May 1, 2026

Chris McGill returns for Part II E386

Show Notes
Transcript

Card Ladder/Crossover's Chris McGill is back this week for Part 2 of our conversation.

Talking points on this episode potentially include:

*State of the Hobby

*Travel Schedule

*NSCC and How We Navigate

*Hobby Burnout and How to Avoid it

*What's Your PC Like

*Evolution of Card Ladder

*Prices Realized..Vintage versus Modern.

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WEBVTT

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Sports Guard Nations, Hobbies, the People, Wheely News and Interviews.

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It's yon number one soul. Sports Gardations hobby is the people.

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Sports Gardation.

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What is up? Everybody? Welcome to three eighty six, Episode

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three eighty six of Sports Cardination. As always, glad to

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be with you as we man seven years now, as

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we approach year eight, and wouldn't have guessed that when

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I started, quite frankly, to be honest with you, and

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I want to thank our great sponsors that make this possible,

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Iron Sports Cards, Sports Collectors, Digest Hobby, Hotline, Upper Deck,

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But more importantly you out there right Without you, we

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don't exist. While I do talk to my self sometimes

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I don't really enjoy doing it. So you out there

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make what I do worthwhile and enjoyable, and not an

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episode goes by. I don't realize that and and know that,

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so thank you, all right, Part two of our Great

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Conversation with Chris. Chris McGill Card Ladder, Lacrossover just a

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great guy, a very important guy in the hobby. But

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he won't tell you that. He's a pretty modest and

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humble dude, and that's a good trait to have. But

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at the same time, he gives you the straight scoop

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as well, so he's not a word minser. I appreciate

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that about him, and we continue our conversation as I

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break these up into two part episodes. So enough of me,

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let's get this show underway.

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And that's what when I'm thumbing through my collection, I mean,

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I was just thinking, and I wonder how it works

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for you. What are all the things that run through

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my head when I get to a certain card, you know,

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and I I like, for example, I could go through

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my shoebox right now, and I know the the acquisition

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story for all of it. You know, I know I

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got this card at this show and I got it

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from this guy, or I won this on an eBay

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auction and it's nothing, it's no great story, but I

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still remember it. You know. I know where it came from.

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I know when I got it. I know what I

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was thinking. I And sometimes that can be fun too,

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you know if I won the auction because I place,

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you know, a big bid at the end, and it

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was exciting. You know. It's like there's a story to

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every card. There's an acquisition story, and then sometimes there's providence,

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like I might get to know who owned it before me,

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and how long it wasn't there collect and what it

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meant to them to let it go to me, and

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stuff like. The more the more connection I can get,

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the more the card connects me to different meaningful moments

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in my life. You know, usually those are the ones

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that I sit there and enjoy for a couple of

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seconds longer.

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That And you know that even multiple cards are tied

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to each other. It maybe I got this this and

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this card these three cards in that deal, and it

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might even be different sports, but it was just from

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that dealer.

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Uh we you know, we ni we.

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Haggled, we negotiated on price, or I traded this and

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added some cash. You know, all those things are just

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every card tells and multiple cards might tell the same

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story if it's a bigger deal as well. So there's

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just so many. It's it's like looking you know, you

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see those detective shows and they got all the suspects

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and the stuff on the wall and all the like

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strings connecting all all the leads and stuff. I look

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at cards sort of like that, but instead of suspects,

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they're their their cards, right, and people behind the cards.

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So that's how that's how I when I look through

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my stuff that I remember. Usually I'm getting older Chrys,

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so it's get a little trigger. But generally I remember

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the show or even the year, like how long I've

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had some When it comes to PC stuff, I really

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don't move it. It's once I own it, I kind

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of keep it so I know kind of what show,

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what year? You know, I went to Dallas, I remember

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picking that up there now, those sorts, And I think

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we all, I think most of us do that, and

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I think we appreciate what we have more when we

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think of more along those lines, uh than than than not?

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If you will so, so.

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Card Ladder, you know you've come a long way. Uh

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you know, I know you you were Josh and Christina

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and you know you've like so where you are today

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from from when it started? Like how how do you

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explain that? Like I know it's hard to do it quickly,

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but just like did you envision where you are today

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when you kind of I'm assuming not, but I'll ask you,

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you know, from when you you know, built that thing

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to where you are today? Like how kind of described

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that evolution?

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You will?

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Yeah, we just had a hope and a dream that

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you know, we could carve a little space for ourselves

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in the industry, and and I think the timing was right,

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and you know, the mix of people was right. The

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people that I work with at Card Letter, Josh and Christina,

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my brother Nick, and are the members of our research team.

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You know, it all just kind of it all sort

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of just fortuitously came together. And you need all of

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it at least, I think, you know, all of it

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has to click. And then once we joined the Collector's

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Family Tree and they helped us out, they infused us

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with some resources, and the research team that we have now,

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like several of them came over from other branches of

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the Collector's Company Tree and they were willing to let

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those employees come join us. And so, you know, there

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was a there was a lot of lucky things that

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happened to get to where it was. But we always

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held out the hope that you know, we'd still you know,

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we started this almost six years ago, and we always

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held out the hope that we'd still be here six

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years from now, sustaining ourselves, working in the hobby, you know,

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helping hopefully to make collecting a little bit better for people,

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make the experience a little more enjoyable or at least

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help out in some way, you know. So, I know

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it's not always enjoyable. Sometimes, Card Ladder, it can be

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an obstacle to a negotiation because there's a comp out

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there that people don't like and it's in the app

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and they get upset, you know.

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So.

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But but overall, hopefully we're providing information and even if

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everybody doesn't love us all the time, that hopefully, on balance,

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we're helping people collect better, make make more responsible decisions

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and so on.

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Now, I'll make this thing. You tell me if I'm

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right or you agree with it. I think we're seeing

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more vintage collectors use the tool and the analyst this

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than than ever before. Would would that be an accurate statement?

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Probably? Yeah?

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Probably?

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Yeah, I think that's fair.

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All right.

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The one complaint that I hear from vintage collectors, and listen,

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I'm one myself. I'm not necessarily a complainer, but I

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get the point. I've heard this statement. Tell me like right, wrong?

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Where you where? What you think about it? A lot

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of vintage collectors will use VCP. They kind of, you know,

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weigh all the scale, weigh all the sales and come

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up with like a an average and a lot of

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people say card Ladder doesn't really do that, it really

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just takes.

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The last one.

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I don't like that. And then this again, this is

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just a complaint or a commentary debt I hear. And

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now want you know, now, when I was gonna talk

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to you, I wanted to ask you, like for if

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you've heard that. I'm sure you probably have, and like,

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what's the answer, you know, what's the response to that feedback?

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If I don't want to say.

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It's great feedback, we have heard it, and uh, you know,

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to the extent that we can give that experience to

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vintage collectors, I'd love to, but but it always comes

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to trade offs, you know, it always comes to trade offs.

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And I also want to pay respect to v c P,

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which has been here since the two thousands, right, so

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that's a great product and to be compared to it

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is great.

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And say, yes, Christen, to be fair, and I don't

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mean to cut you off, but they have their they

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have their things too, Like I I can tell you

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you know, we're not going to do that, but like, of.

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Course that's totally fair, that's totally fair. And so you

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know the fact that that there's options right that people

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like the way that they do it better, especially like

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on the vintage tide, because what's that what that's getting at.

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It's a lot of vintage and pre war collectors take

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tradition of pricing things where let me take the average

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of the last ten, you know. Or I had a guy,

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a vintage collector, come to our booth at the West

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Coast Card Show and he had noteped a piece of paper.

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He said, I used card Letter and I wrote down

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the last twenty sales of the card in the grade.

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And I was like, really, how far back does that go?

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And he's like, well, I was using your database and

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I went back, you know, two years, and so I

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was like, wow, okay, Well this guy's looking at comps

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from twenty twenty four and he's taken an average and

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he wants to look at all of them, and he's

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and what he's doing, and what card letter is pretty

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good at is that, you know, if you know a

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card that you're looking for, you type it in, you

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type in the grade that you're looking for. You can

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isolate the results to only that grade, and then you

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have the picture of all of them. And so what

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he did was He wrote down all the different prices

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from the last two years, and then he wrote down

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notes about each of the images. So you know, he said,

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this one's well centered, this one was off centered, this

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one had a pinhole, et cetera, et cetera. He had

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notes for all the different ones, and so he was

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able to really dig in and like he looked at

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each sale in depth. He looked at what marketplace it

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came from. You know, he was it was in depth research.

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And I could tell he enjoyed it too, you know,

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he was. He was getting an enjoyment out of it.

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But you know, for somebody who might say, well, you

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know what, I don't. You know, I just wanted to

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just give me. If I want to look at the

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average of the last ten, give me the average last ten.

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If I want to look at the average the last five,

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give me the average last five. And there's just not

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a really clean way to do that right now. And

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we could build that, or we could talk about it,

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we could have internal discussions about it, but there are tradeoffs.

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There are tradeoffs that come with that. So like our

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sales history feature, for example, it's very simple, there's no

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extra bells and whistles from the immediate presentation. It's a

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search bar. It's a search bar into hundreds of millions

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of historical sales and you can just go. You type

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in what you want, you start getting your results, you

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start filtering them, and then you can start adding on.

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If you want to click and look at a sale,

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if you want to look at the population, we'll tell you. You know,

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you're one click away from seeing the population of this

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card and all the different grading companies using the universal

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population you know feature that lets you see this so

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many in PSA, this so many and BBG this is

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how many in SGC, et cetera. So there's lots of

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features that kind of get built onto it. But you

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know it's like we think about it, like we hear

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the feedback, we think about it. We take it into consideration.

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If we get a lot of it, you know, if

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like twenty people come up to our booth at the

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National this year especially, you really have to say it

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to Josh. Okay, you got to say it to Josh

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because he is the mastermind in the architect who is

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the developer. He's our lead developer, he's our only development.

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So you know, if he hears it from a decent

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number of people that he had really liked the ability

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to like, if I'm looking at a PSA four of

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a specific card, I'd like the ability to push a

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button and say, you know, show me the average of

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the last ten, show me the average of the last five.

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You know, if he heard that from a few people,

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he'd probably build it. He'd probably build it. So you know,

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that's that's but you know we'd have to discuss it,

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like if we do that, where do we put that button?

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What real estate does it take up on the screen?

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Do we want to add that feature? Like is that

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going to help people? Is that going to confuse people?

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And to hear from one of our great sponsors.

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250
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Rob's got you covered.

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Let's go. You are listening to the sportscard Nation podcasts.

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We have a lot of users already that really like

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the experience. And you know, with a piece of software, John,

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anytime you change something, you know, everybody who's used to

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the way it was, they get upset. So you know,

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it's a good it's it's a great point. I don't

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think we've fully addressed that concern. I think people have

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found ways to to use our tool to get to

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the result they want, but it might be a little

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different than the way it works on other apps. So

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you know, it's it's the card letters, a living, breathing software.

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Piece of software changes, it updates. You know, We've got

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some pretty exciting changes that I can't discuss but that

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we're working on that's coming out later this year. So

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you know, that's the best I got for you, John,

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is that that's kind of it.

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Was very honest answer. I appreciate that, Chris, and I

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expect that from you. And that's why I like kids

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as I do. I think, and again, I don't want

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to speak like on these spokesman for all vintage collectors

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even though I am one myself. I think there's a

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I think you agree to there's a different sort of

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between the vintage market and the ultra modern, and I

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think what vintage collectors are saying like it almost should

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be approached differently. Like your tools great. Card Lander's great,

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but you really need to do it like this for

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vintage cards. But like you said, it's sort of hard

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to do that because it would be almost across the board,

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and then the other side's going to be like, hey,

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what the heck's going on here? Why you why did

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you turn this light on?

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That's what we'd have to figure out. That's exactly what

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we'd have to figure out, is how to build in

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a functionality that the that these customers want to have,

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but not take anything away from the user experience that

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people enjoy right now. And maybe and it's we should

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be able to figure that out. Tell the vintage guys

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that go see Job. I'm telling you, tell him, go

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see Josh at the National He'll be at our booth.

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Pass that note to him. He is the guy to

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make who will make that happen the fastest? I mean,

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you can tell me too, and I'll relay it to him.

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But he really, Josh genuinely gets a thrill. It's one

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of the things that makes him so great at his job.

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He genuinely gets a thrill out of responding to what

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people want to see in the product. I mean, we

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have hundreds of things over the years that he's built

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because a customer brought it to him and he said, oh,

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you would like this, Well, let me think about how

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I can build this. And then he builds it, and

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he's done it time and time again, and he loves it.

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It's just a genuine passion, you know, because there's no

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immediate reward in that, like it might get us a

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new road.

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But and you you obviously know him, but it shows

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he cares. Right, we didn't care, he'd listen, he'd not

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shake us out. Okay, it sounds great, all right, see

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you later.

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John. It will bother him, it will He'll be thinking

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about it all night, and then he'll go he'll go

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back and then first hands he gets in front of

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his computer, he'll be like, let me see what I

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can do about that, and and he just gets a

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he gets an he gets a satisfaction out of the

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intrinsic performance of the job. You know, it's not about

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he's not getting a raise because he did that. You know,

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he just loves to do it. He just it gives

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him a I've seen it happen hundreds of times working.

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He gets a genuine satisfaction out of being able to

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build something for somebody and just to see the little

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twinkle in their eyes and they're like, wow, you did

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that for me. You know you built that because of

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my feedback, and then it's just a magical moment that

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I've seen it happen hundreds of times. So that's that's

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a little secrets. If you want it, if you want

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to get that thing built, you know, you gotta approach Josh.

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He's the guy you heard it from Chris. Like Chris said,

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I can relay it, but like cut out the middleman.

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Here, cut out the middle man. I'm just being completely

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honest because, like I could, I will present ideas to Josh,

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but you know I've got a million ideas, you know,

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and at the end of the day, he kind of

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has to be the filter, you know, and he has

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to say this is good, but we can put this

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on the back burner. But if a handful of people

336
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come up to him with the same request. He will

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take it very seriously, Yep.

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No doubt, and and listen, better to be like that

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than the the opposite right where you're just taking that

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like okay, yeah, see about it and then like let

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it go by the wayside.

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Josh, Josh can't even Josh is so funny. He can't

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even have an unready email. He has to read it.

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He has.

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I can't fix things like he can, but I I

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we we share the same like I gotta like either

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read or delete every.

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Emailing up until it's like zero.

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Yeah, that's just that's probably o CD from That's just

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00:17:01.080 --> 00:17:06.680
a meticulous attention to detail for Josh. So there's I'm

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00:17:06.680 --> 00:17:09.680
not comparing myself, but at least at least on the email,

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we're on the state. We're on the same page, all right.

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Lesten coming down the home stretch here, we got a

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00:17:15.799 --> 00:17:18.680
little bit a few minutes left here. We got the

355
00:17:18.759 --> 00:17:22.359
Chicago National coming up here in a couple of months.

356
00:17:22.599 --> 00:17:25.359
As always, I call it the super Bowl the hobby.

357
00:17:25.400 --> 00:17:28.839
I know you view it very similar. But we got Detroit.

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00:17:29.079 --> 00:17:30.559
We're gonna you know, I know we've had it in

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Chicago the last few years here as well, but Detroit

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00:17:33.759 --> 00:17:38.200
will be hosting soon here. Uh kind of your thoughts

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00:17:38.279 --> 00:17:41.079
as someone that goes to every national? Are you looking

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00:17:41.400 --> 00:17:44.000
in Chicago's great? I know what you're like, you know

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00:17:44.359 --> 00:17:48.119
your hometown, but are you looking forward to, like seeing

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00:17:48.160 --> 00:17:51.640
a new city? It'll be for I've never I don't

365
00:17:51.640 --> 00:17:54.240
believe Detroit's ever hosted, or if they have, it's been

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00:17:54.839 --> 00:17:58.160
a long time. Your thoughts on on the Detroit National.

367
00:17:58.240 --> 00:18:00.799
We're going to talk about Chicago plenty, so I thought

368
00:18:00.839 --> 00:18:02.799
I come at it with a different angle.

369
00:18:03.039 --> 00:18:06.039
Yeah, it's a great angle. So here's what comes to

370
00:18:06.039 --> 00:18:08.039
my mind. I'm just shooting from the hip here because

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I haven't really thought about it or discussed it too much.

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But it's a good topic. And the thing I think.

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A few things I think are this. I like changes

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of scenery, you know. I like that we had it

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in Cleveland, and then I liked that it was over

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00:18:20.160 --> 00:18:22.480
in Atlantics, And I wouldn't hate it if it showed

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up in some other cities too. But I also really

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like it when it's in Chicago. Got all the hotels

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close by, got that big beautiful skywalk, and all the

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00:18:32.119 --> 00:18:35.240
parking in a giant space that's actually big enough for

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this hobby, and so you know, those are important, important things,

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00:18:39.480 --> 00:18:43.039
and if it ain't broke, don't, you know, don't fix it.

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00:18:43.079 --> 00:18:44.599
Like That's kind of the way I look at it too,

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00:18:44.640 --> 00:18:46.240
So that's kind of the other side of the equation.

385
00:18:46.319 --> 00:18:49.200
But the thing that matters a lot, the thing that

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00:18:49.240 --> 00:18:51.839
matters a lot, and it's and it matters as much

387
00:18:51.880 --> 00:18:54.319
now as it ever has. It might even matter more now.

388
00:18:54.559 --> 00:18:58.640
You know, every week there are stories of shops getting

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00:18:58.680 --> 00:19:02.680
broken into, I could just getting stolen, cards going missing.

390
00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:08.079
Safety in the security of items is so important and

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00:19:08.119 --> 00:19:12.720
so ultimately change scenery. Fine, I can complain it's a

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longer drive for me, but you know what, it's shorter

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for somebody else. It all comes out in a wash.

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But we can't play games or take for granted safety

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security and just protecting people's items, protecting people's personal welfare,

396
00:19:28.039 --> 00:19:32.400

Chris McGill returns for Part II E386

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