Stacking Slabs

What happens when your team’s playoff run puts the cards you want beyond your budget? Katelyn and Mark open Season 6, Episode 1 with a conversation about the WNBA Finals and what winning means for collectors. They discuss Angel Reese, Gabby Williams, and the tension between cheering for your team and watching card prices climb. Katelyn shares how she found a 2023 Origins Napheesa Collier Black 1/1...

What makes you return to a card shop, open someone’s stream, or trust them with your collection? This week, I’m recording solo and reflecting on twelve conversations from Passion to Profession. From Grant Slayton helping me find my Andrew Luck 1/1 to Collins Boyce welcoming collectors who aren’t buying, I look at the work that earns another visit. I also share how these lessons shape my decisions...

What happens when customers want to buy from you, but growing the business means letting someone else earn their trust? In this episode of Hobby Jobs, I explore that question through my conversation with Josh O’Daniel of Odeezy Sports Cards. We talk about handing off responsibilities, helping employees build relationships, and teaching the standards customers count on without asking people to copy...

The card you’ve been waiting for hits the market. Do you buy it, or does seeing more copies for sale make you question your collection? Adam and Ryan answer listener questions about wrestling cards, patience, and where they’re putting their collecting dollars. They discuss the supply arriving through Panini redemption fulfillment, what draws them to Flawless, and why 2019 Topps Transcendent and 20...

You spend months looking for a card. You make the deal. Then you open your saved searches and start looking for another. When do you take time to enjoy what you’ve built? Pack and Brett  discuss the research, negotiations, and relationships that keep collectors buying and selling. Brett shares how spending 10–15 minutes with his cards has helped him appreciate his collection. Pack explains how vie...

The friendships you build through cards can change how you collect. Katelyn welcomes Mark (mjs_sportscards) as her cohost for Season 6 of The WNBA Card Podcast. A history professor and Atlanta Dream fan, Mark shares why Allisha Gray anchors his collection and how collecting Pinnacle, Fleer Ultra, and Rittenhouse has helped him learn about the players who built the league. They introduce their plan...

Why do we spend so much time debating cards that most of us will never buy? In this episode, Brett explores what happens after an auction ends. Why we judge the buyer. Why we want the price to validate our collections. And why one sale gets treated as a verdict on the hobby. He separates the transaction, the signal, and the spectacle to help collectors understand what a sale tells us and where the...

To close Season 5 of the WNBA Card Podcast, I interview Katelyn (@coldlunchcards) about her Minnesota Lynx fandom and the collection it has inspired. We talk about finding community after moving to Minnesota, Maya Moore’s place in Lynx history, and why Napheesa Collier’s values matter to Katelyn’s collecting. She shares her goal of building a six-card Collier collection and the story behind her 20...

What brings you back to a breaker when you don’t hit the card you wanted? Josh O’Daniel of Odeezy Sports Cards thinks about that question. He joins Brett to share how opening Pokémon packs on Twitch became a business with a team, a card shop, and collectors who traveled to attend his store opening. Josh discusses building the business alongside his wife, Lizzie, before leaving an 18-year career at...

What happens to the collector experience when the owner isn’t there? In this episode of Hobby Jobs, I explore the systems behind buying, inventory, shipping, and customer service. Each handoff affects whether a collector trusts your business enough to return. Then I sit down with Oday Hishmeh, Founder and CEO of It’s Time Sports Cards, TCG, and eSports. Oday brings his experience operating Domino’...

You waited for an autograph of the wrestler you collect. Your package arrived with someone else. How do you decide what that replacement means to you? Kevin from New York Roadshow joins Adam and Ryan to unpack the Panini WWE redemption closeout. They discuss Roman Reigns on-card autographs, Flawless replacements, and how to evaluate white box cards beyond the 1/1 stamp. The conversation gets into...

Does quarterback prospecting define how you see football cards? Pack and Brett discuss Drake Maye’s start to the season and the expectations collectors build into quarterback card prices. They examine why that part of the market gets so much attention while collectors pursue players, sets, and memories that mean something to them. The conversation turns to selling cards. Do you owe anyone an expla...

When someone says they’re putting money in GOATs, what are they counting on? A career people remember? A card collectors keep chasing? A buyer who will be there when it’s time to sell? I look at Steph Curry, Peyton Manning, and Barry Bonds to think through how demand builds over time. We talk about the cards collectors recognize, what a sale can tell us, and why a player’s name cannot make every p...

I paid a lot for a Roman Reigns 1/1 that had no public sale to point to. I knew why I wanted the card. I still had to decide how I got to that number. In this episode, I talk through what a comp can tell us, where comparisons fall short, and why your buy price, your sale price, and the value of owning a card can be three different numbers. I also share the questions I ask before making an offer: W...

Chad (@packtothefuturepodcast) went to a Portland Fire game with his wife while he was still learning the WNBA. The crowd drew him in. Chelsea Gray tied a three-point record that night, and a card he bought afterward became the one that means the most in his WNBA collection. Katelyn (@coldlunchcards) talks with Chad about becoming a Fire fan, choosing which players to collect, and building a colle...

Collins Boyce has built Curated Cards and Collectibles across card shows, a store, and eBay Live. The part that stayed with me was how he treats the person buying the card. On his live streams, you can talk cards all day and leave without buying one. When a card sells for less than he expected, he tells the buyer, “Great take.” Collins and I talk about what he learned from working alongside a shop...

A collector walks into a card shop for the first time. What happens there determines whether they want to return. I talk with John Amendola, founder and CEO of Mintink, about how he thinks through that visit. We get into greeting people without pressuring them, making room for kids and parents, training staff as Mintink grows, and listening when someone has a bad experience. John says the first sa...

John Cena’s WrestleMania patch auto sold for $329,400. Ryan bid on it, set his limit, and watched someone else take it home. He won the Rhea Ripley WrestleMania patch auto in the same auction. Adam and Ryan talk through both sales and why one result can’t tell you what every wrestling card is worth. They also look at WWE Stadium Club, Panini redemptions, and a question every collector faces when a...

A collector asks a question that stays with Pack and Brett: If prices, posts, and other people’s opinions disappeared, what football cards would you still want? They talk about the difference between buying because a card is available and collecting because you know why it belongs with you. They also look at overlooked football cards from the 1990s, including two 1/1s that sent them searching thro...

Why does this card belong in your collection? A buying thesis gives you an answer before emotion, scarcity, and outside opinions take control. Brett explains the six parts of his process: the personal case, card case, market case, price case, ownership case, and risk case. He applies the process to his purchases of the Roman Reigns Immaculate 1/1, John Cena Superfractor 1/1, and Tyrese Haliburton...

I spent $30,000 on the 2022 Immaculate Roman Reigns Premium Memorabilia Autograph Platinum 1/1. The price will get attention. The decisions behind it are the story. I break down the relationship that made the deal possible, how I funded the purchase, and why I sold around 60 cards to bring one card into my collection. This episode is about sacrifice, collection projects that have run their course,...

Jarrod, better known as @wnbacardcollector, joins Katelyn to share how a Sue Bird rookie led him from vintage baseball into WNBA cards. He explains why Rittenhouse cards hold his attention, how attending an Atlanta Dream game changed his fandom, and why Rhyne Howard became the center of his collection. The conversation covers his Rhyne Howard Gold Vinyl rookie auto 1/1, the signed debut ticket he...

Jamison Long left a career in corporate sales to build Port City Sports Collectibles. The goal was never to open a store built around transactions. He wanted to create a place where collectors felt known. That decision is driving the growth of the business. After starting in a 1,500-square-foot shop, Port City moved into a space of nearly 6,000 square feet. The store now has days that match what i...

GameStop sold $356.3 million in collectibles during its latest quarter. The category now accounts for 45 percent of company sales. The demand is there. Collector trust still has to be earned. In this episode of Hobby Jobs, I examine what GameStop needs to become a collectibles business, why inventory alone will not create community, and where new jobs can emerge across the sports card industry. I...

Topps WWE’s Tim Trout joins Adam and Ryan to explain how the team is connecting collectors to wrestling history through cards. Tim shares the plan behind Topps Universe, the scarcity of the Slammed inserts, the use of match-related materials, and the work required to place key relic pieces into one-of-one cards. He also reveals incoming Joe Hendry guitar-pick relics, Danhausen’s first certified To...