How Ken Goldin Built a $500M Market: Attention, Hype & the Business of Collectibles

We are in an expanding market the reason where I can tell you an expanding market is when I look at a keyboard when I look at a screen I sit at an access point that is better than any other human beings access point in the entire industry better than Michael Rubin of tops better than that Turner of PSA and better than everybody because at the same time I have the ability to see all the sales and trends for all the collectible categories better going on because golden is any big company and I'm CEO of golden and corporate officer the admin of golden this is right about now with Ryan offered a radcast network production we are the number one business show on the planet with over one million downloads a month taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes you ready to start snapping next and cash and checks well it starts right about now some people sell cards some people they'll platforms and a very small group of people actually move markets today's guest has been at the center some of the biggest moments this hobby has ever seen their golden auctions he's up redefined what elite collectibles are worth and more importantly who's paying attention and with kingdom collectibles the golden touch he didn't just showcase the hobby he expanded the audience but what I respect most is this you understand that value is not accidental it's timing it's positioning it's psychology and it's discipline today want to go on beyond those headlines and I want to get into how he thinks about leverage market cycles ego risk and where this industry is actually headed glad to be here Ryan thank you for having me hey man respect dude who would have thought collectibles it would show up on netflix certainly not me when I was a 12 year old nerd sorting out my cards in my basement I've been the business for years I looked at the landscape of the industry and I said everybody who is already a serious collector they're gonna go to my website they're gonna find me what I really want to do is go to people who are the sports fans casual buy or somebody who goes into target Walmart buys a box for their kids and that's it and doesn't even go to card stores I want to reach those people I want to reach mainstream America what I've tried to do since I started golden in 2012 is bring new people into the hobby and expand the pie hopefully a lot for myself but as a result for everybody I've done marketing for 25 years for some of the largest brands in the world and you know what I'd call that Ken that's called BDI and CDI BDI is brand development you want to elevate your brand but your brand only matters when you elevate the category you've elevated the category and your brand has come along with it so it's been two dual paths is what I would define that as you are a category to find her here what's one thing maybe serious collectors consistently misunderstand about kindergarten I'm a businessman but they think that I am a businessman first or that I am in this for the money it's a money grab it's an opportunity because there have been so many people especially since 2019 that have come into the business I was doing this buying and selling cards before they were written price guides before the internet before eBay was in existence before cell phones I have been doing this my entire life and I have never made any money outside of the collectibles industry it started for me as a passion simply as a way hey I'm going to be collecting how do I afford to buy my next item I startless a little kid acquiring collections keeping what I wanted and then selling off the rest people who do not know saying oh this guy some rich business man some hot shot came into the industry selling money pot and then built a big business no that's not how it was the world kind of came to me with something I had been doing literally since the 1970s when I only knew you peripherally and didn't start studying a little bit more I thought that exact thing this guy is just a shrewd bad ass business dude and I still think you probably successful in any business your smarts intelligence and sort of business savvy raise my hand you nailed it that was what I thought I'm sure others do probably get that a lot I definitely get a lot it's fine I have always been a marketer I've always been a great business person and my business happens to be a collectible business and there's there are a lot of other auction houses that were around in 2012 that were doing five million a year 10 million a year 30 million a year I was probably when I started golden we were probably 250th in sales and then we gradually climbed up the charts until 2019 we were number two and then we overtook heritage as number one that's business skill that's marketing that's hard work and that's understanding the market and your customer end honestly a real passion for the business and a drive to be the best you understood the most important thing which is attention matters and attention is currency I look at most auction houses and I'm kind of like but what you realize is mass attention leveraging media leveraging personalities leveraging the people in the space and I think it shows your marketing chops as much as anything what was that light bulb moment for you there's a lot of things and collectibles that are storytelling moments and you got autographs and stuff that drives attention anyway but there was something or some moment that clicked for you with mainstream media being an avenue and the friends you've made and putting that out there and leveraging that into awareness I went into the business with a very acute not only the trading card industry but a significant number of athlete relationships and a lot of experience of getting comfortable in front of a camera being able to talk to a camera being able to talk to an audience when that business flow I was looking at the landscape that's when some of the auction houses were getting in trouble with bidding they were getting in trouble with selling fake items, bad authentication, I establish an auction house where we guarantee everything we sell with nobody did everybody had in their book 20 page disclaimer everything is sold as is no warranties, no representation and I'm like screw that we're gonna give every even autograph and then it may still be a catalog like this that they sold a game used item it said your receipt is your letter of authenticity were the experts and I'm like no I want to get something from the athlete I want to get some from the team I want to get some photo match all of our cards we said we're gonna use the major third party graders all the autographs we want to use proper authenticators and same for game used as well as player collections and I said here's what I wanted to do I obviously been in business for many years I didn't go into the business broke for you starting golden so I had money I started with a hundred thousand dollars and I said I'm really gonna take the Jeff Bezos approach to business my first couple years I'm going to know that I'm going to lose money and I'm going to try a bunch of stuff that I don't think had ever been done in the industry and I'm gonna throw it against the wall and see what stuck we went out and I tried to find the highest media attention items that I can get and I flew out to Las Vegas I saw my friend Pete Rose and I said Pete I'm starting an auction house I said what you got from me goes out crap you know I sold almost everything he was but there is something I think you can get I just sold this guy my banishment contract from baseball he put me in touch with the guy who bought it and we got it for the first auction at the time Darren Revelle was working for ESPN he came to the office there was a big publicity and real dog and pony show about the auction and making it special we got a lot of publicity it didn't sell because I had a reserve didn't sell that didn't matter because I got a lot of eyeballs I got a letter of registrations we did eight hundred thousand dollars in our first auction everything sold tremendously there was a hurricane in the middle of it I stopped the auction I was hurricane Sandy and we said okay I donated fifty thousand dollars worth of merchandise that I had we auctioned it off to the Red Cross and just generated a lot of publicity I just tried a lot of things I did a deal with Dupont Registry you know why they sell really expensive cars people of money I figured go there I did a deal with the robbery port I did a 10 page insert into the robbery port in 2013 with almost no revenue I won people to know about gold I did everything I could in the first two years of business to gather a large audience and I think that that user base that I established whereas everybody else's was stale mine was brand new they were newly energized people a lot of it was becoming international because of all the media it was a lot of new money that wanted to spend money collectibles that business approach of being willing to spend money being willing to go out lose money and say I don't care how much I lose I want to build market share until I'm in a position to really compete that's what set golden up for the future where it is today that's called branding building brand over time sometimes the product isn't the product sometimes the product is the marketing a lot of people don't know that I've been out for for ten years you got to pay the bills you got to do things you got pressure to want to be successful and make profit but sometimes in those early stages you can kind of sabotage that for the law you just playing the short game since you understood the long game that was involved in building the golden brand when I started the business I said to my wife if I can build this up to a ten million dollar your business I can do this comfortably for the rest of my life stress free and I'd be happy with the ten million dollar your business I didn't know I'd be pushing half a billion that's how good business is good marketing and good industry take hold ten a million dollar car lands on your desk was the first things that you evaluate is this something we have on consignment or is this something we want to get we just talked about builds towards things landing in your lap sometimes someone walks in the door a friend of a friend a million dollar item or card lands there what are we evaluating when I look at the card and say hey who is this going to appeal to is it sports and on sports and then let's say it sports is it vintage or is it modern when I determine what it is and let's say there is obviously a difference in the way that I would market a PSA 10 showers or Pikachu Illustrator versus a 52 tops mantle versus a T206 Wagner or versus a Cooper flag Superfactor for example they're all going to appeal to different people I really need to look at the card find out why it's worth that much who is collecting that is it something that is leaning more towards hey I need to fill a spot in my collection because this is a holy piece like a Wagner or is this something hey I believe that Victor Rebanyama is going to win five MVPs and this could turn a million dollars into a five million dollar card and then it's therefore my job to explain not only who Wembe is but more importantly this particular card why this card is unique for example we've got a card right now in the gold one hundred I'll use an example Victor Rebanyama it is his tops chrome Superfactor it is his first ever NBA licensed autograph Superfactor and to me that makes it his most important card it's the first top chrome card that was issued since the 2008 2009 season it's autographed it got a high grade of an 8.5 a lot of these supers you're even seeing people getting authenticated to me that is a key card it's up to me to not only put together a package that explains why this card is important the on card autograph the history of top Superfractors the mysteries surrounding cards like the missing Steph Curry Superfactor this is the first Wembe where are the people that wants to buy this card how do I reach them and then on behalf of my consigner how do I get above expectations because comps are one thing what we want to do a golden is we want to drastically exceed comps on all of the high end cards right now in our vintage auction we had a 52 man all SGC 7.5 sold at RIA 8 months ago for 250,000 at the time of recording this it's 520,000 dollars on golden I think that is a result of our videos our photography our tremendous user base that is so much bigger than anybody else's but that's really when people comes us with the big items that's really what they want us to do is hey I'm looking to get several octaves above the comp and this is what you guys are the specialties you know special set you think about like what increases the value of something and it just dawned on to me you got PSA okay you great it and that changes the value but now golden is a product the layer on these collectibles that's a multiplier a lot of what you're describing because of the marketing and cache a that your brand will apply to a high in collectible I think it's the cache a people think I've seen tweets bucket list sell something on golden bucket list buy something off gold but the ability is the importance is when I'm dealing with a card like that let's say it's a jersey whatever it is that high figure I can tell somebody I promise you it is going to sell for ex price what I can tell him is on the day the auction closes what I'm going to guarantee you is there will not be a single human being on the planet who might have possibly been interested in this card and has the money to buy it that will not know it's on golden dot com right now and it's closing tonight that's all you can do that's all you can do and that's a bigger problem people realize that because a lot of times it's like just people being aware that something is available but when you kind of reach the depths and the width that you guys do at the level that you do you turn it over every coin you're hitting every target that they have this is a Facebook ad you've got every eyeball that could be on it that would be interested checked on it goes back to marketing prowess as much as anything talk with Ken golden Ken you kind of answered this but I'm going to let you put a fine point on it there's a lot of curiosity out there you hit we're kind of in a peak or not a peak but a high point right now with both awareness interest and maybe prices are we in a long term maturation phase or another setup cycle if we did hit it kind of a downturn which segment holds strongest vintage high end or modern we are in an expanding market the reason where I can tell you an expanding market is when I look at a keyboard when I look at a screen I sit at an access point that is better than any other human beings access point in the entire industry better than Michael Rubin of tops better than that Turner of PSA and better than everybody because at the same time I have the ability to see all the sales and trends for all the collectible categories that are going on eBay because golden is an eBay company and I'm CEO of golden and corporate officer the admin of golden every day I can see how many new users I'm getting how many new bidders how many people are applying for credit how many people are asking to have their bid limit raised how many bids a day we're getting how that compared to a week ago how that compared to a month ago how that compared to a year ago what my average ASP all this information that people would kill themselves to get I see it all the time and I walk around with my iPad and I'm looking at all the time I can tell people from an educated point that the market is still expanding that there are people from other countries that are getting into it that there are pockets around the world that never bought collectibles in general but certainly never bought cards that are now buying cards we are in a market that is continuing to grow I expect with the fanatics impact and with more money being spent by the leagues and marketing I expect that we will continue to expand the collector base but expanding the collector base does not necessarily mean a smooth ride for prices it does not necessarily mean a guarantee of prices going up because there is a lot of fluff when we have repack businesses that can be selling multiple repack companies that are digital repack that can be doing five hundred million dollars a year recycling the cards over and over and over again the same created cards and the buybacks and this and that and everything else like that there is certainly a lot of risk built into the market and people should understand that this is a market that is built on a significant amount of risk and they should be engaging business accordingly at some point certain things will go down my viewpoint always is whatever goes down least is going to be both the least speculative of everything as well as the longest running to me it's an obvious answer to me I think that the most speculative and the market that has been on fire the most has been the TCG market especially Pokemon around the past two years anybody who's been dealing with business and now you have one piece that everyone's buying one piece because they want to will one piece into being the next Pokemon and they want to get those get they're doing what they do with friggin NFL draft pick quarterbacks they're projecting a guy to win three super balls when he before is played a game in the NFL and they're pricing that into it that's how people get burnt that would be to me the riskiest only because it's the newest and it's the most fluffed up over the past few years the safest is going to be vintage specifically the boring vintage baseball nobody is going to lose money buying the key metal card it hasn't happened for 70 years I had my harman killer brew will be maize and Mickey Mantle Sidney and 68 fence busters this is 1968 superstars tops and then I brought this because you pulled two of them okay oh god there you go burn mash again yeah I pulled it oh right at him right oh my god I'll get you oh send me that again as a thank you that's awesome dude vintage baseball oh my basketball is no good what basketball has is outside of soccer basketball is the most international of all the sports vintage baseball has the oldest the most boring the longest running and the largest collectors those are the people who will literally keep their collection and sell their house these are people who have been doing it for 10 20 30 40 50 years vintage baseball to me is the safety net of the hobby it is the backbone of the hobby that everything has been built upon over all the years we're going to underline and circle that for everyone as a key takeaway let's talk about the future and I am going to hold up my four sport this guy I did not know that was you this is four sport 94 93 was the better year 94 than the year you got a big dog Glenn Robinson's rookie card in there he's probably on the box cover you probably have a ride inserts in there you might have Derek Jeter inserts in there it's not racing yet we didn't do racing I'm trying to remember it was kid it's a kid on the side and kid yeah just a kid rookie year that paid manning no great no paid manning was 90 grand hill is working in there yeah great hill oh yeah hockey I'll recognize the baseball players that Marshall fall on the side yeah Marshall fall yeah yeah that was his rookie yeah I've opened I've ripped a few of these I do this the problem is back in the day we used a UV coding the cards were done with something UV coding now unless they were kept like really cold when you open them it's going to be like opening up the old tops chrome where you got on sometimes may have to peel some of the cards can what would you do a 20 minute rip with me sometimes where I open this with you on sure we can open up some old classic I've got a lot of old classic product here I've got the old four sport and the funny thing is we tie saw tops is inserting a Mickey Mantle 52 tops Mickey Mantle I had a license with Mickey Mantle in 90's and with Mickey Mantle state and we put out a set after a past called the Mickey Mantle shoe box collection it was I believe a hundred original Mickey Mantle cards and in every box was a vintage Mickey Mantle card produced between 57 and 69 every box had invented now obviously some of them could be leader cards some of them could have been checklist cards but there was a 52 manual redemption it was crazy but yeah that was cold that's one of my favorite products of all time if anybody ever has any of those boxes they want to sell me do it I'll do a live open on my ij we have a false start with fractional ownership you think that ever comes back in a smarter form fractional ownership is legitimate it's kind of like stocks there are a lot of people at one to own their collectibles but there are a lot of people right now that want to own a piece fractalized has to be done probably by people who may not be in the industry now that do it as a that are true investment funds and do it as really SCC no I rarely did it the right way they did it with SCC filing but the problem is that the trading was an issue there was too small and they got into it during the covid and then everything just went down and spoiled everybody a lot of their problem was timing because conceptually they did it right but I think a very large fund that is very well equipped goes out and buys key assets I don't think they do it into 5,000 pieces I think that you create a fund and say hey we're going to do the vintage card fund and our goal is we want to own these 20 pillars I can give somebody a list these are the 20 cards I would buy they go out and get these cards in the best affordable grain I say affordable because again I'm going to go 52 tops it's going to be tough to buy a nine and no matter what the price is you can't get one from somebody it's going to be like 12 million but you can get a nice eight and then you can get like a classic gaudy roof and things like that Clemente rookie and basically let maybe a hundred people own the fund and that's their version of fractalizing and then they could do a modern card fund and they can get squizz at LeBron and they can get the key suit a different super and things like that you know where it is different type of funds where okay fine I'm not going to put in 50 bucks in on a small piece maybe I put in 10,000 or maybe I put in a thousand but some higher threshold level and more sophistication but there's no reason that that should not be able to work and you don't have the trading though what I think you do is that you say the purpose of the fund is we're going to do it and we're going to hold it for five years and then we're going to sell it unless we get an outrage is offered people look people can say the fund owns this at two million I'm going to go in and off the three and a half and see if 51% of the people will take a buyout I felt like I had a positioning and marketing problem they needed to be marketed non collectors marketing collectors again it gets into that whole I'm emotionally tied to it and in fractional ownership I'm not saying you can't have a group of guys that I'll go in on time they're all love mantle but it needs to be more true investment and lacking that all right rapid fire here's we close out can most underrated sport to collect right now it's gaining WWE I'm in shock by some of the prices that stuff is going for I'm just blown away one athlete whose market is mispriced up or down willy maze willy maze is always been undervalued compared to his peers one card you wish you personally owned teatro six honest Wagner I do not own one I own a complete teatro six set minus the Wagner toughest negotiation you've ever handled I would say people probably saw dealing with Jim Tobin fell in Puerto Rico with the basketball collection very difficult to deal one behavior collectors should stop immediately I would say he's the most important behavior buying something without bankroll management bankroll management is so critical to this people need to understand and need to have budgets in place before they start buying what would you tell a new card shop owner go to other card shops and find out what's successful for them make sure you get supply connections make sure you're in a great spot make sure you've got a great community with community support build your social media you absolutely have to build your social media because if you're a card shop and you have great social media you never have to spend money advertising or marketing he is can golden he is a market mover he's an innovator I really appreciate it can spend fun thank you been great great talking here can drop where people can keep up with you people that might be listening that haven't seen you the show or something sure all the details and companies golden dot com gol dion dot com is the website and I am at can golden everywhere so I'm at can golden on X at can golden on Instagram on Facebook at can golden on tiktok and hey everybody out there on YouTube all on my YouTube we just set up a new YouTube for me at can golden and you get a lot of behind the scenes stuff and Netflix go to Netflix watch can of collectibles the golden touch from episode one season one up through the end of season three and wait for season four season four coming we hope so can it's been a pleasure I really appreciate you for coming on and hope to stay connected and hope to rip some horseport with you will do some old classic product right hey guys you need to find us look we're bringing you the best the brightest the movers the shakers the people that are moving this industry forward we appreciate can for coming on so gracious with this time you can see the passion man he's not just a businessman he is a collector at heart and so are all of us we'll see you next time this has been right about now with Ryan Alford a radcast network production visit Ryan is rake.com for full audio and video versions of the show order one choir about sponsorship opportunities thanks for listening