speaker-1: the more and more I get to know you, the I just think you're brilliant, mate. It it's the It's

speaker-0: I love you too, Ben.

speaker-1: something I think the hobby needs in the UK. Thank you. It's eccentric, it's brilliant, there is stuff I never knew existed over there.

speaker-0: No, I didn't lose a hundred pounds of D for the kids today. I did

speaker-1: Is it old?

speaker-0: I thought I did quite well, but one kid was unbelievable. He's like, I've only played twenty-five. Yeah and then he came up and played D for twenty-six and scored four goals against me.

speaker-1: How was the show in general? Is it a good show?

speaker-0: London's a great show, it's a growing market, we have to support the UK market and yeah we love it here.

speaker-1: How do you find it? 'Cause you've been you seemingly everywhere in the US last.

speaker-0: I have been in seven cities around the world in the last four weeks. Wow. So I am I'm ready to have a a nice nap, nice siesta, bit of a barbecue. Yeah. And yeah, it's been great though. I love this hobby. It's the it doesn't feel like work. You know? Especially when we're sitting in this chair.

speaker-1: yeah yeah. It's not really work, is it? We say it in the shop like you have stress but it's like proper stress, like

speaker-0: No, hard stress is not problem stress.

speaker-1: No, it's not a a a real job really. How first of all, where's your favorite place you've been card wise for the last 'cause you did fanatics, you did

speaker-0: My favourite card show in the world is Dallas Card Show. Shout out Dallas Card Show because they're great guys and the guy who runs his name is Kyle. He's one of my favourite people in Hollywood. I love Kyle. Love the whole team there and they make us feel very very welcome. The show is the centre of the card world I would say. I would actually argue controversially it's almost as big as the national. Is it? Yeah. It's four like four or five times a year. So I would say Dallas is wild.

speaker-1: Yeah, it's one where we we got we keep getting told to go to go and it always seems to climb

speaker-0: Come join me. Yeah? We get some barbecue, ride a ride a horse and do all the cowboy things you do in Dallas.

speaker-1: Keep talking to me. That's

speaker-0: For the comment section, could you see Ben in cowboy boots and a hat? I think he'd rocket. I could. I think he'd rocket.

speaker-1: Where did Edition One come from? 'Cause you seem to have the last twelve months maybe, it's come you've come out of sort of seemingly nowhere and just sort of bloomed into this. I imagine there's a lot behind the scenes that goes on but

speaker-0: Edition one, I have been collecting many many years. I collect, as you know, different things, not just sports cards because I I love sports cards, Pokemon cards, I love the TCG world. But I think there's so much more to collectibles. So I collect comics and I collect rare books and VHS tapes and interesting objects. And you know things that my prognosis in collectibles is if it matters to me, it'll matter to somebody else. Mm-hmm. And that's what I buy. Things that matter to me. Yeah. so I I think I've got an okay eye for what I like and and I think, you know, people are engaged with with that type of unusual quirky style of of collectibles. But right now I'm really pushing on on vintage, yeah. You know, I know that the Disney Sapphire base cards of Mickey Mouse are five thousand dollars. We don't even had a great day at the London card show at the time. We did have a great day at London Card show. Yeah, London card show is closed. Please make your way towards the exits and save journey home. Thank you. I think that right now collectibles is at a real interesting point because that Disney market is amazing but it's really, really high and I don't think it's sustainable. Like I could go out and buy a nineteen thirties Mickey Mouse rookie card, his first card printed, and I can pay less than a base sapphire card. That's maths doesn't equate. No. Now that market will collect and those cards, those vintage cards are undervalued right now. You want to talk investments in cars or investments in collectibles. You have to look at the wider picture. So to me, I'm looking at D23, the big Disney announcement this weekend. Yeah. They announced a new Simpsons movie. I love The Simpsons, but I haven't watched it for many years. When was the last time you watched Simpsons?

speaker-1: time ago. Well in the same I've got a seven year old son and I thought I'd watch it with him. I didn't realise how sort of not child safe it was to start with. I don't know if you ever watched it back recently. I have watched before. But yeah no apart from that a long time used to watch Channel 4 didn't it every night. Yeah.

speaker-0: Every night you watch it every night with Disney. And that market is is very saturated. It's it's non existent right now. But with the movie coming out, my th my theory is that it's owned by Disney. Disney have a really nice partnership with Topps, there'll be a Top Simpsons set. I'm buying I've walked around this show and I spent a lot of money on vintage Simpsons because I think that's a market that works well. I think it's I think that the UK and the world will rediscover the Simpsons with the Simpsons movie coming out, the new one next year, now's the time to be buying Simpsons.

speaker-1: Yeah. What do you think it would take s just coming back to that Disney point a a second. What obviously the the market y I think you're right with the correcting on the the newer stuff, but what will it take for the vintage to to pull up and take cushion? You think? Yeah.

speaker-0: Because again, I I I love this market. It's a bull bullish market line now. I hope it stays that way forever. But at the same time it's healthy to have slight collections. Things go down and they go back up again. But when base cards are out selling vintage, you know, first appearances of Captain America or Spider Man. That Spider Man rookie card by the way, and I bought lot of them with you know, my friend Gary V Going to shout out. He's been an amazing mentor to me. He's taught me to buy them for months. I've been buying them and now they're doing PSA to do 20,000 votes. And that makes sense.

speaker-1: So do you think people like him being behind it educating pushing?

speaker-0: We need a group effort, everyone who is involved in vintage, we need to talk about vintage more. We need to appreciate what those sets are and the you know the beauty of a card that is a pop 20, you know. You gotta think as well that serialized cards, the junk wax era, there was no serialized cards, were there? No. Imagine if a Michael Jordan card was was serialized. Imagine a one-on-one Michael Jordan rookie price. It would be insane. Yeah. So with that in mind, those cards are still worth a lot of money because they're old in vintage and they didn't grade well. Yeah. That's why vintage is important. People

speaker-1: Yeah, so

speaker-0: are starting to pay attention.

speaker-1: Yeah, I think I've been seeing a lot of the same some of the contents I'll be looking at like Mario and Snoopy and things like that. Yeah. Snoopy because of you as well. I've seen your the bits of content you're putting out and the pickups and things so I love Snoopy. Yeah. I'm I've never really been interested and all of a sudden it started developing an interest and How are you getting into it? Yeah.

speaker-0: Rookie's interesting because the true rookie Snoopy set is called Linus, I'm gonna butcher the pronunciation, I think it's called Linus Delunghi, it's an Italian set. Yeah. And I bought a PSA 8, Charlie Vine and Snoopy. I paid $4,000 each for them for doing heartbit. But it's the first time he's ever printed Macard and there are thousands of different snooker sets. So the first one to pay $4,000 for, which is a lot of money. In the grand scheme of it, compared to what some of these other cows do, again, a base sapphire Mickey Mouse from last year is doing $5,000. Yeah. That doesn't make sense.

speaker-1: I think we we've seen it, we were at the national the other week and we were cashing out of some and literally as we were selling it the comp was going up as we were negotiating or and it was I think everyone is getting out of Venice, there's only can only so much Second this one. Second, what do

speaker-0: That was your first intro, wasn't it?

speaker-1: you think? I loved it. I think I spent a lot of time learning about vintage baseball and that sort of thing so

speaker-0: baseball is a slept-on-market athlete. And we were actually talking today about a friend of mine was saying how Jackie Robinson rookie is his all-time favorite car. Yeah. You've got the Mickey Mantles, the Jackie Robinsons, and those vintage isn't comp the same way as regular cards. We don't use card ladder for vintage because it's about the centering, it's about the pool and a lot more. So you can have two grades of two PSA threes, but one is worth significantly more than

speaker-1: Yeah. It blew my mind did that. 'Cause it you like it's very simple innit? You get a comp you compare it and and off you But you know, it was it was that and I think just London Card show's great but 'cause it's so busy you don't have the time to really geek out or something like that. And I think it was just five days solid of just speaking to like-minded people, seeing a lot of cool stuff that you you know exists in your mind, but you never really think you'll see it in person if that makes sense. So it was it was pretty cool on that. How was it for you? You were vending on.

speaker-0: We were vending, we were really honoured to be vending at the national, the biggest show of the world. It was an insane experience. Five days of the national, we were on the ground floor of the national, which was quite amazing and remarkable. It was booming. I mean they had a hundred thousand people a day there. And you know, two thousand people a day in a show is busy, a hundred thousand is ob seat.

speaker-1: How was it? Did you manage to cope with it or was it like a

speaker-0: We managed to cope, we had a great time, we bought really well, we sold well, we saw friends, it was nice to catch up, it's a really nice community. Yeah. And that was what was important.

speaker-1: Yeah. How do you find it in the US? 'Cause you're already over there quite a bit. Yes. Do you find it's th there's obviously a big difference in there, but is the sort of the core value the same or is it different?

speaker-0: It's a very different market and it's interesting to see new collectors come into the market. You see a lot more in the US than here actually because You get a lot of kids and a kid will walk up to a table and you think, he's coming up for a trade-up challenge, we get a card ready, and then he pulls out million dollars worth of cards. That's actually not uncommon in Dallas or the National. That's happened more times than I can count now. And like, my god, this kid's like eight years old and he's got a, you know, a little zion full of nine supers of of Cooper Flag.

speaker-1: Yeah, and everybody came up I just I've nothing to trade sorry you just don't know. It was funny watching CLA do what he's done to us for years, being able to reverse around the kids now doing it to him. These kids are trying to do trade-up challenges and it was funny to watch him just get the payback. But no, it was cool. So where does addition one go from here though? You've done the national, you did fanatics first?

speaker-0: Wow, that's a good question. I'm not sure. No. I think we're at a very interesting point in our business where it's time for We did a year. We did a year of trading. We did It's been a crazy twelve months. I don't think I've stopped for twelve months. And I kinda wanna sit down for a minute and reassess and think about what the best steps forward are, what wins are in the hobby for us and what what's working, what's not working. Bit of readjustment and we go again. And you know, we we love like coming to a car trove, seeing our friends, yeah, you know. But also pick the right car troves because when we travel as much as we do, we're traveling three times a month.

speaker-1: It it's hard with the young family as well.

speaker-0: Are you guys Yeah. you guys have any sleep?

speaker-1: This store top load. Yeah, if you just knit round that side, mate.

speaker-0: We interrupt this for a quick interruption to say that third down does have sleeves and top rows.

speaker-1: We do. We might have wanted to I don't know if we've got any left but yeah. But no i it's it it's hard, it's one thing we really struggle with is like that balance between family life and travelling and and that's just within the UK, let alone it's an

speaker-0: I have a great wife, she's super supportive. I've got a beautiful 18-month-old year old at home who is the love of my life. And I mean I hate leaving him. I hate leaving my dog, I hate leaving him. That's probably the hardest thing, but I'm having the best time. Every day is a holiday. I'm so blessed to have I guess the life that I do where I can travel and see friends and work in an industry that I love and I'm enjoying hopefully being a tiny part in helping grow.

speaker-1: massive part I think. I think there's a lot more you being over in the US and the way you're doing it and that is the eccentricity and and everything like that. I think that is putting a lot of eyes in the UK that wouldn't otherwise be there. Like if we go over, we go over s as a a small fish, we can't compete whereas having people like you that go over and and can compete and ensure that. I think that puts a big it's almost putting the flag out there and showing that we we're a serious level.

speaker-0: I don't know if we're a big fish there but we we try our

speaker-1: No, you can compete with a lot better than we can with your collections and and things like that.

speaker-0: We try really hard and the biggest thing I've actually found this car trip is actually collecting different things. So I had I I was really platter today. Someone drove three hours from Wales just now to drop off an Invincible One comic book. Yeah? Because I thought we got a deal done on Instagram, people reach out to me. And that's a crazy that's a do you know do you all go watch Invincible?

speaker-1: I didn't

speaker-0: I've not watched it either, so I mean it's paid for better than comics, but it's a very, very popular Amazon TV show. Yeah. Animation show. It has a comic book history of like 20 years of it. And the first issue, there's only 5,000 copies of it. So I bought a really nice CGC. 8.5 signed by the artist today. He's driven three hours to be here. That's it's really amazing. That's that's made the show for me.

speaker-1: It's cool. I think the the person thing is the the person side of the hobby is really what makes it. The cards are great but the story behind it and and everything like that.

speaker-0: Why not? Today's been a memorabilia day. Today has been one of our best ever selling days as memorabilia. And I hate selling memorabilia because I hate letting that stuff go. Because it's so hard to get again. We sold some Game News Ronaldinho boots today. Yeah. We sold two Mohammed Ali sign magazines yesterday. Wow. yeah. Picked up some comics today.

speaker-1: Is that just stock you had in your collection or is that something you were buying?

speaker-0: I again it's stuff that I had on on display really and if someone if someone wants to to buy it then they can offer and we can see if we can get something done. But it's not we're not we're not a car show. Our priority here is cards obviously. So the cars that come first. They're behind the stand and sometimes people want to see something a little bit different. Yeah. And I think we're the place to go for that. Yeah.

speaker-1: Definitely. I'm it's always one of the first places I go is see what new you've got 'cause it's not necessary I always look up first before I look down. It's always the shelves at the back and and that sort of thing. But last thing, one piece of advice of someone getting into the hobby, coming to places like this.

speaker-0: I think for people coming into the hobby, it's a very scary place in Missouri. Don't know anybody, you're walking around table to table. And one thing I have seen more, and I'm gonna shout out Harry and London Car Trip, because they encourage this and they're really good at this, is that in a lot of US shows, you walk around a show, kids are immediately priced out. Kids walk around with their parents and the first time at a car show and their parents thinking, my god, my son's a lunatic, he's sending me to a show and he's looking at hundred thousand dollar cars. that I I I I can't afford that. Kids are priced out immediately. Yeah. And London There's a it's more about community here. And you can see that because you know so many tables have have the equivalent of dollar bins or bins to fit fit three. You do that really well. You know, I think this, I think I I always try and give a couple of slabs to kids, let them pick through and have an experience because they're our future customers. We need them to learn about it and grow and get excited by it. And that's really important. So if you're coming to a card show, You don't need to spend it on the market. No. You need to walk around, you need to buy what you like. You need to learn about something before you buy it. It's very easy to think, my god, there's a one-of-one, I need to buy that now. But a lot, sometimes there's a checklist and there's 25 with the same one-on-one in different parallels or different poses, or his head is slightly turned to the left or right. Yeah. So it's always good to look at the market and to do things slowly. Go slowly. Be responsible with it. You know. A lot of people are being irresponsible with their... breaking habits and things like that and having car trades full of cases of cars, I don't know what they are. Why wouldn't you laugh?

speaker-1: Yeah. I it's I'm a bit of a broken record with this 'cause we had quite a few people sit down and One thing that pretty much everyone has said throughout is when they start collecting they get they go big, they go everything, they're chasing the one on ones, everything like that. And then as they develop, like we had someone who just collects out of twenty ones, someone that just collects image variations, that sort of thing. Yeah. And it everyone's like sort of collection goes down that path steering away from the big things and going to what they actually enjoy and it makes it gives them a reason to go to a show and flick through other bins and and that sort of thing. It's cool to see.

speaker-0: Exactly right. Niche collectors actually. I've actually found that quite funny when someone comes over and says, I only collect PSA sevens. I said, okay, alright, we've got some PSA sevens for you. Or it comes over and says, yeah, I'm looking for a nineteen ninety-eight Alex Ferguson Roy Key or all that didn't even know that existed, but okay.

speaker-1: No, it's cool. It's cool to see that. I think it it needs that to you don't want everyone collecting the same card and I think when everyone opens a case it's always it's nice to see the different things. But have seen ticket and slabs? Given at him. you will love him. He does he collects mainly Olympics but he has like There's always a story behind the card and he he likes photo matching so if he finds a patch he'll match that to the photo and things like that. And he we spent must have been about an hour just chatting too much trade night and he's just pulling things out and tickets from like Caitlin Clark's debut game, but it's not even used. So there's things like that where you you just no e no idea again. But yeah, but thank you for your time anyway. And we'll have to get on properly at some point.

speaker-0: I'd love to. I'll come down. Yeah. Third Down Podcast is the place to be, guys. Liked and subscribed. Don't again

speaker-1: Thank you very much, Matt.

speaker-0: say that.