Episode 152: Rod Adams from Neon Trading Cards

This episode we are joined by Rod Adams from Neon Trading Card and we discuss

- Rod's early hobby memories and family ties.
- Potential shill bidding in instant messenger threads
- Comparison of collecting NBA to Soccer
Find Rod breaking here: https://www.neontradingcards.com/
and a soccer group highly recommended for collectors from Rod
Soccer Cards Australia - Discuss, Buy, Trade, Sell and Razz

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Transcript

00:01.54
youcantcompthis
All righty, we have a very special guest here. We have Rod Adams from Neon Breaks. And Rod, thank you so much for your time and coming on board to have a chat to us. I think in You Can't Comp this tradition, we have to ask you just to introduce yourself first and tell us a little bit about yourself. And then my favorite all-time question is, what's your first hobby memory, you know?

00:21.60
Rod
Yeah, yeah, absolutely well thanks for having me guys it's Yeah. Nice to be here. a Busy time of year with hobby hangout coming up and a bit of, a bit of fun.

00:29.40
youcantcompthis
Yeah, crazy week. yeah

00:31.22
Rod
So this time of year is always good and the end of June is is nice of hobby hangout guys to book it in. Um, when everyone's busy with tax time. But, um, my name's Rod Adams for those who don't know me, I, um, founded and run Neon Trading Cards with my business partner, George. Uh, we founded that, uh, year and a half ago now. Along with Anthony, who a lot of people know as well, the three of us decided to, that we weren't quite happy with the offerings that were out there.

01:01.55
Rod
And I've been in the industry and doing, working full time as a breaker for three or four years at that stage. And thought, you know what, go and do something myself and do it exactly how I want to do it.

01:07.98
youcantcompthis
Yeah, right.

01:12.94
Rod
And paired up with those two boys.

01:13.21
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

01:14.92
Rod
And we launched them now on trading cards. and Thanks to a incredible community and a whole bunch of awesome cats that sort of supported us from day dot we've gone gangbusters since we Started off just doing soccer and 18 months later every night just about now. We're doing soccer NBA Marvel UFC w WWE baseball um and whatever else sort of lands on our desk we did Disney over the weekend and

01:42.70
youcantcompthis
Yeah, right.

01:43.43
Adz
Nice.

01:43.71
Rod
Just yeah, anything that comes through that sort of is a good product, um, that we think sort of meets our checks and balances, we'll have a crack at and it's been a hell of a ride. So that's me. And that's sort of, yeah, where I'm from and who I represent my first hobby memory.

01:56.00
youcantcompthis
Yep.

01:59.73
Rod
So one, it's not necessarily one specific one, but growing up, um, also as an AFL card guy. So growing up, I was AFL cards. Um, you know, that was an AFL. supporter in and out I played the game and Every single year dad would set collect and dad would collect the entire set of whatever selected release that year so, you know, we weren't sort of Overflowing in in massive hits, but once every maybe Season maybe twice if we were lucky dad would come over the box so normally there'd be packs and you know, we've ripped through a couple of packs and stuff but

02:22.34
Adz
Mm hmm.

02:35.01
Adz
Yep.

02:37.59
Rod
every so often dad would splash out on a full box of select and we'd sit around the kitchen table ripping through it and dad yelling and cursing at us as kids to look after him because you know dad had the bookshelf with a folder for every single year um in a full set and we would go through the cards that we opened

02:53.42
Adz
Yep.

02:59.05
Rod
dad would sort out the doubles and anything that wasn't Collingwood he didn't want so um Anything that was it was a rare or had any sort of shred of value that wasn't a Collingwood card We would bundle up take down to pipe works Whether we'd head into pipe works or Caribbean market depending on how far dad wanted to drive and we would trade them for Collingwood cards more Collingwood cards, so I yeah, I remember I

03:12.74
Adz
yeah

03:15.98
Adz
Wow.

03:21.66
youcantcompthis
Yeah, right.

03:22.48
Adz
oh

03:24.77
youcantcompthis
Was Jules and Rob from EJ cards down at pipeworks or the other market you just spoke about?

03:29.60
Rod
No, I don't. It was a husband and wife.

03:30.89
Adz
Caribbean gardens.

03:31.88
Rod
It was a husband and wife at Pike Works and for the life of me I can't remember their names.

03:32.45
Adz
Yep.

03:33.30
youcantcompthis
Yeah. Yeah.

03:37.95
Adz
Hmm.

03:38.25
Rod
I think he was previously in the police force or something along those lines but I can remember, I can vividly remember exactly where their stall was right on the corner of the food court at Pike Works and can remember Dad sort of doing deals with him while we me and my brother would just be looking through everything else that they had there um and yeah growing up that's what

03:48.16
Adz
Well.

03:57.22
Rod
That's what it was about. Weekends were collecting and and whether it was cards, whether it was model cars, whether it was, you know, actual cars as we got older and all the rest of it, it was always collecting something.

04:06.35
Adz
Yeah.

04:07.53
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

04:08.08
Rod
And they're some of the strongest memories that I've got with that. And um even now, every every select release that comes through, If I manage to get one through um the select online releases, that's a box I'll rip with that. like none of the but None of my SEC stuff goes into breaks.

04:22.20
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

04:22.78
Adz
Yeah.

04:27.57
Rod
I'm an SEC member, so I'm lucky enough to get most of the releases, and whatever I can get through SEC, I head around to to Dad's and we rip it to together.

04:30.77
Adz
yeah

04:35.08
Rod
it he doesn't He won't spend you know the modern day pricing on boxes and stuff like that, um because all he wants is Collingwood cards.

04:40.31
Adz
Yeah.

04:42.73
Rod
He still buys a set of Collingwood cards, but

04:44.70
Adz
Yep.

04:45.28
youcantcompthis
He's still collecting. That was, I was going to ask you that.

04:46.87
Rod
Yeah, so he'll still play Collingwood cards.

04:47.08
youcantcompthis
Yeah. Yeah.

04:49.08
Rod
Every year he buys a Collingwood Premiership Predictor, regardless of how good or bad we're going.

04:51.52
Adz
Yep. ah

04:53.33
Rod
um Every year he buys a Collingwood Premiership Predictor and he'll buy the Collingwood base set from the main release, whether that's opt Optimum or whatever it might be, he'll buy the Collingwood base set.

05:02.02
Adz
yeah Nice.

05:05.13
Rod
So yeah, it's um that's where it all started for me.

05:05.42
youcantcompthis
yeah Awesome.

05:08.63
Rod
um Way back then growing up and then, yeah, i got a bit older and discovered soccer cards and I'd all sort of snowballed from there.

05:16.77
youcantcompthis
Do you click to yourself or you, yeah.

05:18.08
Rod
Yeah. So yeah, I collect soccer predominantly.

05:22.31
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

05:22.82
Rod
So I've got a bit of AFL and there's a few a few of the bigger cars that dad had from growing up. Like we've got a Scott Penneberry draft pick signature and Daisy Thomas and Dyadak. We've got most of the older draft pick signatures and stuff. So that's given them to me to look after, but I predominantly collect soccer and Liverpool mainly. There's a few prospects and rookies that I chase, but Um, predominantly Liverpool. So I'm a, I'm a Liverpool tragic, which is horrible because they're one of the most expensive teams to collect.

05:47.25
Adz
Mhm.

05:48.10
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

05:48.45
Adz
Mhm.

05:48.74
Rod
Um, nothing's cheap. It doesn't matter who it is, but, uh, yeah, I've got far too many, far too many. I've just finished my second, uh, rainbow for Curtis Jones. Who's my main PC. He's a young fella for, he's a little, he was a 2021 rookie for Liverpool.

06:04.22
Adz
nice

06:04.35
Rod
So.

06:04.34
youcantcompthis
How many cards is in the rainbow?

06:04.90
Adz
Nice.

06:06.05
youcantcompthis
Because I'm assuming it's not like the select rainbow where there's 150 variants or something.

06:07.70
Rod
Look, I'm people are going to, people are going to laugh at me because I do pick the easiest rainbows and I'll make sure I've got the one on one first. So I've done the 21 2021 obsidian rainbow.

06:17.38
youcantcompthis
Why would they laugh at you? That's just sensible. You start with the one on one, then work out, not the other way around.

06:18.90
Rod
It is, it is, it is correct.

06:18.94
Adz
That's common sense, right? Yeah.

06:22.05
youcantcompthis
It's impossible.

06:22.24
Adz
You can't chase the rainbow without the one of one, right?

06:22.61
youcantcompthis
Otherwise. Yeah.

06:24.85
Rod
Correct. So I've done the 21 2021 rookie obsidian, uh, rainbow and the 23 24 prism choice rainbow.

06:33.36
youcantcompthis
Great.

06:33.52
Rod
Um, again, well, I think that, I think the obsidian one's like 12 cards and the choice one was easy.

06:33.70
Adz
Nice.

06:37.57
Adz
Okay.

06:38.04
Rod
That was like six cards or something.

06:39.55
youcantcompthis
Yeah, that's, that will be ideal.

06:39.67
Adz
Yep.

06:40.25
Rod
Um, but I got the nebula. So, um, yeah, it was, and look, I'm not, I'm correct, correct.

06:41.76
youcantcompthis
Actually six to 12 is, I'm totally fine with that.

06:44.83
Adz
That's a sensible rainbow, right?

06:46.06
youcantcompthis
Yeah. Yeah.

06:47.49
Rod
I'm not one to go and, um, find cards and check eBay every single day. I just don't have the concentration for it. And I sort of lose track of things far too easily. I miss cards all the time. So. Those are even those small rainbows are mostly filled from some incredible people knowing that I'm searching for them and and tracking down cards for me.

07:07.54
Adz
yeah

07:07.58
Rod
Um, without their help, I wouldn't have got anywhere near them to be honest. But, uh, yeah, I love it. I, I've been a collector long before I was, um, working full-time in the industry and and I'll be a collector for a long time after I still buy into breaks every single night of the week, just about. I'm a, I'm a break tragic as well.

07:26.16
youcantcompthis
yeah Yeah, either you're a collector or you're not.

07:27.21
Adz
Yeah.

07:28.76
youcantcompthis
And it's actually really hard to explain to somebody who's not a collector what you do as a collector.

07:29.31
Rod
Yeah. Yeah.

07:29.47
Adz
What? what Yeah.

07:34.23
Rod
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

07:34.40
youcantcompthis
It's this really awkward sort of conversation that comes up. All right. so So keeping in that collector's vein, how we, how you came to our attention was a post that you put up on Scammer. So why don't you just talk to us very briefly from a very high level. We don't need to mention any names. We don't need any litigation or lawsuits coming against us.

07:52.99
Rod
Of course.

07:53.94
Adz
ah Yeah.

07:54.96
youcantcompthis
Right. And so, and then talk to us about why you chose to do that and what you're hoping to achieve out of it. Because I think Maybe the part that got a little bit derailed in the comments was that it did become more of a personal sort of thing. Or maybe, again, of course, like any other sort of Facebook group, it got derailed and that's just the nature of the internet and that's fine.

08:07.32
Rod
Yeah.

08:13.58
youcantcompthis
But I think you were trying to make a particular point and I think we should probably flesh that out a little bit because this is what we do here. Yeah.

08:21.41
Rod
Absolutely, absolutely.

08:21.40
youcantcompthis
ye

08:22.45
Rod
And, um you know, it's it'ss the world at the moment, especially in some in industries or in, you know, different hobbies and all the rest of it. It's a world that's generally governed by group chats. I think um you know everyone's got half a dozen group chats running and different people getting together and sharing different ideas and and generally all batting for the one team or batting for another team. And we have these big conversations in these group chats and Those conversations are something that I always feel should be public at in certain occasions. And you should be able to get an even um objective view on a subject. And the topic the main topic of that post is obviously the $1 auctions. Now, $1 auctions aren't something new. They're not something that has you know popped up in the last three months. They've existed for for years. Whatnot do them?

09:17.48
Rod
you

09:17.65
youcantcompthis
but they've become exponentially more available to people because of whatnot.

09:20.15
Rod
Correct.

09:21.83
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

09:21.99
Adz
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

09:22.23
Rod
Yeah. so

09:22.89
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

09:23.25
Rod
yes

09:23.47
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

09:23.60
Adz
I mean, it's taken from the eBay 99 cent auction.

09:26.47
Rod
yeah

09:26.94
Adz
You know what I mean? Like, it's common. We know what it is.

09:30.15
Rod
Correct. so people have They've always been there, but they've always had that impartial third body managing the options.

09:35.64
Adz
Mmm.

09:37.08
Rod
And that's where something that, you know at the end of the day, we can still People can show eBay auctions as easy as they can show Facebook auctions and create separate accounts and all the rest of it. But there is some sort of checks and balances in place to ensure that a sale gets made and a payment gets made.

09:50.18
Adz
Yep.

09:53.93
Rod
And that an account is fairly legitimate. Now, eBay Copperfair whack socially about how they operate. But to their credit, they still do a hell of a good job at making sure that the vast majority of transactions are legitimate and and safe.

10:09.18
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

10:09.50
Rod
and

10:09.66
Adz
Yeah, like the shill bidding thing is is very much in the in the forefront of of like people know what happens and eBay cracked down on it quite heavily or try to.

10:19.93
Rod
Correct, correct. So there's there's there's at least something there that's betting for the punter, betting for the person that's that's making these purchases and at least sort of trying things.

10:23.79
Adz
Yep.

10:28.15
Adz
Yep.

10:30.07
Rod
I am 100 million percent absorbed by the hobbyists. I spend most waking hours thinking about it, looking at it, following as many Facebook pages and social media groups and news and Twitter and Insta and all the rest of it, and just trying to absorb as much information as possible.

10:44.11
Adz
Yeah.

10:46.46
Rod
And when I see it, I'll pay a bit more attention to it than normal. So looking at these $1 auctions that have popped up and seeing a sort of similar theme as far as what they were being run in regards to the type of product that they were being run, how they were being run and And to a degree as well, who was running them? um Just set off a whole bunch of alarm bells for me. just It just raised a whole lot of red flags as far as how I look as a sort of skeptics view on things. um So I sat and watched them and then saw that

11:15.57
youcantcompthis
Sorry to interrupt you so you would consider yourself to be a skeptic is that because that's it. That is a key point of like how you look at the world. do You know what I mean?

11:21.84
Rod
Absolutely.

11:22.01
youcantcompthis
Just so we understand you a bit better.

11:23.05
Rod
Absolutely. I have 100% got to, I, I, yeah, I don't believe anything until I know it to be fact sort of thing.

11:23.57
youcantcompthis
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

11:26.58
Adz
Yeah.

11:30.48
Rod
like I don't take anything on face value.

11:30.76
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

11:32.47
Rod
I, it might be my background in, in car sales that tells me that, you know, if someone's going to take advantage somewhere, if someone's going to present something that it's not, um,

11:42.07
youcantcompthis
You can be healthily skeptical, by the way, too. I'm definitely not having a ah go at your personality timing here.

11:44.46
Adz
Yeah.

11:47.01
Rod
Yeah.

11:47.15
youcantcompthis
It's like, yeah, yeah.

11:47.33
Rod
So I saw these and I'm paying a bit more attention to them. I was sort of watching bidding patterns. And and again, because I've got experience in watching auctions, I, you know, used to buy 40, 50 cars a day at an auction.

11:57.00
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

12:00.42
Rod
Um, that's something that I am exposed to in the previous life. And I've got experience in watching the patterns and watching the, you know, teams jumping from, for example, you know, they start at $1, they go to $8 and then The next logical bid would be $10 or $12, but suddenly that it would jump to 15, um, from eight. And you go, that's a bit odd. And this is halfway through an auction. Um, we've all seen eBay and we've all seen auctions. We know that the bulk of the movement happens in the last sort of 10 seconds of an auction, 20 seconds of an auction.

12:27.41
youcantcompthis
Yep. Yep.

12:30.25
Rod
There was a significant pattern of that not happening. Um, it was consistent. And of course, people that were bidding were not winning teams. They were bidding. They would bid big jumps, so these they would jump 200% sometimes. They would jump a dramatic amount halfway through an auction and then never come back into it again.

12:51.99
youcantcompthis
That is a massive red flag. I'm with you on that.

12:54.29
Adz
Yep.

12:54.51
Rod
Yeah. So it was just a red flag.

12:54.77
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

12:55.87
Rod
And then it was something that I don't have enough time and patience to zero in on it and sort of find out exactly who's doing what and track data. I'm a data guy. And if I'm ever going to sort of specifically call someone out or specifically sort of do some sort of action, I want it to be data driven and I want it to be factual.

13:14.03
Adz
Yeah.

13:14.14
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

13:15.35
Rod
As you can tell in my post, audit I didn't have the time or the patience to go and get that data and sort of drill it all down. So I wanted to have a conversation about it and say to people, hey, as people that work in the hobby full time and as breakers who are presenting themselves as trading card professionals, we've got an obligation to people.

13:32.29
Adz
Hmm.

13:33.36
Rod
We've got an obligation to but to collectors.

13:35.29
Adz
Yep.

13:35.79
Rod
And that goes from people who started collecting yesterday or people that started collecting 30 years ago. um We've got an obligation to, one, make sure the products we're presenting are presented accurately, and two, we've got an obligation to call out bullshit when we see bullshit.

13:40.79
Adz
Yep. Yep.

13:53.12
Adz
yeah

13:53.16
Rod
um That's something that doesn't happen nearly enough. It's something that just doesn't happen for a million and one reasons, and we could run through um all the reasons why certain things don't ever see the light of day or things are swept under the carpet and all the rest of it, but it never really um sees light of day. So I said, you know what? I'm going to give this, I'm going to try and bring this to the public opinion. I want to get public opinion on it.

14:18.27
Adz
ye

14:18.88
Rod
to see if perhaps I'm being biased. Maybe I am, you know, as a few people said on the, on the Facebook post, maybe I am being biased against people who could be perceived as, as rival breakers or competition. Um, maybe I am. And I'm, and if that's the case, I'm happy to raise my hand and say, yeah, all right, I'm being an idiot, but I wanted to get public opinion on it.

14:38.23
Adz
Yep. Mm.

14:39.72
Rod
And when I did and and sort of put it through a few more people reached out to me and said, Oh yeah, I've seen this and I've seen this and sure enough, uh, you know an auction on a 23, 24 prism mega box would make four, 500 bucks in a $1 auction format as a break. That's an extortionate amount above what the retail on that box is now. The retail on the box might be 200 bucks or whatever it might be.

15:06.76
youcantcompthis
That's like going back to 1819 type prices.

15:08.94
Adz
Yeah, yeah.

15:09.44
Rod
Yeah, huge.

15:10.10
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

15:10.16
Rod
like like

15:10.33
Adz
We're going back to COVID. Yep.

15:11.82
Rod
Yeah, phenomenal. um like Genuine. And that's when i so when I started to see that. That's what initially made me think, well, hang on. That doesn't seem organic to me. That doesn't seem like something that should be happening in the hobby. Because people are going to get burnt. People are goingnna get um and going to have a bad experience. Because at the end of the day, you open a megabox as a person, and you might not get any cards.

15:31.81
Adz
Yep.

15:36.51
Rod
When you divide that up by 30,

15:38.20
Adz
yeah

15:39.20
Rod
There's 28 29 people walking away from that break and happy and if they yeah.

15:42.60
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

15:45.59
youcantcompthis
And to be fair, that's consistent through all breaks, not just breaks who are done in like $1 options.

15:49.15
Adz
Mm.

15:49.51
youcantcompthis
Like breaks can be very problematic in terms of return on.

15:50.78
Adz
Yep.

15:51.97
Rod
Oh, a hundred percent. If you if you're, and I, I'm very open with our entire community and we often do um FaceTime Q and A's that we do.

15:53.74
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

16:01.77
Adz
Mm.

16:02.13
Rod
We try and do one every couple of weeks where anyone can ask us any questions on stream and we'll, we'll open them live.

16:03.71
youcantcompthis
Yeah, cool.

16:07.38
Rod
Like we don't, we ask them, we answer them live.

16:09.20
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

16:09.49
Adz
Yep.

16:09.83
Rod
And I'm yet another word would say, well, if you're going into breaks and purely just chasing specific cards, will you go into breaks for the wrong reasons?

16:20.67
Adz
Yep.

16:20.83
Rod
If you're going into breaks and you're purely trying to get cards out of them, we'll go and find the cheapest eBay breakers that you can find, because that's going to get you the the cheapest possible cards are out of a break that you can get, because there's no value adds to it. There's no other services that they're going to offer other than opening some cards and sending them to you.

16:41.30
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

16:41.80
Rod
Um, that is perfectly fine.

16:43.15
Adz
Hmm.

16:43.78
Rod
There's a whole bunch of people that just want to get the cheapest cards, um, possible out of a break, but there's also people that want to go in and, um,

16:51.32
youcantcompthis
And there's player break options too. I think now we're having this conversation too. The other part to add to that too, if you just want to collect a particular player, there's some really good breakers out doing doing case breaks.

16:54.31
Adz
Yeah.

17:00.40
Rod
Yeah.

17:00.55
youcantcompthis
AMT is the one that comes to my mind first and foremost.

17:02.19
Rod
yeah Yeah, North of seven or someone, that you know, North of seven, or are um one that I chased a lot of when I was looking for rainbows, I tried to do the Harry Cure, Obsidian Rainbow, and I'm down to the to five and a two more. So I was happily buying the Harry Cure spot in Obsidian Caseboats for 10, 15 bucks, because that was the all I wanted was the car.

17:17.75
youcantcompthis
Yep. Yep.

17:20.52
Rod
I wasn't looking for entertainment. I wasn't looking for anything other than the Harry Q card.

17:23.42
Adz
Mmm.

17:26.20
Rod
And it made perfect sense. And that and I was happy to buy at auction. and And if I got showed up, so be it, because I was chasing that specific cup.

17:33.87
Adz
Yeah.

17:33.91
Rod
But if I'm buying into a random teams break, if I'm buying into a PYT where I'm just chasing investment cards or generic full teams, well, I want to make sure that I'm doing it um as best possible.

17:47.33
Adz
on a, on a, on a even playing field, I guess is the thing.

17:50.33
Rod
Yeah.

17:50.82
Adz
I mean, you, you added yourself as a, as a Liverpool fan.

17:54.16
Rod
Yeah.

17:54.33
Adz
I'm a Lakers fan. So I, I feel the pain of having to pay a premium for the, for the, like the, I suppose, yeah, the big teams.

17:55.51
Rod
Yeah.

18:02.17
Rod
Correct. Yeah.

18:04.04
Adz
Russell doesn't have that problem being a Sacramento fan. um

18:07.22
youcantcompthis
They're very cheap at the moment.

18:07.89
Rod
Yeah.

18:07.93
Adz
yeah

18:08.38
youcantcompthis
I'll give you that, yeah.

18:08.65
Rod
Yeah.

18:09.91
Adz
but But that's the thing, like I can understand one team being bit up, right?

18:15.03
Rod
Correct.

18:16.20
Adz
You get into a bidding, I get into a bidding war with ah a Lakers fan and I'm paying overs.

18:17.83
Rod
Yeah.

18:21.02
Rod
hundred percent

18:21.57
Adz
bit But what you're referring to in this post is we're talking multiple teams and we're talking the same person bidding up those teams.

18:26.89
Rod
100%. Correct. Correct. So, yeah.

18:29.44
Adz
that's That's a pattern that's not an anomaly.

18:31.28
Rod
Yeah. No, no. and and and And that person, I think the biggest sort of, the the biggest thing for to come of that was the fact that that person didn't win any teams. So they were either they were either of the most unluckiest person in the world.

18:41.99
Adz
Mm hmm.

18:45.29
Rod
um and And I know a lot of the retorts that people were commenting who were supporting that person were saying, if I shill teams, well,

18:45.55
Adz
Yep.

18:52.54
Adz
Yeah, well.

18:57.15
Rod
I have to pay for them and I lose the money. Well, shilling isn't just winning a card to create a false comp.

19:01.13
Adz
Yeah, correct, correct.

19:03.08
Rod
There's multiple versions of shilling. Yes, people shield to create false comps.

19:06.14
Adz
Yep.

19:07.81
Rod
I mean, you're talking singles and seal stuff, but you shield to get the card up to a price point where you then dump it on someone else who just that bids you.

19:15.32
Adz
Yeah.

19:15.87
Rod
There's just bidding up and shilling is a term that sort of gets applied probably incorrectly a bit of the time.

19:16.35
Adz
Yep.

19:18.82
Adz
Yeah.

19:23.25
Rod
um

19:23.81
youcantcompthis
but Can we stay with this actually? I think this is probably maybe the most interesting part of this conversation. So what are the other reasons why people shill?

19:30.25
Adz
Yep.

19:30.74
youcantcompthis
This is actually good to talk about.

19:31.68
Rod
yeah Yeah, so shilling is something that I feel people are doing.

19:32.26
youcantcompthis
yeah

19:36.57
Rod
The majority of people that are doing it are doing it so that they can basically set themselves a reserve that is a basically and an an absent reserve. It's something that people can't see as a reserve.

19:46.52
Adz
Yep.

19:46.80
Rod
um you know eBay charge you a fee to set a reserve, auctions don't perform as well when they've got a reserve on them. So no one actually wants to set a reserve.

19:53.78
Adz
Yep.

19:55.02
Rod
But if I say, hey, I'm chucking up this you know LeBron ads, can you just chuck a $200 bid on?

19:59.02
Adz
Yep.

20:02.14
Rod
Essentially, that's my $200 reserve. um the set The sale goes through and it's great.

20:04.54
Adz
Correct.

20:07.20
Rod
If it doesn't, well, at least I know I'm going to get more than 200 bucks because someone's outbid that initial spot. So um yeah, I think that's the that's probably the main part, the main Way that people show is just by using friends accounts to build on things like it's it's something everyone does and a lot of people don't even see it as being wrong um through ignorance like it's it's I know I've I Founded with Anthony and George the largest soccer cards by self swap group in the country or and it's one of the most active in the world.

20:19.10
Adz
Yep. Yep.

20:22.21
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

20:39.26
Rod
you know bigger than the majority of m NBA groups these days and the amount of times we would see people on there and and they would have things currently at auction on eBay and at least a sale or they would you know have a big and they genuinely just didn't process the um the impact it's having um while they were making the decision so it's about education and

20:50.06
Adz
Yeah.

20:57.18
Adz
Yeah.

21:01.78
youcantcompthis
I think cause it's so common. I think if we're being maybe pragmatic, I'm not too sure if that's the right word, but if you do go onto eBay, I feel like every auction I go in is shield up.

21:13.22
Rod
Yeah.

21:13.25
youcantcompthis
So I'm like, I need to make the decision about what I want my maximum bid to be.

21:15.12
Adz
yeah

21:16.82
youcantcompthis
I put my maximum bid in and then if I lose it, okay, fine. Like I lost to someone else or I lost to a shiller.

21:19.70
Adz
Yeah, i do I agree completely on the the setting this reserve.

21:20.19
Rod
Yeah.

21:22.45
youcantcompthis
Sorry, Adam.

21:24.13
Rod
Yeah.

21:29.38
Adz
It's really simple. It's like, I don't want my $100 card to go for 10 bucks. I've put it up for a dollar auction, but I really don't want it to go for $10.

21:39.17
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

21:39.62
Rod
yeah

21:39.89
Adz
and go, you know what, I'm gonna ask someone to put a $50 bid in so I get what I'm prepared to sell the card for at least.

21:46.28
Rod
Yeah.

21:47.86
Adz
And then somebody sees it up at 50, goes, that's $100 card and they bid 60. Do you know what I mean? Like it's it's setting that base floor so it's not really a $1 auction.

21:54.36
Rod
Yeah. Yeah.

22:00.22
Rod
Correct. And that's what, yeah.

22:00.59
Adz
I think that's the the ethical, yeah.

22:01.64
Rod
And that's what a lot of people ethically just are ah find it in that gray area where they say, well, I wasn't really doing anything wrong. um And that's, that's the one bit of the one sort of type of shilling that I think will always probably sit in that gray area as far as, you know, that, that initial bit, that one bit of hog

22:15.69
Adz
Mmm.

22:19.48
Rod
do my nuts here I need to get someone to be done it for me or along those lines.

22:19.91
Adz
Yep.

22:21.78
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

22:23.07
Adz
Yep.

22:23.32
Rod
I think the the worst part, the worst um type of shilling is what we saw with, I think it was Trey Young's cards for a long time.

22:31.27
Adz
ah The kit.

22:32.10
youcantcompthis
I was actually gonna bring this up.

22:33.28
Rod
Yeah.

22:33.90
youcantcompthis
yeah So I think we should also add to this is that I'm not sure this is actually being totally proven.

22:33.91
Adz
Yeah, yeah.

22:40.08
youcantcompthis
So it's more of a conspiracy type theory at the moment.

22:41.66
Rod
Yeah, yeah.

22:42.60
youcantcompthis
But let's put our tinfoil hats on for two seconds. yeah Roll it out, Rod. This is a good one.

22:46.83
Rod
Yeah, so the for a large period of time, and even to a degree now, Trey Young cards comp amazingly well. they You look up any sort of mid to high end Trey Young card, and it has incredible comps that sort of, you know, a lot of the time are on par with Luca from the same sort of um rookie year and whatnot, yet there doesn't seem to be many verifiable actual sales. And if you speak to people that are saying, you know, who's buying these cards?

23:12.24
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

23:12.46
Adz
Mmm.

23:15.81
Adz
Yeah.

23:15.98
Rod
Um, you know, people, everyone's got, you know, stories of buying a $2,000 PSN on Luca Prism and all those sorts of stuff from even around the peak of the hobby and, you know, spent buying $30 mosaic based ions and jars and all the rest of it. But there never seems to be this paper trail for Trey. there's never guys saying, hey, i'm can I buy all your Trey Youngs? You get a few of them, but the the demand in the market does never it has never seemed to match the actual sales.

23:44.73
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

23:45.07
Rod
And the the rumor goes or the story goes that there is a ah network of people out there that are basically just shilling up every Trey Young and they're buying they're buying all the high end and the desirable trays to then create a false market from which they can resell the ones that they've brought at a lower price point.

24:01.92
youcantcompthis
I mean, it's a pretty wild conspiracy when you think about how many Trae Yong cards are out there, but he's silver, PSA 10 is currently selling for 200 bucks.

24:05.56
Rod
Yeah.

24:05.66
Adz
Yeah, true.

24:06.96
Rod
Yeah.

24:09.25
youcantcompthis
So I think obviously their network isn't large enough to prop up the entire market, but I do, I do definitely agree with you on like the low numbered NT Flawless stuff.

24:10.32
Rod
Yeah. yeah Yeah.

24:12.86
Adz
Mmm.

24:17.99
youcantcompthis
It does seem slightly inflated.

24:19.10
Adz
Yep.

24:19.98
Rod
yeah

24:20.97
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

24:21.32
Rod
Yeah, it does. And I not know there's been, yeah, there's a lot of incidents in regards to the low numbered stuff and the low pop stuff, generally speaking, where there's people who will be trying to sell a card and they will go and pay overs on eBay for a card. Or when I say pay, they will buy the card, cancel the sale, um, not proceed with the sale to generate that fake comp, um, to generate that, that.

24:37.86
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

24:40.99
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

24:44.01
Adz
that's That's where the ethical problem is, right?

24:44.74
Rod
Yeah. Yeah.

24:46.01
Adz
That's where you're you're using it for gain.

24:48.44
Rod
correct and it and it creates ah ah an issue for the seller of the original card because they have now got to relist it and go through the whole process of um of dealing with that.

24:55.43
Adz
Yeah.

24:58.41
Rod
and then you've got you know and it's not something that's unique to the card industry either it's it's it's something that as the card industry gets more mainstream and it continues to get more mainstream these are just old traps that people have had in every industry across the world forever and a day and they're just yeah they're just turning up into the card industry that you know is yeah correct correct it's just it's just the card industry's time um and i think that's where a lot of the

25:07.20
Adz
Yep.

25:13.65
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

25:14.25
Adz
Any kind of, yeah. Yep. it's It's not just the cards on eBay that are getting shielded.

25:21.64
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

25:24.86
Adz
Yep.

25:28.75
Rod
Um, issue with breakers and getting back to the $1 auction thing. It's just something that, you know, people are ah ah comfortable and happy to do in other industries and in other, um, in other yeah forms of life.

25:40.64
Adz
Yeah.

25:41.79
Rod
And they're just applying these sort of nefarious tactics to the card industry. And because of the lack of education and because of the lack of, um, sort of authority in in the hobby, um, they just get away with it.

25:47.51
Adz
Yeah.

25:53.18
Adz
Yep, yep.

25:54.92
youcantcompthis
So Adam, this is when you cue your catchphrase.

25:57.48
Adz
Me, I know, reg yeah, regulate, my biggest thing that I've, from day one is all about regulating the hobby.

26:03.15
Rod
Yeah.

26:03.31
Adz
um And we've talked about it, the first thing that stood out to me was you calling out that it's an unregulated section, these these groups, these WhatsApp groups, these Facebook pages, it's,

26:09.26
Rod
Yeah. Yeah.

26:15.38
Rod
Yeah.

26:16.03
Adz
it's relatively unregulated. And that's the thing.

26:18.25
Rod
Yeah.

26:18.51
Adz
like i go and When I go and bid on a card that's on an an auction, right?

26:21.11
Rod
Hmm.

26:25.60
Adz
I am pretty lazy or busy with work, depending.

26:27.85
Rod
Yeah.

26:29.74
Adz
And I will go and put my highest bid in and that's it.

26:30.23
Rod
Hmm.

26:32.70
Adz
Like it'd be like, I don't know, rookie card that's that I think is worth a hundred bucks. And I'll go, you know what? I'm happy to pay 75 for that.

26:39.79
Rod
Yeah.

26:41.18
Adz
20 minutes into the auction, I'm like 75.

26:41.20
youcantcompthis
you

26:41.32
Rod
Yeah.

26:43.91
Adz
And then just walk off. If I win it, I win it.

26:45.05
Rod
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

26:46.78
Adz
Right?

26:47.00
Rod
And I think the big thing is either you're doing that from a position of of someone that's educated on what they buy.

26:53.92
Adz
Yeah, but I'm also just putting it on one card.

26:56.60
Rod
Yeah.

26:57.11
Adz
And this is the thing about patterns, right?

26:57.95
Rod
Yeah.

26:59.50
Adz
Like somebody that's gone, does that across the board is obviously doing that for different reasons. They're not wanting to buy every spot in that break.

27:05.91
Rod
No. And and and it also it does also come down to who your who your market is and who your target audience is.

27:11.82
Adz
Yep.

27:11.95
Rod
And you know every successful breaker that I know of in Australia spends a lot of money on marketing and a lot of money on customer acquisition. And you know some people spend more money on paid ads and some people just DM everyone else's pages and and sort of do the grind work that way.

27:20.11
Adz
Yep.

27:28.55
Adz
Yep.

27:28.84
Rod
but

27:29.64
Adz
Yeah.

27:29.71
Rod
they when you are when you're when you're doing paid ads, you're getting generally speaking, depending on how you've got obstruction, you're generally getting new people into the hobby. And these pages are gateways to the hobby and they're getting more people involved and

27:38.79
Adz
yeah

27:45.77
Rod
having that obligation, if you're going to make a living out of the hobby, you've got an obligation to do it right. And and I've always said that from day dot. um The WhatsApp groups frustrate me to no end.

27:53.37
Adz
Yeah.

27:56.18
Rod
So i I won't claim to have invented the WhatsApp groups for trading cards, but a close friend of mine did.

28:02.29
Adz
Yep.

28:02.92
Rod
And I was the first one to bring him to Australia. So I was the first one to create to create WhatsApp groups in Australia. And we did it for the right reasons. we dropped one or two messages a day.

28:12.05
Adz
Yep.

28:13.10
Rod
If that people would opt in opt out. It wasn't anything sort of too dramatic. We didn't add anyone that didn't want to be in there and run it for the right reasons. Now they've just been bastardized by everyone and they're being used for things like $1 auctions.

28:24.56
Adz
Yeah.

28:26.93
Rod
um

28:27.44
Adz
Yeah. I mean, I mean i suppose my my big question now, and I don't know if Russell's got the same one on his mind, with this in mind, with what we know these pages can, what can happen, um regardless of the intent or lack of intent or lack of knowledge, what would be the key bits of advice to give to those people that are a little bit naive or new to the hobby? like that are going, oh, ah here's a dollar auction, I'm gonna jump into that.

28:55.25
Rod
Yeah. yeah yeah

28:58.44
Adz
What is that? What are the key bits of advice you'd give to someone that's going to place a bid and wanna put their hat in the ring, so to speak?

29:06.08
Rod
My piece of advice to anyone is to just ask questions. Um, ask questions on what you're not sure about. Don't be afraid to reach out to a few of the incredible groups and communities and you know, there's, there's you guys, and there's the, you know, everyone from the cherry crew is fantastic. at The cherry crew, a bunch of savages, as soon as anyone posts anything in there, they they don't hold back. They just go.

29:27.38
Adz
Yep.

29:27.74
Rod
there's and It's, it's, it's an unfiltered sort of, um, immediate resolution. Um, I think. It's really hard in Australia. and And that's a lot of why, why I made that post because I think I believe the sports card scammers page should be about education.

29:42.34
Adz
Hmm.

29:43.93
Rod
It shouldn't just be about posting someone who was committed to scamming offense.

29:47.47
youcantcompthis
Who's been naughty.

29:48.73
Adz
Yeah.

29:48.97
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

29:49.66
Rod
It needs to be about ah education. It needs to be, it needs to have those discussions because then people are going to say, Hey, I need to be double checking this.

29:52.16
Adz
Yeah.

29:54.66
Adz
No.

29:57.37
Rod
I need to double check whether or not. you know, the break is a legitimate breaker or whether or not they're this team is the right value or, you know, the one thing and and the one example that happens more in soccer because of the changing checklist is that you wouldn't believe how many times I say break is selling teams who don't have any cards in a checklist.

30:02.20
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

30:02.96
Adz
Yep. Yeah. yeah

30:20.19
Rod
They'll sell a spot and that team's not on the checklist and they're they're normally in the checklist, but for this product, they're not.

30:23.67
Adz
Wow. Yep.

30:26.01
youcantcompthis
Yeah, right.

30:26.52
Rod
um

30:26.94
Adz
That's Yeah.

30:27.78
Rod
That happens and its it's not an intentional thing, it's just the breaker being lazy and the breaker not giving a shit or not not giving a toss that they can um just copy what they did on the last product because yeah it's surely the same or it's close enough and that sort of stuff.

30:31.03
Adz
Yep. Yep.

30:38.32
Adz
Hmm.

30:41.69
youcantcompthis
Yeah, that's just attention to detail, isn't it?

30:41.79
Adz
Yeah. Yep.

30:43.49
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

30:43.67
Rod
It is so I think there's nowhere way really in Australia that people can go

30:44.06
Adz
Yep.

30:44.28
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

30:48.75
Rod
Obviously, look as ah as a day one collector, as a week one collector, as a week two collector, there's nowhere that people can go and say, hey, I can get the right information.

30:52.31
Adz
Yeah.

30:57.26
Rod
Dan does some incredible work. um He's, yes.

31:00.20
youcantcompthis
You talk about Dan, the card man.

31:02.74
Rod
Yeah, so he does he does some great stuff through his channel, but again, and and we can all become guilty of it at times.

31:02.88
Adz
Yeah. Mm hmm.

31:09.52
youcantcompthis
He went international recently with that PSA card slab story he did.

31:09.78
Rod
We're all, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was really good.

31:13.54
Adz
yeah Yep, yep.

31:14.02
youcantcompthis
yeah The person that we won't name internationally picked it up.

31:15.05
Rod
That was really good, but I think,

31:18.32
youcantcompthis
So I'm like, that was pretty cool. Yeah.

31:20.30
Rod
Yeah, yeah, that's handy.

31:21.11
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

31:21.93
Rod
But I think the one thing that we're all a bit guilty of is that we can assume or just sort of organically fall into the trap of thinking everyone knows, or everyone's at the same knowledge level as your average collector.

31:34.40
Adz
Yeah.

31:34.74
Rod
um And there is, it's, it's, it's, it's stupidly overwhelming.

31:35.37
youcantcompthis
There's so much to work out at the start though. It's actually, it's actually ridiculous. When you say it like that, it's it's actually very true.

31:41.59
Adz
Yeah.

31:41.83
Rod
It's stupidly overwhelming. There is so much for people to get their head around. There's so much for people to learn. There's so much for people to know.

31:46.63
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

31:47.66
Rod
Getting their head around checklist. I, we are the only breaker that I know of the producers are basically a cheat sheet for every checklist. I'm not sure if you guys have seen what we do with them, but essentially we tell everyone on every single product, what cards each team has got in that product. Um, and it's not just a, Hey, Chase, Luca and Steph carry autos. It is, you know, the Kings have got these exact orders.

32:11.41
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

32:11.84
Rod
Darren Fox is signing in this set.

32:12.02
Adz
Yeah.

32:13.90
Rod
He's not signing in this set. Um, and then we price every time according to those teachers. Um, we do that on every new MBA release, we release our cheat sheets and on every soccer product we do it, um, religiously.

32:19.14
Adz
Yeah.

32:20.06
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

32:21.78
Adz
Hmm.

32:26.13
Rod
And that's about education. And so it's making people, letting people know what they're looking for in a product. They're not, you know, how many, how many Lakers spots they're going to have sold over the years for people chasing liberal and all those.

32:32.88
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

32:37.46
Rod
All right. Because that's what they want. Um, you know, people jump on.

32:41.08
youcantcompthis
LeBron, yeah, the Lakers are really hard too.

32:41.85
Adz
See?

32:43.20
youcantcompthis
When you say it like that, it's like, yeah, yeah.

32:44.23
Adz
Yeah, yeah, the Lakers are always high. Like back in the day, it used to be Kobe autos and it was, there was a reason to do it.

32:47.72
Rod
Yeah, there was a reason, yeah. um But people see the Lakers and go, what do I want? I want LeBron orders. um ah yeah Is this going to be LeBron?

32:54.99
Adz
True.

32:57.01
Rod
And I think there's just, there has to be, you don't need to hold everyone's hand and treat everyone like kindergarten kids and whatnot, but there needs to be a level of um

33:03.69
Adz
No.

33:08.13
Rod
obligation to the customers from people that are going to make a living out of out of breaking cards.

33:10.77
Adz
Yeah.

33:14.36
Adz
Yeah.

33:14.52
Rod
It's not, you are getting paid. People are giving you their hard earned money to provide a service.

33:17.60
Adz
Yep.

33:20.17
Rod
And when you when I see someone turn on their iPhone, he goes, I think i think we we actually checked it last year. we We found the shortest immaculate MBA break last year, the entire stream went for four minutes and 10 seconds or something. Like, you know, they've good they've they've they've just collected three, four, five thousand dollars off people um to provide a service and the best they can do is go live on their iPhone for four minutes and ten seconds.

33:34.67
Adz
Yeah, yeah.

33:34.94
youcantcompthis
That's actually quite fast. Whoever did that, like well played.

33:46.55
Rod
um It's, yeah, for me, it just doesn't sit right and and it doesn't bode well for the the greater health of the hobby, which I plan to be doing this ah ideally for the rest of my life.

33:55.64
Adz
Yep. Yeah.

33:58.77
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

33:58.85
Rod
I don't want to go back to a nine to five gig.

34:00.39
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

34:00.47
Rod
So the health of the hobby is is what's most important and running $1 auctions and doing, um you know, giving away PlayStations and Switches and all that sort of stuff is just not going to be what's going to make the hobby sustainable long-term.

34:10.94
Adz
yeah

34:15.26
youcantcompthis
long term. I agree with that 100%.

34:15.96
Adz
Yep. yeah

34:17.72
youcantcompthis
Hey, i I do like to hear about problems and issues, but I would also really like to hear about a solution. So if you were in charge of Adams regulating the hobby department, what would you implement into the hobby?

34:31.32
Rod
As far as regulation goes, i would I would love to have an industry watchdog of some capacity and it does need to be someone who is relatively independent and and

34:42.97
youcantcompthis
Didn't someone try and make an Australian board or something like that and get people to buy into it?

34:48.28
Rod
No idea, no idea.

34:50.60
Adz
It wasn't me, by the way.

34:50.77
Rod
It's, yeah, there was, um, yeah, then I don't know.

34:53.57
youcantcompthis
um

34:56.18
Rod
i I haven't seen anything come up in regards to that. I don't think, I don't think you could necessarily get away with it being an official sort of, you know, set up thing, but very swaps again, just another sort of, you know, it's pushing.

35:01.74
Adz
It was, I remember Veriswap.

35:10.77
youcantcompthis
That's a trade platform and that's still going.

35:11.75
Adz
That's a trading, yeah, that's ah that but that's a trade platform, but for verification.

35:12.73
Rod
Yeah.

35:12.83
youcantcompthis
That's still going out.

35:13.01
Rod
And,

35:13.43
youcantcompthis
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

35:15.31
Rod
They've put their foot down, they've they've put their foot down recently with their marketing and their sort of aggressive social media sort of imprint.

35:19.12
Adz
Hmm.

35:24.84
Rod
But I think what it needs to be is something that does have people who are going to butt heads, that does have people who are going to argue different sides of a coin and um people that are going to offer an unregulated opinion on what the regulation in the hobby should be because they

35:34.85
Adz
Hmm.

35:42.45
Adz
Hmm.

35:43.60
Rod
You look at even, and and I was chatting to one of the scammers page admins about it. And I said, I've had a look at the admin team and every single one of you are either from the same click or, you know, years away from the hobby. It's not how it works. Like it shouldn't be that way. When I, when we were looking at, when I was still at Sock Cards Australia, we brought an admin on and the admin was, as these guys would put it, a rival breaker. um that we brought in because he brought in ah set a mindset that was different to what we had.

36:11.27
youcantcompthis
Yeah, right.

36:11.81
Adz
Yeah.

36:16.45
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

36:17.23
Adz
Yeah.

36:17.50
Rod
And that should be encouraged as opposed to compressed. Now, since that post, I've been removed from probably half a dozen groups that I know of.

36:25.41
youcantcompthis
I'm not surprised. And that's also, I was trying to tiptoe around this before, but that is also why people don't call people out because there is always some degree of fallout from it and how you manage calling out somebody in a PC way, basically.

36:32.84
Adz
Censorship.

36:33.70
Rod
Yeah.

36:38.58
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

36:38.95
Rod
correct and I'm um pretty lucky in regards to having an incredible community that that supports us and what we do.

36:39.48
Adz
Yeah.

36:39.63
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

36:45.59
Rod
and and An ability to fight back and and have a platform to stand on should people want to you know push back and all the rest of it. Unfortunately, most people that are you know just collectors in the hobby don't have that platform and don't have that support.

37:01.30
Adz
Mm.

37:01.57
Rod
So they get crushed and we've seen it happen before. There was a recent post on scammers that that happened. Someone's tried to call someone out and the there was an overwhelming tide of you know mutual friends that came in and just swallowed it all up until the post got locked and buried down the bottom. um And no one has the the time or involvement to actually follow through with them. I think a lot of it is because these people who initiated these groups and you know the NBA card market and those sort of pages are all the same. They were all fully involved in the hobby in 1920-2021 and they were

37:36.79
Rod
Guns blazing, making money hand over fist and everything was good. Now that the hobby's contracted and it's contracted but it's a lot stronger in regards to those who have remained in the hobby are genuine collectors. It is a lot harder to make money out of the hobby than and what it was during the boom. Because people have a higher expectation of what's required. So these guys are now in charge of these groups which were founded three, four, five, ten years ago. but are no longer actively involved in the hobby on a day to day basis.

38:07.08
Rod
So they don't really care.

38:07.17
Adz
Hmm.

38:09.20
Rod
They don't really want to push it. And it's nothing. It's, I'm not having a go those guys that are doing it because they've moved on.

38:11.75
Adz
Yep.

38:15.04
Rod
And the issue is you can't just start a new group and say, we're going to take over the old ones because it just doesn't work that way.

38:23.14
youcantcompthis
Yeah, I think, look, just to maybe not even I'm not sure the right word to say, but like, to be fair to those guys, I think they're just a regular group of guys like Adam and I who just started to do a podcast or started their own group.

38:36.97
Rod
Yeah.

38:38.09
youcantcompthis
And, you know, look, it did probably become into something that maybe they didn't realize how big it was going to become to.

38:42.58
Adz
Hmm.

38:44.12
youcantcompthis
And in the case in point for the Australian Scammers page, I think that's And who knows if they realized how important it was going to be for the Australian community.

38:52.56
Adz
Yeah.

38:53.64
Rod
Yeah.

38:54.18
youcantcompthis
Then to take your point about, you know, people moving on, like definitely people move in and out of the hobby, you know, every single day.

38:56.19
Rod
Yeah.

38:59.73
Adz
Yep.

39:01.15
youcantcompthis
Do they have a contingency plan and a plan of like, um, moving people through the committee and having someone in charge for X amount of years so that it does stay fresh? Maybe they, they don't have that. But again, they probably didn't think about all that type of stuff. Do you know what I mean?

39:14.83
Rod
Yeah.

39:15.10
youcantcompthis
so like

39:15.46
Rod
Yeah. Yeah. 100%.

39:16.54
youcantcompthis
And I see your point, but I also see the, you know, the situation that the admin would be on that page because I just doubt they considered it.

39:16.54
Adz
Yeah.

39:17.66
Rod
And yeah.

39:22.67
Rod
Yeah. and um And I don't know that I i don't know that there's a, there's a, there's a solution for it.

39:24.36
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

39:27.45
Rod
Um, I don't want to be an admin on the scammers page. I don't have the time.

39:30.13
youcantcompthis
that's That's right.

39:30.73
Adz
ha

39:30.82
Rod
Like I don't, I don't like, I don't.

39:31.01
youcantcompthis
Yeah. So we can't give these guys too much crap, right?

39:33.59
Rod
Yeah.

39:33.94
youcantcompthis
Cause I don't want to be an admin on the page either.

39:34.36
Rod
Yeah. Like correct.

39:35.79
youcantcompthis
You know, that sounds like my worst nightmare.

39:36.22
Rod
Yeah.

39:36.58
Adz
Yeah, who wants to help regulate? It's like, ah, no, I'm good.

39:39.42
Rod
Yeah, correct.

39:39.65
youcantcompthis
No, no, thanks. Like no one's getting paid.

39:41.55
Rod
Like, yeah, I'll give you my advice if you ask for it and I'll I'll help you along the way.

39:42.13
youcantcompthis
It's an unpaid position. You just hear people whinging the whole time.

39:47.90
Rod
But um I don't know that there is necessarily an easy answer to it, um but especially on the on the NBA side of things, you look at the top half a dozen groups on Facebook and they've got the same 70% of moderators and admins, and um which does mean that when something goes against that side of the crew, that it just gets buried and hit.

39:52.14
youcantcompthis
No, there is not yet.

39:52.26
Adz
Mmm.

40:09.86
Rod
And then the amount of things that do pop up and just get sort of swept by the wayside because people don't care enough or you know there's malicious intent um is is pretty extraordinary.

40:24.23
Adz
Yeah.

40:24.42
Rod
And I don't don't know what the answer is. I haven't sort of worked out exactly what the answer is. And that's, again, a discussion that probably needs to be had publicly, but where do you have it publicly? Because everyone's got their own sort of agenda and everyone's got their own um yeah driving force behind it.

40:35.22
Adz
Yep.

40:36.80
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

40:40.03
Rod
And when you know people are running flash lines and razors for all sorts of different stuff, Rolexes,

40:44.78
Adz
Yep.

40:47.44
Rod
God knows what else. Um, they're not going to give that up easily.

40:54.39
youcantcompthis
Maybe we, um I feel like we're getting into quite deep water here, Rod.

40:58.62
Rod
Yeah. We can go.

41:00.48
youcantcompthis
Do we step into one light one light question and then we'll tie this up?

41:01.81
Rod
Absolutely. Absolutely.

41:04.54
youcantcompthis
Because we have actually gone a little bit longer than we were anticipating.

41:05.46
Adz
Yeah.

41:07.17
Rod
Yeah. Let's go. Let's do it.

41:08.35
Adz
Yep.

41:08.58
youcantcompthis
So you wanted to discuss about the comparison of soccer to NBA in terms of prospecting.

41:13.11
Adz
Okay.

41:14.88
youcantcompthis
So maybe just run us through a little bit of that because soccer is your bread and butter.

41:15.50
Rod
Yes.

41:19.02
Rod
Yeah, we'll go through.

41:20.43
youcantcompthis
This is like your special speciality.

41:20.83
Rod
Absolutely. Yeah.

41:23.49
youcantcompthis
In NBA, I mean, everyone knows his, mostly we, we chase rookies.

41:24.12
Rod
I, yeah, yeah, yeah.

41:24.17
Adz
Mm

41:28.14
youcantcompthis
That's like the big thing, but you're telling me offline, it's a little bit different in soccer.

41:29.14
Rod
A hundred percent of my, yeah.

41:29.17
Adz
hmm.

41:32.19
Rod
So my, my entire knowledge of MBA is card related. Like if I learned it through cards, great. If not, I've got very little MBA knowledge. it But soccer is my baby. Soccer is what I love.

41:41.86
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

41:42.46
Rod
And then the soccer market and cards and collectibles.

41:42.69
youcantcompthis
Yeah. Great.

41:43.54
Adz
Yeah.

41:44.55
youcantcompthis
Give us a couple of minutes on this man. Yeah.

41:46.60
Rod
So when it comes to soccer, and the reason that I think I love soccer so much and from a hobby sense is that people generally love their teams in soccer a lot more passionately than say your NBA or your NFL sort of collectors that can generally gravitate towards players or the prospects.

41:46.77
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

42:05.44
youcantcompthis
Yeah, definitely. That's a massive trend in MBA.

42:06.80
Adz
Yeah, there's a different definite.

42:06.99
Rod
um Yeah.

42:08.24
Adz
Yeah, you've got

42:10.10
Rod
People are buying, I buy Liverpool cards because I love Liverpool. I watch them at 2am in the morning because I love Liverpool. And a lot of people are second and third generation supporters of those teams. Their family did. the Whether they're European originally and their family followed them back in Europe or Well, for whatever reason, they follow their team and they follow their team religiously.

42:27.58
Adz
ye

42:31.63
Adz
joe

42:31.72
Rod
So what that creates is, and we've we've discussed this on our channel a little bit like recently as well, is what this creates is a bit of animosity between the collectors, which is great because it's a great health, it's ah it's a healthy banter between collectors. But what it also means is that Manchester United could have the greatest rookie in the last 50 years in soccer, and I'm not going to collect them as a Liverpool fan. I will not go near a Manchester United player.

42:54.54
Adz
Yep. Yeah.

42:55.03
youcantcompthis
Yeah, right.

42:55.89
Rod
I won't have one in my PC.

42:56.04
Adz
yeah

42:57.85
Rod
And if that player then moves to Liverpool, I'll collect him, but only in a Liverpool kit.

43:03.00
youcantcompthis
Okay.

43:05.57
Adz
Hahaha.

43:05.72
Rod
I won't collect him in a Man United kit. So what you get with soccer is that the rookie card of a player isn't necessarily their most valuable card.

43:16.04
youcantcompthis
Yeah, right.

43:16.96
Rod
Um, it generally is, but their first year in the right kit.

43:17.07
Adz
Mmm.

43:21.97
Rod
So their first year in a big kit is generally speaking going to be in, in a lot of cases equal to what their rookie card is for value.

43:23.79
Adz
Yep.

43:29.93
Rod
Um, because people want to buy their kit.

43:30.32
Adz
Okay.

43:31.81
Rod
They want to buy their team. Um, a player like Cole Palmer is an interesting one. So he's, um, a player who was a rookie man's Manchester city in 21, 22 products. I always seem to have a bit of talent, but never quite made the Manchester City team, though, you know, they're the big they're they've been the best team in the world for the last half a dozen years, so there's no great shame there. Last year, he moved to Chelsea. So, another massive team. He moved to Chelsea, and I think he finished the season on 25 to 30 goals and assists, like just blew everyone out of the water, was one of the best players in the Premier League, one of the favourites for Player of the Year, dominated at Chelsea.

44:06.57
Adz
Yep.

44:08.91
Adz
So it's a breakout season, basically, yep.

44:10.10
Rod
Yeah, massive season, massive breakout season. Chelsea fans don't want his Man City rookie cards. so

44:17.89
Adz
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

44:18.24
Rod
his Man City fans don't want his Man City rookie cards because he's now a city plan a Chelsea player.

44:19.12
Adz
I got i share the set, I get, i yeah.

44:28.73
Rod
His cards are in this funny spot at the moment where they've gone up in value and they are They have gone up a little bit in value, but nowhere near as much as they would have if he was playing for a random Dutch team or a random Portuguese team where they're all pretty sort of harmless.

44:40.48
Adz
Yeah.

44:43.83
Rod
No one really gets offended by those teams.

44:45.26
youcantcompthis
Yeah, right.

44:46.38
Rod
So you have this whole dynamic around who would play a player plays for, what team he goes to, um and how that's treated by people in the hobby.

44:53.47
Adz
Hmm.

44:57.30
youcantcompthis
Is there value to be had there?

44:57.56
Rod
it

44:57.58
Adz
Okay.

44:58.54
youcantcompthis
Because I like pockets of value. So can you say this might change around in the future that you're getting like a good sort of cheap rookie card?

45:05.01
Rod
I think so because you get an opportunity with the amount of tops products in particular who tops do you over for club competition. So you've got three tiers of European competition. there So there's teams from, you know, the Czech Republic, there's teams from Ukraine, there's teams from Greece and all over Europe.

45:15.33
Adz
Okay.

45:19.66
Adz
Hmm.

45:24.16
Rod
You've got these teams who. have an incredible amount of rookies. There's a lot of Dutch teams in there, though people love the Dutch rookies a hell of a lot. So you've got players who are two, three, four years away from perhaps making a big move to one of the big leagues.

45:33.80
Adz
Uh

45:37.99
youcantcompthis
Yeah, cool.

45:38.77
Rod
Um, you know, they're playing for clubs that you would have never heard of.

45:38.76
Adz
-huh.

45:41.76
Rod
You know, there's the Bundesliga, which is one of the great, um, you know, prospecting leagues on the planet. They just released an entire Bundesliga chrome set.

45:49.35
youcantcompthis
Yep.

45:49.91
Rod
Um, you know, there's teams like Borussia, Mochen, Gladbach, who, um, no one's ever heard of, but they've got this incredible crop of good young footballers, um, who at some point are going to perhaps get a big move somewhere.

45:50.79
Adz
Yeah.

46:02.21
Adz
Yep.

46:02.34
youcantcompthis
So it's like a prospectus dream that said basically, yeah.

46:02.72
Rod
Um, It is, it is. And there are a lot more soccer collectors and soccer fans are a lot more forgiving as well. You don't have the dramatic ebbs and flows based on week to week performance.

46:14.07
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

46:14.81
Rod
So generally speaking, because it's not, you know, soccer is obviously a low scoring sport where um you get a lot of nil-alls and two nil-alls and all that sort of stuff.

46:22.66
youcantcompthis
Yeah, right. That actually makes sense. Yeah.

46:25.00
Rod
So players can play very, very well without scoring. The weight of the hobby is still very much towards the goal scorers. Goal scorers are the gold. um But it means that players are judged more so on blocks of time as opposed to individual performances.

46:34.56
Adz
Uh huh.

46:43.52
Rod
You don't get the player scored a hat-trick on Sunday.

46:45.10
Adz
Yep.

46:47.10
Rod
There's a million of his cards to sell on the Monday. you don't get that sort of return from soccer.

46:53.66
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

46:53.93
Rod
It's all about the long-term prospecting and seeing what's about and and seeing what sort of moves the players make between leagues as well.

47:00.82
youcantcompthis
Yeah, right.

47:01.18
Rod
um There's a few big clubs in the world that are black spots for the hobby. So Bayern Munich, who are the biggest, most dominant team in Germany, and PSG, who's obviously messy and everyone knows PSG.

47:11.54
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

47:12.44
Rod
PSG's are just ah just and this black hole of the hobby People just don't care about the league as a league. PSG dominated almost every single year. um You know, Messi and Neymar went there, one loves Messi and Neymar and Mbappe, but any other players go there. They get these big rookies who are, you know, they've got to go at the moment. Warren's a Emery who's 16, 17 years old, making his debut, playing alongside, I think on debut, he assisted Mbappe to school um as a 16 year old.

47:42.16
Adz
Mmm.

47:44.44
youcantcompthis
That's crazy.

47:45.55
Rod
His cards, his cards were still at a fair, like people chased him, but they weren't at a phenomenal value that you would expect from Lumenia Marle, for example, who's a 16 year old who's currently playing for Spain in the Euros.

47:45.60
youcantcompthis
What an experience. Yeah.

48:01.40
Rod
His cards are through the roof. Everyone's chasing him. He's the hottest prospect in the hobby at the moment. um

48:07.50
youcantcompthis
Sounds like a hot tip to be honest, to buy this kid. It sounds like value to me.

48:09.86
Rod
Well, yeah, is and but it's is he ever going to get out of PSG?

48:10.95
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

48:14.98
Rod
That's the thing, because if he never leaves PSG, he's only ever going to have a certain ceiling.

48:20.49
youcantcompthis
Sure.

48:20.89
Adz
Mmm.

48:22.21
Rod
If he moves to a Liverpool or Manchester United or Barcelona or around Madrid, well, he's going to have a much higher ceiling because those clubs are inherently more collectible. Um, and that's where the soccer hobby has just such a bigger dynamic around it. And you can actively chase your own team and then three or four prospects from completely different leagues and follow their journey as a player. And they can flop at one club and then still be good two or three years later, turn into incredible footballers.

48:47.50
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

48:53.44
Adz
Um, I, I get the, I get the feeling from, from soccer, obviously it's such a, the comparison from 30 teams in the NBA to the, all the different leagues in Europe around, like around the world and all the products available, I guess it's a very different dynamic.

48:54.35
Rod
So.

49:06.87
Rod
yeah Yeah.

49:14.87
Rod
Yeah.

49:15.29
Adz
The NBA is 30 teams and Panini have just re like just different card designs.

49:19.77
Rod
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just rehash them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

49:22.43
Adz
Right? the Like, I mean, tops did the NBL, but let's, let's, let's not go silly, but it's like, they talking about college cards, the NBL, like international cards, it doesn't matter.

49:26.90
Rod
sir Yeah, you yeah, Yeah.

49:34.31
Adz
Everyone just wants the NBA. Um, it seems like very different card communities, like, yeah.

49:37.98
Rod
But it is his kids completely different and and people generally collect and vets are vets are treated so much nicer in soccer compared to NBA.

49:48.05
Adz
Hmm.

49:49.96
Rod
So, you know, the biggest chases in the don't.

49:53.43
Adz
Is that scarcity?

49:56.18
Rod
Not really, not really.

49:57.16
Adz
Okay, okay.

49:57.69
Rod
um You know, the biggest, the biggest auto chase in most products this year is a David Beckham order. um

50:03.84
Adz
Interesting.

50:04.63
Rod
You know, David Beckham is on par with Erling Hart. Now, look, I might be a bit biased here because David Beckham was a man. You know, I'm a player, but Beckham was very good. And there's a very important from a culture point of view, but, but he wasn't an outright superstar.

50:15.95
youcantcompthis
Culture, definitely.

50:16.12
Adz
Cult figure, yeah, cult figure, yeah.

50:17.39
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

50:21.43
Rod
He's not in the conversation for one of the best of all time. And that sort of stuff. Like he's not a, um, I don't know.

50:26.14
youcantcompthis
And he's on Netflix at the moment too, isn't he?

50:29.63
Rod
They did one not too long ago. They did the story about his family.

50:33.30
youcantcompthis
Like surely that would prop up his, yeah.

50:33.35
Rod
Look at.

50:34.43
Adz
Yeah, yeah.

50:34.63
Rod
three or four thing That helped a little bit. That helped a little bit.

50:36.40
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

50:37.13
Rod
Man, you know, the fans love him. He never really did much for England, but no one ever does for the England national team. They just perennially choke.

50:42.61
Adz
oh

50:44.15
Rod
But the players like the the legends for each individual team. So, you know.

50:49.07
Adz
do Do they sign as much? Because I know Magic Johnson is like one of the most prominent signers going around.

50:53.70
Rod
Yeah. Yeah. So depending on who they are, they do.

50:55.30
Adz
Like, like, yeah. Okay, okay.

50:58.43
Rod
Depending on who they are, they do. and even from an individual club point of view. So you look at someone like, you know, my Liverpool set, we've got Steven Gerrard, who's, you know, one of our greatest players of all time.

51:09.15
Adz
Mm hmm.

51:10.26
Rod
And he signs a bit, but not in every set.

51:14.45
Adz
Okay.

51:15.22
Rod
His impeccable autos are still, you know, six, seven, 800 bucks for a sticker auto. And, um, the short print ones are 1,502 grand.

51:21.65
Adz
Wow.

51:23.67
Rod
yeah He had an on-card, he had an on-card get released last year and that was a two and a half, $3,000 auto.

51:23.86
youcantcompthis
Yeah, right.

51:24.66
Adz
Yeah.

51:28.59
Rod
Um,

51:28.71
Adz
Jesus. Yep.

51:30.17
Rod
And even the second tier down. So I was looking at it. Most of the man, you know, at Prism order still sell for 150 to 200 bucks. And they're players who played three or four years there, scored a bunch of goals and went on.

51:40.62
Adz
Mmm.

51:44.40
Rod
I was like a Red Van Insta Roy, Robin Van Persie, Roy Keane, and these sort of guys who are good Manchester United players, but they're not necessarily the best of the best.

51:54.61
youcantcompthis
Yeah.

51:54.90
Adz
Yeah.

51:55.17
Rod
They're just, you know, you're solid players.

51:58.92
Adz
Hmm.

52:00.15
Rod
They weren't, you know, absolute world beaters. Still sell for two, three, 400 bucks. Whereas in the NBA equivalent, they're essentially sub $50 orders um on that front.

52:11.05
Adz
Yeah.

52:13.43
youcantcompthis
Well, I think, Rod, we should tie this off, man.

52:14.07
Adz
Interesting.

52:15.54
youcantcompthis
I think we've gone for about 30 minutes longer than we planned, which was delicious.

52:16.20
Rod
Easy.

52:18.91
Rod
Nah, that's all right.

52:19.37
Adz
yeah

52:21.15
youcantcompthis
And just thank you for your time and we really appreciate you coming on and, and for, you know, starting a conversation and engaging with us on it.

52:22.84
Adz
Yeah.

52:28.37
youcantcompthis
We definitely appreciated that.

52:30.00
Adz
Yeah.

52:30.79
youcantcompthis
Any final thoughts?

52:30.81
Rod
Yeah, no, that's awesome.

52:30.84
Adz
That was good.

52:31.55
youcantcompthis
ah

52:31.93
Rod
It's, um, yeah, good to do it with you guys.

52:34.67
Adz
and just be ah My final thought on this is, yeah, i think I think as the hobby overall, it'd be nice if people, and like while I appreciate the posts that you've made, I think posts that maybe call out to the new people in the hobby to watch out, like as in design, rather than rather than trying to highlight those, and I'm not criticising your posts, but I'm saying how we help,

52:49.59
Rod
Yeah. Just education. Yeah. yeah

52:59.34
Adz
is shout out to the new people in the hobby. Look, if you need some help, this is a great community, um but but fact check everything before you you jump in, maybe a checklist of things to be.

53:07.87
Rod
Yeah. ask a question I think if everyone takes, yeah, if everyone has, has a bit of responsibility and says, you know what, just because I'm a collector and only a collector doesn't mean I can't call out bullshit when I see it.

53:09.97
Adz
Be informed before you make a decision.

53:19.89
Adz
True, true.

53:20.55
Rod
Um, it'll help a lot.

53:23.49
youcantcompthis
Yeah. Well, thanks, Rod.

53:24.35
Adz
Yeah, good discussion.

53:26.50
youcantcompthis
And probably by the time this goes to our hobby hangout is done and dusted, but we will see you at the hobby hangout and yeah.

53:26.91
Rod
Awesome. Thanks lads.

53:32.45
Rod
Awesome. I'll see you then. Bye-bye.

53:34.31
Adz
Be a good weekend.

53:35.47
youcantcompthis
Uh, Rod, don't leave.

53:36.87
Rod
Don't leave.

53:37.38
youcantcompthis
Don't go.

53:37.71
Rod
I'm not leaving.

53:38.49
Adz
ah

53:39.08
youcantcompthis
I saw- I saw you reach up for your mouse and I was like, no.

53:39.43
Rod
I'm used to, I'm used to tames.

53:41.00
Adz
ah

53:41.33
Rod
I'm used to tames.