QBs to watch (says AI), new releases and predictions coming true

The Washington Post via Getty Images

I suppose I should address this up front, but I’ve been getting a lot of slack about mynewsletter last week, as it may have been construed as me taking a swipe atThe Hobby Awards and ultimately my boss,Evan Parker, who had omitted me from being a celebrity judge for the upcoming awards.

I just want to clear the air: you interpreted correctly. Shove it, Evan.

But also, check this out. Last Tuesday I wrote:

Deep Sleeper Collectible of the Year

Gina Carano is currently suing Disney and her acting star was on the rise before she got fired from The Mandalorian. She is probably in line for a comeback soon — and the Carano market has managed to stay remarkably strong despite her cancellation – autographed card prices aren’t the deals you think they would be.

Then, on Friday,this happened: “Lucasfilm and Disney settle with actor Gina Carano following her firing from ‘The Mandalorian.’”

I am literally out here making lawsuits go away with my newsletter. I’m shaping culture! Your move,Buster.

With football around the corner it seems like everyone is hype about the big-ish six sophomore quarterbacks. Drake Maye, Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, Bo Nix, Michael Penix, Jr., and J.J. McCarthy are getting a ton of hobby love.

Arena Club, the trading and “slab pack” platform ran a high-end $2,500 per card “legendary” slab pack over the weekend. Yes, that’s $2,500 for one card from one of those six quarterbacks. The “grail” card, which you have less than a 0.10%chance of hitting, was a Jayden Daniels Donruss Optic Downtown Gold rookie /10 graded PSA 9, which is comped at over $22,000.

The law of averages tells us that not all of these dudes will and can succeed, so instead of researching who I think might be a good “investment” I went ahead and asked Google Gemini’s AI bot to tell me what to do.

While the bot didn’t want to provide financial advice it clearly favored Caleb Williams, still, despite his struggles last season and in spite of Jayden Daniel’s incredible rookie season.

Gemini insists that Williams has the “highest ceiling” but it also favored, quite a bit, J.J. McCarthy due to him “landing in the most favorable situation.”

I’m not here to tell you that to follow the advice of AI— I’m mostly here to remind you of the following “can’t miss” “high ceiling” quarterbacks: Zach Wilson, Trey Lance, Daniel Jones, Mac Jones, Landry Jones, Cardale Jones, James Earl Jones - oh, wait, sorry he wasn’t a quarterback. My bad, it’s hard to keep up with the Joneses.

…That was a long set up for a not-worth-it punchline but just a friendly reminder that spending $2,500 (or more) on a sophomore quarterback rookie card doesn’t always end up being a “good investment.”

Hope you didn’t miss the pre-order of theTopps Chrome Boxing release on Monday. It’s the first time in 74 years that Topps released boxing trading cards. I know that boxing isn’t quite on the trajectory that it was 74 years ago, but if you’ve been reading this newsletter for a minute then you know I’m a sucker for new shiny things [a sentence I type will sitting on a chair made of 2023 Monopoly NBA Prizm blaster boxes that I bought as a retirement plan].

Speaking of Topps, the 2024 GPK Battle of the Bands -Green Day edition - pre-sales sold out respectfully fast. If you missed out, you still have a chance to buy on release day, which is August 27th. This product is quite the procrastinator’s dream since this is a [checks the date on the box once again] twenty, twenty-FOUR release.

Leaf, I love you, but you’re bringing me down. It’s not that I’m againstwhatever this isactually supposed to be - or should I say who this is meant for - but I feel like this is one of those situations where a release like this can instantly sink the entire Livvy Dunne auto market.

I’m not sure we need any more Livvy Dunne autos. We have enough on the market already to satisfy every man woman and child and teenage boy.

It feels like this is the WNBA Royalty version of Panini making you spend $2,000 on a Prizm hobby box to chase Caitlin Clark rookie autos only to, months later and pretty much under the radar, release the Royalty collection which made all those Prizm autos feel “meh.”

Maybe I’m being too much of a prude, but the absurdity of this card makes her normal cards seem too “normal” to be anything special.

On the pro-Leaf front, so you know I’m not hating on them - I think theLeaf Anime Nation cards are highly, highly underrated. They tap into generational phenomenon (anime) that in a decade from now will still be highly popular and desirable. Like the Panini Manga cards but, you know, affordable.

Hey, now! This guy has over 95,000 uniqueTopps Now cards. I actually love the Topps Now set, but man that’s a lot. Though, I guess if you ever want to look back at Jose Altuve’s 9th double on a Tuesday while Mercury was in retrograde, you can thumb through the collection and look back fondly on that amazing feat.

How did everyone hold up at The National? Tons of people are sharing their purchases, grails and stories over atMantel. Come share!