Episode 114 – The State of Collecting 2023

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Ricky

Hello and welcome to episode 114 of the Pop Collector's Alliance podcast State of Collecting 2023. I'm your host, Rick, as always, joined by my co bearded co-host, Captain Strong Beer. Mr. Piper, it seems like we're back to that regular 12:00 at night recording. We revive how.

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Piper

We do it as if you're the one that said Let's do it at 10:00 on a Saturday night.

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Ricky

And that's one hour ahead for me. Yeah, but you know what? We're here. We're back again for a second week and we're excited to talk about the state of collecting in 2023. If you guys have followed the podcast for any amount of time every year, we like to sort of go over where we think collecting is in the past has been primarily focused on some Funko we're going to expand to some collectibles cards, other things that you'll hear in this episode, and more of an expansion of last week's episode too.

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Ricky

And it's going to lead to some interesting conversations on the podcast as we move forward. So I'm excited about today. You know, if you hear any country music in the background, it's because Piper has just become this country music fan.

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Piper

Of I you know, it's they are loud downstairs. If you've been to the store, you know, there's a bar downstairs. And for some reason they decided it's a good idea to have a country beer jamboree. I like the country wherever it's yeah, I'm in, I'm over beers. Well, like we've talked about. I don't know if it was with you or if, like, because I was I did another a couple of guest spots on another podcast and there was a comment that I made that was like, I like Bob Seger, but I can only handle so much Silver Bullet band.

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Piper

And right now I'm praying for some Silver Bullet band. I don't need to break my achy heart any longer.

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Ricky

We now know that we can. Recording above a country Western bar is not ideal.

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Piper

For most of the time. It's just like bad like bro rock. And tonight it's just different.

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Ricky

Do they ever do it down there?

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Piper

All the time, but it's usually just the jukebox. Actually, I have a good idea. I think we need to invest in some credits for there. Like wi fi, like internet jukebox, and we just need to play a bunch of Rick Astley, like two days worth like.

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Ricky

Yeah.

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Piper

Patrons I'm going to need you guys to chip in here where we need we need to feed that box downstairs so that they can't. They're going to have to turn it off. Otherwise they're going to just get Rick rolled all night long.

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Ricky

Just donate that and we've got Rick rolling and Norwegian death metal.

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Piper

I don't know if they have any more sugar in there in their jukebox, but I'm sure they have a Rick Astley. There we go.

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Ricky

But but yeah, you know, as we continue on and I get back to Texas, we're going to we're going to move into the realm of recording the Podcast's live and video and all that stuff. So interesting to see as we go along. But certainly glad to have you guys on on the ride and we'll do our best to edit what we can.

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Ricky

But with that being said, let's get right to it this week as we move into 2023 and where we've been the past couple of years, there's been this shift and you've heard me say it, people say it, A lot of people say it. COVID sort of changed the collecting landscape. And what I mean, if I could sum it up in one sentence, when COVID first really impacted the US and that's, you know, spring 20, 20 timeframe, people were collecting aboveground swimming pools that you could buy at Walmart to flip and sell, right?

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Ricky

I mean, it changed. It is.

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Piper

A yes. Okay. So we do we have talked about that before, but I, I don't think do people still do this because I think they're still doing it with like graphics cards and like eggs at the grocery store. I saw someone in a Facebook group try to sell me $7 eggs that they grew at their house themselves. And I feel like I feel like that's the next evolution of a swimming pool.

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Piper

Flipping is buying a chicken and selling eggs for a dollar. An egg?

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Ricky

Yeah, like kids instead of lemonade stands, we have eggs, stands and just a random chicken on a leash, running in circles in the yard around a tree.

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Piper

I told my wife, I'm like, Look, dad, we're going to buy one chicken and we're just going to keep in the backyard just so we can afford to have eggs.

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Ricky

Like it's getting ridiculous.

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Piper

Even bleach. Like, I was talking to one of the customers today, they're talking about like bleach is like $9 a bottle and like, bleach is like $0.50. He's like, no.

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Ricky

Yeah, I know. It's so crazy. And I mean, when I when I joke about the swimming pool, but that's sort of where we started, right? And we saw this like influx of people who have never collected and all of a sudden everybody's got a YouTube channel and they've been collectors forever and their auctioning things off and whatnot. And they created this small economy and not just for the pools or the one off things like bicycles.

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Ricky

And it's funny that you mentioned graphics cards because I was in Best Buy, I believe, today, and I saw four graphics cards on the shelves and I'm like, holy crap, times have changed in that amount of time. But I mean, still, like you had an industry that had some attention on it were Funko was gaining ground as far as like valuing and increases in values and trends.

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Ricky

But you saw the sports card market explode and we've come to this certain state right now where because of COVID, on the backside of it, the supply and demand, people couldn't manufacture things quickly enough to to meet demand. China was seeing major shut downs. And right off the bat you see limited releases continue even until now. And 2023 as we talk about started collecting beam, toy, abominable toys, etc. these small designer toys aren't at the release numbers and we mentioned that last week on the show.

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Ricky

But I mean, when do we get out of that trend? When do we break that trend? And I don't know, you know, just because China is still going through an outbreak of COVID now and they were shutting things down, you back that up with Chinese New Years. It just came to an end. Now. And so typically in the country, it pretty much shuts down for all the Chinese New Years.

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Ricky

So you have all of these things happening every it seems like quarterly almost, where you just lose reliability in your ability to process things in smaller toymakers. And Piper, I'll let you take it too, because you know more in this area as well But like bim toy or abominable toys and I don't know if it's still the same when we talked about with Mondo, remember that back in the day?

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Piper

Yeah, they did. They do posters and stuff. It's Elmo.

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Ricky

Not Mondo, but what was the manufacturer? We had him on the show and he made those little devil figures.

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Piper

To evil figures.

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Ricky

Yeah, he was on our show. I want to say, Mondo, this is terrible, but anyways, he came on the show, and I think he did like four or five runs of his collectible. And he was talking about the market over there. They dealt with, Oh, manufacturing man toys. Yeah, modern toys as Martin and Mondo Mind toys. There you go.

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Ricky

But they were dealing with one single manufacturer. And a lot of times these companies do that, and it's not easy to switch after you've built all of the molds and things like that to change. So where do you think like where do you think that breaking point is? And we'll talk about it at the small business scale of these smaller designer toys.

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Ricky

How do they fix it or where do you think it's headed?

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Piper

I mean, if it was me, I'd say they need to continue limited releases because that's what sells the product. Because, I mean, I you can see with like, okay, not call anybody out, but a Bonneville toys is a good option, right? Like they're, they're kind of like we've followed them since since Connor and Ben they put their the chops out.

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Piper

Right. And so they used to sell. So every single release was a sell out. And the last couple have not sold out and they are a lot higher numbers. You can like the last we were just looking at the last one, it was like 1500, right? The the chopper, the the pink glow in the dark chopper.

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Ricky

So yeah. Yep.

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Piper

It's I think that, I think the limited release is good. I think the frequency that they can get the items out is the problem because you will look and see some of these like, okay, Volvo toys is a great option. Like you look at some of the releases from this year, it's a six or from Sue me for last year It took six nine months for them to get here.

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Piper

And I believe that they missed. I think they didn't they missed Deacon last year or something like that because of.

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Ricky

Well, they were impacted by product availability. They were selling like instead of they didn't miss Deacon, but they were selling some items that would be shipping later.

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Piper

Yeah. So like that. And then we talk about beam toy, like with them, they switched over to doing resin now. And I don't know if they I don't know if Reese is producing them himself or if they have someone overseas that's doing it. But they switched over to resin because of the fact that from what I was reading, I don't know was higher percent because I'm a no, I'm not on the inside.

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Piper

But from what I know, they switched over because of manufacturing issues and that was kind of the resolution. And I think that's a great idea because, one, it makes them more desirable because at that point they are closer to being handmade items as opposed to something that's mass produced in a giant warehouse. I mean, they could be in the warehouse, but I mean, but the reason is nicer and they're more expensive and they're you know, it seems like that they're able to hit their deadlines.

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Piper

Now, the last the Batman beam toy, the the tiny ghost that came out. Did you see those?

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Ricky

Yeah.

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Piper

Yeah, like, I know those were like, way delayed shipping, but I think those were still a vinyl and I don't, I don't believe those were resin. So I mean there are ways I think that are both. It plays well to the market and it plays well to manufacturing and the collectors and the consumers. It's I think it's just a matter of finding that balance like where where are they?

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Piper

Where do you need to be as as a company? And I think that it's a it's a juggling act between, okay, we want to put enough items out there to our the people who like these can buy them. But and at the same time, though, it you know, it's just it's hard.

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Ricky

Yeah that's a really interesting take too. I think that I sort of glanced over it from the perspective of exclusivity and you have smaller runs and I think to one of your points on the back end of that too, is that if you have seven releases in a year opposed to six, I mean, it doesn't do great for Conner or, you know, Reese to not be able to grow at the level they want to grow.

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Ricky

But as a collector, it's more intimate, right? Like you don't feel like you're flooding the market and it can retain that way. So I really appreciate that perspective. I think it's I think it's something good for collectors, especially people who have followed them for long. It's always like where people I say where people all collectors, you know, or funko fans and they they've sort of had this transformation.

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Ricky

They're the guy that's screaming like.

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Piper

I knew the band when they weren't.

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Ricky

Cool, man. You know what I mean? They sold out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, that's interesting. I, I completely agree with your take on that. So, and one of the other things the issues and when we talk about, you know, manufacturing and being able to produce to the demand. So as Funko continues to drive for more scalability and that includes not just scalability within the U.S. and collecting more IP and licenses and things along those lines, but specifically continuing to grow for larger orders.

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Ricky

What is safer, right? Like, is it these small businesses that can order ten or 12 cases at a time, or is it your hot topics or stores that have volume that you can continue to grow in? And you know, some of the exclusives out there are crazy like places that are accepting exclusives. Eventually we're going to have like a CVS, you know, what's what's another rare one that they could do an exclusive on a pilot gas station exclusive or something like that, you know, like a Wawa here in the East Coast, you know, or Sheetz gas station exclusive.

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Ricky

They're going to be everywhere. But that's for them. That's sales, right? Yeah, I understand that. But like we talked last week, being a smaller dealer and owning a business, and I always love Piper's take on this because he's in the store every day working it. The forecast Funko sends out these forecasts and you see them leaked all the time by the top people, you know, funko finders or whoever they like.

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Ricky

These are coming out in six months. Well, what that is, is a list of items that funko sends to their vendors to say, Hey, our forecast for the next six months are these items for the next two quarters. If you order them, our target date to get them to you is by why And with those forecasts we talk about we talked about it last week a little bit, but I want to expand on it and say here now as they forecast these sales, they're missing the forecast.

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Ricky

Right. We told you last week, well, they they have bigger businesses. They get the pops first in the small business. More on top of that. They're missing some of those forecasts. So it exponentially makes the problem worse because now they can't commit to some of their orders. Not complaining. Everybody has to go through this now with the difficulty of the supply chain.

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Ricky

Even in the business that I'm in, you know, my job. So now they missed their target date. Then they have to send it to big box retailers in there, send it to us. And, you know, Piper, you talk to I would say talk to everybody a little about why we did away with preorders and things because of that.

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Piper

Yeah. So and then it's not just us. It's a lot of people. Like we were good friends with Jonathan at my world, right? And he did the same thing. And there's a lot of other smaller people that are doing exactly that because and what Ricky's saying about the forecast, it's also referred to as the embargo list. So it's like the things that we're not allowed to speak of, right?

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Piper

So you get a date on on this stuff and actually funcoes changed it. And the way it works is they give you the list and some of the items are like, what? Funko fair. There's actually some of those items that are coming out this month, which is very shocking that they like those. So there's a some of the one piece ones from from Funko, they're actually coming they'll be here in February.

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Piper

But the thing is, Funko now has stated that you have to order when the items on there are on the embargo list, because if you don't, the chances of you getting them are very low because Funko is trying to get away from doing massive and ongoing restocks unless it's an item that has such a demand bit that warrants those restock.

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Piper

So like Star Wars is a good like example like, like Grogu right? Or Mandalorian like show so hot they're going to continue doing those. But for the smaller ones, especially like anime stuff or like more obscure movies and TV shows, those are going to be items that if you do not get in on the embargo list right away and sometimes it's 6 to 9 months, maybe even I have I had to order I put an order for some stuff.

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Piper

It's 12 months out because if you don't do it, you will not get those items. And if they and then when they come in and a restock, you're still going to run into the same issues of when more produced best Buy, Walmart, Target, even Walgreens, they're going to get them first if they just say, Hey, Funko, we want these because they're putting in million piece orders, right?

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Piper

So that creates a problem because when especially when Funko talk about this and is if when Funko misses those forecast dates, you cannot be like, okay, well, I don't need these now. You are locked in and you cannot just be like, I don't want these because Funko has put you down. They're producing based on the numbers. That's what they're doing.

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Piper

They're forecasting numbers on how many to produce. Like there's, you know, if they only need to make 10,000, they're going to make 10,000. If they need to make 100,000, they're going to make 100,000 to meet these demands. So you put in and say, yes, I want, you know, Wednesday. ADDAMS Right. Because like, that's what that's hot right now.

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Piper

Okay I want Wednesday and ah, they're like, okay, cool. So in three months, well what happens when they miss that that, that date and it gets pushed back two months. Well in two months you may have, you know, $4,000 of stock that's scheduled to come in in four months and then that gets rolled on top of it and there's no way to back out of that.

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Piper

So you get screwed as a small retailer. And so what turns into you, you get, you know, scheduling for, okay, this is how much money is going to be coming out in in March. Well, it turns into double or triple that because stuff from like December got pushed there. So it becomes very difficult to kind of estimate that.

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Piper

And then when you have preorders on top of that, you have the stress of people calling you and emailing you. I'm go to that right now. Yeah, yeah. But where are my items? I'm like, Bro, they'll be here. It's not like I don't have a secret stash of them that I'm just selling in the store and I'm not shipping to you in Do bumble filled Wisconsin, right?

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Piper

That's that's not the situation. The situation is. I'm waiting on our first order to get here, and people don't get that. Which side note I don't understand because I talked to Patrick Chadha. Hey, Patrick. He was in the store today. We were talking about this. I don't get people that get upset about their preorders and want to know where their preorders are at.

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Piper

It's not a video game. You can't play with it when you get here. Okay? It's going to be on your wall. It's a decoration. So it's like you being like, Where's my painting at? Like, bro, it's going on the wall and you're just going to look at it. You're going to get it.

00;18;11;26 - 00;18;13;15

Ricky

Or you're going to sell it to me.

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Piper

That's it. That's the other thing. But I mean, it's just like it's kind of crazy. But, you know, I digress. So that's that's kind of why we we are taking this new approach of like, okay, we'll going to order stuff, but we're ordering reasonable amount of things and we're not, you know, pre-selling this stuff. You can wait until it gets here because I mean, it's going to sell no matter when it'll, whether it sells with our pre sell it now and it doesn't get here for six months or I just wait six months and then we sell it then because people are going to want it.

00;18;43;01 - 00;18;59;28

Piper

Maybe you missed a preorder or maybe you know you forgot about it and they pre-sold it out or whatever. So it honestly doesn't it doesn't matter. And we're still providing preorder services for patrons, but we're just not charging him for it. Your name goes on a list, and then when it comes in, we send you the invoice.

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Ricky

But exactly.

00;19;01;11 - 00;19;19;07

Piper

It's just the same from the headache, man. And and I think this is the new this is because if you remember pre-COVID, you didn't have preorders like this. You didn't have all I mean, you had, like, chalice and stuff that were like, you know, pre-selling like a full box of their exclusive so you can get a chase Like that was fairly normal.

00;19;19;20 - 00;19;24;15

Piper

But it was really after Coke because, you know, who knows when your stuff is going to gain?

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Ricky

Well, everything shifted to the online realm.

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Piper

Yeah. Once everything got heavy online, that's what kind of happened. And now it's kind of like it's a it's a weird limbo between those two where like, look, there's there's people still shopping in store now and then there's a lot of people online and and the manufacturers really are struggling to meet both of those those realms. So it honestly it makes for us being a small retailer, it just makes a 100% sense to not do that, do the preorders and, you know, just be aware that your local shop that you shop with, because I know not everybody shops with us.

00;19;58;14 - 00;20;09;15

Piper

Some people just like to listen to us ramble and spit in the microphones. But keep an eye that your your local shops or your local elks may change that very soon. And we're like.

00;20;09;15 - 00;20;12;13

Ricky

Hey, this local card shop, ISIS.

00;20;12;17 - 00;20;18;05

Piper

Yep. There you go. Or, you know, local collectible shop. We could do that.

00;20;18;06 - 00;20;43;05

Ricky

Yeah, there you go. Bam. So I think all great points in that perspective is super good for people to at least understand from where the market is trending. And I think you made one great point in there. I want to reiterate, and it really ties the third bullet I have here is what option does Funko have? And I initially came up was a well, maybe they have another manufacturer or they move it somewhere.

00;20;43;05 - 00;21;07;18

Ricky

I'm going to scrap all of that. I think that this forward kind of forecasting is where they need to be, right? They embargo list and they're projecting things a year out, nine months out, 12 months out, almost like an NFT cycle. Right? The NFT cycle is, hey, we drop the packs and then seven months later you get your pop that that gives them a time window to be able to execute it.

00;21;07;27 - 00;21;28;16

Ricky

You get true valid demand. So we have real numbers out of a collectible and then you put a wag on it like 30%, right? I even in my day to day job, that's what we're doing now with all of our parts. Like we looked at our contracts and we said, hey, everything that's like two years from now, let's make sure we order everything so that we don't run into supply issues.

00;21;28;16 - 00;21;35;27

Ricky

So I think that was a great point. To wrap that up. Any closing comments? What do you think they could do differently or do you think that's the right way?

00;21;36;15 - 00;22;05;03

Piper

And I don't even me come from my position. I have no idea the better way to do it, because it's it's a fight no matter what direction you're looking. And I think more of it comes like Funko is doing the best they can and it's more on like us that we're having to adapt and change and and remap things and try to like, just stay afloat and figure figure out the best way to do business going forward.

00;22;05;07 - 00;22;20;22

Piper

So I think it's just and that's a matter of just making, you know, conservative decisions on like what items that we're going to have in the store and like what items that we're going to stock and how many. So I think I know that.

00;22;20;23 - 00;22;23;13

Ricky

There's a need to sort of something.

00;22;23;13 - 00;22;33;01

Piper

And I think I think Funko could do better about that. I mean, I would say don't produce as much stuff so you can get your your orders out, but you know, that's not going to happen.

00;22;33;01 - 00;22;52;25

Ricky

Yeah, exactly. But I do think also I know that people will think of what I'm saying is topical and not thinking about like, well, there are certain IP that you're not going to have that runway on. I completely understand that. And in those cases, if you have IPRs that you acquire that are like killer clowns from outer space, I don't think you need to know what the characters look like.

00;22;52;25 - 00;23;11;05

Ricky

You already do those things you can forward project, right? The things that are like Wednesday coming out here, like it's the first season and you've got to get a product quick to market. You're getting some kind of advance notice from like Netflix or whoever you license with about the characters. You can start it and you're already producing them.

00;23;11;05 - 00;23;30;07

Ricky

But you know that you leave that for that and separate the other for product that you know what the IP is before you produce it. So let us know what you guys think to Twitter and Instagram, our Pop Alliance pod. You can hit us up where where else? Let's go Old school email info at Pop collective Alliance dot com.

00;23;30;25 - 00;23;32;11

Ricky

If people have a message you want tech talk.

00;23;33;18 - 00;23;40;29

Piper

It's kind of hard because I have to follow them for them to send us messages but so yeah I just think Instagram toys that's.

00;23;41;26 - 00;23;52;04

Ricky

Yeah And then if you're a part of our Patreon audience, there's always discord. And if you're not become part of our Patreon audience at patriarchal slash Pop Collectors Alliance Shameless plug.

00;23;52;12 - 00;24;01;14

Piper

Choose the tier that's right for you. As little as $1 a month. You can get some stuff and you can be friends with us. Please. It costs money. Your friend.

00;24;03;09 - 00;24;05;11

Ricky

We're shallow now, but yeah.

00;24;05;11 - 00;24;07;29

Piper

That's a great point.

00;24;07;29 - 00;24;27;22

Ricky

A market reset for most collectibles. Now, we talked a little bit about this, but I think one of the big things as we we we said the opening of sort of the issues that we saw early on in COVID and people had more disposable income from their perspective of a lot of people were allowed to work from home.

00;24;27;28 - 00;24;51;27

Ricky

I didn't have to pay for childcare costs. And I'm not saying that's everyone's case, but it was a lot of people's case. And then the second most expensive expense that you have in a household is typically child care. So what did they do? They repurposed that money and to make extra money, people, you know, bought collectibles, bought the swimming pools, you know, bought the supply out of products and resold them.

00;24;51;27 - 00;25;15;21

Ricky

And then you really see that bubble that built and sort of turned into what it is today. And I think one of the most telling things of that bubble and you got you know, Wall Street came in and the card market and they couldn't make money on stocks for a little bit of time. So they they started inflating card values of cards that they went and bought and like push Gary these like mad cards.

00;25;15;21 - 00;25;20;03

Ricky

The next best thing I know it doesn't sound like that but you know, it's the next biggest thing and that's.

00;25;20;03 - 00;25;21;04

Piper

It how you sound.

00;25;21;05 - 00;25;40;07

Ricky

Exactly. And now the if you follow him, one of the things he's talking about now is toys and collectibles. They're nostalgia. Everybody can relate to these things. Oh, I'm not talking about cards anymore. So he's got like $200,000 worth, a Teenage mutant Ninja Turtles down in his basement, and he wants to push it to sell it. But he saw people in the industry pushing that.

00;25;40;07 - 00;26;15;13

Ricky

Right. But now that submarket has sort of changed and some of the telling things and we mentioned it last week, Bronco app values aren't being maintained even though they have a partnership with eBay. You think that they put some effort into the app to say, Well, what's your API? eBay, let's let's work this out. Hobie DBS in there, like all of those companies can correlate data in a way that can I mean, there's a way to query data to filter out failed sales, to filter out all of the ships and cells from China where you know that it's a fake, right?

00;26;15;20 - 00;26;34;05

Ricky

You can do that. And we didn't see anything invested into that. Even when in the sneaker market and in the card market, you saw a big push on stock acts and these other companies for authenticating services. So you're selling something there. You're sending it there where a paid expert can look at it and get it. And we didn't see that.

00;26;34;05 - 00;26;35;17

Ricky

And in this market.

00;26;36;20 - 00;26;39;09

Piper

I, uh, I don't know.

00;26;40;24 - 00;26;42;10

Ricky

I love how you say. I don't know.

00;26;42;10 - 00;26;56;26

Piper

I don't know. I don't know. So and you know, kind of on that, it's not just Gary Vee. There's a there's a lot of big, big time cheeses that are that are, you know, you're right.

00;26;57;19 - 00;27;01;28

Ricky

But he was the most vocal early on. Yeah, but yeah, everybody jumped the board.

00;27;02;04 - 00;27;23;01

Piper

Yeah. There's the other guy. I can't think of his name. Wicked cool toys. I can't think of the dude's name right now. But anyway, he's like part of jazz players. Like, today, Like, to this day, daily. He posts about collectibles in the physical form. And it's not just toys, though, that he's pushing. He's also like. Like antique electronics.

00;27;23;01 - 00;27;38;02

Piper

Like, there is a they're talking he's talking about a sealed iPhone like two or something like that, sold for like $1,000,000 or something or some crazy amount. So it's a lot of stuff. But yeah, I don't I don't know. It's just it's wild.

00;27;39;01 - 00;28;07;20

Ricky

I still have my first iPhone, the very first iPhone still on. It's not package, but I have all the original packaging with it. So it's interesting too that, that even you can say Logan Paul Right. With Pokémon and where that was taken like yeah, the hype and pushing all of that. I was just watching a video of him talking about how he broke the case on the PSA to get a BGS ten on it because there were only two BGS hands on that card.

00;28;07;28 - 00;28;19;11

Ricky

And like, could you imagine, like you have that much money to like I would have break this card and like, you could damage the card any second. I just couldn't imagine it. But those people play multiple.

00;28;19;11 - 00;28;21;17

Piper

I think he I believe he has multiple of that card.

00;28;22;06 - 00;28;26;14

Ricky

Well, he does, but he there's only three in the world that are the BGs tens.

00;28;26;14 - 00;28;29;25

Piper

And it's not just. No, it's not just a normal ten. It's a black label ten.

00;28;30;15 - 00;28;50;10

Ricky

Yeah. So they, they have and all those people played a role. Right. And that's a good segue way right into the fall of sports cards and what that market is today. Like I mentioned before, you had a lot of Wall Street investors coming in. They inflated the Michael Jordan rookie where you saw it selling for hundreds, thousands of dollars.

00;28;50;10 - 00;29;17;02

Ricky

I was part of this, too, like I was in there. I've always collected cards, but I did capitalize on this to the, you know, open Komodo here like the Zion Williamson cards. Like I got a bunch of rookies. I saw this trend if you got them graded and how the differ how it differentiates from a card that would sell for $100 raw versus $400 for a 9.5 at BGS and enjoying that.

00;29;17;02 - 00;29;42;27

Ricky

But I mean you it created such a bubble that it completely fell apart. And I wouldn't say to 100% because there's a certain avenue there. But if you talk about you talk about cards, you talk about phone co you talk about anything in the collectibles market now. And I mean, I can say this for Funko, the flipping the era of the no flip zone, and we used to have the no flip zone.

00;29;42;27 - 00;30;03;06

Ricky

I know base here. But the thing is, is that that no flip zone, is it dead? Does it even exist anymore? I don't think it exists in that past eight. I think there's a current state for it, but it's just so niche right now for like anime items or things along those lines. You can't really say it was every Funko.

00;30;03;06 - 00;30;13;04

Ricky

Friday Forever Funko. Friday Forever Funko at Target is going to give you something where you can buy seven collectibles and net 200% profit on them, you know?

00;30;13;29 - 00;30;19;15

Piper

So I think I think it still exists, right? I think that.

00;30;19;19 - 00;30;21;18

Ricky

I do too. But just not in that state.

00;30;21;26 - 00;30;27;03

Piper

No, it's not like especially like we always end of talking about Nfts.

00;30;27;03 - 00;30;28;07

Ricky

So yeah.

00;30;28;11 - 00;30;50;23

Piper

Transformers just everybody's getting their Transformers stuff right now and you can see there are people that have like there's one girl, I don't know her name. If I did know it, I'm not going to say it, but there's in one of the funko groups that we're in and you're in the same group, Rikki, and you're talking about every drop she gets and she just goes in like buys tons of these, right?

00;30;51;06 - 00;31;12;06

Piper

Like and but she claims that she does not buy the, the coins and she does not buy and I think she just buys packs. But like I forgot which one it was, I think it was maybe the Avatar one. She had like 20 of each redeemable. And I had asked her was like, how much did you spend on this?

00;31;12;18 - 00;31;31;20

Piper

She's like, Oh, it's still like $6,000. And I said, You could have you know, you could have just bought all the redeemable for like a fourth of what you spent. And she's like, Yeah, but one I like opening packs. And two, she's like, I'm going to make my money back. And I'm like, I'll novembro. But the cool you keep, keep on keeping on.

00;31;32;07 - 00;31;42;27

Piper

It's so it does exist, you know, it is there and there are certain items that they are still big. Like there's certain like funko shop like, you know mirror back in the day. Well, maybe.

00;31;43;01 - 00;31;47;27

Ricky

Yeah, yeah. You have those singular releases, but it's more niche than it's ever been for sure.

00;31;47;27 - 00;32;04;09

Piper

If it's a funko shop item that has a chase with it, it'll sell out like, you know, like the marketing time. Yeah, Yeah. But then you have other items that like, you know, three years ago would have, they would have made it 30 seconds on the Funko shop and now they're up for like four or five or they don't sell out ever.

00;32;04;22 - 00;32;06;15

Ricky

So yeah, yeah, exactly.

00;32;06;19 - 00;32;14;28

Piper

It has mutated, but I don't believe when we talk about a bubble, I don't the bubble has not popped and I don't see.

00;32;15;13 - 00;32;18;13

Ricky

Are you talking specifically funko or are you talking just in.

00;32;18;13 - 00;32;40;17

Piper

General even sports cars or Pokemon? Oh, you know, I'll get my knowledge in in the Pokemon. Yeah. The bubble has deflated. It's slowly losing air. I don't feel like it's burst because there is still a lot of value in items it's not going to like. It's not. Wax Pack is not where you could burn the cards and you know, you're better off with a fire than you are with the paper, you know?

00;32;40;17 - 00;32;43;17

Ricky

Yeah, there's no junk wax era right now. Yeah, I agree So.

00;32;43;26 - 00;33;13;16

Piper

And I don't know, but I like, I see people come in here and I think it's, I think it's shifted. I think it really has. Where yes, there is not an insane value in a lot of things. There is value in key items. And I think people have adapted with those changes instead of just like frustration throwing their hands up, being like undone and walking away because we get Pokemon collectors all the time that come in, they're like, Oh, I want to send off cards to be graded.

00;33;14;04 - 00;33;42;02

Piper

But they don't know. They just know that I need a grade. These things and I, you know, I get to educate and sit down with people and tell them, Hey, this is what the best approach is and this is what I would do. But you got to make your own decisions and and people know and and that's that's what a lot of it is, I think is is people are now becoming smarter, They're becoming more educated, and there is less of that like hype beast mentality of, oh, we got to get all the things all the time so I can make all the money.

00;33;42;14 - 00;34;00;10

Piper

So the people that are more strategic. Yeah, Yeah, exactly. And I think people have realized, yeah, there's not the value that there once was, but I think people realize that there still is, there is value. And it's been I think it's more of a market correction than it was a bursting.

00;34;01;10 - 00;34;04;20

Ricky

Yeah. And I don't know if I said that, I think that it burst, but I.

00;34;04;20 - 00;34;05;29

Piper

Know nobody did it. I'm just.

00;34;06;18 - 00;34;30;08

Ricky

You know, she's liable for what I'm about to say because I don't want to be able to be go back and to hear me say burst the bubble. But, you know, I agree with that sentiment. I do think that I think a little more on the card side, sports card, specifically, you you run in the spot and and it's a great Segway, you know gambling in the marketplace.

00;34;30;08 - 00;34;59;06

Ricky

Now I think one of the things that have held the market as high as it's been able to be held and this I wouldn't say this necessarily applies to funko in certain avenues maybe, but I don't think this is more along the lines of cards where you see is gambling the new marketplace because, you know, I'll take you through a brief history and just know we're going to do an entire episode on this where we can talk about it and break it down.

00;34;59;06 - 00;35;29;18

Ricky

But the overview is this like Funko early on, if you listen to the podcast years ago for us, we were like, Man, these raffles, they call them waffles, these things, and they're still there, right? I kind of subscribe from all those groups. They still exist at some point because there's still value in these collectible shows. But at its prime, when people are like taken target exclusives and waffling them off like the week that they came in and now it's kind of like we said, strategic, that it created an inflation in the market.

00;35;29;18 - 00;35;47;18

Ricky

And then it was like the mystery box thing where you were like, Hey, you get something at least, but we're putting a high dollar in there and people abuse that system to like there. There were abuses of it and there are ways to abuse a mystery box like you. Everybody categorically understands the risk that you take in a mystery box, but at least you're getting something.

00;35;47;26 - 00;36;10;13

Ricky

Whereas raffles and waffles, as you call them, you didn't always receive something for the money that you paid. But sports cards just took it to another level. Man When when you had all of these boxes being released and you have a person I'm not going to mention any apps or where it is, but those who listen to the show that collect cards know, let's say, for example, that they buy a basketball hobby box.

00;36;10;21 - 00;36;30;21

Ricky

And in this case there's like eight cards in it because sometimes I'll put a box of four autos and three base cards in it. And whoever just say, whatever card company that sells those, they'll go and buy that. And they would push the value up to like 1200 bucks. But on the back end they would they sell spots for teams and they do it like a couple of ways.

00;36;30;21 - 00;36;54;06

Ricky

But I'll mention a couple on here. I mean, you guys can do your research and and really see it, but and we'll do it for you in the episode. But they would take 32 teams in the NFL, for example, and they'd have this seven card NFL box and everybody would either buy a spot for a team for a flat rate and they would raffle the teams off to people and you would get that as your raffle or they would scale the pay based on who the rookies were.

00;36;54;06 - 00;37;13;01

Ricky

So for like Zion Williamson in the NBA, if you wanted the Pelicans, that's who he plays for, you have to pay like $300 for that spot as opposed to somebody who got someone. That was a spot that was that wasn't there. You know, you're hoping for like a a retired player that signed it. You know, it's like a $30 or something like that.

00;37;13;12 - 00;37;37;18

Ricky

So you have an example of seven cards and you have 32 people in there that have paid an exorbitant amount of money to get in those spots. And that and it's of itself, people saw that they could do it and it drove the market insane. And that's where we sort of are today. Like people Moses sports cars where you see a lot of the sales, they're trade shows and trade shows and conventions are doing really well.

00;37;38;02 - 00;38;05;03

Ricky

But there's this element of gambling that has come into play that's almost in some cases, like unsolicited, illegal, you know, gambling for sports cards. And even if they're doing raffles, that's the same case for Funko. But it exists. And that from that perspective alone, if it becomes so in demand, it drives prices up.

00;38;06;23 - 00;38;27;26

Piper

So I guess I got all of those gambling and I've I've had an issue with this before, and there is a specific app out there that we have. I've used it for the story before. I've I've done events on there, but not that in the sense that we're talking about. But I have gone in there just digging through to see what people are doing.

00;38;27;26 - 00;38;48;21

Piper

And there are some people it's not even like if it's not trying to be like cloaked at all anymore. Now there are people that are just straight up like you may have seen like duck races, right? Where literally you you buy a duck. And then they simulate these ducks going across the ocean and then whoever wins, it's like a horse race.

00;38;48;21 - 00;39;05;09

Piper

It's like betting on the horses and if you do it, then you win a pack of cards and everybody else, they get nothing that that's not even that's not even any at least it's like a like a while with a waffle. You get screwed too. But like, you know, like a mystery box, or at least you get something out of or you're supposed to bet.

00;39;05;10 - 00;39;45;06

Piper

Like, this was just literally like, you might as well just be in do it like roulette or like Plinko, like the Plinko lands on your your one. Then you get it. It's just insane. And I know that there are some more popular apps have cracked down on this recently. I say recently within the past like six months where they are not allowing just straight up gambling now like like the the pick your team thing, they, the ones that I've seen, they'll do it like on a standard like blaster box where you do have you know, whatever ten or 12 cards in a pack and then they, they burn through the whole, the whole blaster and

00;39;45;06 - 00;39;55;09

Piper

then whatever you get that's like on the cowboys, you get all the cowboys. So at least that you're more guaranteed to get something because if you figure like, what's the average pack count in like in like.

00;39;55;13 - 00;40;02;18

Ricky

A hobby that you want is like 32 packs, eight packs. So 32 hobby box. Yeah.

00;40;02;19 - 00;40;07;24

Piper

So 32 packs, there's 32 teams in the NFL. Chances are you're going to at least get something for your.

00;40;07;24 - 00;40;10;14

Ricky

Money and maybe $0.12. But yeah, you will get.

00;40;10;14 - 00;40;30;10

Piper

Something at least getting that of like, Oh, you're opening it now. It's my wife, my wife's best friend. She's a huge, huge football fan. And she does those because she only she only collects cards for one team. Everything else she sells. Right. Which I totally like. That's awesome. And she's gotten some crazy stuff. Now, as far as investment amount, I don't know how much she spent.

00;40;30;18 - 00;40;48;29

Piper

It could be a lot you know, you can you know, you can either, you know, come out way ahead or you're just going to lose your pants. I mean, like that's that's I mean, that's anything but that's the gamble. That's all we're talking about here is is how how this kind of like plays out. But I mean, I think there's I think there's.

00;40;48;29 - 00;41;01;13

Piper

Okay. Acceptable ways to do it, but there is a lot of shadiness and stuff that is very, very like, let's just call it like the horse is a horseman is just illegal is what it is.

00;41;01;13 - 00;41;13;09

Ricky

Yeah. And it was unfortunate. And I'll give a brief story and maybe I maybe I'll save it. Maybe I'll just save it for the gambling episode and give you guys the total amount of money because I have a spreadsheet of what I put in.

00;41;13;09 - 00;41;15;08

Piper

$740,000 now.

00;41;16;18 - 00;41;38;06

Ricky

With what I got out and then sort of like my strategy in collecting in cards is like I like teams, I like players. I try to collect that player to hold on to it for longevity and value. And I've held on to some of the cards. But even me, without going to that story during this time frame, because everybody wanted cards graded, everybody wanted the cards out so they could resell them.

00;41;38;06 - 00;41;56;19

Ricky

So I'm getting this and I'm winning this. Now I need to send it to PSA. Yes, they had like a 3 million card backlog. I sent in cards and a year later, if I would have had that card earlier, say, before the backlog happened, you know, it depends on the cycle when you get the card. And I would have sent it off and got it grading, come back.

00;41;57;02 - 00;42;21;02

Ricky

One of the cards I had, what I sold for over $30,000. But by the time I got it, because of the length of time and the grade that I got, which was good, it only sold for 13,000 and you saw the value and that's what what it drives. And I wasn't trying to sell that to make money, one, to recoup some of my costs, but to also buy other cards that I want from a specific player that I wanted to collect.

00;42;21;11 - 00;42;43;26

Ricky

So I'll talk more about that in the episode, but I really want to get to solicit some opinions on this and what you guys think in gambling, because it's going to help us write the next episode again at Pop Alliance Pod, Twitter and Instagram, you can email us directly info our Pop Collector's Alliance dot com on social media Facebook.com slash pop collector's lines Be a part of the group get in there.

00;42;44;15 - 00;43;03;09

Ricky

The Facebook group have these discussions maybe we'll put something out this week that where we can talk about like do you think gambling has infiltrated the collecting market and just get a general poll out there need make that note so I make sure I put it out there. But I hear your take on that from your perspective as we go into that episode.

00;43;03;21 - 00;43;23;18

Piper

Can I tell you last night? So we had we Pokémon Night, right? And one of the guys was watching one of these apps with the the selling and the auctions right. There was a guy that was auctioning off vintage Pokemon packs. Okay.

00;43;24;12 - 00;43;24;22

Ricky

Yep.

00;43;25;26 - 00;43;40;19

Piper

And it was set. So if you know anything about Pokémon in base that there is a kind of knowing how many hollows you're going to get because that's what you want, right? You want the hollows at the base set because that's where the money's at. Yeah. You want to get the charge Z, you want to get the blast away.

00;43;40;19 - 00;43;53;16

Piper

So you want to get the VENUSAUR. Well, they were selling these packs and they were down to the last pack and there should have been one more hollow. That pack sold for 1900 dollars last night.

00;43;53;29 - 00;43;55;27

Ricky

And that has like six cards in it.

00;43;56;09 - 00;43;56;28

Piper

A ten?

00;43;57;16 - 00;44;00;22

Ricky

Okay. But was it worth it?

00;44;01;28 - 00;44;34;09

Piper

I don't know, because there was all kinds of issues and they stopped watching it by the time. But the last packs, over 1900 or so, the average was like $368 for a pack. And I was asked them, I was like, Dude, how does this guy have these? Because he had like tons of vintage stuff. And I know you can go on like eBay and buy like a booster box, but some of them like, okay, Acropolis, that's like a set from like 2000 for I think those a sealed booster of those last time I looked sold for $15,000.

00;44;34;09 - 00;44;35;01

Ricky

Oh, my goodness.

00;44;35;01 - 00;44;35;28

Piper

That's a lot of money.

00;44;36;14 - 00;44;41;03

Ricky

But you can even if you buy that, if you sell those one off now you're making money.

00;44;41;19 - 00;44;58;15

Piper

So this guy had all this stuff and they informed me. So I got a little education here. So basically there's like, this guy is like a broker and he works with other the people that actually own these booster boxes and he auctions off the cards and they basically go, Hey, I want this certain amount of money. And he's like, okay.

00;44;58;15 - 00;45;10;05

Piper

So he he said at some point he's like, Hey, these cards, the packs have to sell for at least $360 for this one specific booster box so he can pay off what he owes this guy. That's just crazy to me.

00;45;11;01 - 00;45;22;06

Ricky

Yeah. What's crazy even more is that that's generally what they were doing with waffling is that collectors would have big pieces they wanted. Wall fell off and they'd feed them to the people that were raffling them.

00;45;22;14 - 00;45;23;29

Piper

Yeah. And they just said.

00;45;23;29 - 00;45;48;10

Ricky

Yeah, in that this case it's more legal right. Than, than that stuff. But still like you see and not all waffles and things like that. Like I don't hate waffles. I never really did it. Kind of like a gray area for me. But you know, certainly there were aspects, like I say, that were just shady business. So I can't wait to write this episode because it's going to be so much fun because we have so much experience with it.

00;45;48;29 - 00;46;09;24

Piper

You know, I've never I've only ever been involved in one waffle. And it was not a funko waffle. It was for a video game. And it was like it was a sealed copy of like Oreo RPG for the Super Nintendo. And the funny thing was I put like a dollar into it because I was like, Yeah, let's see what this is about.

00;46;10;04 - 00;46;17;27

Piper

And then I forgot about it. Like, totally forgot about it until the guy like, messaged me. He's like, Hey man, I've been trying to get a hold of you. You won this game. And I was like.

00;46;17;27 - 00;46;18;20

Ricky

Oh my goodness.

00;46;19;03 - 00;46;34;15

Piper

How to win a game? He's like, You're in this like, raffle. I was like, Win is like today. I was like, the way they give you money. It's like, I don't know, like a week ago, I don't even remember. I did it. It's like, holy crap, I won it. And then I was like, Look, I don't like this game.

00;46;34;15 - 00;46;51;01

Piper

So I just sold it. And like, that was and I've been on the other side too. Where I have I have Ralph or I've done the waffle again with the retro game. But it was just because I was helping a friend sell a game. I was like, Oh, you know what? Let's try this out. And I mean, it's sold and, you know, he got his money, I got a little cut on it, and then I was dice.

00;46;51;01 - 00;46;59;04

Piper

I was like, the middle, middle man. But I just like me. And we've talked about this before. We don't even need to get into this. But, you know, whatever.

00;46;59;04 - 00;47;04;04

Ricky

Yeah. I mean, you will have some great stories for that episode, I'm sure.

00;47;04;05 - 00;47;07;03

Piper

Just spend the money on the things. Kids. Just go buy it. Don't don't.

00;47;07;03 - 00;47;12;26

Ricky

Gamble. I mean, I've won quite a few things. And Wolf, also, I've got some great stories to go.

00;47;12;27 - 00;47;20;12

Piper

Do some waffles tonight. I know there's a one in the UK. I'm friends with the lady that runs it. We can get some grails. Let's do that. Let's try to get some friends.

00;47;20;18 - 00;47;31;06

Ricky

There you go. And the the other thing is, is that people like the opportunity to pay is small amount possible to get a larger item.

00;47;31;06 - 00;47;35;21

Piper

Oh yeah, for sure. People come in the store all the time trying to pay nothing for something.

00;47;35;23 - 00;47;51;19

Ricky

Well, I mean, that's. Hey, you're giving me things and you think you know about everything. Well, yeah. No, I mean, and that's that's the the nature of, you know, negotiating is that we're trying to we're trying to sell for as much as we can. You're trying to buy as cheap as you can. We meet somewhere in the middle or not?

00;47;52;09 - 00;48;16;24

Ricky

Or not, Or we all cry and live in a cardboard box when it's 20 degrees outside. But now moving on in, in closing out the state of collecting this year, I want to talk specifically about Funko this because it's been a part of the podcast for so long. One of the things that Funko did is Brian Mariotti step down.

00;48;16;25 - 00;48;26;14

Ricky

They pull them back at the end of last year, they come back in and CEO to save things because, you know, Funko was just collecting debt, their earnings weren't hitting the marks.

00;48;26;20 - 00;48;28;10

Piper

And they fired everybody.

00;48;28;19 - 00;48;29;24

Ricky

And then they fired.

00;48;29;24 - 00;48;30;23

Piper

They made their money back.

00;48;31;17 - 00;49;03;28

Ricky

And that's what I was going to say, like with reset. Oh, really? This is. Yes, you know that. But no, but as I say, with recent employee decisions that we've saw and we talked about last week, you know, where where is the world? Where are they heading? Because if their their stockholder calls last year when they talked about where they wanted to go, the items I'll go down the list, expanding its premium intellectual property and pop lines into new content areas, whatever that means, are just gaining more IP, buying more licenses.

00;49;04;08 - 00;49;34;05

Ricky

To me, one of the things that people don't know about collectibles in general is that and one of the hidden hits that the industry had to take was during the pandemic. Movies were down, like we weren't getting theaters. There wasn't a lot of content that you would see that would drive some of these IP. Now they were talking about like if you look at Box Office Mojo, it's IMDB and you go and you look at like they have a summary of like all all movie sales for like the past hundred years, right?

00;49;34;20 - 00;49;55;11

Ricky

It's not calculated for inflation. It's just dollar value. And that year, if you look at 20, 20, 20, 21 and 2022, it is atrocious. I mean, 2020 got better, but it was like it was it like $11 billion or something for the year? And don't quote me, but it went from like that to like 2 billion in 2020.

00;49;55;14 - 00;50;26;01

Ricky

It was like, you know, the what is that like a 500% decrease, you know, and whatever. And so that IP is something that Funko and all of other collectible companies, toy companies, things like that, they rely on that to make sales and you're not getting that. And then the other the other line is and I want to summon this up so we can move on to much is expanding Funko pop culture plot through the platform, through the addition of adjacent physical and digital categories.

00;50;26;02 - 00;50;36;22

Ricky

Nfts And I think that they're doing that great, right? They've done that growing its direct to consumer business. That's iffy, right? Like for me.

00;50;36;22 - 00;50;39;23

Piper

I think just selling everybody else's exclusives on their website, right?

00;50;39;24 - 00;50;42;27

Ricky

That's the note I have, right. Look at you. You're like, you know, when I'm.

00;50;42;29 - 00;50;45;13

Piper

Gone in front of me, it's in front of me. But I'm not looking at it.

00;50;45;23 - 00;51;03;07

Ricky

No, that's the note I have written down. I didn't even type it in there. You know where I'm going, type it out. They're selling Walmart exclusives. They're putting that new Funko sticker on it. So like me, if I'm Walmart, what motivates me to buy everything? If they're going to sell it direct to consumers, too. So they're going to have to figure that out and balance it out and then extending.

00;51;03;07 - 00;51;13;12

Ricky

And I think this is like their number one priority. And tell me if you disagree, but extending their market disagree in their international market, because that's where they're most the most of their opportunity exists.

00;51;14;04 - 00;51;17;05

Piper

Well, you look at how many people they like, okay.

00;51;17;13 - 00;51;20;15

Ricky

How many people are in the world and how many of those people are in the United States?

00;51;20;16 - 00;51;24;02

Piper

43. So there's like there's 8 billion people in the.

00;51;24;02 - 00;51;34;11

Ricky

World and 330 million of them live here. There's opportunity. I mean, you're not going to sell Funko pop in Madagascar and be like extremely popular. But I get it. Yeah.

00;51;34;13 - 00;51;56;00

Piper

Here's a strange fact, right? I don't know if this is still true. I haven't looked at the numbers. I haven't looked at analytics in a while because I'm lazy. But for the for the PC website, not the store for the like the podcast website, it was always for the longest time. Number one, obviously the United States, that's where like majority of our traffic comes from.

00;51;56;22 - 00;52;13;13

Piper

But a close number two was Ireland. Like we had the Irish people coming to the website, right? And then I think then there's like Germany in the UK and so, so Australia to me and yeah, Australia, they're really high. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I mean you got like pop culture there so you know that like.

00;52;13;14 - 00;52;14;06

Ricky

Yeah, yeah.

00;52;14;06 - 00;52;35;24

Piper

They got the business going but I mean yes, there, there is a me I don't want the want, don't need it. There is there a want overseas for more. Because that's the big complaint is like oh people are like oh well I want all these exclusives but we don't have a hot topic, we just have a grocery store and a, and a beer mart.

00;52;35;24 - 00;53;08;14

Piper

That's the only thing that's here. So the grocery store is the one that's getting them. I mean, so I mean, even in Canada, right? Like, let's dig in North America and Mexico too. Like Canada, Mexico, there is a high demand. So it's not I guess it's still international, but, you know, it's they're they are growing. And and I think probably in the next two years, they will expand that to opening a maybe not a headquarters, but they will open like a actual store or a couple of stores overseas.

00;53;08;14 - 00;53;10;04

Ricky

Yeah, I think you're right there.

00;53;10;04 - 00;53;15;16

Piper

I see one opening in the UK and then they will probably open one in like maybe Japan.

00;53;15;23 - 00;53;21;09

Ricky

They got to do it in Australia too. I mean, they have such a big following there. It would be something that's on their mind.

00;53;21;09 - 00;53;31;19

Piper

So we go UK, Japan, Australia, we saved you guys, You're getting the HQ there. You heard it here first. And there you go. You're getting a phone call. This is everything else we say. Where?

00;53;31;20 - 00;53;37;11

Ricky

Where you are? Yeah. And we predict things I do to drink and predict things.

00;53;37;25 - 00;53;42;15

Piper

How many, how many funko lines have we predicted? And they came True.

00;53;42;28 - 00;54;03;29

Ricky

Well, how many generalized funko things in general like not only the lines, but things that they would do with the product lines that they that they've done So I mean, we talked about nfts and we talked about for the longest time they need to scale them like they do trading cards. The only the only thing they did is they well, they did put trading cards in their funko pop, but they didn't make them exclusive like we wanted them to.

00;54;03;29 - 00;54;08;11

Ricky

But they made that the NFT market right with your legendaries and grails.

00;54;08;18 - 00;54;27;18

Piper

But yeah, but what do we say even before we knew it? If these existed, we said what they should do with Funko is they should make them blind box. All right, you know what's in it like you know the topic and then. But like, one out of every 32 is like a super like a diamond box. One that's like, ultra rare.

00;54;27;18 - 00;54;28;16

Piper

And then then.

00;54;28;26 - 00;54;31;11

Ricky

Yeah, we sell like a gold one of one.

00;54;31;11 - 00;54;32;15

Piper

And actually the gold.

00;54;32;15 - 00;54;33;04

Ricky

One, the one.

00;54;33;20 - 00;54;52;00

Piper

I know this, this is what the NFT is before we even knew what the heck that was. We know, we know we call killer clowns from outer space. We called the trailer park boys. We called. There's a lot of stuff. There's a bunch of there's a bunch of just variants. We're like, Oh, this is what they should make the phone call.

00;54;52;00 - 00;55;09;06

Piper

100% listens to us. They do. There's no way. Yeah. And I blame that. I blame solely for that. I blame solely for that. Whoever's that he he would listen to a podcast and then I know. And if he's listening, so which I know he's not, but if he is, I know the secret is he would listen to the and then he would go into marketing meetings and be like, Guys, I have this great idea.

00;55;09;06 - 00;55;09;15

Piper

He's the.

00;55;09;15 - 00;55;11;01

Ricky

Janitor selling what.

00;55;11;01 - 00;55;16;05

Piper

He's selling with the janitor. That's right. Yeah. I'm just.

00;55;16;05 - 00;55;40;13

Ricky

Exactly right. But that's, you know, one of the things that they've been able to do, at least if they're throwing darts on random pictures on the wall, they've been at least able to hit things that were good, like soda. You know, the product lines we talk about nfts, it's a really great for them. And I think Nfts in general have like changed the way that they market and the way that they produce things, like we said earlier in the show.

00;55;40;13 - 00;55;42;14

Ricky

So I mean, lots of good things there.

00;55;42;14 - 00;55;47;18

Piper

What about gold? Who screwed that up? Who decided that was a good thing? What Gold.

00;55;48;05 - 00;55;48;15

Ricky

Gold.

00;55;48;15 - 00;55;50;29

Piper

What gold? Like the like Oh, you're talking.

00;55;51;00 - 00;55;51;27

Ricky

Oh, yeah, yeah.

00;55;51;27 - 00;55;53;13

Piper

There's the gold figures.

00;55;53;29 - 00;55;57;29

Ricky

You know what they need to bring back. Not daubs.

00;55;58;25 - 00;56;01;07

Piper

No, shut up. I like the daubs you know.

00;56;01;07 - 00;56;04;00

Ricky

Do I have a special place in my heart for dwarves? I do. I think.

00;56;04;00 - 00;56;14;11

Piper

They're great. I think that they need to put more, more effort behind mystery meanings. I think mystery meanings need to come back because people like gambling and that's the purest form of gambling is mystery.

00;56;14;14 - 00;56;16;05

Ricky

Disappears for off gambling. Yep, you're.

00;56;16;05 - 00;56;22;07

Piper

Correct. And then I also think that they need to bring back the Haqqanis.

00;56;22;17 - 00;56;25;07

Ricky

I want to say vinyl idols, because I love those things.

00;56;25;24 - 00;56;30;21

Piper

Those are for. But like a car you do like. That's cool. I mean, that's just Oh, you got to.

00;56;30;21 - 00;56;33;22

Ricky

Get those right there. Saad They're so hard to get right.

00;56;34;02 - 00;56;35;12

Piper

So, I mean, I think I don't.

00;56;35;12 - 00;56;50;16

Ricky

Know, whatever you know, but, you know, they've had so many good niche product lines. I think they just never got the attention that they deserved. And maybe this is what I have here. So I want to skip the eBay thing and I'm going to move to like what else?

00;56;50;16 - 00;56;54;28

Piper

Because we've got to talk about eBay charging 14 or $7 shipping per item.

00;56;55;07 - 00;57;11;22

Ricky

Yeah, no, I don't even want to talk about that. eBay, like we should do a whole episode on eBay and our problems with it and just like, blast them. Because I will tell you, eBay, I'm not even going to get into it. eBay is not for the seller. That's that's all going to say. They're not for the seller at all.

00;57;11;27 - 00;57;15;24

Ricky

They are for the buyer. The end.

00;57;15;24 - 00;57;18;21

Piper

And then they're just for themselves. That's all they can do for eBay.

00;57;18;22 - 00;57;31;18

Ricky

But they make their money off the buyer, right? If the buyers don't buy from the sellers, they're not getting the percentage anyways. So that's what motivates them. They created a structure that motivated that. You get me, you're getting me rabbit hole, so we're.

00;57;31;18 - 00;57;33;01

Piper

Not going to talk about that.

00;57;33;08 - 00;57;58;21

Ricky

So that's what I think right here. I want to talk about like how how final we've we've said all that we can say about what we think that they should do. In closing for Funko, one of the things, what could Funko do to help recapture the fan base on products and releases? And I have two words that I wrote on the paper that are on the show notes, but stop.

00;57;58;25 - 00;58;00;09

Piper

Sucking, stop.

00;58;00;09 - 00;58;24;19

Ricky

So massive vaults, vaulting massively. They go in and look at like Dragon Ball Z going to Harry Potter, like Harry Potter 1 to 1 through 15 and just say it's vaulted and give numbers. These are the final sales for these numbers. This is where they're at, like massive vaults on licenses where they're like, well, okay, what's the return on investment on this license at this point?

00;58;24;26 - 00;58;26;29

Ricky

Can we just vault everything and move on?

00;58;27;14 - 00;58;40;19

Piper

So here's here's Armageddon day. This is from like B, C to A.D. This is the point. Everything from now previously is all vaulted. And then going forward, it's a fresh. It's a new day. It's a new day. Yeah.

00;58;40;19 - 00;59;01;26

Ricky

Yeah, exactly. Scorched earth with vaulting. But I do think that that would help, like at least from the perspective to know that there's not going to be a Beetlejuice back from 2011 that's going to be released again that has the chase and they'll put like 15 of them out. And I know that they have such a stockpile of this anyways.

00;59;01;26 - 00;59;12;12

Ricky

It may help them in the long run anyway. So I think that, you know, in my opinion, I'm just going to go with massive vaulting like that's one of the things that they could really do that would help. What do you think.

00;59;13;06 - 00;59;14;25

Piper

About making the Dragon Ball? Z Pops.

00;59;15;05 - 00;59;15;22

Ricky

That's it.

00;59;16;11 - 00;59;17;29

Piper

Yeah, that's it. That'll save the company.

00;59;18;00 - 00;59;18;28

Ricky

That's a monster up.

00;59;19;21 - 00;59;56;19

Piper

That's it. That's 100% No, I think okay, I agree with you, but I think it doesn't necessarily need to be a massive vault. I think that they do need to make a public statement that says we will stay true to our to the vaulting right. The vault is not OpenTable. We will. They're going to stand by it. They're not going to change it because they have they've already like, yeah, there was a pop the other day that was like a vault to top that they rereleased and it has a new box and a new number, but it's been vaulted for like four years or something like that.

00;59;56;26 - 00;59;59;10

Piper

I don't remember what it was. I saw something on the Instagram.

00;59;59;26 - 01;00;05;17

Ricky

I saw it. It was a fairy tale, that little guy from fairy Tale with the antlers.

01;00;06;13 - 01;00;09;24

Piper

And Oh, no, no, This is a one piece chopper.

01;00;09;24 - 01;00;11;27

Ricky

It's a giant chopper. Yeah, one piece. Yeah.

01;00;11;27 - 01;00;51;17

Piper

So this is the chopper from some animation? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I think that's a good thing. That's a good start. I think they need to be more conservative with their production numbers on specific things. Now I get it. That's not going to happen. But I. That's like a that's a wish I would love if they would just reign in like some of these like I get like Star Wars is a big thing, you know, I don't it's not mine, but I know some people like it, but like, you know, they're going to produce 100,000 grow grew in like 19 slightly different variants.

01;00;51;17 - 01;00;52;00

Ricky

That's like.

01;00;52;00 - 01;01;16;11

Piper

That's another thing. Pennywise Yeah they're every imaginable scene you can make you can make a stop motion Pennywise movie with like scene for scene with just all the different variants of the pops. Like you don't even need. There's no editing. You just put a different Pennywise in there. So I think, I think that's a good idea. So stay true to the vault, produce less I'll find.

01;01;16;26 - 01;01;36;12

Piper

Increase the price the I don't care, make it more expensive, but make less of them. I'll be fine with that. And then I think they need to calm down on stupid variance like one, two, three is fine. Let me go cuz you need. How many fajitas you going to have in your house? Like I don't need a hundred different vaginas.

01;01;37;09 - 01;01;45;13

Piper

It's just all the different though. Different levels of hair color just it's a ombré of hair. Get that out of here.

01;01;45;19 - 01;01;59;08

Ricky

Yeah. They're releasing the Nickelodeon series too. I want to talk about that too. I know that's a weird shift, but the these. Yeah, so is Nickelodeon is Warner Brothers Entertainment. It's the that is not.

01;01;59;19 - 01;02;01;20

Piper

It is not. It is not.

01;02;02;13 - 01;02;03;29

Ricky

Who owns them? Paramount Media.

01;02;03;29 - 01;02;04;26

Piper

Call Media.

01;02;05;04 - 01;02;14;04

Ricky

Paramount, which I am. I have Viacom or Viacom is owned by them. I was like I was I was I didn't know if they were or not. It was just a question because I was.

01;02;14;04 - 01;02;14;19

Piper

Are you ready?

01;02;14;23 - 01;02;15;19

Ricky

Just laughing.

01;02;16;11 - 01;02;34;23

Piper

Are you ready? This is me being Charlie. Connect in the red string in the back office, right? Yeah. Warner Brothers has distribution rights to Nickelodeon, so it is still in the wheelhouse of it is a WB product.

01;02;34;27 - 01;02;41;20

Ricky

It's the name of the frog. Right. Remember that? Do you remember that?

01;02;43;11 - 01;03;01;03

Piper

Yeah. Okay. I can't. I'll have this afterwards. Afterwards. So yes, it is technically I'm going to say it is in the wheelhouse of WB. So going forward people, if you're asking for a new NFT product or any, any NFT properties, if it's not WB Ewing in that.

01;03;01;12 - 01;03;04;20

Ricky

Yeah. Or affiliated with them in some way I think we're.

01;03;04;23 - 01;03;06;15

Piper

Just building that case.

01;03;06;15 - 01;03;11;10

Ricky

Like I think we we've unlocked that and release that to the world.

01;03;11;24 - 01;03;17;13

Piper

So what do you what do you want to talk is that was the only thing but the NFT is just the fact that is it. WB Yeah.

01;03;17;13 - 01;03;17;29

Ricky

That's what I want.

01;03;17;29 - 01;03;22;01

Piper

To know about like, oh, did you actually want to talk about those that, that selection?

01;03;23;15 - 01;03;27;28

Ricky

This one I'm going to pass on because I'm not as excited about it. I think, you know, we can give a quick.

01;03;27;28 - 01;03;29;28

Piper

You know the great is so that's okay What.

01;03;29;28 - 01;03;30;15

Ricky

Is the Grail?

01;03;31;00 - 01;03;31;22

Piper

It's Rocco.

01;03;32;12 - 01;03;33;06

Ricky

Oh Rocco.

01;03;33;14 - 01;03;34;28

Piper

It seemed like they.

01;03;34;29 - 01;03;39;18

Ricky

Kept it like a lot of the same characters this time as last time. And I thought they would go into like, I.

01;03;39;18 - 01;03;42;28

Piper

Don't know, because they haven't released what the renewables look like yet.

01;03;43;08 - 01;03;47;13

Ricky

Yeah, I know, But they. They tell you to join the discord and I win the desire.

01;03;47;13 - 01;03;48;19

Piper

To win in their discord.

01;03;48;19 - 01;04;08;24

Ricky

No, I'm in the drop discord and I don't see it anywhere in there. Maybe somebody, a listener, can point me in the right direction because it's like the drop discord that tells you an announcement. It points you back to the Funchal website, which says, If you want to know what the Redeemer wolves are, join our, you know, join the discord.

01;04;08;24 - 01;04;09;15

Ricky

But I don't I don't think.

01;04;09;15 - 01;04;29;27

Piper

They've released them yet. I don't think they've announced to me yet. But the only reason I know that it's Rocco is because if you pay attention to like the little animated like gif of like the, you know, the some of the examples Rocco has, it's the Grail. It's Israel around the bottom and the top left. It's redeemable. So at least we know Rocco is going to be the Grail, which I don't care about.

01;04;29;27 - 01;04;32;28

Piper

I mean, I like Rocco's modern life, like it was one of my favorite cartoons. Yeah, I.

01;04;32;28 - 01;04;34;02

Ricky

Love that, too. Yeah.

01;04;34;14 - 01;04;38;23

Piper

Was it like junior high? When did that come out? Sixth grade. Seventh grade?

01;04;38;23 - 01;04;42;14

Ricky

Oh, man. It was about that time. It was like six or seven Me.

01;04;42;24 - 01;04;56;16

Piper

All that stuff. Like, I like that. Now, if they did a Ren Stimpy, that'd be great. And if there's the invaders in the set, that's what I care about. Like I'll just, I'll just get the invader Zim and be done with it. Oh well, if it's Freddy Franco's invaders, then what if that's the.

01;04;57;03 - 01;04;59;10

Ricky

Oh, that's the king?

01;04;59;18 - 01;04;59;23

Piper

Oh.

01;05;00;03 - 01;05;06;00

Ricky

I would go all in. I'd spend like a thousand bucks on the drop.

01;05;06;00 - 01;05;18;14

Piper

100% Just the king of the friggin. Yeah, I have, I have every single invader Zim Pop. Yeah. And I have. Oh, man, This is that was, that is like talk about favorite cartoons like Guilty Pleasure Invaders them.

01;05;18;16 - 01;05;35;02

Ricky

All right. I like to apologize to the funko and drop because it says under wraps the limited edition physical color collectibles for this highly anticipated collection are still a secret. It says Join us on Discord to be notified when the details are available.

01;05;35;02 - 01;05;41;28

Piper

So do you want me to I'm just going to link that to our discord for the patrons so that way we don't have to go back and forth.

01;05;42;12 - 01;05;44;15

Ricky

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's good. And so.

01;05;44;15 - 01;05;44;24

Piper

Bam.

01;05;45;08 - 01;05;45;23

Ricky

He fixed.

01;05;45;26 - 01;05;47;12

Piper

He got it. Yeah.

01;05;48;08 - 01;06;08;15

Ricky

But. But still, I think it moving forward, these first two episodes we're getting back on the bike were riding it, but we have segments. One of the segments we're going to start doing is the Nifty Corner is there's enough in there to talk about items and we'll spend, you know, 15 or 20 minutes on that a week and maybe that's like a separate show or something, what we do, but it's something that we really like.

01;06;08;15 - 01;06;27;08

Ricky

Biber and I both are big into the NFT for Funko, and while I have not and able to afford them as of late, I hope to continue as we move forward. So get your thoughts and feelings. What do you think could Funko do better? Going back to the episode to recapture their fan base, like from your perspective as a listener?

01;06;27;08 - 01;06;52;17

Ricky

Again, Twitter and Instagram app Pop Alliance Pod info at PayPal as I said, Papa Lion's Pie, pop collector's lines dot com or Facebook.com slash Pop Collectors Alliance Be a part of the group, be a part of the conversation. Tell us what you think what could funko do in your eyes to remain relative as we move through 2023 and even for our place, we're going to do an episode on collector fatigue.

01;06;52;17 - 01;07;10;23

Ricky

And it's interesting to say what do you what what has drained the energy in collecting for you? And, you know, use that as your example of what they could do better. Um, I do a piper. I'll let you talk about the website the PC toys dot com.

01;07;12;03 - 01;07;12;26

Piper

Is a website.

01;07;13;23 - 01;07;16;17

Ricky

That says it. Um.

01;07;17;12 - 01;07;36;13

Piper

That's the website for our store. We're located in Keller, Texas. We're 136 South Main Street in Old Town. If you are in the area combined, hang out. You can watch some TV, you can listen to some music, play some board games or Pokémon or Magic with your friends. Bring your mom in here, everybody. Some stuff like whatever you want.

01;07;36;13 - 01;07;47;19

Piper

We're down. Um, you got to pick a toys dot com. We got a bunch of stuff on there. We don't have any preorders. We only have started stock because.

01;07;47;20 - 01;07;50;13

Ricky

Well, that's better, in my opinion. You're going to get what you order.

01;07;50;29 - 01;07;51;25

Piper

Yeah, There you go.

01;07;52;13 - 01;08;12;26

Ricky

I know that the specialty series, like I said last week, the specialty series is in there or whatever I said. But editorial correction here, the specialty series is still there. And one of the great things about our store is that we're offering an attack on Titan Specialty series right now. Check it on the website. There's a little bit of a discount where you can get it wearing out anywhere, but it is the cart titan.

01;08;13;05 - 01;08;16;01

Ricky

It's a big box for a medium sized pop. Is that what we're saying?

01;08;16;01 - 01;08;33;27

Piper

Buy it. So I think it would fit. I need to go look because I want to take it out of the box and I want to see if I can put it in one of like the Jurassic Park, like T-Rex, like the small T-Rex box, because it looks like it should fit in there. I don't know why Funko like, why wouldn't they?

01;08;34;20 - 01;08;47;23

Piper

Would they just make a slightly bigger box and not put it in there? So as a six inch, like at a six inch price, it should not be a six inch price. This thing is like it's it's like four and a half inches tall.

01;08;47;23 - 01;08;49;26

Ricky

Is it a rides to.

01;08;49;26 - 01;08;52;05

Piper

No, it's it's just a I don't know.

01;08;52;11 - 01;08;53;20

Ricky

It's not pop rides.

01;08;54;07 - 01;08;57;09

Piper

No it was just a but you can't ride it. It's just like.

01;08;57;13 - 01;09;00;13

Ricky

Titan. He's a car I guess that's true.

01;09;00;13 - 01;09;06;08

Piper

It is a car. It's not like. Yeah, I guess they're trying to be funny. No, it's not a ride. It's a it's just to get it.

01;09;06;08 - 01;09;07;14

Ricky

You're trying to be funny.

01;09;08;22 - 01;09;14;23

Piper

There's a lot of empty space in this box. Maybe it's. I don't know. So you can put your friend in there or.

01;09;15;28 - 01;09;20;26

Ricky

But there's got to have a Piper name for that little pop in. A big old box.

01;09;21;18 - 01;09;23;00

Piper

Will pop up in a big old box.

01;09;23;15 - 01;09;28;05

Ricky

But yeah, check that out on the website PC toys dot com. I mean I would say 20.

01;09;28;05 - 01;09;38;15

Piper

$4 man like everyone else the seller for like 40 bucks on the on the eBay's movie. Do you trust eBay? No you trust us buy a card Titan $24 and I'll ship it to you.

01;09;39;02 - 01;10;01;14

Ricky

One of the exciting announcements I want to make here, if you live in Texas, if you're close to Houston or that area, or if you want to make a drive and come and see us, we're going to be at comic palooza. I believe the dates are and I should have wrote this down on the paper, but it's like May 28th through the 30th, that timeframe.

01;10;01;14 - 01;10;20;06

Ricky

But you can I'll do it while I'm on the show, but we're going to be there. I don't know if Piper's going to be there whole time or I'm going be there the whole time, but at least we'll be there as the show gets closer. We'll let you know of our schedule if you want to. If you're planning to attend already and you want to come out and see us, please go to comic palooza, Get your tickets.

01;10;20;16 - 01;10;23;13

Ricky

It's going to be a good time every year. That is a really good show.

01;10;24;20 - 01;10;31;12

Piper

I know we've done a lot of conventions and usually, Ricky, what is the worst part of the convention.

01;10;31;25 - 01;10;33;00

Ricky

Set up and tear down?

01;10;33;23 - 01;10;35;20

Piper

Why is it generally terrible?

01;10;36;01 - 01;10;45;21

Ricky

Because it's so unorganized and it's low. It's just a first come, first serve. Figure it out. Good luck. Thanks for the fish eye.

01;10;45;24 - 01;10;53;17

Piper

I will tell you the people at is it the George RR Brown Convention Center? That's where it's at, right? Uh.

01;10;54;02 - 01;10;55;25

Ricky

I think so, Yeah, I think so.

01;10;55;25 - 01;11;19;00

Piper

Whatever it is called. So they do such a good job at this convention. You line up outside, there's people conducting traffic, you pull up and then they wait until they tell you, okay, you're going to be here for like 15 minutes. And then you sit there and wait. And then when a spot opens up, there's like a person that's like, okay, drive down to that guy, and then you drive down the insides.

01;11;19;00 - 01;11;45;00

Piper

It's like loading dock, and then you go to the next guy and he's like, Okay, go down to 32 and you go down to 30 and there's a empty spot and you back in there and you unload and you're done. And then you pull out and you park somewhere. It was the smoothest, like when I did it last year, it was the smoothest, the nicest, like actual getting into the convention now, like setting up the booth sucks just because it takes that just normal.

01;11;45;00 - 01;12;06;13

Piper

Yeah. And you know, tear down was nice but like and then loading in there like I hate back it in and they actually had like there's actual regular parking spots or you can get into a dock you want to so like bringing the stuff off, you know, it wasn't a big deal. So yeah. And like, and everyone there was super nice and friendly here at the conventions we do in Dallas and Fort Worth.

01;12;06;24 - 01;12;26;04

Piper

The people that run these the docks like at the different at the cons and stuff, I mean it's not the convention, it's just like the facility. They're always so rude and like irritated that they're alive and they woke up this morning. That was not the experience I got in Houston. And I've I make comments about Houston. Nobody wants to go to Houston and blah, blah, blah, whatever.

01;12;26;16 - 01;12;43;16

Piper

But this is a great con. Everybody that works there is super nice. The coordinators are great. Go to this show. I probably I don't know if I'm going to be there or not. Rick, You'll be there. Some other people will probably be there. So make sure you swing by and see this at whatever booth number it is that we get.

01;12;43;16 - 01;12;48;20

Piper

We will have more information on that later. But yeah, come and support us and say what to do.

01;12;48;22 - 01;13;08;20

Ricky

Yep. And it's so to just tell everybody as we sum it up with the great story is May 26 to 28 is the convention. It is at the George R Brown Convention Center in Houston. And with the store, conventions are going to be kind of different, right, because somebody has to hold down the store. So I has to be at the cons.

01;13;09;06 - 01;13;34;01

Ricky

I will for sure be there. Maybe we might have a special producer. Brandon maybe, uh, Mr. Piper one day or something, but we'll figure it out, let you know the details. But Mark Bates down the 26th, the 28th of May, George R Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas. We will be there. And our booth number is 1934. I think they combine the three booths.

01;13;34;09 - 01;13;50;07

Ricky

It was 34 through 38 and go by twos. So I think they gave us 1934. But you can go to comic palooza dot com to get more information there as we get closer 110 days, 2 hours, 13 minutes and 44 seconds. You heard the first tease.

01;13;50;07 - 01;13;53;06

Piper

At the actual measure. Did you like it up? You know, they.

01;13;53;06 - 01;14;16;24

Ricky

Have a countdown on the site. I wish I was that smart, but I'm not an idiot savant so it doesn't work. But but now. Thanks, everybody. I really enjoyed this episode. I think it was some great discussion and we moving forward, we want to get inputs because once we start to collect your series back up, we want to hear what you guys think about episodes, get feedback, something we've never really done before.

01;14;16;24 - 01;14;45;20

Ricky

I got an action to put a poll up to let us. Does gambling affect collectible the collectible market and everything? Feedback on what we talked about today, What can funko do better? Again, Twitter and Instagram app Pop Alliance Pod info at Pop Collector's Alliance dot com Facebook.com slash Pop Collector's Alliance go to PCA toys dot com of actions for you to do call to action right there and until next time I'm Rick.

01;14;47;06 - 01;14;47;24

Piper

Piper.

01;14;47;25 - 01;14;48;13

Ricky

Good night.

01;14;49;26 - 01;14;53;28

Piper

Go to bed my parents said they yelled at me down the hall as they go to bed this time.

01;14;54;19 - 01;14;55;07

Ricky

I love you.

01;14;56;14 - 01;14;56;23

Piper

Bye.