From Plastic Slabs to Fine Art: How M1nt is Revolutionizing Trading Cards | Brian Pirrip

It's amazing how many people have forgotten that this actually is a hobby or that it's fun and people that just become so obsessed over judging other people on how they collect or you're doing it wrong, we're doing it right or the value of the card is the entire purpose of being in. Welcome to the Collector Nation podcast on the Radcast Network. From chasing Grails to Colin Bluffs, we're going inside the hobby. Are you ready to collect? Let's get at it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hello and welcome to Collector Nation here on the Collector Nation podcast network. I hope everyone is doing well wherever, whenever, however you're listening, we really appreciate it. We know you got options, but I saw that we were number seven in all of sports on Apple podcast rankings. We right up there with the Kelsey brothers. We're coming for you. Travel, you know, I don't care if you're retiring or not, but ultimately we're here to talk some cards today. How we make them sexy and cool displaying them. I was at the National Met this guy and I'm like, it come on my baker who does NBA grading, but you know, had him over. They were talking and I remember meeting him and I was like, with my boys and I go and things like that. Grab him, you know, I'm an innovator and like, I think I'm coming into the space at the right time. And I was like, what is that? Well, he's going to tell us what it is. His name is Brian. He's a founder of what's up, brother. Hey, thanks for having me on here, Ryan. A real honor, real pleasure. Yeah, man. Likewise. I enjoyed meeting you at the National. You're even your guys and dude, I just remember going. I walk around, you know, the nationals like, you know, a fire hose. You know, like, wonderfulness. And also just like overwhelming as you know, like everything going on always overwhelming. It's just similar to sea of sameness. And that's kind of a little bit like the hobby is like, okay, you know, like a PSA stool, grading stuff. And there's this going on. And that's why I like Mike, my baker's doing something different. You know, head grader, but bring some innovation to it, bring some transparency to it. I love it. I gravitated to Mike and had him on the show. And then I saw what was the most beautiful case I'd ever seen for how a card should look. I was like, man, these things are pieces of art. We should treat it that way and sure enough, damn, you guys are doing it, man. Thank you, man. Yeah. Mike Baker, like what a guy. Not only so, you know, foundational to the hobby as far as grading, there's nobody better in the grading space. But he's actually a really cool guy. It's actually like a head of friend introduced me to him. And I was like, okay, it's, you know, I, you know, there's I don't really find, you know, it's hard to find people in the hobby that I actually truly respect or go, hey, I really want to hang out with this guy. And Mike Baker was one of those people where I'm like, you know, an hour goes by talking to him. I'm like, hey, let's, you know, let's come down to Huntington Beach. Let's hang out. He's from here originally. Let's go surfing, whatever, right? And so, but yeah, we, I remember the moments we met you because we had just given Mike Baker a Babe Ruth card. It put into one of our Mint G1 cases. And it was fun to see his reaction because the reaction is always the same. Like it's these, in same cases made out of steel and glass. And he think, oh, it's just, you know, it's another slavricks like rare edition. It's nothing like rare edition. It's actually everyone's reaction is always the same. It's like, oh, that's really heavy. It's cold. It has a real heft. It feels like jewelry for dudes, you know. And so this is a, this is a piece of art. It's giving cards the dignity they deserve because why is a $40 million Mickey Manel PSA 10 in the same 99 centa plastic piece that's a $1 card is? And so that's, that's really why I started Mint and why, you know, got a chance to meet you at the national and walking around with all these, you know, people that you're right. There's a lot of sameness. And I've been collecting for like 15 years seriously. I mean, I collected as a kid and then got distracted by, you know, my 20s. And then when I rediscovered the hobby, it was like, why, you know, I'm buying these really expensive cards and I'm buying these very beautiful cards that to me are my fine arts. That's my version of fine arts. And I can't put them on my wall or you have these really tacky displays that you get from Hobby Lobby or Michaels. And, you know, and I remember going to like a frame shop and seeing if I could like take all my favorite cards, put them into a frame and they're like, well, we're going to destroy your cards in order to do it the way you want with like glass and, you know, various finer materials. And I was like, no, I don't want my great cards destroyed. And so it was one of those things that every year for the next like 15 or 10 years, I would just Google is somebody making a better display or a better case. And it never happened. And, you know, COVID comes along and boom, all of a sudden shakes up your life and you have a chance to do something different. And I'm like, I'm going to be the guy. I'm going to go out and hire material engineers, industrial designers, mechanical engineers and do whatever it takes to make cases and displays that I would actually buy myself and that I would display in my home. That's how it all kind of started. And, you know, I'm a little angry that I'll have one in my hand for this. We're going to have to fix that. That is upsetting. That's upsetting. We're going to have to, you're going to send me one. You've had to pay full, like, I'll pay over price. You know, whatever it is to get one, you know, right on the house, man, on the house. We, whatever your favorite card is, and let's get it done. Yes. And we'll do a follow up because what's up guys? I know you've heard this term live shopping. Well, the leaders in live shopping are what not. I've personally been on the platform for a couple of years selling trading cards, getting our feet wet before we open our retail store. And let me tell you, it's a game changer. You get on there, you literally have people coming into your live feed, you sell product, and it makes it so easy. It's also fun. That's the biggest thing. I didn't know selling can actually be fun. You build community. You get people coming back to your store and it is a great way to start a business. A lot of times people are looking way to build a business. Live shopping is here. It's not the future. It's the now and what not is the leader. If you sold anything online, you know, the biggest thing is not having real-time feedback. That's what's so great about what not. You literally have people buying your products right there, right now. You know how much money you're making and what not makes it easy. Track your inventory, sell things live in the feed. It's fun. It's engaging and it's an incredible way to grow a business. One of my favorite things about what not is all the features they build in for selling. You can do different things, make it fun for your viewers and ultimately drive more sales to your bottom line. And for a limited time, what not will match your first $150 sold in your first month. Visit what.com slash sell to start selling. That's what not.com slash sell. If you work in university maintenance, Granger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena is always ready for tip-off and Granger is your trusted partner, offering the products you need all in one place from HVAC and plumbing supplies to lighting and more and all delivered with plenty of time left on the clock. So your team always gets the win. Call 1-800-Granjer, visit Granger.com or just out by Granger for the ones who get it done. Yes, we have apps. Okay, still people using spreadsheets at the show, but I'm like, we have apps. If you want to use apps. And then I'm like, okay, PSA still grading. That's not surprised. That's fine. This case is still a little like crap, but that's fine. I go and look around and I'm like, all right, nice acrylic, hobby lobby, a good good reference point. I think I'm like, okay, I've got some old cards I'm pulling out that I'd love to display. And you know, as me and the boys, this is a couple years ago getting back into it with my boys who you know come of age. And I was like, nothing. And I've been searching and then saw you at the show. Call by, I mean, there's just been no innovation and no, like you said, I mean, I'm not a, I mean, I think my friends would probably say I am a little boozy, but not a lot boozy for a dude. I just like my stuff to be nice and to be like, I like to display things or like, I don't throw up, you know, a crappy poster or like, even in college, I didn't have the crappy wall art that, you know, was from Walmart or whatever. I would at least have something that someone painted for me in a nice, you know, that I would take the time to do. You know, I appreciated the display. You have the blue sheet college poster like everybody else. No, I was like, you know, it was Jordan. It was a painted, a master band all ripped up. I definitely had Dave Matthews band. But it was a nice poster that like, you know, autographs and like, you know, I preserve. Yeah, no, it's nice. Yeah. So this is overdo in the in the hobby. And what I do, yeah, you really can't get a, a feel for what this thing is until you hold it. Like you said, cold brick, it is a, it is a site to behold. It's something, it's a site. It's a, it's really a, to hold, to behold and hold. Literally. Yeah. It really is. I mean, every single person that's held this, it always is shocking to them. And and that was it. I built this for myself. At the end of the day, I, I thought, if nobody ever uses these, I'm still going to have them in my own home. And also, I did things like, you know, I had, like the most hardcore UV protection in the world. Like we hired special material engineers just to do the UV protection of these. And so now I can spill a them. I've had them in the sunlight, the whole year, just to be able to test and prove that autographs don't fade, you know. And so I've, I've kind of fallen on my own sword to make sure that we're, you know, developing products that are actually legit. But, but it's the kind of thing that like every time I've, I like, I actually, it's kind of funny. I went to Derek Jeter's golf international while ago. And I brought a couple cases and I met up with King Griffey Jr. And I was showing him a couple of different cards. I made. That's my favorite. That's it. Oh, man, this is isn't as beautiful. That's stunning, right? And it's got the Mike Baker logo and grade on the side. So, but so these are all, you know, they're graded cards and they can also be raw cards as well. So we do both. But I ended up taking a couple cases and I had made one that had Mariners colors on it with kind of a gold outline using kind of a gold bezel like this one. And I took it to King Griffey and I and I was showing it to him. And he, he took one of them, put it in his pocket. He's like, this is mine. I'm taking this now. And and what was funny about that is, no, I also showed him our wall display, like we've been doing a bit with Ken over the last few years, but he ended up saying, you know, Brian, I've had my own card. I have like 10,000 of these like sitting in a box in my house in, you know, and he goes, but I've never liked the card as much because I don't like the display and I don't like the pieces of plastic. He goes, you finally made a case that actually makes my card look like fine arts. And I told him, and this was one of my points of pride in life is I said, you know, Ken, the card that you actually selected out of the two that I brought, I actually pulled that card when I was a kid. And so we encapsulated the card I pulled as a kid. And now Ken Griffey Jr has his favorite version of this card is the one I pulled when I was a kid that's in one of the mint G1 cases. How cool. And according to last I talked to his manager or his agent, he goes, you know, Ken takes that case with him everywhere now. And it's just like this source of pride thinking that moment that I pulled that card as a kid and now Ken's walking around with it in his pocket when he travels. And that's just a end to solve the mystery. This is Ken's favorite card of all time as well. His own 89 upper deck rookie. He just loves it. So, you know, I don't get, I'm not a jealous guy Brian. Like, I'm just not. I'm more of a kind of like, there's so much to go around. There's like, I never really get jealous of things or people or whatever. There's plenty of money to be made. There's plenty of, you know, if you're single girls to be had, there's put like, I'm just not jealous. But I'm jealous of that. That is cool. Because that's my card. That was the taster, man. That was me growing up. So I probably shouldn't tell you what it's like. So I probably shouldn't tell you what it's like to sit down and Ken Griffey's man cave ripping packs needing barbecue. Absolutely not. No, if you're going to invite me next time. You know, you know, you know, you're exactly what you want to do. The hobby wants to do a feature on you. There you go. There you go. The case. Maybe that you can make that. That sounds like something. Many say happened. Yeah. I'll bring you some on the road, baby. We'll do it. We'll do it if we have to. You know, Florida's not too far away from South Carolina. South Carolina. South Carolina. Yeah. I'll pick up the tab. Do you just make it happen? Yeah. Well, that's the thing, man. One of the things that also that we haven't really revealed about this, we've only talked about it briefly on any of our content. We've been teasing these for a long time. Yeah. And part of the reason why I've teasing for a long time is once we built them, like we had a working prototype two years ago. But when I held it in my hand, I was like, this isn't it. It's not even though it had all the mechanical engineering correct and it was secure and fully counterfeit proof like these completely kill counterfeiting. You cannot counterfeat these cases. In fact, we're probably going to do some contests where we say, if you can counterfeit one, we'll give you like $5 million or something like that just to prove the point. But like, but when I held it, I was like, it wasn't special enough for me. And so we spent a whole other year of industrial design to be able to create this very specialized glass that actually amplifies the card. Like the colors on the card are actually brighter than if you actually held the card right in front of your face. It actually shows the details of the card a lot stronger. And then we had finished that and we made that perfect. And then I met a gentleman who we knew there needed to be a tech component to this because there's space on the inside. And I wanted to make it so that it was more than just a case. And so I met a gentleman who runs this AI blockchain company. And we started working together on putting a chip on the inside. And so every single one of our Mint G1 cases has a the most sophisticated NFC tag currently in the market. And so what you do when you're getting one of these cases is you're not just getting the case. You're also able to store all the details, the provenance on the blockchain. And where you know like you can hover your phone over the case and know who owns it. So we're killing theft. So if somebody cannot go and steal this because if you're trying to sell one of these out in the open at a card show or wherever and somebody just hovers the phone over, they know who the owner is. And it's immutable. You cannot change it unless there's an ownership transfer. And so we're doing things like full blockchain integration. We're doing things like where you scan over the phone and you can watch highlights the player. You can see a cameo of the player talking to you. How cool would it be if you like pulled a Griffey card and Griffey himself on the on your phone is saying, hey, congratulations, you pulled my whatever, you know, rookie card. And let me tell you a little bit about it. So we're integrating a lot of tech into this. So it's more than just a case. It's entirely secure, totally counterfeit proof. Impossible to steal without having to do things on the black market. And and then there's a lot of fun gamification and things. So like what you're saying about apps, it's kind of like the, you know, sky's the limit. It's essentially in every way possible. It's a true NFT of a digital of a physical and digital tokenization, which has never been done before. So I'm glad you got to that. Really sick stuff. Yeah, that's that was it was like one thing to behold and to hold and to all of the beauty that it did. I mean, it's the only case that really I've ever gone was additive to the card. Like it's always like subtracting from the card or at best, like a necessary evil. And that case is not to value because of how of its beauty, it's heft. And then the digital component was always what fascinated me. And I'm glad you got into that. Because you know, that's always that's always like a mate. That was the one thing I was amazed with. It was like, we not come along where like these cards aren't something like trackable or like there's a QR code or there's probably some madness, you know, method to that madness with why they don't do that. But but to be able to preserve it that way, like you said, the provenance and everything, you know, to be able to scan it and know from a security standpoint, but then the story behind the story of like where it came from and all of that. I mean, that that's really adding to the hobby, like adding to the collecting, you know, like it's it truly. Because you can't document all of that like if you got a collection. So if it's it's living with the card because like why would you ever want to take it out of that case? You know, it will live there forever. I mean, we'll take it out. If you want us to take it out, we can take it out. In fact, it's a very sophisticated process. That's why we know nobody can counterfeit it. In fact, if you open it, it just zeros the data on the chip. And so there's some really cool stuff like that. And so if my backers are already like give it a grade on a card and all that. Can I send that to you and that become what gets sort of a because my I get yeah, I need to send you. So like this show here, it's on me. I sent it in a 9.5 Beckett case to Mike Baker. And he goes, he comes back and he says, nope, that's a perfect 10. Wow. And so it's got the Mike Baker yeah. A grade of a 10 and it's got his diamond logo. All the details are lesor etched on the side. And but on the flip side, I sent him my Kobe Bryant refractor and he goes, sorry, Brian, it's not a 9. It's an 8. And so it's a give it them take it away. No, I didn't love that Mike Baker. He's honest. He has integrity and he actually gives the cards the proper grades. But it's nice now that I know the provenance. You can upload videos of the moment you pull that card. So if there's a break that happens and somebody finds whatever card and it gets put on into a case, the owner 20 years from now can see who owned it previously where it was pulled. And they can watch the video of the very moment that card was pulled. So other than my store collector station, other than my store collector station, where are these going to be available? And how are like the process for getting them and promote you know, all that. I know there's a process. It's not something you just like walk in and throw it in a slab like whatever else. But what's the what's this is the sort of you know, hierarchy of all of that. Yeah, we're going to be selling these a few different ways. We're going to be doing auctions. So I'm one of the big things that I'm doing that we haven't also talked about yet is we're going to be putting all of the tops rookie cards of Hall of Famers directly into G1s have you know, they're all graded into these cases. And then we're doing a huge auction of the 100 most important kind of tops cards of Hall of Famers. So that's one way people can get G1s. We're going to be selling them directly on our website on it's minterverse.com. And so we're going to be encapsulating like pre encapsulating cards in cases like for instance, I'm going to be you know, selling the Kobe Bryant on the website. I'll be selling you know, Mike trout rookie card. We're going to be encapsulating a lot of cards and just making them available there. But for because we want to keep this very niche for a while, we want to keep it scarce. And it's also a huge lift. These are very complex pieces. It's not it's not a you know, simple just putting two pieces of top load acrylic together in the hypersonic. Yeah, it's not a top load. Yeah. And so we're going to release certain numbers to the public. We're doing a first release to the public to people on our wait list first and in small numbers. And so what's going to happen is people are going to send us their card. We're going to you know, full insurance and tracking and you know, the whole the whole nine yards. And then they can decide if they want to have Mike Baker grade it or if they want to have you know, the raw version. A lot of people have asked us for the raw version. I have I know a guy that has a 1969 white letter Mickey Manor with an autograph that really wants to have his card in the case. But he doesn't want a grading service to tell him what his card means to him. And so he just wants to keep it raw. But he wants it in the case so he can put it up on his wall. And so people will send it to us and we'll track it. High-res photographs. We're going to video the process and store all that on the blockchain as well. So people can actually see how it's done. And and that and that sort of thing. So we're going to be rolling this out over we call it admit 2026 is the year of the G1. So this is the year we release and we're going to be spending the whole year doing a lot of really cool various kinds of launches so that people get their hands on them. But for you know, for you know, friends of men's there's an easy access to to you know, if somebody needs to get their Ken Griffey Jr. card in one round. There's one to give you. But I'm actually going to send you that my Caleb Williams color blast that Mike already graded. He graded it at 9.5. There you go. With one of his markups I forget like it was a bonus. It was like 9.5 and a half you know like because it got like something ahead of diamond or one of his marks or whatever. So it was that love. That would probably be doable because it got all his off the indication. So I might send that one to you. Yeah. Yeah. And then across and I'll put an energy one and send it back to you. I love it brother. And so talk to me about these other you got other things going on. You talked about collaborations with one or another retailers. So you've obviously got other things happening. Talk to me there. Yeah. Yeah. We you know a lot of my content that I've been making over the last five years has been very you know, salted the earth man of the people like I go around the country to card shop to card shop. Initially like I wanted to get market testing of everything I was doing. I wanted to get to know people across the country and what everyone was thinking about the hobby. So like my chief of staff and I we went on like a four month road trip where we during COVID where we drove from Los Angeles to Key West up to New York all you know under the guise of finding a jeeter rookie card out of a box. And we documented it in high resolution like we drone shots like we went hardcore like we used because my background is all entertainment and so and my chief of staff was my you know my original location scout on my first TV showed you know 15 years ago. And so we're cruising across the country drones high-res footage where rip and packs at like ZZ top concert and in Nashville the Grand Old Opera we're doing it at the Bayou in New Orleans. We were you know scuba diving off Key West always you know rip and packs everywhere we were going to find jeeter's rookie card and trash rookie card. And and what we discovered is you know we were prepping for making these G1s we were starting the process already we'd already launched the company six months before very quietly. And we realized that it would be unfair to create all this content and just have a very high end expensive product as the only option. And we realized you know we wanted to have something that anyone could afford at least one. And so we ended up taking the same form factor and built these cases that we call Mint Hobby cases which are meant for raw cards. And they're a much nicer way to display cards than any other option that's out there. And it's very secure you can't like shake your card around and you know have the inside falling out there's like eight different magnets that hold it in there. But these are beautiful and we ended up launching these this year early in the year and to great acclaim all of a sudden we had Walmart reaching out and saying we want to partner with you on this and we ended up doing it with Amazon. We ended up you know shipping these all across the world this year. And now we have like a 4.95 rating on Amazon and Walmart we were told by both companies that we're the number one seller of of any product on the collectibles section. The number one top seller on both platforms. In fact on Amazon we were one of their top sellers just in the whole of Amazon. And so these are like very unique products that you know we decided instead of just you know making another one touch or making something a little bit thicker have we wanted to reengineer the entire experience. And so we added a bunch of magnets we recessed the the insert acrylic past the bezel so that you're not scratching your acrylic on tables anymore and having a bunch of scratches so it keeps your card scratch free. We made it so that you could ship these and you're not going to have your card with all sorts of dents and deans when it arrives. And then we're also building a display just for the hobby case so that people are going to have really cool LEDs and for their most treasured cards that they don't want graded. These are for you know for raw cards. And so we've been building these we've been building a number a whole host of other products that I think are going to shock a lot of people over the next couple years as we release. But we're not going away we're not we're not a rare dish and we're you know we have great partners to this company and we've been building this over five years and what we did our homework you know a lot of companies is easy to just throw something out there quickly. I wanted to make sure that anything we sold I would have to be able to want it myself to purchase and that's what we did. And so now we we have these products and we have the ones that are that are coming in the later this year and next year and as well as the tech side and we also have some really sick plans for content more in the kind of the television world that those three kind of pieces together the platform the the content and the product all working together to kind of build this company into something special and everything is fully crazy patented and we built like a patent mine filled around everything so that you know this is mint is coming it's it's on its way and we're excited to get these in people's hands because everybody that seems to buy our products loves them and so it's it's pretty fun stuff and I've got great team it a phenomenal team I've been hand picking these guys over the last 15 years two of the guys on IT and I've worked with them for yeah 14 years now and they were on my first TV show together with me and I've kept them because they're amazing guys and we're trying to add more people as we go along so it's a really fun experience here and hunting some beach with the mint team. I definitely need some of those in the store that's slick I saw one video I think before I was looking through your content and I was like I didn't see this because you didn't have those at the a national yeah yeah we didn't have this yeah and I'm like that that that's slick that that's a good you know those could be in store I could see those on the shelf oh absolutely yeah we we're piloting them right now with about I think we have five five card shops that that we've been friends with for the last few years that are piloting your collection in South Carolina you know we're going to do a collection but you know what's kind of fun it is that a lot of people know about this we we do quests with these where every number certain number of hobby cases that we ship we put a golden ticket inside the case and it's redeemable for like like mass surprises like some guy that we in Cleveland found one of our golden tickets and it was a $15,000 it got redeemed for $15,000 Griffey mantle dual autograph you know that card from 1994 that everybody wants you know we did another one there was a 1957 PSA 8 in a G1 that we gave away to a guy I think he was in Ohio that another town or no he was in Illinois because he found a golden ticket one of our cases and we're doing that with all the hobby shops too so that as people are buying their their hobby case we we have we put a card in every single case like it whether it's a common or a $2 card or a $10 card there's always a card as an example like a picture frame right like if you go to the store you go to Wal-Mart and you buy a picture frame there's always some sort of picture in there and so I wanted every single product that we ever shipped to have at least a card and there's an example of how the thing works and so we inserted these these golden tickets like Willie Wonka and because you know love the movie and as a kid and I thought it would be more fun like who wants to just buy his supplies boring and so I thought it'd be a lot more fun if we put cards in there and I threw actually all most of the autographs of my whole collection you know all the foam and chrome ones that you just you know have sitting in the you know in a box somewhere and I put all those ones in we put in you know a lot of special cards a few like $1,000 cards we spread them out shift them out but these guys that are finding these these you know $5,000 $10,000 cards as golden tickets it's made the whole experience a lot more fun for everyone and so anybody that's been following my content the last year I just I love you know given stuff away and and given away these prizes and so people aren't just getting a hobby case they're all just giving getting at least a chance that they might find something like crazy as a lifelong mark surprise and delight it works every time surprise is delighted that is I love it and Brian and for me it's just fun dude yeah man I just have fun Ryan you know life's too short to do boring stuff you know I don't like doing boring things in fact I like doing things where I'm working with cool people and I'm having a great time if I'm not having a great time why am I doing it and so you know every time we somebody finds one of our golden tickets I actually call them and tell them they won and then we always post the phone call so that people can see that there's people winning these things and and I just have a great time yeah it's fun it's only perfect when it's only meant I'm thinking of tagline for you already man that's why my brain works dude I love it man it's like there's a play on words there somewhere because of like the additive nature to this of the cards and the experience it's it's it's it's sorely needed that's why I was so pumped to have you on the show and see in what you're doing like this is the stuff that's kind of like yes like all right how do we take these things a little further we've had top loaders we've had penny sleeves yes we had the one touch but like how can we like advance the ball here for how we display and carry do the like there's so many opportunities that it's exciting to see you guys innovating like with this stuff and look people pay like it's a premium thing like collecting is premium and people will pay for premium additive experiential things that that bring and make their hobby better yeah people want that you know it's kind of like when I first started sharing some of these cases around the hobby it like I would just very quietly at card shows be like hey what do you think of this and anybody that was like no I love my PSA case and I'm like well that doesn't make any sense to me but there's a couple guys that are like truly I know I love my PSA I love the flip at the top and I'm like no it looks like a december system it looks like a card catalog from 1985 yeah and I'm like that's not for me and and it kind of reminded me of back in the day in 2007 I had bought this you know everybody's walking around with their Motorola razors and their crazers and yeah and Nokia's or whatever and I remember showing up to my job I was working at Disney at the time at the corporate offices in Burbank and I walked in with this thing called an iPhone and I remember walking around the office and these are pretty sophisticated people it's the record labels of the Disney you know company and I was walking around showing people and people were like no I like my blackberry I like my Nokia I like my flip phone and and it just really and I was like no but there's this thing called multi-touch I was always like an early adopter on technology particularly I was always an Apple fanboy during the Steve Jobs years but I worked with Steve Jobs team not in New York launching the first iPhone can you hear me now there we go man thanks for your phone man I really appreciate it I just have a lot of these jobs brilliance but yes well I appreciate it man thank you for the phone very grateful well done Ryan but yeah I went out and picked it up I you know I would always watch the Macworld keynotes and as soon as he announced it I'm like that's mine and so I'm walking around the Disney studio showing off to my friends this new product and people are like that's ridiculous why would we use that I want to I need to have a Quarty keyboard that a tactile feeling on my fingers and I was like no this is the way of the future in fact I ended up investing every dollar I had into Apple stock about two weeks later and my apple I put it all into Apple options with a very high strike price and about three weeks later I quit my job because I was a multi-millionaire because the stock had risen that fast that high and so that's how actually how I made my initial money was from that moment to Apple I mean Disney when I realized the iPhone was something special and but and I feel like that's the same thing with these cases is that is that people that are like cleaning on sort of PSA case or a Beckett case or even their SGC case which is probably my favorite out of the three but still that's like okay I prefer a Motorola Razor over Nokia whatever they're essentially the same things and so and they're easy to crack extremely easy to counterfeit you I can buy a hypersonic welding machine from China in like a month and you know start building my own SGC and PSA cases it's so easy to counterfeit and so I'm like I don't understand why people don't want something better so it's taken if several years to be able to change hearts and minds to put these in people's hands to have people go oh I get it now I get it now and now I really want one and now our wait list will never be able to satisfy our wait list in 2026 because there's so many people on the wait list that's why we're going to release these and maybe even the lottery kind of format but this is the way the future it's the it's the mix of technology and and aesthetics and protection it's like presentation preservation all in the same piece and so this stuff's coming you know whether people like it or not this is the way the future and and I'm excited to get one in your hands right I know it's time you have one I know I'm here to see it and I want to sell those other cases too don't let Walmart have them all you know so you're going to get a kick out of this yeah my store let's just say I was painting gold yesterday and I'll tell you why I'm going to have the first drive through in trading card hobby shop his works I have a drive through that I paint old yesterday like literally I have this I bought this old building that was a dry cleaners at one time and it has like it actually has a mid-century modern kind of look and I've remodeled it and it hasn't a little like offshoot aluminum and it's actually done well it's got glass and aluminum and it offshoots because it was the pickup window and I'm turning it into the collector station express lane and it's gold I painted gold inside and out the little booth it is solid gold to being gold and it had to be gold needs to be so gold and from the street now you see the gold side of our building just that one spot and it's the express lane it's the only drive through that I can find it exists in the hobby so please tell me you're going to also sell like you know you can get a McFlurry or something maybe some coffee at the same time you know coffee cards or energy drinks you know I'm an energy drink guy but yeah it's so sad when I walked into a shop called cards and coffee and I walked in and I said where's the where's the coffee and uh and they're like no we only do cards it's part of the name and I was like that just makes that isn't it isn't it's some cause I also have a pack bar I have a bar that's literally a pack bar so uh I got the pack bar the drive through now this innovating so uh I love it yeah see no I want very much want to see your golden drive through that's uh that's innovation right there that's going to be a lot of fun to pull up uh yes yeah I'm talking to you like the marketing of the store that gets used once a month and even it does it's just market yeah well you know after going to like I mean my my guy Sam we've been to probably three or four hundred card shops over the last four years or five years I don't know how many we've been to it's just uh and we don't always post from every card shop we go to because some of them are just terrible just truly terrible and I don't want to do the portanoi thing of like rating them on the spot I want to kind of remain in more of the positive space and talking to the nice things about each one of the film at um and and it's amazing how little innovation there is um yeah it's it's shocking even the ones that think they're innovating aren't innovating uh there's only a few that I've ever seen where I'm like okay this you guys are doing it right yeah um and uh it's it's pretty rare yeah so I love the ones that have you know uh other things special about card shop rather than just always sell cards yeah exactly you know 50 percent you get to make it fun 30 percent you know the fit's a hobby it's fun yeah it's entertainment like you gotta leave it to get about that yeah it's amazing how many people have forgotten that this actually is a hobby or that it's fun you know and uh people that just become so obsessed over you know uh you know judging other people on how they collect or you're doing it wrong we're doing it right or the value of the the card is the entire purpose of being in and I I get it I get the financial side of it I I always have I mean when I was a kid I was tracking on the becket the ups and downs of my Kevin Moss card and you know that you see if I you know I was good retire after my Kevin Moss cards went through the roof you know but uh you know so I think people sometimes forget it's fun you know so I like I went to a card shop in Chicago a couple weeks ago or maybe a couple months ago cheese and uh it's called a card shop called trade out and the guy that owns the spot he's just he made it fun he's got like a bunch of games you know like uh air hockey table kind of plays with you know basketball hoop shooting and he's got little wind wheel that you can spin and win prizes he hosts a lot of kid events there and what he's doing is he's built like a community and so all the community they they show up because not just because there's cards there but because they all have a lot of fun there and the owner actually cares about cards actually loves it still you know I've been into some card shops where you can tell that the owner just doesn't care at all about cards anymore some of them don't even never collect it and don't know you're anything about the cards yeah and so uh you know there's there's guys to do it right and guys that don't and uh one of these days we talked about make it a coffee table book of all the card shops we've been to over the last five years and just being like here's our top you know the top you got a visit to your station before you uh before you officially put that book together to see if we make the cut and uh you can be absolutely it's matter time Ryan yeah I have to come to South Carolina with it's big we've got I've got a theater a movie theater built in I've got like like like literally like a it's a man cave man it's a I got a huge table table for people to trade at and sit at and hang out and then I got my podcast studio built in and it's uh you have a batting cage I do have bougie ball though that's gonna have to get moved it my desk that I got moved I got a gold frame that's a basketball goal but it's actually a gold frame around it with a gold rim so we call it bougie ball nice nice so yes nice we got the we're getting there man it's gonna we got me sold man so you got me oh wait you're a grand opening two soft opening in two weeks I'm gonna do a grand opening like first or second weekend in March so maybe we get on that I know I want to I'm blind yeah I might have to be there for that that's my kind of thing man yeah I'd love to have you man and uh Brian Luddon from LudEx is coming down I'm talking to some of Gary V's guys Gary's he's tough to get out of the house but uh not he goes everywhere but like uh maybe some of the guys from V friends and maybe uh an athlete or two so um for the grand opening yeah absolutely we'll talk about that's the way to do it man yeah man yeah I'm excited let's make it happen it is Mackenzie and I started to go fund me for the adoptive mother of a nonverbal autistic child the mother had lost her job because she wasn't able to find out what care for this autistic child so she really needed some help with living expenses paying some back bills so I launched a go fund me to help support them during this crisis and we raised about ten thousand dollars within just a couple of months I think that the surprising thing was by telling a clear story and just like really being very clear about what we needed we have some really generous donations from people who are really moved by the situation that this family was struggling with go fund me is the world's number one fundraising platform trusted by over 200 million people start your go fund me today at gofundme.com that's gofundme.com gofundme.com this podcast is supported by gofundme so what's uh as we wrap up here Brian what um what's the next six 12 months I mean it's the year of the case man it's the year of the G1 but what else do you think the G1 where are we going to be at what's going to be going on and how can everybody fall along well uh what I have going on is I'm going to be doing a lot with players this year that's another thing we're going to be filming a lot with players um one of my favorite things I've done over the last several years is ripping packs with major league players or veterans and getting them to find their own cards uh like I had this moment with Eric Davis where we ripped a rack pack of 85 tops and he found his own rookie card in there and uh I always tell people if you rip it you keep it so I'm like I'm trying to give him his own rookie card and he's like no Brian no he goes no no this one's for you and so he signed it and said okay I want you to keep this one and it's funny to see Eric Davis kind of you know uh lighting up like a Christmas tree and while he's ripping his own carbs you know and or you know my favorite one ever oh well griffy one but mark mark grace mark grace was my favorite kit a player when I was like a kid in like 1989 1999 he's somewhere 88 that's right and uh you know when to his house and uh and he I brought a box of 88 Don Russ and he's ripping through the packs and uh and the problem is is he doesn't know he's not a hobbyist right and so a hobby guy would be flipping through them super fast to try to find the rookie card or the Roberto Alamar that's in that set yeah and he he goes literally card by card it takes him like you know 20 minutes to go through one pack because every single dude in there is it's like a yearbook for him and every single person in there is like is some he's got a story about them you know he oh Cecil Fielder slid into me in you know first base and this happened and you know this guy was really funny but because of this and so when I posted that video mark and I ripping his packs uh oh yeah this is kind of funny I we didn't actually find because he was too slow uh in opening packs and so I just was like you know he had to go and I had to go and so I gave him the the rest of the box that cards and said find your own rookie card and then I pulled out of my pocket the uh the 88 flare old uh flare update card that I had since I was also a kid and I handed it to him I said if you don't find the one in the box here's at least the 88 flare update I said do you have your own rookie card and he's like no I don't think I do and I was like well now you do and so that was such a special experience and then I realized um I could do a lot of that and so I'm going to be doing a ton of player ripping with players and kind of cruising around the country the goal is to like eat food uh incredible food across the country rip packs with players um and visit card shops go to card shows and just kind of um you know cruise around I'm gonna be spend more time on the road even though you know uh you know a nice thing is I just got engaged in my director of marketing and so I'm gonna be taking her with me and we're gonna travel the country with our you know chief of staff in our social media uh team and go city to city across the country while we socialize our products and go have a lot of fun ripping packs for players that's kind of the goal for the year. Hey that's not gonna be bad here right this is like this is like plan for right over there. It's like your nation to hit the road on one of those and uh let us uh you documented as well behind the scenes that'd be awesome. Yeah in fact the last time I was in South Carolina Sam and I went to home team in Sullivan's Island and we're literally we ordered the barbecue but before we did before we started eating we ripped a few packs of 93 SP and uh so there we are a Sullivan's Island rip and packs in South Carolina but yeah next time we're in the air remotely in the area we're gonna be rolling by Ryan and ripping some packs. I love that food with you. Hey man working everybody we're the socials the website all that stuff for keeping up with everything. Yeah yeah thanks uh the the website for our company is Mintiverse that's M1NTC it's Mint is that's a one not an I uh turns out there's also a nightclub in Shanghai China it's called Mint so that's our uh but it's kind of funny you'll have to take the whole team out there sometime and go to the nightclub there to take some photos uh but it's Mintiverse.com M1NTAVRESE.com that's our our company's website where people can learn about you know the wall display or the cases but uh all of my channels are they're all at Brian Peerup so whether you're on uh Facebook or Instagram YouTube TikTok TikTok is actually my main platform uh by a mile um we ran TikTok for a couple years before we did uh placement on anything else and so uh TikTok Instagram YouTube and Facebook it's all at Brian Peerup. VRIN PIR RIP a little pound drum there and uh so yeah we'd love to uh you know meet more people as we go along. Every time I go to a city across the country I'm going to tell people ahead of time this year and we hope to have people meet up with us at Card Shops in fact I'm going to be in Nashville uh Tennessee uh at Grand Slam Sports Cards uh which is one of the great card shops in the country on uh on the 21st of January I don't know in the shows again here but uh uh there we go after that but uh but we hope to meet people as we go around the country so like when we come to your shop run we'll tell people in advance and get as many of our followers to come and support you in your card shop as we can. I love it brother and uh I really really do respect and love what you guys are doing I mean it's much needed in the hobby and the way you're going about it is the right way with modern content and positivity but innovation and uh I'm here supporting anybody anyway anyway I can't really. Thank you so much well send me your your the card you want was the Caleb Williams whatever yes I got a Caleb it's already in my way. I got Michael Mike Baker's is already graded it so that might be a good one just to you know be able to get it because he's already you know done that might be a need to. Yeah and I think it'd be beautiful. Send it my way yeah and we'll uh I'll send that back to you ASAP and I think you're going to love having that uh case in your hand man. I will. Hey guys you know to find us the collector nation.com you'll find the full episode highlight clips links to all the Brian's info and of course mint one you've got it the link there everything you got to follow this guy all the content they're doing it's fun it's professional this guy's a pro and you'll see it in man the innovation is needed in the hobby that's why we're here to bring it to you because we got guys like this change in the game we'll see you next time on collector nation. Thanks for tuning into the show don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and don't miss the full video version on YouTube you can find us at collector nation.com or follow Ryan on Instagram at Ryan Alfred. Now get out there and collect yours.