ATTENTION: This is NOT financial advice, but I just want to give you some information and inform you of my position.  When I found out that Topps was going public, my "spidy senses" went off big time. There's going to be a chance that card collectors and hobbyists can actually OWN a piece of one of the best all-time sports card companies, Topps?  "Count me in," I thought. Then, as I was doing research about an IPO date (Initial Public Offering), I couldn't find any information on WHEN I could buy Topps stock.  This was probably a good thing, because as I explain in this video, I hate the stock market. I know NOTHING about it. I've never bought a stock in my life.  I happily keep all of my money in my family's money market account. I'm just conservative with my money like that. And that's an understatement.  With the exception of investing in Sports Cards, I basically have no investments.  I explain in this episode a little bit about how I already bought Topps shares, before the shares are officially pieces of the Topps company.

I've been seeing things recently that lead me to believe PSA will actually re-open their grading submissions earlier than July 1, 2021. As we all know, PSA raised their prices in March - wait, I mean DOUBLED their prices in March, then shut down all grading submission levels except for the $300 per card level in April, stating that if all goes well, they plan to re-open July 1.  What has ensued has been proven progress on the processing side of the house: my five orders (four cross grades and one bulk submission of 178 cards) have moved along into the Research and ID and even Grading Phase in early May.  Also, SGC recently announced that they are lowering their prices back down to $25-$30 per card from $75.  This, along with PSAs recent hires, changes in leadership, and acquisition of Gemamint, lead me to believe there's a very solid chance that PSA can re-open even prior to their July 1 target date.  After all, don't all good client service companies like to under promise and over-deliver?  Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.  Happy Collecting.

How To Avoid This Michael Jordan Rookie Card Scam (Beckett Authentic Altered).  Ah, The Michael Jordan 1986 Fleer Rookie Fakes. There are a ridiculous amount of them. Just Google “how to spot a fake Michael Jordan rookie.” Now, scams come in multiple shapes and sizes related to these fake cards. One easy scam is when people list this card ungraded on Facebook Marketplace for somewhere between $50 and $500. The ungraded nature of the card makes it hard to determine whether it’s an authentic original, altered, or straight up copy of the card. The temptation is to buy it, submit it to PSA, and get a slabbed grade of anything over a 4, which gives it immediate HUGE resale value. The thing to really look out for though, is the Beckett Slabbed Authentic Altered version of this, and other cards.  This leads me to my major scam alert. This is a bit more complicated. First, you have to understand Cross Grading. Cross Grading is a service that all of the major grading companies offer. The easiest way to explain it is - if I have a Gem Mint 10 from SGC, and it’s value is $150, but the PSA 10 value of the same card is $500, I can send my SGC slabbed card to PSA and for a $50 Cross Grading fee, PSA will break the SGC slab, grade it, and slab it. The strategy here is that if SGC graded it a 10 already, it has a higher probability of being graded a 10 by PSA than an ungraded card. So instead of selling it for $150, I can increase my profit margin by 100% to $300 by trying to turn it into a PSA 10.  Now to the scam. When a card has been altered (corners trimmed to appear sharper or rebacked, etc.) it has no value. None. But, different grading companies do different things with these kinds of cards. For example, you can still send it into BGS (Beckett Grading Services) and they will slab it in a professional slab, without a grade, with the words “AUTHENTIC ALTERED” on it.   Now, picture a listing on Facebook Marketplace or Etsy that is selling a card like the `86 Fleer Michael Jordan for example, that is slabbed and says AUTHENTIC ALTERED, say for $4,200, like in this video. Different then that ungraded version, right? You’d initially think, WOW! an authentic slabbed Jordan rookie that I could send into PSA for cross-grading, which is likely to be a 6 or better, and all of the sudden be worth $15k or more.  The problem is that Beckett slabs altered cards in this manner, but PSA doesn’t. PSA would receive this card and immediately break the slab, and send it back in a penny saver with a sticker on it that says “altered.”  OUCH. This card is worth NOTHING! You’re out $4,200 and you own a card nobody wants to touch.

I got an email today that I sold an NBA TopShot Moment! But did I list it for enough money? Maybe I got ripped off?  Maybe I listed it for two little. Oh no!  And it was one I really liked, a Damian Lillard game-winning fade-away triple at the buzzer!  Nah, calm down, this was a serial number 23,000+ out of a base set series 2 35,000+ common moment.  Plus, I opened it from a $9 pack of three moments, which means I only "spent" $3 on the moment.  It sold for $24, which means I made $19, and the way I look at it is NBA TopShot "paid me" twice the amount of the pack to have quite a bit of fun.  I feel great about it, because the lowest listing is still $24, and there are thousands of the same moment with even better serial numbers listed for $40 or less, so if I really miss owning this moment I can go back and get it for a low price.  But I really would rather keep my $19 in my Dapper wallet - even though it could take six weeks to transfer it into ETH or USD (according to the email I got from NBA TopShot).  This, to me, is where collectors can get real enjoyment out of NBA TopShot, not from listing their moments for $250,000 or even four-figures, like some of the jokesters I show in the video above.  I get it, we all want to "cash-in" on NFTs, but the real way to do it on NBA TopShot is to be strategic about it. Buy packs, or buy moments that you like (for low prices), and list them in the marketplace to see what happens. That's what I did.  https://nooffseason.com/what-is-nba-t...​ And I'm really happy collecting.  I hope you are too.  I'd love to know your thoughts in the comments.

It's time to break some sold out Panini Wax!   Well, technically that's true. On this episode of Happy Collecting, my kids and I break out the cards I've acquired here in Spain over the last four months (not including the cards I've purchased and had shipped to my Tennessee address).  We cover the Panini NBA Stickers and Cards Collection, as well as uncover the "Are My MegaCracks Series 2?" mystery.  Highlights:  NBA Stickers and Cards come with 5 stickers and 1 card per pack. The card sticks to the inside of the packs, but always comes out in good condition and I rather like the cards themselves. There are the rookies you'd think there would be in the collection - LaMelo Ball, Anthony Edwards, James Wisman, Obi Toppin and more.  Check out who we got!  Panini MegaCracks Series 1 features the Ansu Fati second year card, which is pretty valuable on it's own, and other stars like Joao Felix and Messi.  But Panini MegaCracks Series 2 features the Pedri rookie.   The problem is, Panini Espana labeled both the Series 1 and Series 2 MegaCracks boxes the EXACT SAME.  If somebody tries to sell you sealed MGK series 2, the reality is they don't really know if it's series 1 or series 2.  My take is: it doesn't matter. If you want to try to get a Pedri rookie, buy them.   Seriously. It's the same concept as not knowing whose cards are in the packs.  When breaking wax, you never know what you're going to get, so stop working about the packaging and just buy the cards!  Of course, we think ours is Series 2. In the video I explain why.  Happy Collecting!

Know a dad that's hard to buy for? Is your dad  hard to buy for? Maybe he loves sports. If he just found his old sports card collection, or even just appreciates sports cards as art, this list is for you!  Let's not waste any time. Here are the top five sports card related Father's Day Gift Ideas of 2021

NBA TopShot is the brainchild of the NBA and Dapper Labs. In short, TopShot is a marketplace for digital NFT collectibles in the form of NBA game highlights called "moments."  The best way to think about these "moments," is as digital trading cards. Just go to NBATopShot.com and you'll see what I mean.  There are sets and subsets (referred to as parallels - when we were little we called them "special cards"). There's Series 1 and Series 2, and debuts (useful for players who have been injured and haven't debuted in the league yet.  You can buy digital "packs," but only during "drops" which are freaking hard for busy working dads and husbands to make happen, but I finally got one!  There's also a marketplace where you can easily list your moments for sale.  In this video, I review my most recent pack, and analyze what I like and don't like about the moments I pulled.  I also show how easy it is to list your moments for sale in the marketplace.

Of course I'm super high on Trevor Lawrence rookie cards, Zach Wilson rookie cards, Trey Lance rookie cards and Justin Fields rookie cards, and I've pre-ordered several of them from Panini, Leaf / Pro Set and I even scored the recent Trevor Lawrence Exclusive Topps Set from Topps.com, but I'm here to tell you about the top sleeper sports cards from the 2021 NFL Draft. To understand the concept of what a "sleeper" is, you have to understand fantasy sports. NoOffseason.com was a fantasy football website from 2006-2011, where I wrote 3-5 times a day about how to win your dynasty fantasy football leagues. In many respects, collecting NFL cards is very similar to trying to plan out a dynasty fantasy football roster. Because I wrote more than 5,000 dynasty fantasy football articles in my 20s, you can imagine as I approach 40, there's some irony here, but also a ton of passion. I digress. A "sleeper," for those of you who don't know, is a bit of a long shot. A guy you predict will rise in performance and/or value - and the OR is very important here - over the next three to six months. You see, in Sports Cards, much like dynasty fantasy football, a player's perceived future opportunity for performance is equally as important as his actually on the field play. So, even if a player doesn't perform well (or hasn't played in a game yet), their perceived opportunity for future performance results in their VALUE. The following players are the less obvious choices to have a solid VALUE increase in their sports cards as a result of the 2021 NFL Draft.

If you're heading into your 40s and interested in Sports Cards, this is for you. If you collect or flip Sports Cards but were born after 1985, this article is NOT for you. You won't relate to this content.  You didn't grow up the way we did and quite frankly, are unlikely to have any of the perspective I'm about to drop here.  Shocked? I meant that. My content really is only for dudes that are approaching 40 or already in their forties, and are trying to get back into collecting sports cards.  I know exactly who my audience is, because I'm a member. I, like you, have collected cards since the late 1980s with a HUGE break between ages 12 and 38 (with the exception of short stints with my kids).  Now that we've lost the punk 19 year-old college "bruhs," we can be real.  We just found our card collections, and we're definitely in a bit of shock how things have changed.  And we're starving to once again find joy and fulfillment in collecting sports cards.  As I've elaborated at length in my recent book released on Amazon available here...  http://nooffseason.com/book

Dude, I don't care if you're already judging me for the title of this. Yes, I buy sports cards on Etsy. 🙂  I'm all about any place where you can find undervalued or even reasonably priced sports cards, especially those that are already slabbed by PSA.  Which is why I've been super cautious recently with listings I've seen from Etsy sellers specifically listing well known modern vintage cards like the 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan  Rookie and the 1996 Topps Kobe Bryant Rookie in PSA 10 for less than $1,000 USD.  At first, these listings made my heart beat almost as fast as the first time I kissed my wife.  Then, I remembered that when things seem too good to be true, they typically are. But before I walked away, I did some research.  First, I Google'd "Etsy Sports Card Scams," but couldn't find anything. Then, I researched Etsy's buyer protection policy, but couldn't find much that made me feel good about risking my hard earned money on a potential scam.