it’s I love game sevens there’s nothing like it Mark santui another loyal viewer what is happening the professor is here kay Phillips good to see you Willie T Cory car Mark wants to know here Johnny being that you’re a Leafs fan which do you hate more Montreal Canadians or the Boston Bruins so my in-laws and my wife are all huge Hab fans um and I hate Boston so I gotta say Boston because I’m a good uh I want to remain my mother-in-law’s favorite son-in-law nice very nice uh yoyo Daddy on Instagram what’s cracking with you welcome to the show yo yo daddy uh the coach Keith is here what retired coach Keith what’s going on coach Keith Robert Scott coach Keith says Johnny do you plan on moving your brand North I’m tired of driving from Barry Ontario to vaugh to visit your amazing store what’s the plan Johnny anything you want to mention Keith you’re uh first of all again thank you super humbled um uh I’m working on we are working on lots of fun exciting stuff I wish I could I could tell you the answer is yes tomorrow um but hopefully there’s lots of growth and we can get the experience sort of everywhere just good things take time and it’s hard for me but good things take time but thank you it’s hard to go at a pace that actually works isn’t it Rob Rothenberg good evening glad to have you here live Colin Murray from hockey card exchange is with us what’s going on Colin good to see and Allan Turell from waack stat what’s going on Al always good to see you Laura is here thanks for your time thoughts on GameStop selling great red cards let’s see what happens there let’s give it a few months and see how that goes I don’t personally don’t have any thoughts on it you you Johnny they’re paying 20 or 30% of comps I think so it’s like yeah it’s gonna be a tough go gonna be a tough go or it’s just gonna be a bunch of real garbage sort of uh inventory but trading for video games y let’s let’s see what happens there with them for sure and ripping wax what’s going on ripping wax hey Chris good to see you buddy been been a long time man good to see you all right so I’ve mentioned a little uh a little announcement Johnny we’re gonna do on this is all Johnny’s idea he brought this to me before we started he said hey Jeremy do you want to do a giveaway tonight I said hey man that’s totally up to you if you want to do a giveaway let’s do it I mean for my audience I’m happy to I’m happy that you want to do it so what do you want to give away here Johnny tonight let’s do we’ll do an extended box big release this week for uh Upper Deck after what’s going to be an amazing game seven anyway so we’ll do a uh um Upper Deck extended uh comes out Wednesday the winner can have it shipped to them or I’ll break it for them on release day from the shop we’ll be live ripping all day and then we’ll uh we’ll mail them all the the contents upet box all right sounds good so you know what we’re GNA do I think why don’t we do the giveaway like right now it’s still early enough you know there’s a smaller crowd we only have 70 people watching well that’ll grow but let’s reward the people that are here in the first 20 minutes of the show Johnny and let’s do the giveaway before we do want to quickly say hello to Lucky K what’s going on Laura says thud yeah thud exactly thanks for the comment Chris always good to see you and time piece Esquire says McDavid and the Oilers are making history yet his cards are soft as ever Barda sucked all the money out of the hockey Market it’s unfortunate I don’t know I think people are starting to realize that mcdavid’s the real deal and Mard the the jury’s out so we’ll see but but that just all that tells me time piece is value an opportunity so let’s see let’s see what happens there yeah Jake doll says thank you poochie’s happy BST sports cards is happy for the giveaway lucky Cas says smash that Thumbs Up Everybody Chris says the Oilers this year turned me more into a hockey fan good stuff that’s good to hear Chris Kung Fury back in the house what’s going on and uh can you win here on X I think you probably can coach Keith what is going to happen is in order to win this giveaway you guys are going to have to put a comment into the chat and the streamyard software that I use to do these live streams it’s a it’s it’s built into the system so I have nothing to do with this giveaway it’s all streamyard so let’s see let’s see what happens here so here’s what I’m going to do guys let me just shrink that and okay so in order to enter this giveaway you need to enter into the chat hashtag I don’t even know if put the hashtag just in case Min in m i n t i n k Min in that’s it right there Min n t i n k put that into the chat right now you guys because as soon as we say that’s it and I do the draw that’s gonna be it so let’s see Darren Fraser’s the first one to get it in there here they come here they get them in there guys put mint ink into the chat Johnny amandola of Min Inc is giving away one box of Upper Deck extended it releases I think this Tuesday is that right Johnny Wednesday 26 Wednesday releases on Wednesday give give the audience a bit of information what what can they expect to find in a box of Upper Deck extended so okay so it’s the last of the flagship set of the year for upper deck Series 3 if you will so you can couple things you complete the base set more importantly for most collectors you complete the Young Gun set um the checklist is actually pretty good um three key um chases are Logan kolie Rookie of course the Adam fantell Young Gun um excuse me and The Bard uh young gun’s canvas is in there I think there’s another couple of Easter eggs um couple people ask RM is not in there I’m pretty sure he’ll be a hold over into series one but don’t quote me on that um series one like that’s how fast it goes series one of of next year pre-orders are already out now as extended hits but yeah it’s going to be a great value I mean I think it’s um going to surprise a lot people Logan kolie and Adam fentil are really good they just you know Bard was uh you know um like somebody said earlier in the comments everything this year so all right no good so listen I’m showing 38 but I just counted more so if you didn’t put in hashtag mentin and you wrote out hashtag or you or you just didn’t do it go again I noticed Carvin did it wrong I think uh I saw someone else wrote it did it wrong guys alter well you wrote out the word hashtag just just put in a hashtag and and then Min in after just like you see on the screen guys hash mtin get it in there guys we’ll give you another minute or so to get him in and uh while you’re doing that let’s just run through I’m GNA weed through the minting hashtag hashtags in the comment and let’s say hello L Luigi T says Hyman for Marner Hyman for Marner that is that a trade proposal right now I would not take I would not take Marner in exchange for highman is killing it right now def tiger Jordan says so excited for the Oilers hope they can pull off the epic comeback me too that would be really good to see for all of us anyone who supports the Hobby and hockey in general I think it’d be good for hockey if McDavid does win his first Stanley Cup here in a in a in a comeback from a three nothing deficit Carvin Chun says what up what up Johnny and Jay Le good to see you carve as always hello there to Milkman stacker daddy what’s going on get your hash mtin into the chat right away guys we’re going to do the draw right away here are you guys ready Final Call 543 2 one let’s hit draw Johnny watch this we’re gonna get our winner here right now you should see your names going through I have nothing to do with this guys this is all the who’s got it this is all the streamyard and Mark santui wins the Box congrat you know what listen Mark has been not to say the the rest of you have’t Mark has he’s here every Saturday active in the chat Mark congratulations winning the giveaway so Mark send me an email or reach out to me on uh Instagram but you can send me an email sportscards livow gmail.com with your address I’ll send it over to Johnny and he will ship out the winning prize to you congratulations Mark SCI that’s awesome Mark all right and thank you for that Johnny that was awesome pleasure very very nice and generous of Johnny and mint Inc all right well let’s get into mint dink a little bit more because listen I don’t it’s fun to talk to a guy that owns a card shop but I’m I’m interested in your story like like you know what’s the vision what are you trying to do what are you trying to do differently what does the name Min in even mean what what is the name all about that’s a fun one that’s a fun one real quick I got a Shad out Carvin on Thursday night I opened’ 05 cup it’s beautiful beautiful so I texted him we missed but beautiful cards so big shout out to Carvin I saw he’s in here so Legend uh in his own right um so mint ink it’s uh okay so um I mentioned earlier uh when you asked me about myself uh the publishing sort of business right so uh mint is obviously as we understand a measure of of quality in the in the space um and ink is I mean at the end of the day cards everywhere oh well you look at that that’s a tag card of my dog you went and did got one of those huh absolutely I did I just didn’t tell you yesterday I wanted to surprise you there’s another one over there my dog our dogs are our life um but it’s it’s ink on a card so all this is is it’s ink on a card so um I was was extra cool because as I I mentioned earlier I literally closed the chapter of my life and and you know as much as reinvigorated begun a new one um so to have that bit of history with me come along in the name was pretty cool and if you look really closely there’s a guy in a tuxedo in there you can kind of see him you’ll now it’ll mess with you a little bit but it’s almost like Avengers esque you can sort of see the dude in The Tuxedo if you really look hard but that’s kind of what the the name is and then the the social tag 10 um just because obviously 10 is the is the the perfect grade so that’s that’s the N the name yeah oh you know you kind of could have figured that out but I was just wondering if there was something more to it but I like it it’s a catchy name it’s something that you know you don’t really forget to oh you made Carvin blush look at that he’s blushing what’s going on car poochie says Johnny’s a real one and Milkman stacker how often do y’all go we’re I’m live on this channel probably three well two to two to four nights a week Milkman welcome to the show but this is Saturday night sort of Flagship show sports cards live good to have you uh here with us all right so let’s get into to it a little bit more Johnny you know what is it that you you said earlier you know you’re fulfilling a childhood dream what is what is the dream how are you how does mint Inc actually manifest your childhood dream wow so like it’s funny because in 2006 or S when my wife and I bought our first host my mother-in-law they live in PEI came to visit and they’re asleep and I’m up and I was I just hit an auction that week and I was I had some cards but I was at that time uh 20058 910 G1 GI Joe Transformers was very lucrative and she says my my wife says to me the next day she says oh my mom woke up in the middle of the night to go to the washroom and she said to me today her husband was playing with toys in his office last night and she said oh no Mom this is you know he makes money doing that and you know I was 28 29 at the time and uh you know she knew then I always said then that this was something I was going to do like I said I pursued it growing up um there was a point in my life where I had a great career going in my early 20s and I stopped it to do this um and we did it really good and I had some traumatic events in life happen and I had to stop it it was very unfortunate um but I had to kind of just give up that passion at that time and kind of go out and sort of figure the world out all of a sudden I was uh 22 23 not living at home anymore living downtown in the Big Smoke and you know trying to get on with it so um always being entrepreneurial pursued the media you know I I was into that at the time and um yeah so finally getting to a point much later on in my career where I had built what I thought was a really good um infrastructure if you will to really help um Propel a brand and an experience to new heights in a space so I was already doing a lot of the practices I’m doing for clients you know in in the ad and marketing world and uh I just knew when I knew like that was it and I’m a really stubborn guy and uh I just there was a point again in 2020 where there was no you know the pandemic was the fourth or fifth time in my life where surreal events Beyond My Control literally changed the course of my whole life um from childhood rate into adulthood so um to get to a point where you know I tell people I work more than I ever have before honestly it’s just not work anymore and I I was passionate about what I did before like I was back in six six days a week 14 hours a day it’s not the same I love it even my bad days are great I can get you know deal with something turn around it’s moving forward um and the vision just like again I know we’ll get into it a little later but it’s you know when you think of like the ultimate customer experience is kind of what I’m after you know people are really about convenience value and ease especially this world we live in today this sort of generation of consumer behavior is really about please me now and and really the service but more important than all that it’s com commodity it’s the worst word for me to say and Community um so so the vision is just to to be just that to be um when you think of the Hobby in Canada I want it to be synonymous with Min ink and not because you know I’m I’m the prettiest guy but because we’re the ultimate customer experience from the beginning of your journey in the hobby right to the end and I could talk forever about everything in between and all the nuts and bolts well I’m curious and we’re going to get into it after because we’re going to do the Vintage Spotlight segment here with Leon Sheldon EXC for that yeah he’s he’s he’s in the room he’s we’ll bring him on in just a second we will come back to sort of the the what your vision but what you call the ultimate hobby experience I wanna I want to get into more a discussion on what that is because that is something I think that is important right now as the hobby is trying to grow and there’s there are big forces trying to grow the hobby as well and uh so we will do that but why don’t we break from this discussion we’re going to bring up Leon Leon are you ready to go he’s ready all right we’re gonna bring Leon Sheldon up right now for the Vintage Spotlight segment Johnny as you know I asked you to come for a question for Leighton maybe he’s got one for you Leighton welcome back to the Vintage Spotlight segment not to be confused with the Vintage Spotlight podcast everybody and before we get to Johnny’s question first of all Lon please meet Johnny Johnny please meet Leighton say hi guys pleasure Johnny pleasure to meet you all right right on guys and I know I know Johnny’s excited for this but Leon before we get before we get to to the questions we are excited late and I are excited everybody we if you aren’t aware yet we have launched a new podcast that is a spin-off of this segment we’re in right now it’s a it’s a vintage Spotlight segment spin-off called the Vintage Spotlight podcast it is a YouTube channel and it is a podcast I’m going to show you guys right now there it is there is the Vintage spotlight YouTube channel right there you guys can go and please subscribe we have one video on so far this one right here and uh we’ve had pretty good feedback so far we are up to 166 subscribers most of you guys subscribed last week during the episode and uh but really excited about it Leighton how how has the response been that you’ve heard so far there’s only been it’s been great and there’s only been one negative and the negative is why aren’t you doing it every week I said because I have a lot going on and I think that Jeremy and I want to deliver a high quality show and we feel that we can do that every other week every other week right on right on so guys please take a moment please subscribe to mine and leighton’s new YouTube channel and or podcast we’d be grateful to have you along for the ride we plan to do it indefinitely and we plan to drop episodes every second week Laton we got a schedule to record early next week so we can drop on Wednesday or Thursday all right guys thank you for listening to to that and now let’s get on with the discussion Johnny did you come with a question for the professional baseball card treasure hunter Mr Leon Sheldon so I did I did I have a couple of questions but the first one I’m GNA ask was the second one in the email because after I watched two episodes of the king of Collectibles the the question about the baseball collection took over the Michael Jordan question but I’ll let you have go both so PSA sent me this book which is awesome right I know you’ve seen the book for sure um Ken Kendrick the um owner of the Arizona Diamond Backs there we go um he’s got the book is 50 of the greatest cards of all time but I believe and and you probably know so correct me if I’m wrong they say 10 of them and I don’t think it’s accurate are worth a 100 million I think it’s more because two of the 10 cards okay one is a PSA 10 mantle so we know that’s in the 30 to 40 million us range but this PSA 8 hus Wagner has me like it’s I what is it worth it’s I think it’s worth it’s got to be worth more than the mantle so so is this gentleman’s collection now worth 200 million like is it that I look at this as a th% it’s art it’s I’m buying on Andy Warhol or Picasso at that point right so so I just want to clarify what’s your exact question s right so the question is the PSA 8 Honus Wagner what’s that worth and if you’re familiar with this collection as a whole when the book was published I think it’s a couple years old now it was a 100 million what’s it worth today sure so to answer that I have to re acclimate myself with a book because I haven’t looked at it in a little while but regardless of what it’s worth Ken has done some amazing things for our baseball card hobby industry without even knowing it um and to answer your question directly about the Wagner because I thought about it a lot candidly like if I had the money but I I think an auction you know right now if it was auctioned off let’s say the national I think it would sell for between 25 and 50 million but I do think that there’s a chance it would sell for more and realize this is just my humble opinion but you had to say to me even if they were equal value a 52 tops Mickey man PSA 10 of which there I believe is three yeah according to Pop Report and then the Wagner to be fair the tto hus swagner PSA 8 for those that don’t exactly know what we’re talking about um it’s Popa one uh it is widely known that it was cut from a sheet nonetheless it isn’t a PSA holder and it is the most famous probably baseball card in the entire world and if you gotta ask me what I would choose but I want to ask you Jeremy and you Johnny what you would choose if they were equal value I would choose the Wagner every day yeah have to yeah yeah me I would choose the Wagner to and you mentioned that it was cut from a sheet and that you know you know makes me I’ve often thought or or heard because Bill Mastro said he trimmed the card but what he actually did was cut it from a sheet is that correct Leon so I really have to go back and kind of once again re acclimate myself with everything but I do know you know he was subpoena he talked about on a record I believe he trimmed it but I’m not 100% sure but this is what’s so fascinating you’re talking about probably the most prolific card in the entire baseball card collecting world it’s widely known that there was some sort of something going on with it and yet in a way it’s kind of made it almost Infamous because the card was already famous but now you have like I don’t think there’s ever going to be another seven eight or nine there’s a nine Wagner whereas the Mickey Mantle like Alan Rose and Mr mint was known to found a number of mantel there’s probably still several um highend ones that may be even ungraded and so I agree with you gentlemen I would choose the Wagner also um regardless of whatever the story is behind it uh because I just think it’s the most iconic and best card in the hobby yeah same I I would too just yeah despite whatever might have been done to it I would choose that one too it’s that much older and you know growing up and being a fan of this hobby for so long I remember the day that Wayne Gretzky and Bruce mcnall the owner of the LA Kings bought that card for $451,000 in like 1991 or something and we all thought these guys were out of their minds little did they know that that was an absolute bargain uh relative to what it became so fun question Johnny you got another one for Leon that’s also if I sorry yes and it’s psa’s first ever graded card too isn’t it well I believe first card that they ever encapsulated that’s what it is yeah so even more Allure yeah for sure okay the other question if if I may um and I was asking Jeremy you know about this the other day so so I I was with a a friend and and we were buying some Jordans um and one of them was a Fleer PSA 9 UM and a couple of couple of autos and we were you know the question came to me as the you know consti if you will Star Card versus and I’m like I’m out my I can’t give a professional opinion because it’s just so all of a sudden it’s here so I believe and Jeremy helped me you know confirm the bgs 9 of the star did a buck 30 and I think the PSA 9 or bjs9 and a half PSA 9 almost a million the last Fleer PSA 10 did I think 295 so my question is this it’s it’s not which is the true rookie because I think that’s maybe subjective but is it do you think that the value of the star cards are where they are because there’s just none of them in that grade available I I don’t know that there’s boxes available like there you know if you got a couple hundred thousand you can still get 86 wear boxes or has this taken over the hobby as the Jordan rookie and what happens to all these people that bought you know the fleer card and whatever because it’s it’s a you know a PSA 9 Fleer for 30,000 let’s just say US versus 130,000 for the star card I my brain can’t figure it out so I’m hoping you can help me sure you know I can give my opinion uh certainly can do take that for what it’s worth you know listen I have considered this because the card is hot now meaning the 1984 star number 101 Michael Jordan is hot uh in the card Market it’s going to be hot at the national and you know if you want to own the first Michael Jordan card that was ever produce with an NBA license then you would want to buy the 84 star 101 and I’m not saying that as an investment or I think you should I’m just simply saying like these are the questions I ask myself but I would also ask myself and I think a lot of collectors do this we have this saying at vintage breakes which is my breaking company you know we give away a lot of vintage cards Johnny for bonuses and we always say you know lots of times for example forget about being but people would rather for example win in a bonus a $200 Mickey manual card instead of a $700 oh I don’t know Eddie Murray Card like his rookie in a nine even though it’s worth more most people would rather have the 66 Manel in a three not saying it’s right it just is so what I’m saying at least from my standpoint both in my heart and as professional card treasure hunter as Jeremy stated before that the star card is a great card it’s investment quality they didn’t make that many but the thing that’s lacking for me is the Nostalgia and the place that it has in my heart as a true collector so I’m not saying I don’t want it I’m not saying I don’t want a nine what I’m telling you is it truly doesn’t have that same feeling for me owning that card or even coveting it or going after it than the Fleer does and that’s the way that I’d like to answer it because everyone’s different Johnny I I agree I when I was young um one of the first things I bought when I sort of you know had some money I have it behind me it’s a $79 80 OPI hockey set with the grety in it I won’t grade it it’s just it’s a it’s a trophy on my shelf here and growing up you Jordan that card was a thing the Star Card the Nike promo was almost more um top of mind for me uh the one where he’s flying through the air than the star card was as a as a collector even in the in the late 80s and into the early 90s so I agree it’s it’s more about the now maybe that’s what creates the value too because now maybe not just a Card Collector now maybe just a collector in general and a high net worth individual says oh that’s the first Michael Jordan card ever made with an NBA logo yeah okay I’ll buy it not knowing the difference right different sales pitch maybe I’m with you though right on okay good good stuff um uh Leighton do you have any any topics or anything you’d like to mention any questions for Johnny yes well I have a question for Johnny I’m curious you know I was listening to a few minutes before you know I hopped on really like what you’re doing with your store uh it’s very admirable and of course it’s great for the Hobby in Canada and the US and really everywhere else because the better that we treat people and the more that people are sticking and stay in our industry and our hobby the better it’s going to be for everybody but my question is more is a vintage card treasure hunter so now that you have a store have you had anything just interesting or out of left field come in you’re like oh my God this is amazing so much yeah yeah awesome so a couple of things um so so we had a a lady uh a woman reach out to me end of summer she’ po into our um our downtown store and actually was chatting it up with uh with h with atown the cartel for a little bit and she came back a couple times built some trust I had a chat with her and she ended up with three 52 mantel two Mays and Eddie Matthews and basically her father passed away and it was like one of those it was in the safety deposit box stories so um we graded them the the the one of the I want to say the Matthews we got I think a four on the Matthews one of the maze graded pretty good and then the mantle was a one and a half and a one the one and a half was the nicest one and a half you’ll ever see we set a record with it on Golden we did 36,000 us it should have been a two it’s in my if I I didn’t buy it for 36,000 I would have no problem and sent it back um but that was really awesome you know and they were elated the family was great they were able to they you know they kept um one Maze and one mana’s memories got rid of the rest that was pretty awesome another one that came in and this was wild this was back in the summer of 2020 and I was talking to a gentleman and and he must be now in his 60s and he collected like I’m I’m just I’m I wish this would walk in every day he collected everything this guy like from the not too too vintage but you know 60 late 607s right through they’ll never stop so not vintage so to speak but from um treasure hunting point of view when everybody stopped collecting the mid 90s and the card companies came out with all the great new technology chromium and all this stuff and short prints and Autos like people are remiss to remember the card companies had to do something because the industry was was faltering so that’s when all this great stuff happened leading up into carin’s creation of the cup and exquisite which is really how it goes it starts with wait for it I opened this the other day right it starts with this box love it sure and it goes to to 506 cup and then people start to bounce back right so this gentleman collected all through that so it was 60 a U-Haul was I wish that I created the content a U-Haul truck with 60 bins showed up and I was pulling out Kevin Durant Bam’s rookies there was 100 Kobes Row three MJS like it was insane insane huge how much is what I said the price was I kind of did this in my head real quick called my wife I need to check for this much like we got it took us a year to get through it all I was telling Jeremy the other day I found a 70s still have you know the the the we got through Triple A to C I guess there was some even I found a box of 70s OPI baseball which people just you know kind of sleep rate on right that was probably the best just because it was like everything we preach about the history and and like kind of like what I just said about how that happened see how excited I just got it was a really good one 160 bins I had so much fun uh with that one and then far in between um you know um I won’t talk too much about it but I I had a chat with Scotty Bowman and I can tell you like imagine what a guy like that you know you want to talk about some vintage stuff now um so I’ve had some great uh experiences with people like him and I said that to to I think it was to me just the other day or somebody and I was like imagine what we see and imagine what’s still out there a guy like that that you know it’s it’s not in his mind to go into his basement and figure out that ball that my buddy Mickey mantel gave me and then my friend Frank Sinatra sign as an example like that’s the kind of stuff that’s out there you talk about treasure hunting so th those are probably the three coolest two really good buys and one just awesome experience I really appreciate you sharing that Johnny I was honestly as excited as you were oh it’s I I live for it man it’s it’s it’s awesome 3 1952 tops Mickey mantles walks into the store I mean that’s going to make uh that’s gonna make a year or even even like a decade for for some very good stuff all right guys well thanks Leighton we will be we will be back with another episode of the Vintage Spotlight podcast here in about a week or so so Leighton thanks for joining guys check him out on Instagram Leonor Sheldon and justor collect and listen to his podcast Trading Card therapy Leighton thanks for coming on thanks nice to meeting you Johnny a pleasure you too man cheers take care guys all right all right Johnny let’s get back to it now let’s get back to it we were talking about the vision that you have for mint Inc you’re talking about the ultimate hobby experience before I turn back to you we got to go back to the chat we got to go back to the chat a few comments quick announcement everybody rage is in the building yet again rage is in the building what’s going on he wants to welcome you Johnny any relationship to Danny amandola former Patriot Super Bowl winner cousin fifth removed but when he scored a touchdown in the Super Bowl my phone rang like crazy I used to tell people he was my cousin that’s awesome that you asked me that Darren Fraser says as a new hobbyist I found mint Inc and have never been disappointed thanks Darren best customer experience in the business that’s very nice to hear Darren welcome to the show Chris at riing wax just subscribed to the Vintage Spotlight Channel on YouTube thank you Chris LinkedIn Thomas says I take the Honus 8 over the mantle 10 any day and that is pretty much the same as as the rest of us as well Thomas thanks for being here and tiger Jordan is curious why PSA hasn’t deactivated the Wagner with a serial number one because it was actually you know I’ve been thinking if it wasn’t if it was simply handcut they should just add hand cut to it like just recall it add hand cut because they say hand cut on a lot of slabs where the cards were handcut but I don’t know the policy around that so we will leave it to them for now of course all right uh so Johnny let’s get back to to Mint Inc again you know tell us about and as as the one uh commenter just said found mint Inc best customer experience if I walk into Min Inc first of all how many different locations are there and what can I expect when I walk into the into say the the flagship Min in location yeah so um we had three locations we Amalgamated two of them into one larger location um and uh we’ve got our sort of tentacles and a few more um hopefully upcoming and we’re working on a few other great expansion ideas so for now we just finished building um sort of Min in HQ is what we call it and I started the process wow I signed the lease for the space in February of 20 sometimes I can’t believe we’re already halfway through 2024 you know February of 23 signed the lease uh moved in November of that year so we we literally um 5,000 foot facility we completely gutted it like right to like changing pipes in the floor gutted it um I had an idea in this in this big noggin of mine and um it was it was to build a facility that would allow me to sort of scale as best as possible the customer experience and our studio which you know our live stream our content creation space is just outside of my door here and it’s like the heart of the facility if you were to look at like a top down you see the the studi the engine if you will and it’s basically um you know all inone facility for us retail showroom Warehouse uh HR office marketing um eccom all that’s there eBay so taking a few different facilities and a few different things we’re doing amalgamating into one so when you when you walk in the store um it’s very big it’s very bright 20 foot ceilings um all big open we have um I wish I could take you for a tour um Upper Deck has sponsored a lot of the space we have one wall it’s awesome if you haven’t seen it go on the Min in Instagram and check it out it is a 20 foot sorry it’s a 40 foot wide by 20 foot tall mural of Jordan Gretzky and Tiger Woods and it’s um the the Gretzky is 81 before he was even Captain best trivia question ever is who was the captain of the Edmond if you could tell me who’s now they’re going to Google it I’ll still first person to tell me the captain of the Edmonton Oilers when it wasn’t Gretzky in 1981 I’ll give an extended Blaster too so it’s the greatest trivia question we ask everybody it’s a tiger at Valhalla it’s Jordan when he’s winning his third title and it’s Gretzky after scoring you know 200 points as a rookie so it’s the um epicenter of the space um we’re working with pather plastics on creating and and they’re you know they built Sephora Stores um creating the ultimate retail experience it’ll be done the construction Mill work’s happening right now I just approve some more drawings should be done end of August early September we hope to have a grand opening R around our golf tournament uh mid-september but you come in it’s a great big open environment there’s music on or right now the Euro Cup is on and um there’s always two three four staff working ready you know come in the door very much greeting um it’s a very clean and organized environment which is so important to me I’m very much OCD um and I want my customers to be able to come in and find what they’re looking for or just be able to walk around and just enjoy all the fun different you know things and collectibles that we offer because we’re not just a card store we’re we’re definitely um very much a card store but we’re also you know full TCG line um we sell a bunch of S7 action figures lots of Funko of course all kinds of supplies um we have a little Lounge where customers can sit down in the new space there’s a coffee bar some couches uh you know TVs basically I I built a place for people to come and loiter I want people to come hang out I don’t care if they buy anything or not as long as they’re nice and friendly we have people that will just come walk in hang have an espresso watch the game leave um you know it’s like like trade nights all that stuff we don’t ask for for them um the lifetime value of the customer is the um is the goal and that’s what really allows us to focus on the ultimate customer experience because I’m not training my staff to try to sell you everything the minute you walk in the door I’m trying to have them educate you and only provide to you sort of things you need for that fulfillment in that moment as opposed to like you can’t get everything all at once overload you know everything in moderation is good that goes for you know for anything so really you come in and that’s it it’s just very welcoming very very welcoming awesome that and you know I would love to walk into a place where I could I could maybe buy some cards buy some packs and then go sit down on a comfortable couch you know say someone says hey hey Jeremy you you want a coffee you want you want a Coke what do you you know something you want a bottle of water sit down not feeling Rush to leave like you know where they actually want to hang out and maybe they’re busy maybe there’s some magazines to look at whatever it might you know TV screens like to me that is the ultimate customer experience and you know I was goingon to ask you is there comfort you have Beverages and TVs and then I joke yeah we have some and Wi-Fi I joke around um I tell uh the mums soon there’ll be a prco little mini Pros like when they’re on a when they’re on a plane but yeah we um we we really you know we really try to really create that experience and um we do have a lot of regulars a lot of customers that you know it’s like cheers and uh yeah they’ll come in and sure you know um Adam and Freddy are making espressos all day long it’s Woodbridge we’re a bunch of Italians we have a great big fancy coffee I know Aon told you the story about the Italians that brought him in the face man we’re pretty stereotypical loud and you know look my hands are every time you get me going on something I’m about my hands start going but yeah we um I had a customer come to us from somewhere else and and a very big customer and he and that’s what he said I said to him one day whatever made you come here um and he said after my second visit your guys knew who I was and they were making me coffees H that’s see that’s the best that’s how you I think that’s how you build the loyal customer and someone who just wants to come hang out when they need those supplies or they need that new box of product they’re going to come to you because you give them a place where they feel welome welc at at home just like cheers it’s it’s crazy just how effective that strategy can be th% it is just Community Building sort of 101 I mean I hate to say it like that but it I mean really that’s what it is you’re right yeah and I Ed the word strategy which almost makes it sound less authentic but I think it is authentic I think with you it is again you’re fulfilling your your childhood dream of opening up this awesome store for friends customers and while there is a business angle for having that open door policy and come hang out it’s also allows you to surround yourself with people that you want to be surrounded with at a at a you know for more than come in and out for five minutes sort of thing it’s awesome and and the friends that have been made through the community I see that the flourish it’s it’s awesome like you’re you’re 100% right and and you’re right you say strategy it’s like I said I mean as cliche as it sounds but it’s community building 101 like it’s it’s often times in business it’s the simplest things that just people can’t it’s almost if it seems too easy then it can’t be the right way but what do they say work um smarter not harder yeah exactly let’s say hello to yetz has joined us in the chat what’s up yets good to see you Mark says sounds like a nice place let’s go Jordan says you should open one in the states stay tuned you never know stay tuned I sleep much stay tuned stay tuned lgj stay tuned Kung Fury heard about the new store Johnny can’t wait to visit I’m I’m looking forward to check one out too Joe sakic 19 funny enough myy player whose card got you started in the hobby this is Alex what’s going on Alex howdy great to see you pal all right so I wanted to I wanted to kind of talk I want stick on the topic of of mint ink here Johnny but you you do more like you talk about community building but you’ve got some real uh you have some interests that I think Elevate you past what a lot of people are doing uh got having to do with mental health charity work self growth which is different but still related why don’t you tell us about the charity work that you do and how it ties into mental health which is obviously you know very important and something that is on a lot of people’s minds lately I will I’ll also tell your viewers I I’m chewing the Altoids so that I don’t talk when Jeremy talks it’s every time this is if you follow me in my career I take every I’ve been on TV shows radio shows Po and remember I told you don’t worry I got a whole ready before before we have you said you were GNA give away a blaster of extended the first person could tell you so we had some guesses come through and then I’ll tell you the win here we go so LinkedIn Thomas was first with Messier Laura said Messier Luigi I love Luigi’s made me laugh ALR wasn’t even in the league and never played for the Oilers uh Carvin chunk said Dave Sano no and John Lam said Lee fogan Lee fogan Baby Let’s Go Johnny there we have it send Jeremy a DM and I’ll send you a blaster on Wednesday when they come out all right John send me Messier everybody says Messier of course right Gretzky he was a rookie also no way he could be the captain here’s I’m just putting this up on on the ticker right now where you can reach me on Instagram on X or the the sports cards live website you can actually email me through that website too John uh and anyone who and same with you mark who won the box of extended earlier tonight send us those and uh I’ll forward them to Johnny and send send me an email with your address Johnny will send you out uh the prize congrats to John lampris on that one a ton of fun Justin bod welcome to the show good to see you buddy good to see you okay so Johnny tell us about the mental health the charity work that you’re doing at mink and why and why why is this important to you yeah so so so like most people um you know mental health has been prevalent uh whether it’s myself or you know around me my whole life and some way shape or form or another we all deal with it in different capacities of our life and we’re all going to deal with it in different capacities of of our life so um you know through the years having you know experienced you know my own issues or or my family issues was always open um about um you know seeking the right the right help and and you know over the years I’ve done some great therapy and tried to self-growth and I’ve I’ve had to start over a couple of times you know just like um you usually learn the hard way that you got to check your ego or you know there was a once upon a time in my life where all of the um the noise used to get to me now it doesn’t bother me at all so Through The Years um it was always just something that was very important to me when I used to cover I told you um when I own the media company we used to I used to donate a lot of space and a lot of editorial uh promotional resources into showcasing a lot of Charities hospice vau um was one that was very close to me we we now have a residential uh you know place here that I’m happy to say that uh you know I had I was a part of Once Upon a Time um and through that I segued in the mid 2000s really um we had some some family experiences and through some contacts that I was very grateful to have we were you know able to get some help with the great through the great people at camh which which was very beneficial for the people that we needed um you know to get there so so through that I just you know um I made it a fiduciary responsibility of mine in sort of whatever I did to do that so couple weeks before um the pandemic hit I I think I mentioned earlier I just opened up a big brand new office it’s it’s a little bit whatever so open up a big great big brand new office and we have 120 people there in the middle of a snowstorm and we make a big commitment to the local hospital was just being built here in vaugh um for $100,000 for mental health uh at the hospital pandemic hits we lose everything got to start over oh my God like all in oh my God like literally another day another story for another day and um so fast forward a couple years finally you know we get going and you talk about the passion and men think and we’ve grown substantially um it’s been a fun ride for the last four years but we just it’s just um you know as cliche as it sounds all back in like we’re on a mission I’m on a personal mission and my team really buys into the whole experience and that’s to you know really carry the momentum so as part of that giving back and going all in and just making the the experience which can’t happen overnight was to you know pick up this commitment so I reached back out to my old contacts and I said hey great news we’re gonna make this commitment you’re going to give me the next five years and hopefully we raise a whole bunch more than just 100,000 so we started last year uh as you know I think um if you don’t know we host the official trade night um and Afterparty at the Expo so if you remember we took that experience your first experience and we turn so the last one here on Saturday night um we had like 600 people there it was amazing DJ giveaways we have great sponsors upper deck and cgc and all kinds of great people of course steveen and and Mikey and the team there so um between the the trade night events and we have a golf tournament we run once a year um we did a holiday market we’ve continued to Now sort of raise money for mental heal so so to date I actually have to hook up with them again next week from our last couple of events I think I have almost seven or eight thousand for them um and our golf tournament is happening Calvin Woods September 17th Shameless plug sponsorships are sold if you’re local and you want to golf hit us up there’s some spots left ton of fun um and I think this year we should net and raise uh you know all net proceeds um go to the charity um uh we should raise about 10,000 for them I’m hoping this year and then I’m hoping trade night another 15 ultimately um I would love for the commitment to grow at the same Pace as my think so if 100,000 turns into 101,000 or 250,000 we won’t stop at 100 we’re um extremely committed to the cause nice well I think that’s great nice nice to hear that you know you guys are giving back but you’re also representing the sports card hobby when you’re giving back so you know I I want to just thank you on behalf of of myself and I I would love to say on behalf of the hobby I don’t know if I can but uh maybe I will the hobby that’s really I think that’s very generous and and uh really up upstanding so that’s I I have a therapist I see every two weeks and you know what it’s it’s from a business point of view and from just a personal growth point of view it’s the best hour of of two one or two I try to go every two weeks sometimes it’s once a month and it’s like um maintenance for a car I have no shame people shouldn’t have shame it’s one of those things like and it’s at whatever capacity you’re in so yeah big big big time um Big Time important but yeah if you can like check the ego and and get there and it could be just like once sometimes you know I’ll leave at this I don’t want to go on about it too much but um it’s like you pay somebody to listen to your talk about your problems or what’s on your mind they’re never going to tell anybody about it their opinion matters not almost if you will so it’s it’s um it’s cognitively speaking it’s it’s very beneficial really especially when you’re in the line of work like I am where it’s 7247 it really just kind of resets me you know really kind of just brings me back if you will and I take a deep breath and like we’ll do it again nice good for you let’s talk about let’s talk about your staff you’re managing people here you’ve got multiple locations multiple departments tell us a little bit about the experiences you’ve had finding uh good staff for your card shops oh man so in business um people are the biggest challenge whether they’re customers or employees or vendors suppliers um the array of person personalities and and isms that you have to kind of deal with um and then you know different people from different walks of life and experience so you know the best advice I ever got um in business from from a mentor was um higher slow and Fire fast and nobody wants to hear that but it is what it is it’s like a relationship you know if it’s not going to work it’s not going to work or you know um you can’t run a successful business finding jobs for people you need to find people for jobs so my business says these are the jobs these are the requirements these are the kbis how we keep you accountable I need to find a person that fits that it’s not Jeremy’s a nice guy what can he do around here that never works out you know um so it’s been a grind I’m very very very lucky um I have a great group of Partners uh around 2021 halfway through 2021 some very close family friends of mine uh uh you know Mentor um uh Freddy uh Freddy’s dad is a as a mentor mine and Freddy who’s who many you know is my my operating partner um I needed some help uh on the ground level I needed somebody to really help me kind of take it you know and somebody that I could trust whatever so um we did a great deal they came in as as partner and it started from there with with Freddy kind of really now ha helping me um you know get there and I got really lucky with my first couple of hires Maz who’s our grading manager now was one of my very first customers he’ll tell you stories about coming in in the middle of lockdown the Mas on buying a Stadium Club box and hitting a lall at a 10 Auto when lob was the the the the shiz you know so um and then Adam who’s our store manager and now you know fast forward a bunch of years helps me with a whole bunch of other stuff he was like um my first online order a Chronicles hanger and uh you know so I got really lucky there and then from there they’re all still here today um we’ve had a whole not a I shouldn’t say that we haven’t had a whole bunch we’ve had several people kind of come and go as we grow but I’ve been really fortunate you know in business it’s kind of just the way it works you know you go one person five persons three persons eight persons five persons 12 persons 10 persons and so on and so on and you find the core and sometimes you know when the tree grows um things change and you know there’s limits there’s also things like um you know people don’t leave necessarily just because they weren’t the right employee or they got fired sometimes people are to cap and it’s up to a good employer or a leader and an employee and as a human being to recognize where if you think there’s you know more potential um at that place in your cap that’s where you you know you can sort of go on and and do your thing so we’ve been really fortunate um to have that and then in the last year or so um my wife Kathy um has really come come on in our our bunch of our marketing team and Freddy’s little brother and Carlos our shipping manager is your contest winners would never get their stuff if wasn’t for Carlos this guy like we could talk about the ultimate experience and that’s a big part of it like our shipping Department our Commerce Department you know bats as close to a thousand as I could probably ex you know hope wish for um yeah so um really lucky really lucky there and now we have a good group that I feel like we can really up I have people that can manage people right on we have speaking of shipping the professor asks a question he says for those of us in the US that are looking for a virtual Canadian LCS relationship does mint Inc fit the bill Sports guard Professor absolutely um if uh I my guys are live in the room beside me right now I’m pretty sure they’re probably on uh Instagram Tik Tok and whatnot if I’m not mistaken uh online we sell all kinds into the states we have a great VIP service we can do all kinds of stuff for you we Vault we’re fully insured um millions of dollars uh available for customer stuff some people like yourself might only want a shipment once a month we have a whole bunch of great we I come from the relationship world the the the key to the ultimate customer experience is we took a traditionally transactional based business and we made it about relationships and people that’s that’s the secret recipe for anyone listening that’s in this business stop thinking about selling the next box of sleeves uh or the next box and just think a little bit bigger picture or try to get yourself off the hamster wheel for just long enough to see um that you know that that’s what it’s about so yeah absolutely we we we do that the only thing I can’t sell you is brand new Upper Deck product we’re we’re we’re not allowed to ship that into the states but other than that we definitely got you send me a personal DMO make sure you’re looked after now you mentioned brand new Upper Deck products were you were you just awarded by ack the air status and tell us what J again yeah that’s a huge one we work so hard like my team day in and day out like we grinded so hard for that like upper deck is um amazing in the sense of how they really are sort of Guardians of of hobby shop so um they really want to make sure that people still have the ability remember this is a 125 year old industry so there’s been lots of Peaks and valleys across time um but we have to you know there has to be certain fundamentals and certain things that I feel for sure that we you know should really stick with and I really believe in a lot of that you know philosophy that that Jason and Mike Phillips and the team really really puts out there um at Upper Deck so uh just this past well what are we June 22nd a month ago um I was invited to uh you know uh hey come into the office and um had a conversation week later signed a contract and now we’re an oper so for people that don’t know Air store because a lot of people are like um you know some they think you’re flying or something it stands for authorized internet retailer so if if you can actually if you don’t mind take a minute or two I’ll explain this because it really confuses some people so Upper Deck um being the the the the the kind of Guardians of the culture uh that they are they have two different programs their first program is called the CDD program certified diamond dealer and it’s it’s what they give to hobby shops and allow them to uh be able to buy their product from from Distributors you have to meet all kinds of criteria like right down to like accessibility and things like lighting and and the way the store is um how many days a week you’re open the hours you’re open all kinds of that stuff once you become a CDD there’s another set of rules and the main rule is you’re only allowed to sell the product in your hobby store um you’re not allowed to advertise um pricing of new product online you’re not allowed to break new product if you come into the break room it’s like you know you you have to phone in or I have to speak with you send you an invoice so there’s a lot of interaction I can sell you new Upper Deck as a CDD I just can’t advertise the price and you can’t buy it online you have to come in my store and buy it or we have to old school have a have a conversation hey Jeremy I can get you a couple boxes now you can appreciate in the world of convenience value ease that can be a pain in the butt I just want to click can buy um there’s under 30 stores in North America that have the ability um authorized there’s obviously other people that sell the stuff where they get it is is you know secondary um there’s under 30 stores in North America that are allowed to sell um Upper Deck product on release online and advertise so now we’re we’re able to sell new releases online we’re able to sell pre-orders online we’re able to sell on eBay um the guys Adam and Chad in the room beside me I I just heard them ripping a half a case of Trilogy for something and now the person can come in and they can say oh Trilogy it’s $1.99 a box before they would have to say hey um you know send us a DM and we’ll tell you how much the price is we weren’t allowed to publicly advertise it so um a couple of things it does is is obviously it’s it’s you know call it what it is it’s it’s a it’s a big deal and it’s um you know I look at it as a reward for excellence um it is not easy to provide the ultimate customer experience my guys work hard I am not always the fun guy you’re seeing here on Saturday night with Jeremy I can actually be such a difficult person very difficult um I just want to win I I don’t do this for the money I really don’t I my wife and I have a great life unfortunately we were never able to have kids um some of the silver lining of that is a obviously I get to be a she calls me I’m I think I’m 17 now she tells me um but the silver lining of that is we live a much different you know um you know uh lifestyle Jeremy’s got two small children if one of them wakes up now and says he’s out Jeremy’s got to leave the show um you know so from that context it allows me to run my business differently in in that sort of of Nature and I can be um I call myself extra sometimes and it’s really just like I you know for for not to be cliche but that Mamba mentality like I just want to win I want to be the best I want us to be the best um and whatever that takes you know I have two speeds Jeremy now and right now that’s what they tell me that’s hilarious oh man you’re you are you know I don’t want to say you’re fortunate that you have all this time because you don’t have kids but it does allow you to focus on the business a lot more we have two dogs that are everything to us and they take so they run my life I live eight minutes from here so that’s I could literally leave go let take the dogs out and be back here and you guys might not even know I was gone so there’s we we we we’ve we’re in a great position where we’ve been able to build our life around us the people that are with us where we are who we are what we do the way we want it and it is man it’s I promise and I won’t swear but it’s the most glor and EV thing you can ever imagine to to everything you read all those memes to actually get there now listen what comes with that is I was here two hours before the show because I had a leak in my warehouse so there’s give and take and pros and cons to everything but but I’m happy for sure all right let’s let’s switch it up I want to hear a bit of your insights into sort of uh Trends and what are you really seeing in the hobby right now from your perspective as an LCS owner just trend-wise in the hobby what comes to mind okay so um I mean events are really really really really popular right now so you’re seeing um are we do trade nights um last Friday of every month they’re packed uh we run um every time the local um school region has a PA day or a PD day we run H free kid collector days excuse me they’re packed the parents love it um the trade nights we do at Expo we show up to all the little um little card shows you know these whether it’s 30 tables or 50 tables in the in the gymnasium or the legion hall or the convention center I really see a lot of people out there and wanting to interact and touch and feel and be there and not just have the virtual experience but and I really believe that you know um if I’m Fanatics so to speak the the the physical experience can never go away in fact it has to continue to thrive and Thrive more than ever to really drive the direct to Consumer if I go out and I have a great day on a Friday night a trade night or I get to go have an espresso and hang out and you know chill when I go home and I want to go buy that messy collection or I get served up and AD I’m way more sort of you know inclined to that so I think events are a really big big Trend um TCG like that’s not a trend I mean for us it’s it’s becoming a very big one because we’re really sort of now I’m committed to bringing a lot of the minting experience into that world as well um and then singles like I’m really seeing a lot of people collecting again um and we have both businesses our live stream is although I’ve scaled it back a little bit because we’re going to relaunch next quarter stay tuned for some awesome programming lots of fun stuff um I run a we run a live experience brick-and mortar LCS business and we run a like um a live you know I call it live shopping breaks it’s a live shopping experience um and both I see that the the I I see the trend for for singles and I’m not talking about mystery packs I mean actually people our biggest show of the week Jeremy Monday nights I run auctions on Instagram and we’ll get a 100 plus people and it’s it’s just a blast so I would say those couple of things for sure I wna I want to focus on Singles for a second because when I think about the ultimate customer experience the ultimate hobby experience at an LCS actually the Ultimate hobbiest Experience for me is going into a card show that to me is the ultimate hobby experience because I can walk the aisles and look at Singles now translate that over to to an LCS I go into a card shop I judge I personally judge a card store never mind the the cleanliness the organization and the professionalism but just from an inventory standpoint my I judge it based on the selection of singles in the showcases the amount of showcases the number of cards I can look at and just buy the you’re right yeah that to me is is really important so my I guess a question for you is if I walk into a mint one of the mtin locations am I gonna be impressed by the amount of singles that I’m going to be able to see and choose from so so I’m a I’m a collector I’m a real collector I’m a real hobbyist I will build a set of Goodwin Champions one night at home I will change O-rings on GI Jo’s another so I built this experience I’m going to say this and I hope it doesn’t sound grandiose but like it’s so good because it’s 40 years almost of me thinking of oh my God what would be the ultimate exper I want you to come in and never want to leave when the van best thing I see I’m outside on the phone a few weeks ago van rolls up the kid was out of the van before the car was even in park you know like that that makes me inside just feel first of all it’s a warm feeling but it’s it’s winning right Tom Brady is one of my favorite players not because I I was a New England Patriots fan because he was great um so you walk in and I I pride ourselves we pride ourselves Freddy um kind of really heads up the procurement and the singles um and this year we’ve really taken it to another level so I don’t know if youve and if you’ve seen our booth at the the sports card Expo uh HQ right now so we have a cool system um when you come into the the store we have um two row shoe boxes they’re to $30 cards then we have the beautiful bcw two roll graded um bins and they’re $ 30 to $100 raw slabs all the same and then we have one two three four six six or seven I think for sure when it’s done six showcases they’re 100 to 500 all full and then if you click the Ebay link 500 and up we don’t keep any high value we had some issues over the over time unfortunate uh uh bad run of luck so from a liability point of view um we keep anything 500 up locked up vaulted away it’s all online it can be made available same day Ultimate Experience can’t have you wait for your Kobe Auto I’ll I’ll I live eight minutes away you want to buy Kobe Autos I’ll meet you any day um so so we have this four tiered system um there’s a 100 two rows I think there’s 100 white boxes now I think I just sent an email to the guys because we just did another big uh you know inventory push there’s 100 here there’s 10 gray bins seven showcases and there’s probably you know another couple hundred listings on eBay so again yeah you’re 100% right I I can have a huge wall of wax and we do um but the singles the time the energy the love the passion that goes into all that sorting and bagging and tagging we kill that at Min thing that is especially now Monday night we have featured auctions with um with eBay you’ll see a lot of inventory up there so we’re buying all the time every day we have actually um kind of like Burbank we have a few days of the month where we actually take appointments and there’s great big lineups so yeah you’re you’re hit the nail on the head and we’re very committed my um Davenport store is literally a fifth the size you know you go from 3,000 feet to 600 and there’s still two slab walls there’s 30 $6 boxes and you know another four or five gray bin so to scale very much so nice great to hear let’s go to some comments here so professor says uh can we buy into Upper Deck breaks that you do even though you cannot sell new products for a year y yeah breaks are okay good let’s keep on let’s keep rolling uh Mark belmonti says I can attest to everything John just said but one of the best guys you will ever meet let’s go can I take a screenshot that don’t don’t delete that wait I got to take a screenshot of this one marks are really good guy he’s family and he I don’t think I’ve known Mark for 30 years that’s the first compliment he’s ever given me so thanks Mark I love you man and Milkman stacker don’t even worry about it I figured it was something like that professor says did your upper deck status Johnny allow you to attend the recent Upper Deck dealers meetings in La the so so the the CDD status allowed for that the air store status is just something different so yeah I was at the conference la la and you know what it was awesome it was such a really good I got to to to have a with Bill Walton I had no idea he was even sick but thinking you know after I saw that news it was pretty cool to say like you know I was chatting with him just a few months ago very nice and we had a question here uh Jake doll do you have a website we can buy from and I just gonna put that right on there it is guys Min in.ca very simple it’s the same name he just made me realize that we should put a button on the see I’m working I’m literally sending myself something to do when we’re done Johnny you don’t have I when I first looked I tried mink.com no no Min in.ca yeah Min in.ca mink.com I’m gonna get it it’s they’re trying to hold me hostage somebody owns it in the states and they think it’s worth more than it’s worth I’ll get it all right he’ll get it there you go guys Min in.ca uh to find that Colin Murray says can you buy some 1965 Topps Commons I I know Colin Murray has a lot of hockey cards uh in his inventory I guess you guys you guys can talk at the Expo or sooner yeah send me a DM Johnny a cards on Instagram or if you DM them in think account and just tell them you want me to see the message I’ll make sure I get it or you can just em me you guys you’re in the same geography I’ll let you guys get together okay let’s let’s switch it up again you I see you doing some work I believe with Coach Co good friend of mine Brendan he has a great a a great social media presence coach go you’re also working with the youngster Greggy boy so tell us tell us a little bit and I I know both these guys gregy boy has come to my networking event at the Expo Brendan has been on my show uh you know we’ve sat on panels several times together him and I and gregy boy is one of these young guys who’s up and coming in the hobby as an ambassador I think he’s working with the national this year in Cleveland but tell us a bit about your experience working with both Brendan who is Coach Co and uh and gregy boy and what it is that you uh why you see value in working with these guys yeah yeah yeah for sure so um big shout out to both of them both you know absolute Rock Solid human beings Brandon’s a great guy and the kid has got such a bright future gregy so basically um the coach and gregy are actually both um I’m gonna sorry National but they were Min ink ambassadors before they were National ambassadors okay no the coach wasn’t but Greggy was um so so um they’re both part of the minting family they’re both um you know ambassadors have been think I really value what they do um and uh and you know I saw a great opportunity to work with them and uh thankfully vice versa so so basically that you know in a nutshell that’s kind of what it is they both sort of really represent the band they’re really big cheerleaders of ours they come to all our events um we shoot some real fun content um greggy’s family and you know watching him really flourish the last few years in the space you can really see you know that he’s fueled by Passion also he was here the other day shooting a video uh in my studio we we help him with some stuff it was great him and Mike his dad were here Mike’s a very close friend of mine and when he was done the shoot he came out and he said Johnny that was a long shoot he said do you think I could have I have my private fridges in there he says you think I could have a cliff bar some almonds and a water I said sure thinking in my head he’s already been in the fridge right said sure gregy no problem I said the but the regular water is in the other fridge and he says so no no no the per is good so it was just he’s a great kid um the both of them exude uh a very special passion for the Hobby and for me when I’m looking at um you know the influencers I want to um you know hire support collab with uh I want to make sure that they are sharing the same values um as myself and as men think that’s very important to me we need strategic Partners to grow but we can’t do that without um you know the right people yeah for sure for sure uh very quick Matthew Wht welcome to the show says love Min love minting Johnny and the boys are our amazing Min in to the Moon thank you Matthew welcome again to the show so you mentioned the national just now uh you’re going what are when you and I want you to like Enlighten myself and the audience here when an LCS owner when a card shop owner from Canada goes across the border to the National in Chicago or this year Cleveland what what sort of goals do you have when you go to this show are you going to buy inventory are you going to network are you going what do what are your goals of attending the national as a Canadian card shop owner okay so quite a few but um I’ll give you a couple main ones so so first and foremost um we go um for the opportunities that present themselves when you know the whole industry is in is in one roof so there’s always some really good networking um opportunities there’s some great business opportunities try to line up a few meetings um so first and foremost uh we we you know we kind of got to make sure all of the business interests of of mink are sort of satisfied and then from there it turns into um you know first the one of the greatest things of getting so many people that are like-minded into the same places we get to meet so many um people that we we talk to on social media or in the chat room room and all this stuff and you know people know maybe me because I’m on camera and I talk to a thousand different people and I get to meet them I have a I’m a huge Eminem fan and I have a Slim Shady sweater and on the front it’s got a like hello my name is and and I feel like at a national we should have like hello my name is in like Instagram tags like you should wear a special badge if you’re part of the this community um so so really cool um you know definitely meet and greet there’s a whole bunch of our friends in the minting community that are sort of going and then the last thing is I mean yeah we do a lot of buying um you know we want to get the lineup out of the way at the Panini get rid of the redemptions get the white boxes but last year we like we filled the truck up and it’s you know for for those of you traveling um you know we’re a business so I fill out the paperwork I pay my tax it’s tax it’s HST I get it back and I go on if you don’t you crossing the border I know a lot of people like whether you’re you know tell them at all or not like get your car off it can be a little bit of a you know and even going we were ask a whole bunch of questions because we did bring a a briefcase with us luckily the Customs guy was a collector like how do I get so lucky so it was great it took about an hour to whatever to deal with that but um the deals I can get wax deals we buy like I’m looking for hockey and soccer like it’s again it’s cliche but it is what it is there’s great deals on hockey and soccer um and uh and the best part about it is like the fact that like you said it earlier it’s the I enjoy going as Johnny The Collector not the mink guy like everything you can think of is there um and this year I’m on a mission I’m getting a I’m either going to rip every single box of 1990 Pro Set or I’m buying a Stanley Cup hologram I’ve been out bit on slab sharks SL like last three three ones um I want one and I want or I’m going to start buying bgs ones in krack them I’m obsessed with that c so now now you mention now you mentioned bgs that’s something I wanted to talk to you about too was just your thoughts on the state of grading and my notes say PSA versus bgs but that comes out of our earlier discussion this week but tell us a little bit about your thoughts on you know the state of grading and uh maybe the rise of PSA over the past several years and and the uh I don’t want to use a descriptor here but what’s happened really the to the Becket brand over the last little while I mean I I don’t think you’re you’re using anything you’re just you know you’re just calling it what it is speaking the truth so um okay so so the gem if you follow um gem rate if you you know you look at the data the data speaks for itself first and foremost we’re grading one to two million cards a month so from a macro I’m very happy because we’re grading 20 30 million cards a year that that means space is healthy and as as long as I see the eror going up even if it’s just 1% some months I’m happy if it’s zero even you can’t always have winners as long as we don’t have losers um it’s very healthy competition is great so when I see PSA Becket SGC tag cgc and I see all these you know um those sort of main five if you will and then you see some of the the the people I mean I love being a Trailblazer or an an innovator and you know people say oh it’s too late there’s all always somebody it was it was it was you know Netflix was never going to work and Uber was never going to work and so um people just don’t like change but if you can’t disrupt industry and create change well you’re not for me anyway but yeah that’s what happened so I think that to your point PSA has exploded but I mean they’ve always sort of been there um I think people don’t know how long sgc’s been around and their footprint into the Vintage world so their growth is actually under Peter has been tremendous the last uh you know half a decade um cgc in the TCG that’s such a hard one is is insane 160,000 cars like they you know and then Becket it’s got like they’re down to a 4% market share so I mean business if I if I take an unbiased I try not to make decisions based on emotion I’m an emotional guy he saw me like a weld up a little bit earlier so um I trained myself really much um you make decisions in life and in business based on emotion you usually end up on the wrong side of the decision if you make it based off of the data and the facts sometimes it’s really tough and people don’t like it um but usually that’s the move um they’re down to a 4% market share so I feel like how can their value sustain or how can you question the fact that it’s going down it’s just it’s just like um um relative if you will to the fact that they have a 4% market share maybe it’s a good time to buy Becket slabs for other reasons not to resell them in the sense but well it’s like that star 101 Jordan that we saw we we we heard about the private sale the alleged private sale of the PSA 9 that sold for $900,000 and then just the other night on the pwcc premier auction last just On th what two nights ago on Thursday we saw the bgs 9 sell for $132,000 so 900 and I I I think I’m getting this right 900,000 for a PSA 9 132,000 for a bgs 9 when I hear that I think number one the premium on the PSA is completely just it’s ridiculous at this point but but number two if it is what it is so opportunity on some of these bgs slabbed cards potentially you’re getting the same card you’re just getting a different it’s just in different packaging and a and a different type of L label at the top but you know the you’re you’re saving yourself what $770,000 to buy the card in the B and the bgs slab still has the name Becket which in my personal opinion is the most prestigious name in The Hobby so so I’ll tell you um I started you said it earlier 2018 started cting up in the summer of 2019 I started listening that’s when Jeff Wilson launched his podcast and right around that time or shortly after Dr James Becka and if you haven’t listened to his podcast I did the first like hundreds of episodes they’re awesome because they’re like got my attention span is limited and and he was like they’re short episodes he’s very knowledgeable they were King of the castle um GM was the biggest uh employer and the biggest company in the planet once upon a time and then they were almost bankrupt not too too long later um James Becket sold the company the new since the new ownership has been there they have a 4% market share uh I’m going to preface that by saying I don’t know anybody at Becket we don’t do business with Becket and I really don’t buy Becka so I’m not giving you any opinion based off of my experience with Becka or my my you know love or hate for Becka I’m giving you my opinion just based off of a 4% market share and the data that I see and I think you’re right yeah yeah okay no I was just curious what your thoughts were especially from the LCS perspective uh the next sort of random topic I have for you and I’ve seen more and more there’s been content on this for years now but I’m seeing it pick up right now it feels like cards as Investments I wonder what how do you feel because there’s a contingent of of hobbyists that say they’re not Investments they don’t they don’t pay dividends you can’t collect rent from your cards although maybe you could loan them to a museum and charge I don’t know that just you know far-fetched but you know a lot of people say they are Investments and then there’s some people who say that they are or can be Investments and to and what I say is it’s up to the it’s up to the person buying it if it’s an investment to them then no one else can say it isn’t and if it isn’t no one else can say it is it’s really up to the buyer to categorize it as an investment or purely an expense so where do you fall on that Johnny okay so um I know some people okay I know some people I guess I’m in the same business but I’m in the business of of I’m in and out every day so my business is I have 16 17 people that have to get a paycheck every two weeks there’s no shame people in taking profits my business is to move in and out of stuff as fast as possible personally do I have some stuff absolutely I buy for people and I buy for myself and I don’t have to tell you how much money I spend it’s not tens of thousands it’s hundreds um so again I consume a lot of data the data doesn’t lie I can tell you I know a lot of people that were call it what you want smart enough to pick up a guy like Ant-Man a year ago and if you go find an index card ladder teap Peak Market Movers whatever and you go find an index and see what happened to Atman the last couple of months these guys are very very very happy I see we I’ve seen the up charges I’ve seen on grading because somebody went to a booth at the EXP and bought a 65 Mantle card for 800 bucks and it comes back in SGC 7 and they’re getting a call because they got a $500 up charge and they don’t care because their $800 just turned into 10,000 or there’s the person that you know and maybe it’s not the most fortunate situation but I’m a realist that comes in and says hey I have these two Austin Matthews rookies I got some bills to pay um and and when you’re when you have a a resource a Marketplace or a place that collects and provides data that says the Austin Matthews card is worth $2,000 and I’ll say okay well I’ll pay it’s awesome Matthews PSA 10 I’m not going to be that guy that pays 60 cents although I need to on a lot of stuff um if I’m paying 80 cents like I don’t have gold I’m looking for gold or diamonds like who am I um but but that’s about as liquid is you’re going to get if I fire sell a stock today I’m not getting full price if I w’t full price I got to wait unless it’s a super super hot stock um I have to put my sell or my buy at a place where the Market’s going to going to consume it so the other point is I don’t think people understand so first of all um before I I I tell you the why um you use the word hobbyist traditionalist it’s like I’m a huge Green Day fan huge huge huge Green Day fan I’ve seen them live six times I’m I’m old they started when I was 11 or 12 like Billy Joel’s a year or two older than me when they went from their first album or two to American Idiot they went complete Platinum mainstream so they sold out the industry they were an indie rock band and they went Global you know the Grateful Dead still has this cult-like following maybe they could have got way bigger than they were I think The Tragically Hip almost suffered from that same sort of thing if you will where they couldn’t just break out how about fish you mentioned you mentioned Grateful Dead Fish is oh so nobody knows the fish you know the fish I like you more and more every minute that so the if you don’t know the fish go look up the fish’s cover of gin and juice and you will be a fish fan so talk about a b fish by the way pH pH um wow Jeremy that’s that’s impressive I I uh that’s impressive I love music so that that’s a great example though they’re like they never sold out so the traditionalists the hobbyists have a hard time like any industry with change again this is 125y old industry there’s people out there that are third generation collectors again imagine imagine what’s in their attic what those people can’t fight though is in 2018 2019 the space was worth about 8 or 10 billion and today it’s worth like 40 or 50 billion and it’s going to be worth 70 or 80 billion before it decides to figure out what’s next for it when all those factors I mentioned before uh a Marketplace of data liquidity real cash um real taxes real governments and then all of this institutional money like you don’t just wake up and start grading companies that are successful without Capital when all of that is in there’s no going back so I think that I give this analogy to new collectors and especially High net worth individuals that find the space and kind of want to go at it a bit um chasing rookie cards is like chasing penny stocks um so if you’re opening new acts and you’re not doing it from a collector point of view and you’re doing it because you know whether it’s from gamification or an investment point of view whatever um there’s a lot of spec like Bowman is 15 16 year olds that don’t pop off for half a decade in some some aspects or I can buy Michael Jordan maybe not Michael Jordan anymore but know Michael Jordan rookies Wayne Gretzky rookies I can buy these goats I can buy not a manufactured one of one from 2020 of Tom Brady but a 2000 contenders rookie Auto um you know some of the stuff I mentioned earlier like a Bam’s rookie or a PMG the first 10 that are green from 97 and and and that stuff um matures like an ETF fund or like a Fortune 500 company and if you Peg it against a an index like a real estate or or even some of the the larger markets over the last 10 or 15 years like it’s the same graph so you know it’s like is Bitcoin an investment or an alternative asset it’s the same thing um you know I mean walk walk through uh a store like mine walk through AA mint you got local card shops investing Millions into inventory and infrastructure and experience and conglomerates investing tens of millions or hundreds of millions and you know what guys it’s not for everybody but it’s for a lot more people than It Isn’t So I think that the that’s the long answer for me the short answer is I think in some aspects absolutely and my backup is I mean I know how much money I bought a Pokemon collection a month and a half ago that you know was like I could have bought a truck yeah like and we might do that every day some weeks yeah so that the question was do you see sports cars as Investments and I appreciate you thinking it through and really going you know just giving us your uh the process that you go through when when you think about that question we had a couple comments that came in cardboard and plastic said cards are investments just a bad one some yeah like but lots some real estate Investments aren’t good either and I mean yeah so when I see a com like iar you that was cardboard and plastic I don’t think I know you maybe I do but people that have that sort of response I think I think to myself and you know this is just where my head goes I’m just being honest is is that basically you’re you maybe you’re just not good at it you know maybe because to be in order to be a successful investor into sports cards I think you have to have some Savvy and some foresight and that’s you want to learn how to do it and that that’s not something that everybody has and especially if if you see the hobby as like 2018 forward or your your horizon your your holding period is anywhere from a day to a month let’s say or even a six weeks or two months that yeah then I think they are bad Investments because you’re not honing in on the right cards you lack foresight and you probably are not Savvy enough to be a successful sports card investor but the fact of the matter is is that there are lots of people who have made a lot of money not in the Johnny not is not not in the infrastructure I mean just individual collectors individual just from what you just described is like any real estate broker any stock broker like if if you’re going to be a collector be a collector if you’re going to be an investor be an investor or enjoy both like um I can open a a a $200 or $2,000 bottle of wine or I could I hate to use the analogy go throw some roulette around and it might be great in the moment but it’s it’s done I’ll argue even the worst hobby box there’s something even if I just get to look at the stats on the back of the card after so um I think Jeremy what Jeremy just described is is 100% right if you’re if you’re looking at the market as an investor from that point of view you better um know what you’re doing you better have your data you better have your facts and like any investment you gotta have it’s no risk no reward you win some you lose some I just so you say you got to know your data and that I think is can I think the the the data the I’m more comfortable saying data the data dat dataor it can actually be the thing that stops you from being successful if you just follow you to for me I believe you have to you have to have that sort of intangible ability to to under you and it maybe it comes from years or Decades of experience of understanding how the Cycles work and I’m not talking about to time things I mean understanding that you know certain cards may be not be popular or important now but could be popular and important down the road and how do you how do you identify those cards who knew that pmgs would be all the rage here you know 30 years later 25 years later fun too there’s some fun in you know again like I have some friends that retire to stare at screens all day and day trade it’s the same thing you know you have to have some intuition you have to have some foresight and experience we can’t teach you asked me about people earlier and I I forgot to tell you one the most important factor is is you can’t teach two things number one the most important thing you can’t teach drive if people don’t have passion and drive forget it I I can teach you anything else I can’t teach you to want to learn you know what I mean like I can’t teach you to want to be great um and and the other thing is is um still sort of same thing with with uh you know with respect to passion and just sort of really um again like I said earlier like uh higher slow Fire fast but it’s it’s really important um you can’t teach experience that’s another really key thing we can only get better the key is if you make the same mistake over and over and over again then there’s a problem so that’s a just way to I look at that kind of stuff and you have to be able to take a loss here and there you know for the past for the past month on Tuesdays I’ve been dropping a a 20 minute video here on the channel where I go through the ended items on my eBay watch list just to share what I’m watching why I’m watching it maybe cards I got out bid on Etc well a card I just sold the card and I had it on my watch list as well because I wanted to share it but I just sold the card and I think I probably took the biggest loss I’ve taken on a card and I’m going to talk about it on the video that I will drop on Tuesday a little a little uh heads up on that for everybody but that that has started to watch those videos I’m putting out um you have to be able to take a loss here and there and if you do take a loss you know take that money and redeploy it into something else and listen my comments about cards as Investments does not undermine the fact that they are Collectibles to me like I I love being able to buy a card that I collect and I want to own and know in the back of my mind that it’s probably a good investment too yeah that said I buy Cards all the time Johnny that I know are not good Investments they are purely collection items for me but it comes back to what I’ve been saying on this channel for the four plus years I’ve doing the show if I’m spending significant money on a card I’m going to consider the investment potential of it because otherwise I’m hurting my family financially I was telling you we bought some some nice uh McDavid cards not long ago and and that was the the kind of idea there so yeah for sure a couple comments that came in here over the past 20 minutes or so Laura said how is the upgrade in PSA grading to be interpreted in Laura I don’t know what you mean by upgrade if you mean the premium given to the to PSA cards because we talked about the star 101 Jordan or if you’re talking about the the upcharge that they that they uh that they get from people for giving strong grades to valuable cards I’m not sure Laura what you mean but maybe clarify if you’d like Justin bod wants to know uh Johnny do you do business with PSA Canada my good friend Brad Hartland out ofad amazing um great East coaster my wife’s from the east coast East Coast are beautiful people um yeah so we’re an official uh PSA dealer um and we do uh deal with Brad and his team directly and we do uh do deals with a bunch of stuff directly to California as well again um it really depends on the on the card and the customer we actually submit weekly I don’t know that a lot of people do we have shipments flying out of here weekly lots of them right on ultim experience Mark santui says they are investments but you can’t sell cards to to to a place to pay a bill but Buy Low and sell High that’s maybe that’s easier said than none but I just want to point out Mark you also cannot take a stock certificate or a bond into into your local uh restaurant or utility and say here please pay my bill yeah you gotta cash it out the asset anyway yeah um but but I hear what you’re saying Mark still Paige says love the channel thank you Paige welcome to the show Yankees fan another great show hey thanks Yankees fan you’re probably appreciate you but if you’re still there uh glad you you tuned in Justin bod always enjoying the show I always enjoy having you Justin he goes on to say the good thing about cards as Investments is that you can buy something you can hold forever at the end of the day because you like it yeah the these are cards are better than investments in a lot of cases because you actually enjoy you you get utility over owning the cards if you if if you love the cards for sure utility for sure and Laura clarifies and says the upcharge so the question was how is the upcharge in PSA grading to be interpreted and Laura my understanding is they will they will upcharge you because well first of all I think they want a piece of of The Upside you are receiving they understand that their brand is recognized as having as as value so that you know if you if you pay them 20 bucks to grade a card but that but being in their slab causes the card to be worth $20,000 more they want a piece of that 20 grand the issue I have with it is cards are so volatile what if that 20 grand is worth eight grand by the time you go to sell it are they going to refund you like do they expect everyone to sell the cards right away that they are grading that’s where that’s the only issue I have with the up and the other thing my is my understanding is that the upcharge helps to fund the guarantee but maybe they should have insurance or do have insurance for that so I’m not sure but those are a couple of thoughts I have when it comes to to that comment Laura but thank you for clarifying uh Josh zwald greetings from Thailand en jooy the conversation Josh great to have you from Thailand welcome to the show thank you for being here rage says I love cards first but also try to buy right as in the right players right brand Etc in which hopefully they will pay for themselves later if not I had a blast collecting it for sure rage I love sorting cards he goes in on to say but if you have the right cards you can make a call sell said card and pay a bill wink wink yes you can I agree with that uh rage right on all right good good stuff everybody good stuff all right we are we’re gonna wind this down we’re coming up on Johnny believe it or not we’re almost at the two-hour Mark we have to I my last question my last topic for you Johnny how have you been received you are a gregarious guy you got a lot of energy man I see you at the Expo you’re like Jeremy a quick hand a quick Shake of the hand a bro hug you’re like I gotta go and then and then you’re off like you know like you are always you are you got lot going on dude I’m just curious how have you been received by the industry by The Hobby have you received any negative sort of uh responses at all so if I didn’t receive any negative responses I would be doing something wrong so it’s funny I have a some content we shoot in some podcasts that we just sort of recently sort of launching haven’t really advertise them too much because it’s a as you know a really tough commitment um so uh but I I joke around and I say you know please uh you know like And subscribe and leave all the constructive criticism you can in the comments um listen for the most part myself and mint in has been received phenomenally by people um I think people again I’m just going to answer your question honestly I’m not trying to sound grandiose um I think people see right away what we are and what we stand for and what we represent and of course the you know your reputation is everything and our reputation um you know really speaks for itself the word of mouth um you know the odd time I see a hateful comment the amount of like response from the community I don’t give it the time of day I mean like I literally stay in my you know they say um if you watch thorough breed horse racing if you you know why the horses have blinders on it’s because the the minute they see something in their peripheral race is over for that horse brain doesn’t work anymore so I try to treat things that same way like a thoroughbred horse I just stay but yeah we’ve had um two or three like actual you know issues um but same thing we handled it professionally properly I have a um unfortunately for for some people a lot of my friends personal friends are lawyers so I don’t I don’t get upset I don’t get excited I just send an email and say hey please I have thick skin I like you said I’m I’m out there I put myself out there I’m very authentic I say what I think I think what I say um but the minute you mess around with kind of like my people and the brand and my customers then it’s a you get a whole different version of me um in the sense of it’s my I got a my fiduciary duty besides to create this experience of the hobby that’s kind of the one I gave myself the real one I have is to make sure that I I make the payroll every two weeks so if you hate on me that’s one thing hate on the brand that’s another but I can honestly say like it’s really hard for me to sit here outside of one or two incidences that I won’t even go in um and even those incidences the cream Rises to the top the milk sours and only cream at Min think baby I love it very nice yeah that’s that’s good to hear but you know I kind of ended the question with the negative comment talk a bit about the positive responses that you’ve had from the industry so that’s been like I mean Air store status from upper deck and um you know we’re going to be involved with some stuff at the national like if you haven’t heard there’s going to be three trade nights look out for mink that’s absolutely flattering getting that call um and them wanting to work with us here and really just um a lot of people like some of the comments that came in below and then you know what’s really cool my favorite and we talked about the the the hobbyist so basically we built this amazing customer experience and sure the way we Market it you know if you’re a newbie in the space that’s how you find it right you see a Google ad or you’re on social F but by osmosis what’s happening now really the last year especially is all of the traditionalists all of the purists are finally now coming back and and opening up and saying okay wait a second maybe this isn’t so bad and this is a good place I can go hang out and they do have a great selection and oh my God I can actually stay here and spend five and hang out all day and um I really think that um that in itself is uh is just really again a testament to to what we do so I get all kinds of that you know um Google reviews and and all kinds so that that’s um that’s the most important part I mean Haters Gonna Hate I need to see the positive because that’s how I know that it’s working yeah it’s not just about how much uh you know the Shopify ticker says every day it’s so much more than that yeah well said Justin bod says uh much respect for Johnny thanks for coming on man apprciate that thanks to Jeremy for having me I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time very and thank you Justin two bald guys on a Saturday night one guy yeah you you guys thought it’s nice that you’re wearing a hat so we don’t just look like I had to have the logo and when I saw your frame I was like I I I actually did not want to wear the hat because now I’m gonna have a great big line but and I have a light shining on me that’s I’m not this tan either I was better your hat than two big bald helmet here on the screen for everybody to uh to look at so there you go thanks Mark s toie appreciate that very much yeah guys we are going to wrap it up here so want to thank everybody who has joined us tonight want to thank Leighton for coming on I want to thank Johnny for giving away two giveaways during the episode tonight a box of extended and a blaster of extended so uh to to both winners of that make sure you do email me and send me your your shipping address and I will for or just Reta out to Johnny directly to me directly I’ll confirm I’ll post you congrats in the Instagram and that stuff will go out Wednesday Thursday with all our pre-orders so you’re going to get it if you’re in can well you have uh technically giveaway you don’t have to be in Canada but you’ll get itth Friday or Monday yeah Reach Out toir Johnny with your address I’ll make sure he gets it and uh great I want to remind everybody this show sports cards live is available on Spotify apple or wherever you get your podcast follow subscribe for free please leave a rating a review on your podcast platform I greatly appreciate that hobby Champs better late than never welcome to the show and feel free to re feel free to restart it from the beginning page yes sports cards live I do lots of different shows I have to I do several different shows but Saturday night is the what I call the flagship show it is the interview show here we long form we go for two hours with different guest guests from all different areas of the hobby page glad you found us welcome to the community Laura says excellent sharing of time and knowledge as usual thank you gentlemen thank you Laura for showing up Robert Scott loves Johnny’s energy Professor always good to see you here Justin thank you so much Johnny final comments over to you and then this show will end just big shout out to you and your audience thank you so so much for for having me and uh I won’t even I don’t need to plug me think any more than you already did um if I don’t know you I hope I meet you one day otherwise like I said uh just we just keep it going keep it going we need more people doing what you’re doing just as you said you need you know what I’m doing but um just keep up the good uh keep up the good work and yeah thanks so much for having me uh I can’t wait to have you here physically in uh I guess November when you’re back in town for the Expo we will definitely make the trip I look forward to getting to the store Johnny we’ll see you in Cleveland yes sir in about a month to I think I fly in a month today that’s great rage reminds everybody the like button cost you nothing folks thank you rage appreciate that feel free to hit the like guys if you have not yet subscribed please do grateful for everyone being here thank you all so much for your ongoing loyal viewership listenership love you all thank you so much tomorrow night pwcc hockey auction ending watch party and Monday night in addition to game seven we’ll also have the MC Mondays showcase auction live here on the channel we’ll be watching those auctions countdown on eBay Johnny thank you so much you hold tight right there for a moment everybody else thanks again happy Saturday have a great rest of the weekend we’ll see you all back here for another episode next Saturday with Mike lusta he’s a Golf Card Collector and the host of the fondling cardboard podcast and with that everybody this episode of sports cards life for June the 22nd 2024 featuring Johnny amandola of mint Inc is now over
1 Comment
So what is the future of sports cards i dont have time to watch if it even tells