Jason: Welcome all collectors to another episode of Boom with Sports Cards, the podcast where the hobby stays hot and the cards stays booming. I'm one of your hosts, Jason.

chat: And I'm Alex. Today we'll be breaking down our experiences at the Nationals, diving straight into our top three main takeaways from the show. Let's get right into it, shall we?

Jason: Let's do it. So the national happened once again from Rosemont, Illinois, and what a hectic weekend. what was your experience just getting there to to begin this? How how was the traffic? How how was it?

chat: so it was raining that Saturday, so I it's I assume it'll be raining all day. It wasn't that bad. it took us man, I think yes took twenty to thirty minutes to get to Rosemont driving 'cause they have a parking lot right next to it and we we usually park there and just the walk into the National But it took at least twenty to thirty minutes to get there. And man that was hectic. They they need better like traffic flow. but we got in it wasn't like an hour, like to complain about, but it took a minute. what'd you call it? They raised up the freaking parking. Parking used to be fifteen bucks, now it's twenty bucks. And then yeah, overall tra it wasn't that bad at getting in. I it was no line it wasn't even a line to get in either, so 'cause we got there around like eleven.

Jason: Hm, CS right after the like an hour after they opened. Yeah, I I only went on Wednesday and I stayed over my sister's house because she like lives like fifteen minutes, so I was only like dropped off. wanted to be there early, so I got there like an hour early, just waited in line. The line got huge. It was like past the street lights and like it kept going, people kept coming in and the line keep kept growing. But as soon as like the doors open, it moved pretty quick, so not too much complaint there. Definitely a lot of traffic that intersection by the convention center and like the the other hotels were pretty busy. But yeah, not too bad. So now let's start with our takeaways. So our first takeaway is there's a lot of free stuffs and giveaways all around the convention center. I wanna s I honestly I was a little disappointed on what the free giveaways were. Felt like last year it was a little better. there was a lot of corporate boots, a lot of vendors you could visit, but some of the stuff like Walmart's I could care less. It was like a mag safe that I won. And that was like the majority of people who got it.

chat: Yeah, I missed that on that 'cause there was so much like around. I spent the whole entire time at like the what not section where they were just doing like giving out free stuff, like custom cards, sign up for like free give like get like what do you call it? Free breaks. I bail by the way I signed up and I got Jalen Suggs. I I I don't know what what I got by the way. I'm still waiting on the hear back on that.

Jason: That's such such a random fit player.

chat: I know, right? My dad got Cameron something. from like the Brooklyn Nets. Forgot his name. but yeah I missed out on the Walmart thing. But online I see that Walmart decided to give out h expensive ass hobby boxes to little kids. And I could tell the little kid didn't really win the hobby box. They just gave it to him. Because I think Walmart was like at the point where they're like, all right, we no one's really winning these hobby boxes yet, so we're gonna just give one away and I was like, Come on man, you guys guys gotta honor it. Honor whoever grabs the ball. It's bullshit.

Jason: Yeah, the their whole like giveaway. Last year it was just like, you select a ball and you get like a free messy card and some other stuff. this year it was like you enter one card, one random base card into like this pretty much like a vending machine. and you grab this bot a little circle and you got pretty much a mag safe. But there's also like like Alex said there's chances to get other things, but yeah, that was disappointing. What else was there? Did you try the the courtyard IO? The the the the one with like the basketball court? Cause that line was huge when I was walking by and so I didn't do that.

chat: w I didn't do that either 'cause one, it was in the opposite side of the direction of like the whole of like the freaking whole arena. And walking around is exhausting and sh it's freaking hot in there 'cause every like everybody's bundled up and like so yeah, you're gonna miss out on that. And I did miss out on that arena stuff too because the line was super long and one of the big giveaways was a a Tom Brady variation. out of fifty gold PSA ten. I'm like I'm I if I go up there and log into my arenas come and get some bullshit ass card and and I'm gonna get like five minutes later I'm gonna hear somebody get win that card. I'm gonna be mad.

Jason: Damn, that's crazy. Yeah, I I did the the Arena freebies. I got some random Tom Brady base card and it was like slabbed with like the arena branding. I was like, it's Tom Brady, I guess. I was wearing a Tom Brady jersey that day, so I was like, fuck it. and

chat: Walking against

Jason: I got like a free I made my own card with it was a nice little experience with Arena. you did do Fanatics. How was that experience for you?

chat: man they need a better way of organizing it because one you need to download the app to log in and then after they make you log in and like they make you log in again by scanning the QR code so you can

Jason: Mm-hmm.

chat: join in on their little giveaway. And man that was like confusing. Most people were just trying to like make an account and like and the the area they were in was the worst area. area for internet for most people. Man, like people had like one bar or no bars and then people are trying to make an account. Like you guys couldn't pick a better spot in the sit in the whole freaking place to have better internet to do this. But yeah after I signed up they picked about 30 people to sit in like a groups of one through seven I think. And you wait like as soon as you sit standing online they reveal a little gold card and tell you what you get. I got this hockey card which is not that bad. I sold it already on Fanatics for forty dollars. Gonna use that money to buy me a f Alvarez card. so I'm gonna get that. but one of the big takeaways was that the big prize was the gold card, which was a Yamamoto Magenta Sparkle PSA ten, which one of the kids on my left side won. I was like, Great. But yeah.

Jason: shit. Yeah, in my group, there was no gold take it was kind of weird. Like I saw the one before, I think it was like a Caleb card. I can't remember which card it was. but yeah, there was no gold in my in my group. The card that I got was like a PSA 9 clean Kurteshaw, like World Series card. I their fanatics account said I was like value like 25 bucks. I'm like, I'm barely I'm barely on that account. I didn't even know I had the account until I got there. I was like, all right, I'll I guess I'd have an account. So yeah, I mean, f we can be free. They also had like those vending machines on the backside of it. I don't know if you saw that. I just got like

chat: Yeah, I I did did three of I got some crappy cards. just like some crappy

Jason: Yeah.

chat: base cards that were like SG C authenticated. I'm like, who the fuck? Come on, man. Yeah.

Jason: Mm. That's some bullshit. Yeah. I I had s I had like a base like Kauai. I'm like Bowman Kauai. I'm like, this is worthless. This is like two bucks maybe. but yeah, at least they were free. So I can't complain with free. I wish they'll get better cards, but yeah. Not bad. So you said you talked to me previously about Kolex. What do they have? I kind of missed that booth along the way.

chat: They were just hanging out and then they're just asking like Colex questions like how long you been using Colex and how much you sell and card how many cards you sell. And then they were just giving out free packs of like crappy packs. I got a crappy soccer pack. And I nut I got nothing in it. But they gave out like little scratch offs where you can win up to like fifty bucks to five dollars in Colex money. So scratched off, got me five bucks and yeah, I used the money to buy me a Merc Homicard. Yesterday.

Jason: Not bad. Yeah. I wish I could have gone there. There there were so many booths. I don't know if you went upstairs. There were like so many up there as well. Like some there was like some Japanese vendor there and like

chat: yeah, I did see that.

Jason: just some other like card nonsense was up there and then some other things was up there. a lot of free stuff. definitely it's important to set aside time to collect all the freebies because who who doesn't like free stuff, you know? lines were backed up quite a bit. Mostly for that basketball. I like that line was huge. I was like, I'm not waiting for that. look cool. Pretty much like if you shoot a ball into the basket, you get a a slab, I think. but yeah, set a time setting a time aside for freebies was worth it.

chat: take number two was the main event celebrity sightings. I got to see Gronk live rip a hobby box of his own rookie card. it was cool. I got

Jason: Did he get it?

chat: the Yeah, he got it, he got it, and then the the person who bought it was there because it was on eBay Live. So he paid ninety bucks for the pack, got Gronk's rookie card, and Gronk even signed the rookie card after he opened it, and I was like, yeah, that dude has a

Jason: Fuck dude.

chat: That man has shitty, shitty handwriting. Or they could have given like a better autograph, cause it's like a one of those still Sharpies that are super like thick. So it looked horrible. I'm like, I'm like, God. Looks like a little kid wrote on this. How the fuck are you gonna get this off the kit?

Jason: That's insane. Yeah, because I was looking into like meeting him and he was charging like up to like three hundred dollars just to meet him. So that's awesome. The ninety bucks and you get a card and an auto might be shitty, but at it's gronk, you know.

chat: Yeah. I wish he just he was he was the cool man man only the takeaway on that was that he this is this is becoming more of like these events and like s celebrity sightings, these are for like little kids or like more like younger crowd. 'Cause if you like he was giving more attention to little kids on the right side and left side, so trying to get like a picture with him or like an autograph from him is gonna be hard because He's mentally thinking, like, all right, this guy's a grown ass guy. I'm not gonna give this shit to him.

Jason: Ha ha ha.

chat: So I'm gonna give it to the little kids, giving them like a nice experience, something to remember. Which is understandable, but the most I've got to like my cousin went with me, we stood there for like an hour waiting, and the most we got to do was touch Gronk's hand. I got to touch his elbow because he missed my hand, so I gotta

Jason: Yeah. That's funny. for celebrities, I mean athletes, I only saw Johnny Manzo. He was just walking around. He was by the Camp Cards booth. He

chat: yeah, so

Jason: I was like, This is very random. He's just took a picture with a couple of kids and I think he had to go to like an autograph signing. just really random. He he was probably drunk to be honest. because he had like sunglasses

chat: For a smaller point.

Jason: in inside. I'm like, bro, what are we doing?

chat: Right.

Jason: Yeah, but yeah, there's a lot of influencers, TikToks all over the place. Like saw Kim Cards. I was in line for him. I was like, this dude is taking forever. So I left the line. I was like, I'll meet I'll meet him eventually. But a lot of TikTokers, influencers, people recording, growing men recording.

chat: Crazy.

Jason: yeah, like people I don't even know, just having the little cameras out, I'm like, all right, this is this is fun. but yeah, a lot of content creating during that weekend.

chat: Yes, saw Cuban cards, Mary Gamble, Gambles, Grant Williams. Grant Williams so cool. I I just thought I got a picture with him 'cause do Grant Williams does not look like he's like a famous basketball player. 'Cause he's

Jason: Goofy S.

chat: so cool though. He d I saw him at the one up break, for and what else did I see him? I was doing after I finished doing the vending machines and the fanatics thing, he's casually walking with somebody and like He looks like a regular ass dude. Like he has no aura. I'm like, what

Jason: Yeah.

chat: the fuck is Grant Williams doing? And the thing is, he's walking past everybody and nobody gives a fuck. I'm like, damn. I wish kinda had my like a Grant Williams card hit for him to sign right now. But that was a cool. Saw Collector 2. saw his people.

Jason: Big ass forehead.

chat: Jason doesn't mean it.

Jason: Yes, I will mention it. It needs to be it needs to be talked about in this hobby.

chat: We don't I guess we

Jason: He's a cool guy though. He's a cool guy, but don't

chat: It's time to let the hair go forward, Puddine.

Jason: know. I don't know. That dude's hairline's chop too. Fuck him. And I'm

chat: Okay.

Jason: sorry. Going out of rails. Okay,

chat: Well good.

Jason: guys. but yeah, a lot of content creators, a lot of chopped content creators. I I kept seeing like one dude just roast everyone, and I found it really funny. I forgot that dude's Instagram name, but he was just cooking everyone. No,

chat: that old guy with the glasses, yeah. I wasn't but

Jason: that there was some other dude who like had a whiteboard and he just started going ahead of people, all these influencers. It was funny as shit. but yeah. A lot of influence. I also saw Matas and like other people were there on Wednesday when I went, so I missed that.

chat: I saw that too and he was giving out like a good hobby boxes, like deck of hobby boxes from like twenty twenty two. I was like I was like what the fuck are you doing, modders?

Jason: He was launching cards from l from the from from the where he was ripping packs. I was like, this dude's insane. but yeah, I didn't go that I went like I told Alex, I went to the hobby breaks, like all the whatnot section, and everything was pretty much done because I went like the last hour on Wednesday. So it was pretty much like a rundown place where everyone was pretty much packing up for the day. So I didn't see too much famous people or whatnot. creators. you see you did see our boy Bruce Briggs, which is kind of cool.

chat: Bruce. Bruce. Yeah, I saw Bruce from Bruce Black Tie breaks. look at a previous episode with him. He he was nice. He was real nice. I caught him off guard a bit. I told him how's he doing, blah blah blah. He was Saturday was

Jason: He slapped his head.

chat: his Saturday was his off day, so he was just there hanging out.

Jason: shit. Okay, that's why then.

chat: So he was working the rest of the week, but the off day was his Saturday. I asked him he bought anything. He's like nah. I didn't buy anything yet and he was a little bummed up because of the the advice he was giving us about he was like I was so wrong about Marcelo Myers rookie cards and Jaren Duran rookie cards and I was like

Jason: yeah, he Bro got traded.

chat: I know I got I I was like damn that's tough.

Jason: That's crazy.

chat: which leads to our third takeaway about buying cards. I didn't buy any cards Jason. It makes me sad

Jason: That's very unfortunate. Yeah, when he told me it's like you gotta be lying to me. So many cards under one building. You got nada? What are we doing?

chat: It

Jason: So what happened, Alex? Break it down. What w was was people mean to you? Do I have to beat someone up? Was someone's forehead shining too bright that you lost concentration on these cards?

chat: it was just hard to like find a certain card or like a it wasn't organized. That's what it was. Or it wasn't organized or it was so much to take in that and the thing is when when when I was d we we went Saturday, so we did all the events like free gives away and the South Ronk. We had like an hour or two left and I'm panicking 'cause I haven't bought anything yet. I wanted to go buy something else. I really wanted to buy me some more Murakami cards or more What do you call it? Caleb cards and just get my little checklist done. But I couldn't find anything. Most of the variety of like stuff there was like vintage cards and like freaking political cards and then leaf cards. And then I'm like and then like and then we got some like like memorabilia crap and like I'm like trying to like go through each buddy, everybody's stuff and like have the crap is either slabs. 'Cause I didn't see any single cards at all in my opinion. I saw some, but it was not like it was like base cards. Like I saw a NBA hoop's rookie card of Wembi Victor Wimbinyama and I'm like, I don't want this shit. I already have I have already the prism one at home. I'm over going through half the stuff and half the stuff is like either leaf, crap, crap, crap, and then like play like PSA tens, nines and eights and sevens Overall I got like super overwhelmed and just yeah, I couldn't buy anything and I ran out of time.

Jason: Yeah, I can see that. Being overwhelmed with so many tables, like it was it was hard to like I don't know, like find a groove in it 'cause like there there's some there were some tables that were strictly vintage, then here or there was a normal current cards vendor, but it was it was very overwhelming. So many cards. I f like Alex, like prime like my last my second to last hour at the show, I was able to buy a card. And I was like, fuck it, I just need to buy it. Almost bought like a couple of random cards. Like I was like I almost bought like a Urlacher autograph. And I was like, it's kinda overpriced. Do I really need it? I had to think it through before like actually going with the deal. So very overpriced, a lot of things. was looking for LeBron mostly at this card show and everything was pretty high valued. And the couple of raw cards I found were Like forty bucks over over retail over market price. And I was like, I know these guys are not gonna wanna come down to that price 'cause they're older and they had a lot of high value cards. And I was like, these guys aren't gonna wanna go down. So I didn't even bother with that. the only cards I'll I'll actually wait for that what cards I got. But yeah, very overwhelming. A lot of lot of cards. Organization was alright. but yeah. was a decent show for me. Only one Wednesday, so I felt like I definitely need more days, which comes to our next point. Like if you want to go to the national and have a great experience, you need to have multiple days. only one Wednesday, so that was already a short day. And that was one of the things I told Alex, I'm overwhelmed.

chat: yeah. for me, it the big thing for me was that everything was overcomped, so everybody said they they figured out the numbers for the cards, by the way, Jason. It was 135% over comp, which was insane. And

Jason: Jesus.

chat: and then the only way the g people were selling cards if they were over a hundred per ten percent value. So nobody was coming down to ninety. so it was hard to sell cards. And it was hard to buy a card, so that's even much worse. But the excuse I keep hearing online is that that they're they gotta pay their vendor fees and table fees and all the other crap. I'm like, that doesn't really justify the fact that you're making it hard to buy a card. And yeah. And then there's a lot of disrespect. I saw the on Saturday for just people who trying to buy cards. I got my cousin got disrespected the other day. They didn't really say hi to him. He's a brand new s buyer. He's still he's still trying to get into the hobby. We we got him a eighty dollar Shohei Otani card, which was supposed to be one forty,

Jason: Mm-hmm.

chat: but we got it for eighty. good pro good buy by the way for him, 'cause this is his first Shohei card overall. But the vendors, man, they they don't give a fuck. They they one guy saw my cousin had the Bears jersey on and he threw a five thousand dollar downtown towards him. Asking him to buy a five thousand dollar gold out

Jason: The fuck?

chat: of twenty five Luther Burton Roman dude in a downtown. He's like, Do you like the bears? Here. At first I thought it was one of those fake downtowns that you just like make so you can sell it, make a couple bucks. No. Like he asked my cousin, Do you wanna you wanna buy this for five thousand dollars? My cousin was What the fuck? No hello? No no hey, how are you?

Jason: So buy my shit now.

chat: And then like five seconds later. This guy runs up to us, throws another Caleb RPA at my cousin. He's like, six hundred dollars, you want this? I'm like, Bro, you're not even a vendor, and you're just over here asking us, you want to buy this off you? And I I didn't even think No, Heinrich.

Jason: So he bought it, right?

chat: I didn't even get the time to check the comps. I'm like, holy crap. And

Jason: That's insane.

chat: so yeah, me and him looked at each other like what the fuck? And an another uncomfortable thing was that this The guy was with this kid who threw the the the RPA at us. He was like the kids took I think the guy had like at least ten thousand dollars on him. And the kid started taking out the all the money out of his dad's jacket and started flexing flexing on us. And then

Jason: Hell yeah.

chat: five seconds later, he d his dad's like, What are you doing? Out louder, like, fuck. Sounds like my dad when he gets

Jason: Did he slap him?

chat: No, he told him to put it away and then yeah, I'm like, Damn, this guy's ten grand on it. He's fucking like

Jason: Weird flux.

chat: I know, right? Like I get it, your dad has money, kid. Don't want to flex it on me. But overall, it was hard to buy cards. Was hard I bet it was hard to sell cards. And with so much going on. big I think next year I might have to take like at least Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I heard Sundays are the best days to buy cards 'cause people are just trying to get rid of their stuff 'cause they don't want to take about take anything back with them. 'Cause have these guys come out come from different states, it's like to sub cards. So I think Sunday's will be the best day to buy cards. Saturday, I think Friday's a good day to try to like enjoy the stuff. Saturday's good to enjoy the the the events they have. So I think you need at least three days to enjoy everything. I think I th I was looking at the ticks, Jason. it's thirty dollars per day. I'm not gonna pay you might as well just pay for the VIP stuff so you can enjoy the whole week. 'Cause if you're gonna pay about like ninety bucks You might as well just pay for like the VIP stuff. You 'cause you get free parking and all the other crap. But yeah. need just need a just need to just take it in. So what what did you end up getting, Jason? What did you end up getting at the Nationals?

Jason: yeah, so I up getting just three cards. I got one of the cards I was aiming for, I was hunting for was PSA ten Cooper Flag, just as base tops card. paid like five dollars undercom, so I like, all right. that was one of the cards I was like, all right, I just need to buy something. Cooper Flag was part of my list I players I wanted. So about that undercom a little bit. I think they do really good. the other two I got I got two raw cards. There's this vendor who had their all their cards, all their raw cards separated by player. So made it really easy to to sort through them. Lot a lot of cool stuff. I had I bought a Drake May Green Wave Prism. 30 bucks. I was like, this is cheap. I don't have this card. Got that. And also bought a Cooper flag. I think it's called it's like tip off card. It's like a parallel of his of his tops card. tops base whatever. but yeah there's a lot of lot of lot of cards that I I almost thought about buying, but I was like, I need to be smart with my money. These cards are overpriced. So I only came out with three cards on Wednesday. So that was the only day I was able to go so it was a decent it was a decent time. I had a decent time there.

chat: still disappointed by anything, but I bought some more online because personally the money I put back I used to buy some Miguel Vargas cards. I'm trying to do like a rainbow set right now because he's doing real well. I picked up a Murakami baseball parallel, the one with the baseball and it's red. I just came in. Kinda screwed myself on it though because it's off centered, so I'm kinda sad about that. But it's still a nice card. Something that just hold. the five dollars that Colex gave me I used it to buy Amerikami Refractor and some base cards. So I can't wait to get those in. but yeah. We're gonna head

Jason: Fire.

chat: to Collector's Corner. Jason, you have anything for Collector's Corner?

Jason: yeah, so Collector's Corner, there's a lot like a lot of the same players that I wanna pick up. So like LeBron, Cooper, Kobe, so a lot of like the legends I wanna grab and the upcoming stars. I visited Jim and Steve's sports card shop. It's massive, it's in Granny, Illinois.

chat: Fantastic shop new way.

Jason: a lot of cool cards. I've pretty much got better cards than the ones I got from the national and spent pretty much around the same amount. Got a like a rookie Kobe, got a rookie LeBron. I got a couple of I think I got a was it Alan Iverson like rookie card and a bunch of tops now cards. So very cool shop. visit a couple also when I went to Minnesota on my way to SummerSlam. visited Tom Brady Card vault. That shit was ass. Everything was expensive.

chat: Yeah.

Jason: Everything was super expensive. It was hectic. So many people at the Mall of America. I got one card that was decent in value. It was I think it's a tops now, Otani, like hitting front against Paul Schemes. I was like seven dollars under value. I was like, fuck it, I'll buy it. was another local shop, got a bunch of value bin cards, so a lot of cool cards. I think my next big pickup is gonna be rookie Steph Curry. I I mentioned it last episode there's a couple of them that are around the one twenty five, one forty range. So I think that's gonna be my next move. yeah, what

chat: Nice, nice, nice, nice.

Jason: about you, Alex? What are your what's your pickups? What are you looking to buy?

chat: just back to the the storage sheets. I mean that looked fantastic by the way. The jerseys, everything organized, the Michael Jordan, everything looked fantastic by the way. I would have

Jason: Yeah, it it's like the that Burbank store. It it's pretty much the pretty much still the same idea and 'cause it has those cases separated by players. It's insane.

chat: Well we we went to Iowa for my mom's birthday just to hang out at these other places you wanted to go. on on the I wanted to go on the way back 'cause it was in Granny, but we didn't have time. But I think that's one of the shops I gotta go back to. this I opened I finally opened a blaster of Topps Chrome. I there's I just I preferly would buy the cord the the cards individually and try to instead of hunting the boxes down. opened the one Sunday or I don't know what Monday and I got me a Peyton Tolley lightboard logo refractor, which is worth about a hundred and fifty dollars, which is kinda cool. My first box currently selling that. And then the two cards I'm currently after right now is a Kaylin Clark Blue Velocity Ricky card worth about sixty bucks. And I am gonna continue

Jason: Damn, I I saw one at the show and I was like eighty.

chat: Was it was it's like just raw?

Jason: Yeah, it was a raw card.

chat: that's the thing. I ca I couldn't find anything. I was one of the c she was one of the players I wanted to find. But I think that's why you need those extra days. And then the

Jason: Yeah, that was also Wednesday, so might have even sold, you know.

chat: Shhh, eighty bucks is not that bad for a turbucky card. then last thing I'm continuing to collect my boy Caleb. I'm trying to collect all his tops or parallels. I just got I'm trying to get the pink one, Sipia one, and Prism one. Trying to find good prices, but I was hoping to find something at the Nash and it was like like maybe one of his cards is gonna be in like a a bin or or like a what do you call it? It's like another like something somewhere it's not supposed to be and you can find a g like like maybe for like fifteen bucks instead of twenty or thirty dollars, but Yep, just continue collecting that and then gonna start my rainbow of Mikhail Vargas 'cause he's doing real well.

Jason: I saw a lot of like autograph Derek Rose. I was like, do I spend do I buy it? It was like $200 each. I was like, bro, this is sick. Derrick Rose auto. It was licensed on like

chat: I know I just saw the freaking prism unlicensed kinda

Jason: Yeah. Yeah, but yeah, a lot of cool cards. yeah, so that's gonna do it all for today's women's sports card episode. If you enjoy this show, make sure to give us a follow on the socials and wherever you enjoy podcasts.

chat: Stay ripping, stay collecting. Remember the h hobby's always boomin'. We'll catch you next time.

Jason: See ya.