What's In The Cards?

Friday June 6th, 2008 - Schaumburg, IL

I took a detour from my path for a day and I enjoyed every minute of it. I’m working on my projects and I’ve been in a positive groove lately but I just felt I had to say yes when I was asked to attend the big sports card convention in the Chicago area that’s going on all weekend. My friends Richard and Dennis from Milwaukee picked me up and we all went.

There are a lot of things that satisfy me on a lot of levels by being around the hobby and I am not going to apologize for taking one day off. I’m learning to observe how the larger dealers conduct themselves at these shows and am taking notes. Marketing and sales skill is what lead to success in this as with nearly everything else in life. I learned a lot today.

The part I enjoy about collecting is having something not many other people have. I’m a fan of pristine old cards of all kinds and saw more than I needed to today but I also talked to a few of the bigger dealers just to see how they handled their business. It was a lesson I need to use when I get Uranus Factory Outlet going because many same principles apply.

The most known sports card dealer in the country is a guy named Alan Rosen. He calls himself ‘Mr. Mint’ as in mint condition cards and he advertises in all the trade magazines with a full page ad with his picture holding a giant fan of $100 bills offering to buy cards. He has written a couple of books and every dealer in the business knows who Mr. Mint is.

This guy is a marketing machine. He’s from New York and can tend to come off as a bit condescending and arrogant but everyone has to admit he hustles more than anyone else. I got a chance to meet him today and we talked for a few minutes and I told him how much I admired his marketing skills. His eyes lit up and I had his attention but I totally meant it.

Whether he’s cocky or not isn’t important. I don’t have to live with the guy or even talk to him. I can observe him from afar and that’s what I’ve been doing. He spends huge cash on ads but everyone in the hobby knows who he is. Was it worth it? Absolutely. He has a name and people who want to sell their cards look for him and he flips them for a profit.

I doubt he has one tenth of the inventory of cards I do because he’s not a collector. He’s a FLIPPER. He might pay $10,000 for a collection that walks in a card show and have the whole thing sold in an hour or less for $12-15,000 or more. He gets a return on his money almost immediately and has built up a reputation over the years as being the big buyer.

Watching him work was interesting. His setup was very professional looking and he has two assistants who work with him and greet customers when they walk in and ask if they have anything to sell. Many times they do so he’ll get first crack at all the best inventory.

Eventually I will be doing some kind of trade shows as the King of Uranus. It may even start out at sports card shows. I can put a couple of funny items out on my table and try to develop a clientele that way. I can fart around with cards but really try to develop my style as a marketer and a pitch man. The goal is to build name recognition like Mr. Mint did.

What can I do to make myself THE guy in the humorous product business? I absolutely need to do a lot of the same things Mr. Mint did in the card business. He gave himself an easy to remember title. He gave himself authority by writing that first book. I remember it well because I bought it when it came out. It was very informative and I learned from it.

He also isn’t afraid to get out and uncover things where nobody else will go. He’s made quite a few ‘finds’ of hidden away cards in warehouses and store basements and all kinds of places 99.999% of other dealers wouldn’t go. He doesn’t wait for the deals to come his way - he goes out and makes things happen. I’m a huge fan of how he’s made his fortune.

My business probably won’t be the exact same but it will require looking for funny stuff in all corners of the world to resell on my site. There are all kinds of products hidden in a forgotten about place that I need to buy for pennies on the dollar and make my own hits.

Listening to my E. Joseph Cossman tapes recently he talks about that exact thing. He’s the Mr. Mint of the mail order business and both of them were extraordinary marketers. It isn’t a secret that clever ideas plus hard work plus action in execution equal huge success.

I got to be a kid today and sort through a lot of memories from a time that wasn’t at all a pleasant period for me. Playing sports and collecting cards with my friends was one of the things I did enjoy and looking at all of those particular years all over again makes me feel a lot of things. Old is one but also experienced. I have a whole different view of it now.

Watching sports back then had life or death meaning attached to it and I looked at many of those cards today and realized that most of those guys are now in their 60s. Or 70s. Or dead. The games are all over now and I bet they all wish they could be back playing again just like I wish I could go back to that time with the knowledge I have now and start over.

I finished two sets today and that felt especially good. I completed my 1963 football set and also the very difficult 1971 Topps baseball set. They have black borders and are super challenging to get as a whole set in top condition. It‘s one of the most popular sets ever.

As luck would have it that was the first set I remember collecting as a kid. Seeing them now takes me right back to that time of opening up packs of them at Winkie’s dime store on Villard Avenue back in Milwaukee. I can still smell those sticks of pink bubble gum.

The whole set has 752 cards in it and I have hunted down every one. There are some I’ll need to eventually upgrade but for now I can say I have completed that set from total zero and made it happen from just an idea. I started buying on Ebay and kept working until the set was complete. I felt a huge beam of satisfaction as I added that last card to my binder.

The football set is also tough but I finished that one too. 1963 is my birth year and not a lot of people have a set of cards from the year they were born. I do but haven’t a clue as to what it will get me other than another feeling of accomplishment. That took a lot of effort too and putting that last card in place was like being on top of a mountain I just climbed.