Slabnomics

Slabnomics Set Deep Dive: 1996 Topps Chrome Football

1996 Topps Chrome Football is the inaugural set of the most important modern chrome brand, and the market still has not priced it correctly. In the first Slabnomics set

Past Results and Predicting Future Returns in Cards

Two data-backed frameworks for buying cards in 2026. First: the psychological barrier learned from 800+ cards. Only one pattern held with strong correlation. Anchoring,

Swimming Naked: Early Warning Signs in the 2026 Card Market

The sports card market is up big. Disney is up 5x in six months. Pokemon volume is at all time highs. So the question everyone is asking: how much longer? Let's tal

Grading Mistakes in Cards: Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced

 9 grading mistakes killing your sports card and Pokémon profits broken down by skill level.  Matt covers PSA's new 50–70 business day turnaround at the $80 tier, w

PSA vs BGS vs CGC vs SGC vs TAG: Who Actually Grades Hardest

Five of the most graded cards in history. Every grade from every grader. The data says a PSA 10 is easier to obtain than most competing top grades, and the market pays fo

The $80 Floor: What Happens When Bulk Card Grading Dies

Grading built this market. Grading is now changing again. This episode traces card grading from the 1990s, when buyers and sellers eyeballed condition and negotiated it

Does This Bull Market Have Legs? (Fanatics Fest/National/Soco)

The bull run is roughly a year and a half old. People are getting nervous. Matt takes the temperature three ways: Fanatics Fest, the National, and the SoCo Expo. Three d

The Pokemon Pullback and Putrid Pulisic Performance (World Cup)

The hobby is loud. Buzz, hype, panic...and it all sounds the same until you learn which frequencies matter. Fresh off Fanatics Fest and headed to The National in Chicago

18 Years of Fantasy Football Taught Me How to Buy Cards

What do 18 years of fantasy football tell us about sports cards markets? This episode maps the five phases of dynasty fantasy football onto sports card and TCG investing

Wait, Do PSA 9s Have Better ROI Than PSA 10s?!?

Is the PSA 9 dead? Not so fast. Matt digs into three iconic cards across three sports to test a strange pattern: PSA 9s outperforming PSA 10s. He indexes every sale agai

I Ran a 15-Month Soccer Card Fund. Here's What Actually Worked.

 A 15-month soccer card investment fund, reviewed in real time during the 2026 World Cup. Why demand trickles top-down in illiquid markets, why case hits (Kaboom, Color B

Parallels, Graders, and How PSA's Submission Pause Might Affect the Market

 I looked at all 83 parallels of Victor Wembanyama's 2023 Prizm rookie and indexed every sale against his player market. The best returns did not come from the 1/1s.

All 63 Wemby Rookie Prizm Cards Ranked by Return

One Victor Wembanyama rookie card. Sixty-three parallels. Every grade, every grader, tracked from first sale to today.  Only on Slabnomics will you hear a ranking of all

Only 4 of These 1952 Topps Legends Beat the S&P 500

 Out of the 10 biggest names in 1952 Topps, only four beat the S&P 500 over 22 years.  We pulled 9,720 real sales back to 2004, ran every PSA grade through three market

PSA: The Federal Reserve of The Hobby

PSA just halted all four of its value grading tiers. The hobby is calling it a failure. We're calling it something else. PSA just acted like a central bank. This ep

Mangos, Messi, and Market Cap: The Hidden Math of Card Prices

 Sports card investing through a Wall Street lens. Matthew Worley breaks down supply, demand, and market cap mechanics using three Messi Prizm World Cup Silvers (2014, 20

Don't Buy New Card Releases!

Here's why it's a bad investment every time.  Only on Slabnomics. Weekly Newsletter Signup: Slabnomics.com 🎥Youtube 📸Instagram

Modern Cards Are Overvalued (Value vs. Growth)

174 of my own card flips:  Vintage won 62.7% of the time. Modern won 40.7%.  Value Premium, What cards are most like value stocks and growth stocks, and how to tilt a po

How To Read the Card Market Like a Wall Street Analyst

Seven Card Ladder charts. Three years of price and volume. Seven different cycle stages. This episode applies the Wyckoff Method, the 100-year-old framework finance uses

The Process I Use to Find Undervalued Cards (And the 4-Month Hunt I Walked Away From)

 This is the first time I've walked through the full Slabnomics process from start to finish. Post-mortem to pattern recognition to filter to hunt to execution decis