Sports Card Investor: The $91,000 Veriswap Trade ($430,000 in Cards!)

It was a busy month for trades on Veriswap. I did five trades of my own, and Teapot's about to tell me if I got them right or if I got them wrong. But there were also hundreds of thousands of dollars in high-end cards being traded between other users, and we're about to debate those trades now. Hello, sports card investors, and welcome to another trade talk with Veriswap and Teapot. We've got some big trades to talk about today. You ready to do this? I'm ready to talk trade talk. All right, I did like six trades on Veriswap last month that I'm gonna have you analyze here in just a minute, but I actually wanna start with a couple of trades from other users, including a $92,000 Shohei Otani trade. You wanna get into this one? Let's do it. Let's look at it. So on one side of this trade, a user had a 2013 BBM Japan foil Shohei Otani numbered a 100 in a BGS 9, part of one of his first BBM cards, one of his first professional cards ever. They traded it for two 2018 Shohei Otani Tops rookie cards from when he was here in America, specifically his X-Fractor in PSA 10 and his Gold Refractor in BGS 8.5, both of those from 2018 Tops Chrome update. So Teapot, which would you rather have? I cannot believe how much these types of Otani cards have gone up in value in the last 12 to 18 months. Huge numbers. It's crazy. I'm looking at this, the X-Fractor in particular is super interesting to me because 18 months ago, that card was $4,500 and now somebody just traded it at a value of $30,000. Of all these cards, personally, if I just were looking at which one would I want the most to own, it would actually be the Gold Refractor. I know it's an 8.5, so that's not as desirable for some people, but I still have regret of letting my Gold Refractor PSA 10 go a couple of years ago. These BBM cards, I'm still not a strong expert on them. There's some nuance to them. Scotty B did a really good video on all of Otani's rookies, BBM or otherwise. He knows those cards inside and out, but what I do know is those ones have also gone nuclear, maybe more than anything else in the Otani market. So I'm looking at these two. From what I'm told, people are really bullish. You get the serial numbering on the BBM. There are other ones that are way more common. I had actually a collector out of Japan tell me that some of the ones that aren't numbered out of Japan are actually far more common than what people in the US are realizing. He's like, some people have stacks of them just sitting at home because they weren't rare cards. This one's numbered, so you get that benefit. If I were going for my PC, I think I'd take the two. I'd like those two better. If I were going long-term upside investment, I see those BBMs as very much in line with the Star Jordans, and I'd go with that one. Yeah, I actually completely agree with that assessment. I was gonna say the BBM, I think, is the better long-term investment. It's low-numbered. It is first year internationally. The two tops cards, they're more accessible. There's more of them out there. Of course, the gold refractor is pretty cool, though. I do like the gold refractor a lot, but I'm kind of with you on your analysis of that trade. At the end of the day, I think both sides did well here. Not sure you could go wrong with either. Pick your poison. We got nine more trades to get into, but before we get into those, including my own trades, got two very important messages for you from our sponsor, Veriswap. First of all, if you have not been on Veriswap before, trades like this are going down every single day on Veriswap. Not just high-dollar ones like this, but trades involving $20 cards as well. You should hop on and check it out. It's completely free to get an account on Veriswap, and in fact, when you download the Veriswap app or go to veriswap.com and create your account, make sure to enter in registration code SCI, because SCI as your registration code will give you $15 free in trade credit that you can use on Veriswap. The second thing I wanna mention, Veriswap's doing a free giveaway this month for all of its users. All you have to do, I'm gonna bring this card up on the screen right now. This is the 2024 Panini Mosaic Stairmasters Blue Stephen Curry PSA 10. All you have to do is search for this card on Veriswap and make a cash offer on this card of $10. Veriswap is gonna pick randomly one $10 cash offer, accept the cash offer, and then even refund that person their $10 back. So it'd be a completely free giveaway. Once again, the card on the screen, search for this card on Veriswap and make a $10 cash offer to get into the giveaway. Okay, here we go. Let's go with trade number two, Teapot. We've got a dual autograph of Michael Jordan and LeBron James gold ink autograph number to 23 in an SGC eight with a 10 auto. That was traded on Veriswap for five vintage cards plus cash. The vintage cards were a 1909 T206 Ty Cobb in a PSA one, a 1933 Gaudi Babe Ruth that is a PSA authentic altered, another 1933 Gaudi Babe Ruth also PSA authentic altered, a 1953 Topps Satchel Page PSA one, and finally a 1952 Topps Jackie Robinson PSA one plus, wait for it, $14,096 in cash. I don't know why the 96 had to get thrown in there. Maybe that was the last minute negotiation, tossed in another $96 and the deal gets done. I don't know. But $14,096 in cash gets traded across the aisle plus all those vintage cards for that Jordan and that LeBron, I should say, dual auto. What do you like here, Teapot? It looks like the person on side, I guess, on side A wanted to make sure they won the deal by $4 just to get it done. There you go. Really interesting trade. Very unique one here because you're getting vintage, very iconic vintage stuff, some of the most iconic, but as you listed, you've got authentic altered, you've got PSA one condition. I generally gear toward at least trying to get, if I'm doing a PSA one, I want like really good eye appeal with like a defect that doesn't take away from it very much. I had a Chrissy Mathieson dark cap a few years ago like that. These ones you can tell have seen some love. Some people like them like that. And then you're getting cash for about half of the value of this trade. So it's, those are liquid-ish. I mean, the vintage market is always gonna be looking for those types of iconic cards. On the other side, beautiful card. Really has kind of a noir vibe to it, you know, from Panini, obviously the upper deck preceding that, but it is their like college slash high school jersey stuff, which is part of the reason why it's only 30,000 and not more. I do, I'm a big fan of gold ink. Aesthetically, I really like that card. I like the 15,000 here. I think I would, it just depends what you're trying to do. I can see a case for both sides. I think I'm gonna go with the LeBron and the Jordan just because it's the two greatest basketball players of all time in most people's eyes. And Kobe fans and others are gonna hate me for saying, in most people's eyes. You know how I feel about LeBron, but I think it's the better card. It's gonna have long-term staying power. The other ones should too, but the condition worries me a little bit. Okay, I think I'm gonna go the vintage direction in this one. I love LeBron-Jordan dual autos. I do really like the gold ink on this one. It is really sharp. It does take it down a notch for me that it is the college and high school jersey. You kinda wanna see the pro uniforms there. And I think the side that got all the vintage cards, there's a good value there. I mean, it depends, once again, it depends what your goals are. If that person is just trying to build up a collection of a lot of the most iconic vintage cards of all time, and they don't care what grade they are, and they're fine with them being low grade, altered to them, it doesn't matter. If they just wanna build up the collection, they just took a very big step forward towards that goal, and they got $15,000 in cash or $14,000 in cash, so they can go buy some more. So I'm probably gonna go that direction on this one, but they're both good for sure. Surprised me, I thought you'd go the other way, but both sides good. Let's hop on to the next one. We've got a LeBron James 2024 Panini Flawless Career Milestones, a little Nike swoosh there, little laundry tag in PSA 8 condition. Also a Dual Color Blast from Prism Black 2024, Steph Curry and Victor Webinyama in a PSA 10 being traded for a 2026 a Manga Laminia Mall in PSA 10 from Prism World Cup, plus $5,000 in cash. What do you like here? I like both of these a lot. I will tell you, if you had just shown me that Curry and Webby Dual Color Blast, which I honestly had never seen before, and said, Teapot, what do you think this is in a PSA 10? I would have guessed 15 to $20,000. That seems low to me for that kind of card. I don't know what the pop is. I think those are pretty short printed out of Prism Black, especially. So I could see that one long term. It's a bit of an odd combo in a way. Yeah. They don't play together, obviously it's an all-star card, but if Webby has the career that a lot of people think he can, you're talking about two, maybe what could be two top 15 players all time or something on the same color blast, that's cool. I'm not as big of a Laundry Tag, Nike Tag fan as a lot of people are, as the market is. I'd rather have a really cool patch, but that is a Platinum Blue Flawless LeBron, which is gonna be a very coveted card by a lot of people. I love Lamin Yamal. I think the hate he caught after the World Cup was crazy, and that's a really, really cool card. I like that mango a lot, plus the cash. I think I'd feel like I'm rolling the dice a lot more, but I'm gonna go with the Yamal and the cash. Okay. I think Yamal's got the upside and people are gonna look back and go, you know what, forget it. He won a World Cup when he was 18 years old and who cares about how he did or didn't play according to people's estimation. Probably gonna surprise you on this one. Okay. I agree. Wow. I'm going with the Yamal and cash too. Give me Yamal and cash teapot. Oh man, Kelshi was betting the other direction hard on this one. I love LeBron, I collect a lot of LeBron stuff. Yeah, the Nike Swoosh, the Laundry Tag, I don't know. There's many other LeBron cards I would rather have for $15,000 in value than that one. Nothing wrong with the card, and I know some people absolutely love low-numbered, flawless LeBron stuff and great for them. It's just not my fave. And also not my fave is the Curry-Webanyama Dual Color Blast and it's really for the exact reason why you said teapot, the connection between Curry and Wemby, I just don't feel is that strong. That pair on the same card, yes, they're great players, but the pair doesn't do a whole lot for me. Maybe I would have been more excited if that was an Olympics card and Wemby was in his French outfit and Curry was in his USA outfit, because that is the rivalry I think of when I think of Curry versus Wemby was the Olympics a couple of years ago, right? Not being at the all-star game together on the same team, that just didn't really do it for me. So yes, I like Lamine Yumo as a long-term play. I like the fact that it is the Prism World Cup manga of the Prism World Cup that Lamine won and was his first World Cup. So I think that one's gonna be very iconic over time. Give me that side. Let's hop onto the next trade teapot. One side on this one, we've got a 2023 Donner's Optic Downtown Black Pandora Joe Burrow, number to 25 in PSA 9, plus the 1986 player Michael Jordan, PSA 6. Absolutely iconic card. Those two cards are going over to the other side for a 2024 Panini Prism Black Manga Cade Cunningham in PSA 10, plus a 2023 Prism Silver Victor Webinyaman in PSA 10, plus a 2025 Tops Chrome Sapphire Edition Purple LeBron James in PSA 10, plus $2,400 in cash. Where would you rather be? These Webinyam Silvers have not come down as much as they were supposed to for you and I, Jeff. That's right. We were waiting. They softened a little bit, but not a ton. I wanted them to go sub 2,500, and they've softened. They peaked out at around 4,200-ish. They're down to 3,300-ish right now. You know, if I'm looking at immediate upside, I'm definitely going with side B, the one with the Cade and the Webinyam. The LeBron is an interesting card. I tend to be of the opinion that last year's Chrome will cool off as subsequent years of Chrome come out. It will still have a premium for being the first year. At the same time, there's some historical precedent to point to the opposite. People may say, well, they think it'll only go up over time because it's the first year back and we know how important original 96 Chrome- It's not LeBron's first year, though. LeBron had them all through the 2000s. I know, it's a weird, like that seems very expensive to me for that card. It is a color match, but- It's numbered a 75, right? Yeah. Yeah, so it is, but he's onto the Phillies, or onto the Sixers now. And I'm still gonna go with that side. I like that side. I like the Wemby. I'm probably being biased and I really like that Cade a lot and getting the extra cash. There are Jordans all around and about in condition of six, you know, five and a half to six and a half. You can find them. And I've mentioned this before. I'm not particularly a big fan of the Black Pandora downtowns because to me, they don't really stand out. You can't really tell what's going on with the card. So I'm gonna go with side B with the three cards in the cash. And by the way, I feel like we're being very critical over wonderful cards, but that's what we're doing this show. That's our job. We have to kind of pick them apart. It's our job. It's like, ah, it's a- You gotta make tough decisions. It's a Jordan LeBron dual gold ink auto, but it's, ah, but it's, you know, not their pro jerseys. We're being very critical. I bought a $15 Victor Martinez card yesterday. I need to put this in perspective. There you go. So, but since we are here to be critical, I will agree with you. The LeBron card doesn't do a ton for me. I do like the upside of Wenby once again, heading into next season, but the silver prisms are very accessible. The Cades are really cool. I do like Cade Cunningham. If you're going heavy into that card, you're kind of riding a little bit how you think the Pistons are gonna be in the next couple of years. I think a lot of people think Cade's career is gonna continue to go up and get better and better, but the Pistons may take a step backwards as a team. And so, you know, I don't know. He may not have playoff heroic potential next year. They didn't really deliver that well in the playoffs this year. So, I think I'm gonna go with a Joe Burrow and the Fleer Jordan. The Fleer Jordan market's been extremely hot. Those are unbelievably liquid, although some could argue maybe it's a little overly hot. Maybe that starts to cool a little bit. I don't mind riding a little Burrow into this football season, T-Pop. Yeah, what do you think? I think I'll ride a little Burrow into this football season. I think I like that. I think football as a category, this off season has been completely ignored and slept on. Like, I've never seen this before. We just went through an entire summer where it just felt like no one was really talking about football cards. I think it's the rookie class and the Seahawks winning with Sam Darnold. Not that I don't like him, but it was just a weird year. And the whole hobby's whole attention has shifted back to like 90s cards and basketball very heavily and, you know, lots of inserts and all that kind of stuff. And the greatest of all time players. So, I don't mind riding a little football. I think it's a little bit almost of a contrarian play with how the market's been. Okay, we're about to get into my trades. Before we do, I want to remind you, if you haven't downloaded the Veriswap app, go get that right now and use registration code SCI when you register for $15 free and enter that giveaway. I'm going to put the giveaway card up on the screen one more time here. Search for this card on Veriswap, find the card and then make a $10 cash offer. And Veriswap's going to accept one of those offers and even refund you the $10 so that you get that giveaway card for free. All right, Teapot. So, this was my trade. On one side of this trade, a 1981 Topps Joe Montana in PSA 8. On the other side of this trade, a 2024 Prism Autograph Red Shimmer Barry Sanders in a PSA 9 and a 1989 Fleer Ken Griffey Jr. Rookie in a PSA 10. What side would you rather have? And I think I know your answer. I think you're going to be surprised by my answer, Jeff. I think you're going to be really surprised. I'm going to go with the Montana. What? I am shocked by that answer. I know. I teed up Barry Sanders for you, Teapot. I know you did. The Fleer Griffey is probably my least favorite Griffey rookie card. I'm not a fan of that design at all. And I'd rather go out and just get a lower grade of his upper deck iconic rookie card at that point. You're paying for the grade, obviously. You could get a cheaper one for a much bigger discount. And I've become, not that I'm throwing shade at anybody else, but I've defined so many of my rules for my PC and my position, that I've become principally against sticker autos. I just am not a fan. Barry signs a lot. You can get Barry autos. They're not cheap, but you can get a lot of Barry autos. He's always at events. He's at the National. He's other places. And I just think there's a lot of options for that price point. And I don't particularly like the red. I'm a big color snob. Color match, color snob? Yeah, color snob. Like, I don't like it. And I like Montana a lot. Notre Dame, played for the Chiefs. Obviously that's not, but you know, so I'm a Montana guy. I like Montana. And that's a good looking copy for a PSA. It's a little off center, but I like it. I pulled that copy. You did? I pulled that Montana. I opened up a box of 1981 tops on the Sports Card Investor episode. I think that was, I think for the Super Bowl this year is when I opened up that box, if I remember. Sounds right. And I graded, I pulled that Montana. I graded that Montana. It got a PSAA. And I traded the Montana for the Barry Sanders and the Kent Griffey Jr. In part, because I said, hot damn, I'm going to get this Barry Sanders card. And now I got trade bait with Teapot. And now Teapot's sitting here saying he doesn't even want my Barry Sanders card, man. And Jeff was secretly had the Barry behind his back, was like, I was going to save this for like a special little bonus sometime. Now he just tucks it back in his pocket. I know. I was like, apparently you don't like the sticker either. So I can't give that to you. I need a better Barry. All right. Well, Teapot doesn't think I was on the right side. What I will do is I will take that Barry Sanders then to a trade night at our new Cards HQ Detroit store when it opens later this year. Yes. And so there you go. No shortage of suitors for that card. All right. Let's go to my next trade and see if Teapot likes it any better. So on one side of this one was a 2022 Select Neon Icon Silver Prism Tom Brady PSA 10 being traded for four cards, a 2025 Topps Update, Topps Black Old Shohei Otani in PSA 9, a 2006 Topps Hobby Masters Tom Brady in PSA 8, a 2004 Topps Ben Roethlisberger Rookie in PSA 9, and a 2018 Panini Phoenix Most Valuable Purple Tom Brady number to 75 in PSA 9. What do you like here, Teapot? Well, I'll tell you that the card that I like aesthetically the most here is for sure the Brady. I love that design. The neon icons one? The neon icons are so cool looking, especially when you get them in the silver where they refract, not just the base chromium. The challenge I have with that card is raw I can get it for about 30 bucks. Right. They are a little bit short printed, but not like crazy short printed. They're really like SP, you know? And so you're paying for the PSA 10, which is a much lower pop count. There's only 30 of those in PSA 10. Getting the other four cards, I'm a big fan of the black golds. I just think those are cool. Getting a lot of good value design-wise. I've never seen that 2006 Topps Hobby Masters Brady before. Kind of a neat looking card, yeah. I like it, actually. I think it's pretty, it fits that era. So I like that. Getting Roethlisberger Topps Rookie is great if you're somebody who collects, just likes to have the goats and different athletes. And the other one, the Phoenix, is a cool one with the MVP. So I think I would go on that side. And if I'm really like, hey, I want to get one of those neon icons, you know, move one of the other cards and you've got 30 bucks and go buy a raw one if you want to do that. That's my opinion. All right. That's what I did here, T-Bone. There you go. I traded away the neon icons Brady. I'd actually gotten that neon icons Brady on Veriswap in a previous trade, probably about a year ago. And it's just sat in my vault on Veriswap because Veriswap will vault cards for you if you want them to do that when you do a trade. I've just had it in my vault and then finally unearthed it from the vault and did the trade deal with it. So there you go. I feel like those four cards coming back was a nice value in return. So I was happy to do that one. All right. So T-Bone thinks I'm one for one here. We got three of my trades to go. Let's go with a 2017 Donruss Patrick Mahomes at a PSA 7 being traded for an En Fuego Shaquille O'Neal in raw condition. What do you like here? You and I have talked about this. Shaq is on a rocket ship right now. Rocket ship. Like crazy, crazy. Is this Kim's fault? Who knows? She's getting in at the wrong time, Jeff. She's out picking up Shaqs at a 600% markup from where they were a year ago. This Shaq a year ago, do you know how much this was selling for a year ago? Probably like 30 bucks. $10. Wow. Eight to $10 raw consistently. Wow. Eight to 15. And it is now up to over $200, which is wild. That's crazy. Whereas the Mahomes have not come down as much as I wanted. Much like Wimby. With the injury and everything. I was like, finally I'm gonna get to buy some Mahomes. There are a few really nice Mahomes I've wanted for my PC for a long time. And I was like, man, they missed the playoffs. He was hurt. All these things. He's gonna come down. No. It's like after Acuna got hurt a few years ago after his MVP season and they just stayed flat. People are holding. So interesting one here. It's a PSA seven on the Mahomes. I don't know where the ship stops or if it holds on the season's best. O'Neal and some of his other stuff. These are somewhat desirable for people like Jordan. You can get one of those domerous Mahomes anytime. I could go either direction on this. I have one of the Mahomes. I don't know. Give me the shot. There we go. Got another dub. I mean, plus I got to take the shot home to Kim now and make her very happy with it. So, you know, I traded him a Mahomes for a Kim card there. So, you know, I was happy to do that trade. Okay. We've got this next one. We've got a wild card. Aiden Hutchinson in PSA 10 plus a 1998 Skybox EX 2001 Peyton Manning in PSA seven. Couldn't believe that card only valued at 30 bucks for a Caleb Williams rookie variation. What side do you like here? For the upside, for the immediate upside, I'd go with the Caleb. Sure. A lot of people are super high on him. We know he has the talent. I'll leave my positions out of it, but he has the talent. I don't think he's a top five quarterback already like a lot of people think he is. And I don't think he actually had as good of a season last year as people think he did, but he still has the talent and the potential and he's still early in his career. Wild card, not a super highly sought after set, more of a collector product. Some people do really enjoy it, especially people who like to open product. It's much more affordable and you can get autos and other things like this. And I love the Manning. Yeah, you could go pick one of those up. I have one of those raw. It's a great card, amazing card. But I think I would probably go with the Caleb Williams, surprisingly. Well, I gave away the Caleb. Just keep doing more trades for Lions cards. I gave away the Caleb teapot. Yeah, I got another Lions card. I thought the Hutch would be a fun one to take with me to Detroit. I also just thought the Peyton Manning card looked awesome. Super cool card for 30 bucks. So figured I would snag that one. Okay, well, this is the tiebreaker. This is my final trade teapot that I did on Veriswap. A 2023 Prism Bajon Robinson Prism Break Green Wave and PSA 10 for a 1992 Classic Four Sport Shaquille O'Neal LSU Jersey and PSA 9. What would you rather have here, teapot? The Shaq. I'll take the Shaq. Yes. Fun fact about that is Classic is the first product I have a memory of my dad bringing home to open. It was very popular in 1992. They printed it to the moon. There were a few different types of packs that you could get from Classic, Four Sport being one of them. And I remember pulling a lot of different athletes out of that. It was a fun product. You had the college one. Yeah, the Christmas parallels with the red and green aren't my thing and it's fine. It's fine. Bajon's gonna have a great year. I'm excited about Bajon. Look, Bajon's my Atlanta Falcon. I love the guy. I'm excited for the guy. I've got some of his cards. But to get that 1992 Shaq and the LSU Jersey and to be able to take it to Kim, I figured that would be the trade I would need to do. There you go. So that one's done as well. I like your thinking about your wife so much lately. This is great. Gotta help her build up her collection there a little bit. $30 at a time, T-POP, $30 at a time. There you go, ladies and gentlemen. Those were the trades from this month. What did you guys think? And don't forget to get the Veriswap app yourself. Go to veriswap.com or download the app. Registration code SCI for $15 free and trade credit when you register. And then don't forget to get in the giveaway for that Steph Curry card. We brought it up on the screen one more time. Search for that card on Veriswap and make a $10 cash offer. And one person who does will be randomly selected to get that card for free. Thanks for watching. We'll see you soon with our next one. Take care.