First JWH Newsletter!

Welcome!

Hello, my fellow collector! Mike, here. I am a sports card YouTuber, mostly focused on telling stories. I’m best known for my Attic Find Friday series, but I do a variety of topics and formats. I’ve thought about adding a newsletter for a while, and it’s finally time.

I see this as being similar to my Sunday “Clearing the Bases” video series, where I send it weekly and it covers a week of The Hobby. But one thing I’ll do more of is talk about some behind-the-scenes stuff with my channel, and provide a preview of things I’m working on and hoping to do.

If you like it, please forward it to friends! Word-of-mouth will be crucial for my growth.

And it’s free!

YouTube Comment Of The Week

New Junk Wax Era? A Collector’s Perspective

I often hear people say that we’re in another junk wax era, or a “junk slab” era. I don’t think much of it, but certain things will make me think.

People grade a ridiculous amount of cards nowadays. PSA is grading more than a million cards per month, and a large percentage of those are worth less than it cost to grade them. People pull cards — even base paper cards — for desirable players, and send them in for grading, often looking for a 10 or bust. The wins from 10s often more than offset the losses from lower grades on ultra-modern cards, and make this strategy worthwhile.

Victor Wembanyama, a superstar in his rookie season in the NBA, averaging as many points per game (24) as minutes in January, is one of the hottest pursuits in basketball cards right now. I watch more basketball than any other sport, and I can confidently say that if Wemby can stay healthy, he is going to be a massive superstar.

At the time of this writing (January 19th), NBA Hoops has been out for about 60 days. That’s just enough time to get a load of them back from PSA, based on PSA’s turnaround time in November and December (which is improving now!). The attached image shows what appears to be roughly 170 PSA 10 Victor Wembanyama Hoops base cards.

Fewer than 2,000 of this card have been graded by PSA, and 80% are coming back as 10s. For perspective, Zion Williamson’s base rookie from NBA Hoops has been graded about 16,000 times. And Panini almost certainly printed their 2023 product more than they did in 2019. There are a lot more Wemby 10s coming in the near future. $80 is pretty good for right now, but they will likely come down. Zion’s can be had for under $10 plus shipping! Of course, his values have plummeted, but with so many more Wemby 10s expected, I’m waiting on prices to come down more.

If you’re a dealer, sell your 10s and then send me your 9s. I’m happy to take them.

2024 Topps Flagship Series 1 Box

2024 Topps Team Color Variation Inserts

These look pretty sick. But 300 different cards in the insert set and 1 inserted per case? How big is this print run? (I’m sure someone smarter than I will do the math.)

Upcoming Videos

I have been meaning to get to a user-driven video about your grail cards for literally months. I’m aiming to get that out in the next week.

I’ll be on Bench Clear Media with Baseball Collector Mike on Thursday, Jan 23, talking about the baseball Hall of Fame announcement.

I’m planning another Attic Find Friday this week! Will these ever end?!

Channel Highlights From the Past Week

Pretty big week, view-wise!

I did a little PSA reveal with some fun cards. One of them is now on a shelf behind me on videos. And I have submitted a damage claim to PSA for one.

I dug in on the potential death of popular YouTube sports card channel Junk Wax Investor.

I did my most popular Attic Find Friday in several months!

Chris Sewall and I did a livestream during the Baseball Hall of Fame announcement. This was a lot of fun.

My Pickup Of The Week

Spoiler alert for another upcoming video: I haven’t bought a single card in the month of January. This is crazy for me! But I’m implementing my strategy to buy more big cards, and fewer smaller cards. Plus I had a big tuition bill due, so there’s that.

With that note, when I lost out on the Old-Timers Game program autographed by both Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski, I “settled” for this one:

Subscriber Pickup Of The Week

Subscriber Andrew emailed me to suggest this section of the newsletter, and I loved the idea. Here is his description of his pickup this week, along with a photo.

My nomination is this 1969 Topps Gino Cappelletti auto certified by PSA I recently purchased off ebay for $20.

Cappelletti played for the Boston Patriots in the 1960s, winning the AFL MVP award in 1964. In addition to all the franchise records he set back in the 60's, he later went on to become the Patriots radio announcer for 25 years after his playing days, retiring from the booth in 2012.

Again, nothing crazy about this 10th year common from 1969, but as a huge Patriots fan being able to own this little piece of history was worth it for the cost. I know you're not a football guy, but think this would be the equivalent of you getting an autographed Jerry Remy or Tommy Heinson card?

To nominate your card for next week, reply to this email and include why it should be included and a photo. Please don’t be offended if I don’t reply.

Links I Recommend:

I mentioned this on my Sunday video, but it’s worth adding here as well. I did a video last week where I talked about Nat Turner destroying a customer on Twitter, and that video was quite popular. Hobby News Daily’s Horacio Ruiz did some great follow-up investigative journalism and discovered the perpetrator may actually be scamming on various platforms!