Mere Mortals Conversations

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Some special guests (Brodie & Mansheel) are here to do some show and tell!

In Episode #477 of Meanderings, we discuss the intricacies of collecting Pokémon cards, the financials of the grading process, factors that influence the value of these collectibles, maintaining excellent card condition (Juan needs to take notes), nostalgia of collecting since children, the thrill of opening VeeFriends packs and the strategies for buying and selling cards.

Huge thanks to Cole for supporting this week (and Petar for the maple syrup). 

Timeline:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:02:21) Pokemon Grading & Card Conditions
(00:04:01) Opening VeeFriends & Storing Cards
(00:08:20) Valuing & Selling Cards
(00:12:24) Grading Process & Market Insights
(00:18:22) Market Trends & Investment Strategies
(00:24:00) Collecting Motivations & Personal Stories
(00:24:12) Boostagram Lounge
(00:32:01) Nostalgia & Childhood Collections
(00:40:00) Unique Collectibles & Memorabilia
(00:48:41) Market Manipulation & Rarity
(00:56:29) Future Of Collecting & Market Speculations
(01:04:41) V4V: Time/Talent/Treasure

Connect with Mere Mortals:
Website: https://www.meremortalspodcast.com/
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Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/meremortalspods
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[00:00:05] Kyrin Down:

Welcome, everyone.   Episode   here. Meandering is going to be a casual live catch up with friends. It's been a it's been a while since we've done this last one was actually I think before I left for   Brazil. So   today we're going to be chatting about some Pokemon cards, some collecting. We've got some avid collectors over here and, new collector. New collector. New collector.   Yeah. What we'll start with there. I guess Kyrin here. I'm live on what? Sunday, February 23. We've got   one. Brody. Brody.   Say your name. Move you a lot closer. My name is Mansheel.  

[00:00:42] Juan Granados:

It was my mum. They might. Give me that as far away now.  

[00:00:46] Unknown:

Yeah. Hello. Hello. I think we're just gonna be talking about, yeah. Cards, collectors.  

[00:00:50] Juan Granados:

Why why did you purchase a Pokemon card from from Brody?  

[00:00:54] Unknown:

Which one? Which one did you I've got it's here. It's here. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me.  

[00:00:58] Kyrin Down:

Tell actually check the camera as well. Was it, PSA graded already?  

[00:01:03] Unknown:

Yeah. Yeah. It's already PSA graded. He's my favorite Pokemon. So   He's got good taste. I like, you know, if I had to get any one will be with the one, Tyranitar.  

[00:01:14] Juan Granados:

Pit like so this was a PSA 10 gem empty. Yeah.   When you visually open these up, do you know like can you tell that it's going to be a PSA   10 or not just based on how like you open them and how  

[00:01:29] Unknown:

nice they feel like you can yeah after having graded them   graded so many you can tell after a while what you like you can take a guess at where you think it's gonna end up if you've got oily hands will that affect the grain?   Yeah. If you leave smudges on there, yeah, it would. Check it out  

[00:01:46] Unknown:

well. Because I thought it was,   like, just a new car   without it being, like,   you know, altered or smashed or whatever. But it's actually more than that. It's actually how the image is actually centered. Right? Not all Like, it's actually how it's, like, printed out or something like that. It's both it's both the printed  

[00:02:06] Juan Granados:

The condition. The balance, the condition of it.   Well, man, well well Nice. We'll talk about it in here with the VeeFriends cards,   but,   this is not Impeccable  

[00:02:17] Kyrin Down:

condition you've found on it. How how different is  

[00:02:21] Juan Granados:

the yeah. Is the opening experience? So the way that I opened it, right? So VeeFriends cards was 2022.   I think they sent them out. Where's the boxes?   I'll pull some boxes out.  

[00:02:32] Kyrin Down:

I'll pass them around.  

[00:02:33] Juan Granados:

Even once already like, not graded.   There's a non graded one, but it is already in a solid  

[00:02:39] Unknown:

place. This is in a one touch case.  

[00:02:41] Kyrin Down:

Mhmm. Can you even open this thing? For a phone.   So  

[00:02:46] Juan Granados:

for Slide out top. Yep. For the for the non initiator home, I had I'm going to say if I really had to get I think I had eight or 10 of these.   I believe these boxes now go for about $500   Australian   training days. I think they're like $3.50 US. These were basically given out as part of people who had VeeFriends NFTs way back in the day.   I, in essence, the the way that I opened it, and Brady told me if this is done incorrectly,   I sat around a table at home   and we just ripped them as fast as we could possibly do it between me, my mom, my dad, my partner, and we just ripped them literally as quickly as possible,   pull them out, hole them enough in our hands. Then we were like, oh, is this the one already? Cool. Put it aside. Keep going. Rip rip rip rip rip rip rip. So what I've got,   and if, you know, if you can't see this, I've got a basically a container that's like, I don't know,   probably has about a thousand cards in it, which I would call the commons.  

Maybe there's maybe there's more, maybe there's less. I I believe each one of these goes for like $2.05, $10, but you can it makes for a lot more if they're in,   what do you call it? Mint condition? Not mint condition, but if you can do like sets as well, because when you do the entire set, then it's a whole lot more. Yeah. That's what I was And in that in that grouping in those ones, is that the rarer ones?  

[00:04:06] Kyrin Down:

I don't even know what There was another so there was another section here. Yeah, but I think there was some in there or it might be in the box. Oh, okay cool. And then I've like smartly put away in very  

[00:04:18] Juan Granados:

generally okay sleeves   the one the ones that I think are like okay these are a little bit rarer   but one of the questions I wanna get to today is like, okay. I wanna pull the rarest one I can find in there. I'll be like, Brady, what the hell do I do with this? Yeah. Like, how do I actually go and and rate it and stuff like that? That that's that's like an interesting first of all, did I did I open them correctly? Did you have fun? It was fun. It was very fun. I did record  

[00:04:42] Unknown:

it, but it was a lot of fun just opening them up. As a collector or someone like wanting to have fun and like the pack opening experience, you did it the right way. Yeah. Yeah. That's the best way to do it around friends or family and just ripping through and trying to pull some good stuff. Stuff. But in terms of, like,   condition and keeping condition, it was   like, wasn't it? So I bought some sleeves and stuff, and this is like this is actually I'm glad I brought these now because this is like a good example of when you open it, like, you'd normally put it in the sleeve if it was a good card   like that. So straight away, it's got some sort of protection.  

And then into it for for pre when I pre grade stuff or for pre grading, I'll put it into a semi region. So it goes in here like this, and then you'd just have like a box of those in a row  

[00:05:26] Juan Granados:

protected like that. Yeah I can see that that's more rigid than these more like flimsier ones which if I'm visually looking at it now has actually curved. Yeah so that's a piece sleeve that's like that. Yeah. So I'll put it in that. Yeah okay.  

[00:05:38] Unknown:

Inside the sleeve   and they'll they'll just just due to our climate, they will bend just due to the moisture and stuff in the air. Yeah. Okay.  

[00:05:48] Kyrin Down:

There you go. We're not good. Not good. Not good.  

[00:05:51] Unknown:

We're seeing with these ones, it's better for it's not bending. Well, I just do it well, they can still bend.  

[00:05:58] Unknown:

Yeah. But it's better than them just sitting in a box like that where they just go like this.  

[00:06:03] Juan Granados:

Yeah. And just shake around everywhere. So I want your expert opinion.   Ready? This particular one is a   one of 25   card   from the I can't even tell you what these are the original   befriends trading card games. These are not a zero cool card.  

[00:06:22] Kyrin Down:

Collection, no, it's like collect and compete. Collect and compete. Collect and compete.  

[00:06:28] Juan Granados:

This particular card, you tell me, what do you think PSA wise would write?   Just buy it and take it out? You can take it out. You've got the zero cool one there. I think think that's that one, right? Correct. Yeah. Zero is, we can do about the zero cool one. Upgrade  

[00:06:41] Unknown:

one's,   card to a up and sleeve. So then you can see the back. Okay. So then when he is condition checking it, he can actually see the back as well. I can confirm. Yeah. Because I didn't realize that the back actually,  

[00:06:54] Kyrin Down:

added as well. One of these is like dungeon and dragon or some shit sleeves. I don't know where you get these from.  

[00:07:00] Juan Granados:

I remember getting them in a But they actually come out. I don't think I don't think it's a 10.  

[00:07:05] Unknown:

I wouldn't have said it's a 10 given that because it's got some well, the bending doesn't matter as much. It's if it's got a crease, it would matter. So bending so like moisture doesn't. Yeah. Like you can have a card, then you can chuck it in between two books, leave it for a week and then flatten it out. I got to flatten out. The back's got edge wear on the bottom.   The top. See them edge wheel. Oh, yeah. There you go. I don't think I'm going to see that. Yeah. So that sort of stuff you got to look for on edges.  

[00:07:34] Juan Granados:

Otherwise, it looks pretty good. The centering is pretty good. I'd say like an eight or a nine. Okay. And a nine. Okay. Yeah. So just for So let's send it. I'm pulling it. So so this is what I wanna check. I, we can play back this for a little while later. So I've seen,   some of these ones be on eBay. So I'm assuming eBay is kind of like the best place to sell these things. I don't know if there's, there's Whatnot. We were talking about this with, there's an app called Whatnot. Yeah. Whatnot's in Australia now too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've paid attention to it a couple of times and it seems   cool to participate in. Like there's a lot of hype in there. But this particular one, there is some,   offers for $2.50 US dollars, but it's not PSA graded. Just for the rule. Just for the rule card. So is it worth actually getting them graded?  



[00:08:20] Kyrin Down:

Yeah, can you is that is there any possible scenario where you get it graded and it loses value? Because the grading? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So say the card that I'm selling to Manshield,  

[00:08:32] Unknown:

if that came back in '9,   it's probably not worth   the paper as much. Yeah. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's not worth as much. Like there's a real big 10,   premium. Yeah. In like getting a card in German condition compared to getting like a nine or an eight. It's worth worthwhile looking at, well, like a PSA eight to 10   sales full and that would give you like a good indication of whether or not you should get it, create it or resell. If you just want to do it to collect it, then  

[00:08:59] Juan Granados:

you grade it and you don't really worry about what you're just keeping. Yeah. Because you want to keep it. Yeah. But if it's for resell, you want to look at all that sort of stuff. So then I've got this other card. So I guess the other question I wanted to ask you and again, if anyone's listening to this and has any attention to any of the stuff, feel free to drop a message and whatnot. But this is a   profound puzzle. There's no rap there's no rarity to this particular one   in the sense of that one's like an epic so it's like one of 25. Did it come in the case? But this one came in the case was given to me by Gary   himself.  

So it's already in the case, I don't know what this would mean in terms of a PSA one, but it's the original   card. So before these cards, it was actually these   and they only made 5,000 boxes ever. So this would be even though it's like number 195   vfriend,   It's less rare than that, where there's only 25 of them in the world, where there's probably   5,000 of them. They break slots,  

[00:09:53] Kyrin Down:

they break boxes on on whatnot. And I think just an individual card will,   they'll go up for auction at  

[00:10:01] Juan Granados:

like hundreds of dollars. Yeah, 400 something like that. So again, similar to that question I asked you visually now this has been in that sealed case basically since I got it.   Is that something that you'd send off the PSA again to be like, Yeah, yeah, go ahead. So very good right this to establish some cred.  

[00:10:20] Kyrin Down:

Brody is what's your channel called again? It's Brody.   Yeah. And he collects Pokemon cards   and grades   them. He sells resells them all in the world of of the Pokemon cards. So he's he's got a lot of experience   sending cards off to other parts of the world. Do you have to is there any grading in Australia? Can you create a few companies? Yeah. But that's just not the like the top. Yeah. They don't have the same reputation that you say will have. So they won't have the same. They say we that's just all based on reputation. They won't have the same. Well, they've got PSA has got like twenty years of experience. They've got  

[00:10:58] Unknown:

all the systems in place, whereas a lot of the Aussie companies haven't been around   for long. They've only been around a couple of years. It's a much smaller market.   They like they they'll grade like a million cards a month. Like it's  

[00:11:11] Kyrin Down:

that they kind of got 80% of the market. So how does the process work? So like Sam, I've got this   little monkey here, moral monkey, and I'm chucking him in. I'm like, Hey, I want this graded.   You send it in in these like packages. So you do all the good things. You send it in there. Yeah. Do these go on like conveyor belts? So they put on the machines or is it just some yobbo looking at it and being like, Oh, yeah, I think that's a that's a 10. As far as I know, it's just some yob jokes. So Americans just have better jobs. Yeah. There's a company called called tag grading that started recently and they have got what they're calling AI grading. Though, where it's  

[00:11:50] Unknown:

like a machine learning type of thing. Yeah. Like you take a photo. It's like a person,   grading them, so to speak. Yeah.  

[00:11:58] Kyrin Down:

This whole world seems so strange to me where it's just   like   it it's like they're trying to put objective metrics on just   some very subjective things of and I could understand it more if it was like, yeah,   we're taking photos of it as it comes in and, you know, detecting edge wear or like the little corners   being off here or creases or smudges or stuff like that. But   it sounds like that's not what what actually happens. For example,  

[00:12:25] Unknown:

if the PSA eight zero nine and they tell you why,  

[00:12:28] Unknown:

where the flows are when you get it back? Yeah like they've got a service where you can you can pay to have like a a grade report Oh yeah. Done and they'll they'll tell you but you've gotta you've gotta pay for that.   I think tag has actually got that as well and they like it's a like a I think it's on a one to 1,000   scale.   So they've One to a thousand point scale. They can give you really really detailed,   grade result or report. Oh, okay. I don't know much I don't know heap about it.  

[00:12:58] Juan Granados:

Mhmm. Because here's my question, right, when I when I Let's just grade it. Well, this is the thing. That's what I'm talking about. So I basically have, you know, whatever it is, a thousand plus cards over there which are basically your basics. And one of the things that I don't understand or don't know is is it worth getting all of these Basics actually,   you know, graded given that they are Commons and maybe you'd be if I was to sell them they're probably more so sold as Commons than it is, sorry, ruled and graded. But then I've got so from   however many it was, eight boxes or whatever, there's about   what have we got a handful of here? Probably about   15 which were rares, which is like unique out of 500,   three which are out of a hundred and then the one that was an out of 25  

[00:13:44] Unknown:

kart. So there's no one of ones or anything like that that I pulled out from all of these. But if you were to or someone at home had something like this, you were to recommend that would you basically say, yep. Just send all of them in in some sort of, like again, tell me some specifics. How do I Do you wanna resell do you wanna resell them? I reckon resell them. You wanna, like, make money? We're here to make money. We're here to make money. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We're here to make we're here to make money. To make money. I'd I'd see what the raw ones are selling for. I'd see what, like, a PSA tender eight selling for. I'd pick out the best quality ones and I'd send those depending on what the price to sell prices are. So if the raw price is like $2.50   for this, say, yep, and a ten's only like 200, you've got to spend an extra $30 to to grade it. Per per card? Yeah. About $30 Australian at the moment. So I'll give you I'll give you You're better off just selling a rule. So here's some numbers. So let me do This is what I'm sending. A PSA 10  

[00:14:37] Juan Granados:

common. Yeah. Common, get ready for this folks. Is $120   USD on average.   So that's, that's what, 180 Australian? Yeah. Per one of those comments.   That's pretty good. That's for a PSA 10. Yeah. Sorry. I'll I'll sorry.   For a common card. For a common card. So the hundred for PSA 10, it's hundred and sorry. I'm reading this off eBay. Hundred and twenty, hundred and fifty five, hundred and twenty, hundred and fifty. Yes. Okay. Yep. 21205,   2 40 9 depending on the specific if it's a patient   panda, 250.  

[00:15:10] Unknown:

Patient pen.  

[00:15:12] Unknown:

Wow. That's That's the karma kiwi.  

[00:15:14] Juan Granados:

The sorry. Like in the match. Another one. I've got a Phoenix in there,   which is a very rare, which is a one out of 100.   One out of 500   PSA eight sold for $135  

[00:15:30] Kyrin Down:

US. I'm surprised   that the grading actually   for the commons is is that important. So this one?  

[00:15:37] Unknown:

Phoenix?   Correct. Correct.  

[00:15:41] Kyrin Down:

Show me it. I want to verify this.   I've been telling my brother like don't trust anything Juan says ever. Like, oh, he's looking at, you know, making a purchase or something   until I see you   with that purchase. I don't believe that you've actually purchased it. True.  

[00:15:57] Juan Granados:

True. True. Sorry. I guess this is what I'm trying to understand from like individuals. Showing results for B friends. What I'm trying to understand is like, yeah, you know, what's the reality of, okay, let's just say   some of those in those boxes probably aren't gonna be PSA 10, let's be honest. The reality is mostly gonna be sevens or eights at best.   Maybe some come back nine, maybe one or two of them come back 10.   Is it worth me sending $30   times a thousand cards   for $30,000   to get them all greater? Is that worth it? How many cards? There's about 1,000 there. Okay. Right. So why don't chuck down $30 to get them all graded? Is that like, you know, is that actually worth it? So you'd need what 300 cards to  

[00:16:42] Kyrin Down:

and you're selling like $100   Yep. Great. Based on that, so you'd need 300 of the how many cards? So 1,000  

[00:16:49] Juan Granados:

to be PSA tens. What was the chance of that?   What's that to me seems like a rare like a rare thing to come back.   I  

[00:16:59] Unknown:

think I would definitely not be sending all of the commons. I'd be just trying to do the high rarity stuff first if it looks like it's Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. I wouldn't send because you wanna understand the liquidity. What's the market like for Pearson? Like for graded BFR? How do you have no How do you do that? Look how many like like look how many sales they're like just checking the last how many sales over the last three months how many sales of a certain card in a in a grade there's been. But again how how do you how do you do that?  

[00:17:26] Juan Granados:

Like eBay, check sale? Yeah, eBay. Okay. That's  

[00:17:30] Kyrin Down:

why most people sell  

[00:17:31] Unknown:

stuff on eBay. Well, I didn't even know if most people sell vfriends on eBay. See, I'm not   an expert on vfriends. Yeah, I can only go off my mate. How are you not the. I'm not the friends expert.   Yeah.   I think the other thing to consider is looking at the pop reports   for friends cards like the PSA pop report or CGC   and seeing   how they grade. Like, if they grade, like, a 50% of   the 50% of these   Phoenix is greater 10, well, then there's, like, already a low PSA 10 rate, 50%.   So   you might be, you might yeah. It might not be worth sending that.  

[00:18:09] Juan Granados:

So, so I'll give you It's a card that grades tens like 75% of the time. Okay, well I'm probably gonna, yeah. So let's, let's give someone like a clear example. So I've got   this profound possum again in a sealed case, bloody thing. Top one  

[00:18:24] Unknown:

touch case.  

[00:18:25] Juan Granados:

Feb twenty two, twenty twenty five. So this is a day ago.   A similar   just basic one sold for $235   US dollars. Raw.   Gem mint 10.   Now, if you looked at this though, does this have a chance of being mint 10 given that it's literally not been out of that case forever?   Is there anything that you can view that looks   like there's some?  

[00:18:47] Unknown:

I will say that one touches are not   the best thing to put cards in. Okay, why?   Because they can move around inside there. Mhmm.   The only thing I can see   is right at the front on the bottom right corner looks like there's, like, a little indent on the card.  

[00:19:05] Juan Granados:

Okay. Down there.  

[00:19:06] Unknown:

You see that?   You seen this man? You see that windshield? I'm trying to educate an issue. Oh, goodness. What the hell? So it's like I would I would pull it out. I would pull it out. Okay. And check if that's anything. If that is like an indent on the card, they're gonna mark you down. Gotcha. But otherwise the card looks really mint. Okay. Looks good. So then the other thing is there's a few,   I'll give you some more examples. Some of the very rares in there. I probably said this last time. I feel like this is I'm deja vu ing right now. I should feel it. Did you show me this last time on the podcast? I don't know if I did or not. Did we? No. I don't think so.  

[00:19:37] Juan Granados:

I mean, we did talk about Do you think that's the Pokemon card's actual card or maybe I don't know. I'd have to pull it out. So yeah. The the thing is, like, so some of these rares here, let's just say just these rares. We'd have to physically get it out and have Non graded. Non graded. So there's no grading on them. So, they sell between 75 to 150 US dollars. I would just sell them raw. Right? Raw? I think so. There you go. So if you're listening to home, folks, I'm gonna start selling some raw They don't like, the ones that look gem mint Yep. You could grade them Yep. Have a crack. But the ones that aren't I would say well just sell them as new mint. Okay. So, okay. So my plan that's actually gonna be they look they look basically actually based on what you've been saying I'm basically go sounds like people will buy the rarer ones raw   for you're not gonna get much more of an uplift even if you get a PSA 10, which you might not.  

And then the comments actually, the comments say I wouldn't even try and go down the path of a PSA 10.   You can between the raw common cards   seem to sell between 2 to 10 US dollars depending on the character. If it's a really good character, I'll wait at 200 US dollars, but I don't have some of the really top cards. But any one of those between 2 to $10   US.  

[00:20:45] Unknown:

Sorry. Here's my follow-up question. Is there much of a market here in Australia? Do you then  

[00:20:49] Juan Granados:

well, that's a good point. Do you then would sell it like bulk? Do you go like,  

[00:20:54] Kyrin Down:

hey. Sell them as sets like you said. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I sell like full sets. Okay. I was gonna say my my brothers now would you actually do any of this one? Like this?  

[00:21:02] Unknown:

I can assume this is the  

[00:21:05] Juan Granados:

thing. This is the thing. I don't know if I would personally sit there to be like, Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna go and sell this all. I'll float this by my brother. He's looking for a hustle. He's looking for a side hustle. He's been he's  

[00:21:17] Kyrin Down:

he's been looking at sniping meme coins and is like, he, he joined some of the like live streams.   So think of like the, the live streams. Like meme coin live streams. Yeah. Yeah. So he was watching this one. I think it was this cat called Daisy. And this guy was had this podcast and he's like, my cat Daisy, like it's, you know, paralyzed.   We're trying to raise money. There's a GoFundMe. And he's like pointing to a GoFundMe that's months old and hasn't hasn't fully got up   to its desired level.   And   it Prentiss is my brother's watching this live.   This guy's doing this podcast and then it gets to like a couple of $1,000 his meme coin, which is his his alternative way of GoFunding this cat   string cuts out liquidity drained instantly. And he's he was just going like, oh, that was so gross. And he reckons this guy does this   every day. That was his feeling like this guy just hustles every day. He probably made like a couple of hundred bucks from him on that one thing and then he'll do it again and probably like same playbook, same exact thing. Yeah, that's, that's a bit shit.  

And, yeah. So he's, he's just like, I don't want anything to do with this. Well, this seems gross and you have to be   stodgy to do this. Yeah.   So, he might be interested in   sorting through a thousand cards to   find some gems and,   and doing that sort of thing. The top of the  

[00:22:39] Unknown:

back, like the edging on the back   Top of the back seat. Oh, yeah. I can see it. Yeah. So that wouldn't be a PSA. And so that one I'd sell.  

[00:22:47] Kyrin Down:

No.  

[00:22:48] Juan Granados:

Okay. Interesting. Interesting. So for today, for me and more of the home, my my plan my plan was,   I've got three very rares,   my collection. So I'm going to give you each a very rare.   I  

[00:23:01] Unknown:

want a gem mint one. Wait, can I pick one? Can I choose the character? Yeah, can we choose a character?  

[00:23:07] Juan Granados:

All right. There's a Forever Phoenix.  

[00:23:09] Kyrin Down:

Okay. No, I don't want that. There's  

[00:23:11] Unknown:

Can I get the Gusty Gecko? I   didn't get them.  

[00:23:15] Juan Granados:

Oh, you're in the light. No, those are rare, so those are rare. Yeah. These are the very classic one gives me the   Looks like this.   Oh, because they've got the different coloring. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you see at the bottom it's got the different add on. If you gave me one, I would just grade it.  

[00:23:32] Unknown:

And then I'll just come back to the podcast Wait. So I can choose in in three years time when Lance graded all of his Yeah. Because that's how long he's gonna take to sort this out. Yeah. What's the timeline for finishing this project?  

[00:23:42] Kyrin Down:

I don't know. I'll just use it. Like it, you're selling it out. This is the strategic meeting, right? Yeah. Decide how you wanna deviate between them, but there you go. I wanna see how you Wait, so what are all those ones? Those are all very rare as well. No, these are all all the What that was? He already told my get go. Show me the rare, man. I'm I'm I'm more of a more of a character. Actually, choose choose one. I'm taking these ones. These are the ones I'm taking over.   Nice.   So I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna quest to collect and   maybe let's jump into, I guess, the boostgram lounge and then we'll talk about the meta of collecting. Like, why why collect vfriends? Why collect Pokemon cards and things like this? So   there's a chance where we'll,   we'd like to thank the supporters of the show. I know we had a couple of boost to gram messages come in. We also are planning for   eating   some Canadian maple syrup. Correct. Thank you very much, Peter. Oh, yes. So when I was in the year   No, not not not true. That would be cool. Jazz. All right.  

No. So when I was in in Canada and traveling, I did get to meet up with a supporter of the show and he gave me a bunch of his clothes because I lost my bags, but also some maple syrup. And I also lost one of those canisters because you can't fucking import liquids   in your in your hand luggage, but we have one of them. So we will be   consuming that very soon. On them. Correct. I'm also planning on traveling pretty soon to Europe. So if there's any Europe listeners out there and want to connect with me immortals,   hit me up because I'm going to be going to a whole bunch of different countries.  



[00:25:14] Juan Granados:

One, you want to read out what, what call sent in? Call sent two or three things. First one, the real question to ask about AI is, is it making you and your company more money? Models are compressing rate, compressing data at such an incredible rate. One can evaluate real estate to a little quicker, but until one of us makes FU money directly due to AI, all breaks are fuzzy in my opinion. Colt, I'm making FU money. I can tell you this right now with AI. Yeah. I've, Garrett, I've talked about this with Karim. Doing with his company   is is is is stealing all the Australian jobs. We're making quite a little lot of a few money in there. So, Carl, I can I can tell you directly? He's like one as a company.  

Oh, yeah. There's a there's a lot of incoming,   cash coming in through them. But I agree with Carl in the sense that, yeah, look, until he's actually making  

[00:25:56] Unknown:

Are we talking about this on are we talking no. It should be on are we talking about this on stream or not?  

[00:26:01] Juan Granados:

Yeah. This is all live now. This is live. But I wanna call you to close   No. Okay. It has to be the after party then. It has to be the after party. Okay. So that's one part from Carl, which was a 111   sat sent using fountain.   The second one is 500 sat sent using fountain. I also don't care about robots until I get my own R2 D2 that follows me on my Jedi adventures.   That would be very cool. That's probably gonna be the  

[00:26:25] Kyrin Down:

like final one when you have a companionship type robot. I think I saw on Twitter just this morning. There was a guy's create like, you know, the,   what was the ball one in the recent Star Wars movies? I never actually saw them. It was like the ball thing and it had,   it was like a ball robot with the thing on top of it. I don't think of them. And it was blue one in the run. I don't know what color it was, man. All I know all I remember seeing is trailers. There was a ball type robot running along and it had a thing on top of it. Anyway, it was essentially that. It was a ball that was moving and it had a thing that was somehow staying on top of it and it was all robot like. It was pretty cool. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It would be really fun. Although I did see another video recently that it was a they've got robot security guards in China. Oh, yeah. I saw that one as well. And it was like, almost like attack the like humans like almost acting like real life like like in the show like the yeah, I'll be like restrained. There you go. How's a little   good prediction time here? What's what's going to be the first person to die from like a robot?  

How will it happen? Like, will they?   What percentage of the blame will be put on the human for doing something really stupid? And on what percentage will be like, oh, the robot just malfunctioning and killed like,  

[00:27:35] Juan Granados:

I mean, what do you reckon? Some of the Tesla cars crashed and killed people days. Yeah, I'm talking about the humanoid robots here.  

[00:27:42] Kyrin Down:

One thinks there's gonna be humanoid robots coming soonish. End of next year. And the next year.   If you checked out the last episode,   you'll know that.   So you've got one in the house, or you've got one doing something. The first person if it turns around and stabs you in the head. Yeah, because you were shouting at it. No, okay. I'd put that as like 0.0001%   on the human. Like you shouldn't You shouldn't do that.   You shouldn't You shouldn't provoke you. That's mostly the robots fault for getting provoked. But let's say you're   walking down the stairs, it's following you and it falls on top of you. That's 100% the robots fault and 0% your fault, I would say. Yeah. So what the first person who dies, how's this? What's what's the percentage going to be? Robot versus human?  

Like stunned silence.  

[00:28:35] Juan Granados:

I reckon more robot than it'll be the human. Yeah. Like the robot malfunctioning   or doing something weird where it wasn't supposed to. Okay. I reckon it's gonna be, like, 98%   human fault. Oh, you reckon? Yeah. And then just the robot was wrong time, wrong place? Yeah. Maybe. Nah. I feel like something will malfunction in the robot. It won't be so much a human, but unless   you then say that it was a human who built the bloody robot and didn't do it correctly, some shit. But I think it'll be robot based and more human based. Wait. What's the example of, like, a human having Yeah. That's a good question. Good question, mom. What are these humanoid robots doing in your house? As as in sorry, example of a human having fault   to the robot kills it. Yeah.  



[00:29:14] Kyrin Down:

So that would probably be something like   you're you're drunk,   you're on your driveway and you're you're like playing catch with the robot   and it's slippery.  

[00:29:25] Juan Granados:

You or  

[00:29:27] Kyrin Down:

you like you're trying to play football and like get it to   here's a good one. You've seen how people like will hit golf balls off of other people's heads.   Yeah. So something like that all the time. They'll they'll   have like a tee in their mouth. The they've got the robot with the golf club above them. They're like, Yeah, do a perfect swing. And then the robot just like, this is miscalculated.   That'd be the robot fault. No, I'm putting that on human. Like if   you're trying to get new robots What if you've got a pretty natural selection? What if you've got  

[00:29:57] Juan Granados:

a robot as security guard at the club? You're going in To club. You start swinging, hitting people. So the robot king hits you and kills a person.  

[00:30:06] Kyrin Down:

Whose fault was that? Well, which person are they are they killing? They killed the one who came in fighting everyone.  

[00:30:13] Juan Granados:

Is it the robot's fault?  

[00:30:14] Kyrin Down:

Nah, that's mostly human. That's mostly human fault.   I'd say. Wait.  

[00:30:20] Juan Granados:

I don't know. Yeah, I would say that's a robot's fault. That's like that's on the robot. The robot. You give the robot the kink. Yeah.  

[00:30:26] Kyrin Down:

No, but but it's it's trying to respond to a very vital, not in a good enough way. Yeah. Obviously, but there's some blame. Oh,  

[00:30:35] Juan Granados:

I don't know. What do you think, Karl? Tell us, mate. Yeah. Or or much as much as in the chat. Who's who's who's got this right? The one who's bald or the one with hair?   With hair. You let me know. Sure. Very good.  

[00:30:45] Kyrin Down:

Okay. Let's jump into  

[00:30:47] Juan Granados:

to collecting. And why, why would someone want to collect in the first place? By the way, as we're going through this, and we're doing collecting, I want to go through that box because I mean, you can take whichever character you want from now on as well. So at the same time, my question was going to be from a collecting perspective, is it   find the most   valuable   resellable   piece or is it, hey, actually get the go and get the ones that appeals to you most as a character and then maybe if you're gonna resell it, do so. But if not, then it just becomes a,   a keepsake, I guess.  

Good question. Yeah. I'll I'll bring actually something up to make my point as you guys are talking.   What do you got? Charizard? Charizard? Charizard? I think if I have It's a collector's thing, but it's not a cat.  

[00:31:34] Kyrin Down:

Well, yeah.   Let's I'm fucking diverting conversation.   Brody, what is the fascination with collecting? When did it start for you? And why Pokemon? And do you have any other things that you collect?  

[00:31:47] Unknown:

So obviously, like Pokemon came out in well in in English nineteen ninety nine. So we got base set followed by fossil jungle. That's that's that's the card. Sorry. Yeah. The trading card game came out in 1999 in English. It was   originally released in 1996   in Japanese.   So as I was   seven or eight, I think at the time.   And I think if you guys remember Pokemon took off,   it was pretty crazy.  

[00:32:13] Kyrin Down:

Like, that was one of the most my dad showed me this journal he kept. And it was just like notes and observations of myself and my brother and he was like, man,   the stupid kid keeps like,   wasting all this money  

[00:32:28] Unknown:

on on  

[00:32:29] Kyrin Down:

Yeah. And   and and is,   and he's like on these fucking, like,   cardboard. Like, he's wasting this money on cardboard, but it brings him a lot of joy. So it's like,  

[00:32:39] Unknown:

it's okay, I guess. Yeah. So it was probably that. So it's nostalgic   now to for me to collect cards.   But yeah, it all stem from that back then. I don't collect anything else. I don't think I collect anything else.   Only memories.  

[00:32:55] Kyrin Down:

So deep. So deep.  

[00:32:58] Unknown:

But yeah, it stemmed from that. Don't collect anything else now.   And   I would I would say   based on one question about   what do I what do I collect? What do I keep in that? So I'm currently trying to collect a set of cards in PSA 10 from a recent   era of Pokemon, so recent generation.   And so I'll buy other cards   to to resell. And typically, like the cars I'm going to buy are stuff with people like, like a torn at all that you can find someone whose favorite card is Taranitar. So at the same time is trying to collect the ones that   I want to collect. I'm also trying to collect one or buy ones that people are interested in. So like, you know, you charge, you get in your logar,   all those popular ones so that you can I can resell that and then keep collecting   for basically for free sort of free like cost at a cost neutral sort of basis? Sure. Yeah. What is the percentage of people who you think are  

[00:33:55] Kyrin Down:

doing it for the money versus doing like the whole value of this is based on some people just want some things, right? That's that's the whole reason. So   you've   like because you can't just keep buying and selling   between tons of people because eventually that'll just like run out of steam. Right. So there's got to be someone where the card lands and they're like,   I paid $100 for this thing or whatever. And I just want to keep it for my own sake. Looking at you, Mitchell. Yeah. So   how much of the proportion of   buying and selling do you think is   people trying to flip stuff   versus,  

[00:34:30] Unknown:

Oh, I really like this thing. And I just want it for my own collection for my own. Yeah. When I first joined, I'd say it was far less like now there's heaps of people running little TCG.   That's trading card game, by the way. ECG is like stores, eBay stores, like little side hustles. And then there's people who have   created quite large businesses, whether it be through like having an eBay store or like a whatnot,   pack opening thing.   There's lots of people doing different sort of stuff in the space   at a much larger scale and probably more broadly than when the when I first started doing it. Yeah, it's quite I would say it's more competitive now for like the everyday person to  

[00:35:09] Kyrin Down:

like grade and flip cards like I do. Yeah. Yeah. Is your ultimate goal with the stuff that you have collected? So you're cost neutral, but you're accumulating like this own stack of your own. Yeah,   that's right. What's the ultimate goal with those? You're going to collect them,   until you die. Pass them on. Take them to my grave,  

[00:35:27] Unknown:

baby.  

[00:35:28] Kyrin Down:

I mean, would you, would you or would you pass them on to someone? Would you sell them at some day  

[00:35:34] Unknown:

for the right price if there was like a big run up? Well, there's been a big run up in the last three or so months. That's why we have new collectors coming into it like Manshield. Yep.   What I'm telling it's a really good example. Always buying it. It's   a it's a it's a really good example of, like it's a good example that he's here as well. Is that, like, people   have started collecting when that new Pokemon Pocket app came out,  

[00:35:59] Juan Granados:

that got a lot of people I think into it. Into it as well. Well, you're looking at the man right here who bought at the top of unicorn fart   dust. So that doesn't tell you anything from a meme perspective  

[00:36:09] Unknown:

and what is buying Bullshit. So that's what what's actually a really good question is like, Manshield, what made you like, how did you   get like, how did Pokemon   in the last three months kind of raise its head and go, oh, Manchil, I'm ready.  

[00:36:22] Unknown:

Time is now. Well, I've, I've always been into Pokemon.   Like, when I was younger, I used to have cards, I used to play games.   So I think just   people   exposure to it so in social media and stuff and   you having a bloody   whole   business around and stuff is that they are cool. I might it might be good to Not a business. Not a business.   Not for profit.  

[00:36:48] Unknown:

Not for profit organization.   Yeah. But, like, what what was it like what was, like, the key things in the last three months that have made you go, oh, like, I wanna open Pokemon, or I wanna buy, like, I wanna buy that credit card. What is, like, is there been some significant event? Because I know when I got back into it, there was, like, significant things that happened that made me go, shit. Like, I wanna open some Pokemon. I wanna start I know what it is. So he he bought unicorn fart dust. It went up. I have no idea.  

[00:37:12] Kyrin Down:

Yeah, it's a meme stupid meme coin that's definitely going to go to zero. And   the   he saw some like unrealized gains and he's like, I'm fucking rich.  

[00:37:21] Juan Granados:

Time to invest this and and Dropping it to both of us. Pivot it into more secure assets.  

[00:37:27] Unknown:

Yes, so  

[00:37:28] Unknown:

I did diversify my portfolio. What was like the significant of, like what was the thing that made you go like, I wanna,   yeah. Yeah. Did you hit yeah. That must have been something.  

[00:37:40] Unknown:

To be honest, I don't know exactly the pinpoint   event but I've always wanted   to have like you know   good Pokemon  

[00:37:51] Kyrin Down:

cards. Did did you collect them in Fiji?  

[00:37:54] Unknown:

Yeah. When I was younger.   I had lots of them, and I took I I gave it away to smaller cousins and kids. So I've I've retained them. I remember doing that. But I think, like, I was like,   you know, you're a trustworthy person   in terms of rating Pokemon cards and stuff. So I was like, oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah. I remember specifically,  

[00:38:13] Juan Granados:

when I left Colombia,   we gave away all the Pokemon cards I had and I had a Blastoise   first edition and a Venusaur first edition. I remember just giving them all away. I had like the typical like folder, you know, like all of it all your cards. I remember those two specifically being first edition and I was just like, oh, well, I'm just leaving, just leave them all. So I don't even know what mom and dad wanted to help you. Do you have you had? I had tons. I used to collect, pugs as well. If you remember those, I was playing them in primary school, just the circular things. Oh, yeah. You know, got to flip them over. Are those same thing as the Tasos? Yes. Yeah. Similar. Similar.  

[00:38:48] Kyrin Down:

And   I don't I have no idea what happened to all of those things because I collected them, but I used them as well.   The Pokemon cards,   I don't ever remember playing with them like the actual game.   But I do remember I collected a lot I had the big folder   sheet as well.   And I found so we've got like just this old drawer at home. And when we're going through recently, just the old family house, I had all these video games, you know, PlayStation two,   such as crazy amount of stuff in there. And I just found the stack of Pokemon cards, moldy, you know,   destroyed essentially.  

And none of them were good ones. And I was like,  

[00:39:29] Juan Granados:

where did all the others go? Like, I just have no recollection of what happened to them. So I could have got thrown out. I could have but I had some good ones as well. Yeah. So it's a nice smart champ. The metals collecting. So this is the thing I wanted to bring up. I'll let Brady and Manjul open this up. So this is another collectible I do have from a VeeFriends perspective.   The only way you could have this is if you go into the very first VeeCon convention. The ones you're in from The US. Correct. So you only have to have tickets. So technically, there's only 5,000 of them if that.   So only 5,000 of them exist.  

That's   pretty cool for those obviously you can't, we might not even be able to visualize it but basically it's a like a big metal gold plated,   Bitcoin, oh sorry man sorry, Bitcoin, Gold Viper   that character itself doesn't even exist in any cards at all. There is no cards that exist with it. It was just say specific to   people who went to the event,   for it. They said they were going to do an NFT but they never did. So this only exists, I believe there's only It's now on the  

[00:40:28] Kyrin Down:

season four.   Sorry. The   third V con tickets  

[00:40:33] Juan Granados:

have Correct. Good point. Good point. Yeah. Yeah. But it's like a first event they ever did. There's only 5,000 or something of them at all. That's really cool. What is that like? What's the values there?   I don't think any of them have ever been sold.  

[00:40:47] Unknown:

Can we eBay that? I don't know. Should we have 2,000 or something? Surely one of them. What's it called?  

[00:40:51] Kyrin Down:

Bcon inaugural   attendee.   Proof of attendance. I   don't know if it says   what it actually it is.  

[00:41:02] Unknown:

And is it like a plaque?  

[00:41:06] Juan Granados:

Yeah. I would not be able to tell you. So it's rally XV France. Five fifty five US dollars   is one that I just see for sale.  

[00:41:16] Unknown:

Yeah. I see that too.  

[00:41:18] Juan Granados:

So this one, so this was an interesting one. So we need a second one, do we?   So this one's kind of like, so I've had this   with no intention ever realistically to sell it and more along the lines of this is really cool. This is like a   memento   collectors thing that I could see putting up in certain locations   from that perspective. Something else that I'll start to do now is   unlike Kyren, so we do obviously a book review channel. Kyren is very much on the,   be able to like lease a book basically.   You read it. I get back to the library. So it's like it's easy. You'd read a lot of books as well. So like it's probably the only sensible way to do it. Whereas for me, I'm actually starting to lean   towards I wanna get first edition books. I wanna get signature books, I wanna get those more, like, rarer books, not   ultra rare because fuck that, they're, like, so expensive. But,   let's say, for instance, there's some books like Ryan Holiday's books, you can get some of his latest copies and rather than paying $25 it's $75   but it's with a message and his signature. I'm leaning towards I'd rather get that and have it as my own copy than getting just like the standard copy. So it's like probably the two places I'm seeing. Oh, I'm starting to collect  

[00:42:28] Kyrin Down:

things more in that regard. Well, I think, yeah, a lot of it probably comes down to just   you don't have space or a house or things like this when you're a kid, teenager in your 20s or money or money or the money to collect this stuff. But now that we're all in   a period of our life where obviously, you know, unicorn fart dust gains. Yeah, correct. Yeah. Is making us all rich.   The   you like you've got a house,   space on the walls, you can't just leave it empty because it looks like trash. Too blank.   So you want to put stuff in the up and if you're like, well, you know, I might as well   do it on things that I actually care about now. Otherwise, I'm just buying random posts. What's the thing I'm doing? Exactly. Yeah. So I kind of get it from that perspective. Brady, what were you going to do with your Pokemon cards? So like, what's the end goal? Yeah. That's  

[00:43:20] Unknown:

really cool.   There's the ones I still have from my childhood. Are you going to display them in your house in some sort of form? I don't have any. Yeah. I don't really have anywhere to display them. I have a few of my sealed boxes on display.   I don't have any of the credit cards on display. They're pretty hard. It is hard to display   that many cards you can buy like little cases that you can put them in some of this and they can like stand up like that. Yep. You could put them in a shelf or something. I haven't done that. I do use a wallpaper  

[00:43:48] Kyrin Down:

on your wall.  

[00:43:50] Unknown:

I like a frame like a like a photo for this. Want you get want you get like the the chars out on the neck. On the neck. Like a bull's side. That would be pretty funny. Yeah. I could turn it next time like that. If you if you've got a couple of chars out, it might as well. Remind me to do that next time for this. I'll have a chain and I'll have a red card in there. I'll get one for me.  

[00:44:08] Juan Granados:

He'll pay double the price.  

[00:44:09] Unknown:

Yeah. Man, Brody has some hectic cards.  

[00:44:12] Juan Granados:

Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. What what what's been the best card so far that you've had?  

[00:44:17] Unknown:

The best one that I've had.  

[00:44:19] Juan Granados:

Subjectively,   not  

[00:44:21] Unknown:

objectively by the the value. Yeah. Oh,   my childhood ones like to have like a graded. I haven't graded them all yet, but I graded the first edition fossil dragonite.  

[00:44:32] Juan Granados:

Oh,   okay. Yeah.  

[00:44:34] Unknown:

A couple of years ago. So   that that it like, that's got nostalgia because I opened that myself when I was a kid, so I'd never sell that. So if I had to sell everything, all the childhood stuff, I'd probably keep and then I'd try to keep a few of my favorites, like a few dragon arts and teranitas. But if I had to sell it all, yeah, I'd sell everything else.   I don't foresee myself selling them anytime soon. I'm trying to finish the there's 75 in this one set I'm trying to complete.   We're doing about 68.   I guess for the right price,   you'd probably sell it. Yeah. The EVs.  

Yeah, the all types. Yeah, those are in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.   So I'd probably sell it if the. Yeah, for the right price, but I want to finish that set first.   And then I guess the end goal would be to.   Like, I never really   I never really collected them   with the idea of selling the ones that I   have been buying to resell. Like, they're definitely not like, oh, like in my head, I'm like, I'm not keeping that. I'm going to resell that. Has there been anything you've sold and you've regretted? You're like, Damn. Should have should have kept one of those.   I've regretted selling stuff. Not for that reason. For the reason that they've gone up in Shelley Moore. Like, they've I sold   the and this people probably won't know what this is, but a PSA ten Umbreon VMAX from evolving skies. Its nickname is Moon Brown. Another one? Yeah. Moonbriand. Another price. So yeah. So I sold that last one of those. I've got a a a graded two, sold one for 1,400,   and now it's, like, over $3.  

Yeah. $3. Like, it was 40 I sold it for 1,400. It's, like, double. And so I regret I regret not holding a lot of cards for longer and just continue. Like, I continue to just flip them into the market. So that's that's where, yeah, we're in a bubble or a boom right now. And, like, that card is, yeah, like,   going crazy.  

[00:46:24] Unknown:

Gotcha. And do you think there's any risk that bubble is going to burst?  

[00:46:29] Unknown:

Hell, yeah. She's burnt. It's going to. It's not going to get. No, I think. But one.   I think it'll retrace, but probably retrace to a new height until   until people   either jump out because I think it'll like it'll definitely it'll go back down. And because after like the Logan Paul twenty twenty one COVID boom thing,   the last like two years have seen it slowly, like go down, go down and then kind of like flatten out. And then at the end of   let's say, like November,   there was a bit of a   like a, you know, something was going on. And then like this year, it's just been crazy. What drives these things? Is it  

[00:47:06] Kyrin Down:

Pokemon,  

[00:47:07] Unknown:

the brand, the manipulation,  

[00:47:09] Kyrin Down:

adoption,   manipulation,   price go up so people get more interested. Cost up because price go up. Yeah.   Because because, you know, this whole VeeFriends thing. So VeeFriends   is Gary Vaynerchuck's   intellectual property is his play it, what he calls like the Marvel   Pokemon, he's trying to create a brand like that.   And it's interesting watching him trying to do it.   And I, it's hard to tell, like, is it working or not?   Obviously, we're here on the stream, we've got things up. So we're doing our part,   I guess, and that it's captured some sort of attention for us.   Me, for example, I kind of like it because   there's things I can connect with. So for example, I've got my Karma Kiwi shirt on, so I'm half Kiwi.  

And there's a whole bunch of Australian characters in here. And that was why I was asking one because I was like, oh, you know, the I saw a courageous cockatoo in here. Cockatoos are native to Australia. I wouldn't mind one of them. So   that's kind of   why like, that is my literal reason for   the collecting them. It's like, I like Aussie animals.   But yeah, I just wonder, like, how can you tell if a brand is doing well or not? And is that that is that reflective in price, for example? So the Pokemon brand is doing well, therefore Pokemon   cards   rise in price, because you can collect them and there's they're scarce and things like that? Or is it or is it like markets just can develop   and then the brand gets recognition? I don't know. It's a there's what's the what's the rarity?  



[00:48:45] Juan Granados:

I guess, Brady, if only a better question. So you know, that Umbrian would you showing us around then? What's is there like a scarcity to them? Like, they're only, like, 10 exists or there could be unlimited than that exists?  

[00:48:57] Unknown:

So we're living in this timeline now where, like, the populations   are quite high compared in context to, say, the original base at Charizard, which is like PSA 10 of the first edition is a 20,   whereas Umbreon is probably like 15,000.   Gotcha. Okay. Fuck. Okay. But the market is like the market is big enough that it's buying that up and continues to see it go up in price.   And if you had a thought about, like, last year, the last thing I thought was the Umbreon was gonna double in price in a year. And I was like, I'm gonna I'm gonna sell this thing straight away. This is gonna last. Like, it's not gonna be this good forever.   And so I sold it off at 1,400.  

So that card is probably the   in the set that it comes out of, it's the highest rarity amongst,   like another 15 cards. It's the highest rarity, so it is hard to pull. And you could go through thousands and thousands of packs to get it. So it is it is hard to get.   But in terms of like PSA population, there's there's quite a lot of them graded. So   it looks like when you look at your holy shit, 15,000 compared to, say, a 20   of the original Charizard,  

[00:50:05] Juan Granados:

it's like, well, this isn't rare at all. Yeah. It's hard to pull, though. It's hard to get. I think this is this is interesting. So, like, an overall matter of it is that regardless of the asset that you're looking at,   you've got because like how how do you go on let's say with vFrend, it's only been around for a couple of years, to know   what's gonna be the demand in twenty years versus the capacity that there is available. If they were printing these and I think these ones in particular, they kind of just   there's no limit to them. There is limit to the rarity ones, but I don't know whether these ones have a particular limit of how many, maybe they do, maybe there's a limit to them, I thought that was, but it was a lot, but it was huge. So like if there's a lot of them then   even if the demand goes high, you'd have to it have to be as big as a Pokemon or Beyond to get to the   levels that you need based on its capacity.  

However,   if you were to take any chances,   what it sort of screams out to me is   go for as rare as you possibly can because even if the demand is low,   the capacity to fulfill that demand is also going to be very low. So if I had a card that was a one of one, which there's   how many one on ones are out for the refriends,   Regardless of how they're going to go in five or ten years,   it's probably going to be your best bet in terms of even if they don't do that great. Well, it's a very low capacity that only exists at one. So you're probably going to find some domain, some money out there to buy it for a relevant price versus if I kept one of the eagles. And I was like, oh, yeah. I'm gonna bet the farm on 10,000 basics   and maybe the demand being like, well, no one's gonna buy them. So Yeah. I totally agree because you still need you need, like, continuous  

[00:51:35] Unknown:

interest   to keep  

[00:51:37] Juan Granados:

the price of the like, even at a level, like, keep it level if if not going up. And so, yeah, if you're going to if the price starts to wane and people lose interest, it's the stuff that's going to be the more scarce and rarer that's gonna be This happens this happens in a whole lot in cars as well a lot of the time. So if you look at the, like, top, like, your supercar type of levels where it's your Lambos or Ferraris or whatever, a lot of the basic models or just above basic models over the last, like, ten, twenty years, what kind of deteriorated, AKA, you can buy them for less than what they cost originally. Oh, really? Like a Lamborghini Gallardo, it's at at base cost or even lower. But once you go to the very top end of the higher quality models because there's more scarcity to them, you can only get generally when they get out these cars, it's like there's only one of 700 available and   it's already sold to all its customers. You basically cannot purchase this car. So once you've got those cars, they almost immediately increase in value or you can sell them for more. So kind of see it as, hey, maybe the demand's fairly low for these cars but because the availability of the asset just like in general is very limited then you're going to just get this price pump no matter what even if the demand's quite low. So like for me if I was if this or something new like a new Pokemon competitor came up I'd be like   my my aim would be like if I'm really grabbing it for resale ability I'd be like well just get the rarest thing you could possibly get   and that's probably gonna be your best bet. It won't be your optimal make the most amount of money overall   because if it becomes   gigantic, then you could have bought so many of the basics and then make a much higher multiple,   But   to be like more risk averse, I guess more heavy, heavy rarity of it, the better you're going to get in terms of being able to resell it.  



[00:53:23] Kyrin Down:

It seems there's   a lot of manipulation in the sense like good sense and bad sense. The one   would be how much of it do you make? And you got to   balance that between   the type of rarities,   how much you actually put out. If you're not making enough cars or cards, for example, there's not enough people to get interested in. They're like, Oh, I can't even get this thing. Like, who cares? But then if there's so much that they could get five of them, then it's like, well, yeah, whatever. If you had like a lot of money, right? You could technically go and buy up every single first edition Charizard,  

[00:53:57] Juan Granados:

right? They bought every single one available.   Yeah. They wouldn't just be on the market ready to buy, but you But let's just say you've got like, let's just say you're like, okay, I'm gonna get, I'm not gonna make a lot of money. I'm gonna try and basically buy up as many and as soon as they come on the market, I'll just pay whatever, right? So then what ends up happening is you are in the market, like you are in the charizard market. At that point, you could be like, Hey, I bought it for 2,000,000. You know what? If anybody else wants them, it's 10,000,000.   It's risky, of course, because then, you know, is there anybody going to be out there that's wanting them? Yeah. Like you can corner the market, but does anyone care to get that market? I think it it kind of goes to zero in a sense. If you if you were actually to do that, it's  

[00:54:36] Unknown:

it's The market cap is probably $40,000,000  

[00:54:40] Juan Granados:

Australian. Or charizards. The first edition PSA ten charizards. So like if I bought up every single first edition charizard, let's say that's the thing. You could, could I be like, you can't, could I play it to 100?   You could technically, because if you'd be like, oh, if anyone wants to buy it, you have to pay me now triple whatever one of them costs.  

[00:54:57] Unknown:

Yeah.   So it's like really wealthy, there's already really wealthy people that own them. So the chances of them selling it, yeah, like Karen said, like, but tech technically, I guess you could you could buy them all and you could own every single one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And because there's enough popularity demand for that that specific card that you'd probably be able to, yeah, manipulate it, I think. Yeah. What about the other stuff? Like, I think I remember there was a guy working on the  

[00:55:23] Kyrin Down:

factory floor of,   Pokemon or something, and he was nicking cards that were the really good ones, like straight off of the floor. And then just   doing like reselling them onwards sort of in a really dumb way where it was obvious like, okay, this guy's actually   just stealing shit. How much   manipulation do you think there is of just like prices of, of cards of people?   I don't know,   doing scammy fraud stuff, even just like sending cards in to like, you know, if you had a dude at PSA,   could you get him to like, see your cards and and grade them up? Do you reckon   there's any much of that going on? Because all of this seems so it's kind of like the art market. Yeah. I think there's like the more money that gets involved,  

[00:56:08] Unknown:

the more like fraud and just dodgy stuff you see. You spent like every time, like, it's like anything, I guess. Yeah. In   2021   and that time period, there was a lot of that. And just recently, I'm seeing all sorts of dodgy shit, people getting scammed all the time on Facebook groups. All that sort of stuff is is happening way more now that she's involved.  

[00:56:29] Juan Granados:

How does it like? I mean,  

[00:56:31] Unknown:

like, guy comes in and. But I think there's like a lot of manipulation   on   this on places like TCG Play, which is an American based website.   It's sort of like it's owned by eBay, I'm pretty sure, but it works like an eBay and they have price charting on there and people will buy out like one specific card. And there's an example recently of this drowsy card that's in one of the newer sets that was like 15 USD and now it's at 19 USD basically overnight.   So   I think someone's just bought it because cards don't just they don't just   the attrition rate is usually over a longer period of time. They don't just spike up like 400%   overnight. Sure. So stuff like that is happening a lot where there's these cards that just go   and up.  

And everyone's getting angry because they're like, oh, I missed out. I missed out on getting this card. It's like, well, you should have bought it when it was 15. So there's lots of examples of that happening. So I think there's, yeah, manipulation everywhere.  

[00:57:25] Juan Granados:

So I feel like you can't. Yeah. You might be able to get away. That's a good point. Where there's money, there's gonna be some manipulation of some kind. The bigger markets, you're just gonna find it Yeah. In the market. And it's an it's an unregulated market as well, like Pokemon cards. Yeah. Yeah. So it's Just people whatever goes. Yeah.   Whatever goes. Yeah. Now I feel like meme coins are more regulated than, like, fighting my cards. So  

[00:57:46] Unknown:

I got a question. Are you guys gonna start collecting Pokemon?  

[00:57:50] Juan Granados:

I mean, I do Off the profit of this, I'll probably suffer.  

[00:57:54] Unknown:

So I've got a mate, actually. I think I told you about him.  

[00:57:57] Unknown:

See another newbie.  

[00:57:59] Unknown:

So he's the same sort of he was in childhood, yada yada yada, but he likes the act of opening cars. It gives him, like, some sort of, like, a high, I think. Oh, yeah. But to save money, because he knows he's an addict,   he's downloaded an app. What's it called? The one that you sort of you can open you pay a subscription, but you can open cards and you get it. It's like in your app. It was the new one that came out. Yeah. Open your pocket. Yeah. Open your pocket. Yeah. So he's like, you know, he's like Yeah, you get like this feeling of opening Yeah, but he's like, Oh, I need to have this and I need to do this every day so I don't like go to big WKMA and buy like Buy a whole bunch of them. Yeah, there's also people like that who are like, Oh just find  

[00:58:38] Juan Granados:

like the general material. And it was fun like going back to the beginning, like when I when I opened up all these different, boxes and stuff, it was really cool. Like it was fun to just open them up and you get into this rhythm of like, oh, is it really cool? If it's really cool, put it to the side. We didn't care about the characters. That was one thing, but we did care about Yeah. Like all the rarity. It would be, I think, different with Pokemon  

[00:58:55] Unknown:

if I was to open them. And it would be hard to just hold a box. Right? You sort of Oh, for sure. Always think oh,  

[00:59:01] Unknown:

there might be something good. Yeah. Yeah. There's no way I would help you. Someone's got a first aid charge out on eBay, actually, right now. It converts to 629,000   ad.   Oh. Oh, there you go. So that's probably they they've got a list of they've got a list of 400,000,   so probably a bit higher than what the market has been recently, but they've probably, I don't know, chucked it on there at a high price just to maybe get visits to the store. So When I get to pick when you get to pay the PSA 10? It's PSA 10, mate. It's the best like, it's yeah. It'd be one of those. So would you buy that and resell it?   Not in that price. Okay. Yeah. You could do, like, if you could get that for, like, 200,000   USD or 170,000   USD, if you're a big baller. It's like the right play. You could tell you could probably sit on it. Yeah. You could sit on it. And, yeah, I I probably wouldn't buy it right now either because the market's, like, quite high. Quite high.  

Yeah. I wouldn't say it's the right time to buy. I wouldn't collect Pokemon cards. No.  

[00:59:56] Kyrin Down:

I was actually I'm   gonna suck. Make it   up. Lose out big profits.   The what did interest me a little bit was when the Pokemon pocket came out, I did try that   for a bit and I was just like,   this isn't doing it for me particularly.   But I have been more interested  

[01:00:18] Unknown:

recently in collecting digital art. So I think that's one thing I would, I would do. Like NFTs. Yeah. Speaking, speaking of the pocket game, I actually got over it real quick, too. And then on the art thing, I think going back, I think you said, would you put your art, make your cards and wallpaper wallpaper or display? I always thought that would be a good way to display that set that I'm working on is to that cabinet in a you can get like acrylic frames and you can stick them all in there and just have it on a wall. Yeah, be cool. I reckon that that would be like an art piece of art. Yeah. To do as well. Yeah.  

[01:00:48] Kyrin Down:

Because yeah, that's that's,   you know, I'm sort of like nomadic in a sense. Like, I don't really like having stuff. Me neither.  

[01:00:55] Unknown:

Yeah. I'm not a collector.  

[01:00:57] Kyrin Down:

Like, I don't think I've ever been a collector. Yeah. Random things. So, yeah, that's that's probably why I wouldn't do that.   And then I was just thinking like, why Pokemon? Because Digimon Digimon was out at the time. You know, you could have collected Digimon stuff. I imagine there's still a market for that. It was Yeah. If I I reckon if I had of collect like, if I had Yu Gi Oh cards as a kid or any of that sort of stuff, I'd probably collect it. Yeah. I would have got into it. Yeah. I had some Yu Gi Oh cards. I remember. I just didn't have it. I still have them. I I I still have them. They're probably somewhere in mom's place again.  

[01:01:26] Juan Granados:

I remember taking them to   a   GameStop. I think they were because they did a thing where you could sell them. Yeah. Like you trade them and sell them. I remember taking like a gigantic folder again, probably about this many of comments and, like, so many rares.   In my mind, this is, like, years ago, but in my mind, I thought, like, oh, we're probably gonna get, like, maybe a couple of thousand dollars for this because when I when you look up or how much do they sell for or the value of I was gonna be, I think they offered me like 80 something dollars. And I was like, no, not even bother. I'm not even taking this. Yeah. I don't think they, but see those they, I don't think they ever recovered price.   Like they were just this. Yeah. I had a friend Darren,   Darren, if you remember, he had like   10,000,   15 thousand   like that he spent on Yu Gi Oh cards. And at one point it had gone up. That's probably all worthless. Right? So it's like,   there's some way where maybe, you know, if you were gonna put that much money, well, obviously, maybe Pokemon would be better, but you might just purchase really, really rare things.  

And if there's a really low demand, at least you've got, like, the rare ones that maybe someone's gonna out there, like, bid for and get. There's like a there's like this  

[01:02:31] Unknown:

There's yeah, there's like a fun or like maybe it's a it's a gray line between   getting something that's   rare or scarce, but then it's also got to be something that's popular because if you buy something, that's true. Because I've got like a PSA 10 card of a lava tar, which is the pre evolution of Toronto.   It's a pop one. Like, it's literally the only one in the PSA ten in the world that's been graded by PSA, but no one wants that. Like, it's only because I was like, it's only because I'm a lava tar collector. Would you like I'm like, oh, that's sick. Like yeah.   And I saw that on eBay for, like, $15. It was nothing. It was worth nothing. And I just snap all of it because I was like, I want that. Yeah. So there's like a fine line between yeah. It's still gotta be popular. There's like some worlds Charizard. There's some world yeah. Like Charizard. Like, that's a no brainer. But there's world cards like the World Championship cards.  

Yeah. So every year when they have the competition   or the video game competition every year, they'll award like a champion who'll be the winner and they get the first, second, third and fourth now get like a full art Pikachu card. And then if you place them like the top 64, there's like a tiered thing where you'll get like competitor   cards and they come in the eight or nine different languages. So you get it in English,   German. That's cool. Thai, whatever else, Japanese, Chinese.   And those cards, they're not   super popular, but they're rare.  

Like if you get the, you know, the   the the one basically one of one 20 20 four, it's actually would be one of three, the 2024   Pikachu for the first place. Yeah. There's only that three or four copies because there's one for TCG, one for video game, one for,   what else have they got? I don't know. Pokemon go if they have a competition for that, but there's only a few copies of those. But they're not   they'll yeah. They'll fetch high prices because they're super rare because they're super rare, but they could be   higher if they were more popular. I think, like, people were interested in collecting worlds cards. Like, I think the worlds cards are pretty cool, and I'd like to start collecting them. The popularity is not much as Yeah. Like, I wouldn't be collect I wouldn't be getting them   with the intent to flip them because I don't think they'd ever grow grow in value. It'd just be like a buy to collect because it's cool. Yeah. It's got to have the story behind it to to make it work. To warrant it. Yeah. Just think  

[01:04:42] Kyrin Down:

we'll end it here for today. I think it's a good episode. Any questions that popped through the tube by the way? No, I didn't see that. So some people live though. We do do these live 9AM Australian Eastern Standard Time on a Sunday.   We'll be doing that there'll be some interruptions coming up in March just because one's going away. I'm going away for some weekend. So just watch out for that. That's correct. There's value for value podcasts.   Anything you can do to support us in time, talent or treasure. Tell us about your Pokemon card collection.   Why Manchil is buying at right at the peak and what he should do financially to recover from this what should he transition into from this? Keep doing Pokemon with his with his Pokemon  

[01:05:24] Unknown:

profit gains. And we're about this. Broadies that love it.  

[01:05:29] Kyrin Down:

Yeah. Create a market for that.   You can reach us via any of the social links down below,   as well as   with treasure on meremortalspodcast.com/support.  

[01:05:40] Juan Granados:

And, yeah, I think we'll leave it there. Through there, mere mortals, thank you very much for joining. Bye now. Bye.