I had a chance to sit down with Drake McGruder to discuss his collection! The link to the entire interview is at the bottom of this post.

WaxPackHero: Drake McGruder is a sports and wrestling card collector who primarily focuses on Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, and modern wrestling cards.

He can be found on a guest on a variety of different sports and wrestling card podcasts, and he is not afraid at all to submit his questions to try to put the host on the spot.

Drake, welcome.

Drake: Mike, thank you so much for having me.

Long time listener, first time caller to the podcast, I guess we'll say.

So looking forward to the conversation.

I appreciate the introduction.

WaxPackHero:

When I look at your Instagram, pretty much the only thing I see is Peyton Manning, Drew Brees and modern wrestling cards.

How did you narrow into those being your collecting focus?

Drake:

So Peyton Manning, I grew up in the Memphis area and I was a big fan of of the, of the Tennessee Volunteers, big fan of Peyton Manning around that time.

And so I I collected him in my kind of teenage years.

And so that was kind of my, the first guy that I really got into really heavy.

My pro team is the Saints, and so when Drew joined, joined up with the Saints that was kind of a a marriage there.

And I kind of knew about Drew from a friend of mine growing up in the Memphis area by the name of David Nugent who played with Drew, Drew at Purdue.

And so I kind of knew of David and Drew's relationship and how fondly he talked about him and that sort of thing.

And so that that was kind of how I first kind of started collecting those two guys and I'll kind of expand on more on that.

But then with the modern wrestling, so growing up again in the Memphis area, wrestling was in my blood every Monday night was down at the Mid South Coliseum, you know, with my dad and was watching all the pay per views back then.

Huge fan of the Monday Night Wars with WWF and WCW and even ECW and and it was one of those things where I'm sure my parents probably were hoping I would grow out of that phase and I just never grew out of that phase.

And so kind of returning into the hobby, back in 2019, I actually listened to the old Lucas Tigers and Bronze podcast, and their first guest they had was a guy by the name of David Peck.

And he started talking about wrestling cards.

And I was like wrestling cards? I'd never heard of wrestling cards before.

I knew about wrestling memorabilia, and I had the magazines back then and that whole sort of thing.

And so he was talking about more of the vintage wrestling cards.

And so I kind of looked into those and I was like, well, you know, these things are kind of cool.

And if there's vintage wrestling cards or they're more modern wrestling cards and that whole sort of thing.

And so then I got into the modern and that sort of thing.

And then Brett McGrath from Stacking Slabs is one of my good friends in the hobby.

And one day he told me, he said Drake, you know, you and I like a lot of the same stuff when it comes to Peyton Manning.

We like the golden, shiny stuff.

And did you know there's golden, shiny wrestling cards?

And, you know, once I found out about that, I was hooked on that.

WaxPackHero:

When Did you start collecting cards? Was it with Peyton Manning or did you collect cards even younger?

Drake:

So the first cards I actually got, my aunt gave me a bunch of like 1960s, seventies and even 80s football and baseball cards right when I was about 5-6 years old.

And I looked at them and, you know, they weren't in great condition, were beat up.

But it was like, wow, this is cool.

Like, I've got a Willie Mays card or a Hank Aaron or Larry Csonka, right?

And then you know, growing up through elementary school, the hobby shops where I grew up or just right around the corner.

And so I got into a group of a bunch of friends and we got good report cards or for birthdays or things like that.

You would get, you know, your parents would get each other like boxes of cards or it was like a reward thing you got.

And actually when I was in high school, I worked in a, it was a retail sports shop and he had a section of that that was devoted to cards.

And so, you know, on the weekends when I worked there that was I essentially worked in the hobby shop so to speak and was still was essentially using what he was paying me to buy cards.

And then you know the story like everybody, I went off to college and you know you kind of get distracted by other stuff and I was still buying stuff here and there and kind of so on and so forth.

WaxPackHero:

How did that evolution happen where you really started to gravitate towards Chrome or those shiny cards versus maybe some of the more traditional vintage type stuff?

Drake:

Whenever I get a card and I and I look at it, I kind of want it to make me feel something.

And some people, when they look at vintage, they they feel nostalgia, you know, kind of one thing.

But when you look at something really shiny and I think, you know, I'm thinking in my head like the FLIR Brilliance 24 Karat Gold and some of those credentials type card and things like that.

When you hold something like that in your hand, it just, it feels very different.

It just it it has that some of those cards just have a real wow factor to them.

And sometimes when I looked at those old paper cards, I loved it for the historical aspect of it and things like that, but it didn't have the, the wow factor to me of it, you know, where you just look at it and it's like, well, you know, again, the great historical nature, but it doesn't just have those aesthetics that really hit you in the field spots, if that makes sense, number one.

And then #2 as part of my collection and my, my, my uniqueness, I like having stuff that other people don't have, right.

And so if I wanted to go out and buy, you know, a 1982 Wrestling All Stars, Hulk Hogan, let's say right now I can hop on eBay and find one.

It may not be a PSA 9 or may not be a PSA 8, but I can find a copy of that card.

But then there's other cards that again are kind of more modern type cards.

And I think of things like, you know, Hulk Hogan's Prism Gold or his Tops Chrome gold refractor auto that's out of 10.

You know, there's there's some of those cards that my copy that I have is the only one that I've ever seen for sale in the last five years.

And so that to me it it it's it's attractive to me because again I like finding stuff that other people don't have because it's just it it helps my collection become unique.

And I want a collection that is unique to me and kind of fits my my personality and collecting, collecting habits versus having something that's like, yeah, a lot of these cards are phenomenal cards and they're really great cards and and things of that nature, but it's a card you that's readily available.

Yeah, I think that's an interesting dynamic because there are some people who collect and they they love the fact that they can have a similar collection as somebody else.

They can be part of this community that there's a group of us who have those specific cards and we collect those specific cards together.

WaxPackHero:

How do you go about evaluating how much you're willing to pay for some of these cards that don't really have like a direct comparable sale to go off of?

What's your approach to kind of thinking through what you're willing to pay for for some of those rare and unique cards?

Drake:

Well, one of the things I'll say to this kind of piece of advice is it's great to have kind of like a trusted group of friends in the hobby.

Maybe they collect very similarly to you.

And you may say, hey, I think this card is never sold publicly or it's been 10 years since this is sold.

You know what like what do you think this is worth?

You know, you can use a site like Card Ladder or something like that and get an approximate value, but sometimes that may not be correct, right, Because a lot of the cards that they have, say for Peyton Manning are more liquid type cards that are going to be very volatile and kind of go up in town.

So that's one thing to kind of do is like bounce, bounce ideas off of people you know.

Another thing I've done is and I'll in thinking of you know like wrestling cards for example is I will compare similar type cards to other sports for example.

So one of the ones that gets talked about a lot that I bought was the Roman Reigns 2014 tops, Chrome Super Factor Auto PSA 10.

It's a one-on-one obviously.

And you know, right before that sale when I was thinking about buying it, you know the Jason Dominguez card, the Super Factor, one of one sold for like almost half a $1,000,000.

Wrestling is more niche.

But I'm like man, if it just seems like if I can get this Roman Reigns and come up with the money come up with the means and sell some things or you know, whatever I need to do to get this card, this just feels like a card that you know in the lower 5 figures just really seems reasonable to me.

And so it's kind of comparing values, number one.

And then the other, a couple other things that come to mind is also comparing values across sports.

WaxPackHero:

So what does your collection look like today?

Drake:

So I think, you know, not everything to me has to be like a four or five figure card. I would go broke doing that.

But I've gotten rid of all those prospect type cards, right.

But I kept, for example, I kept a Tom Brady Flair showcase rookie card just because I think it looks cool and you know, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady have some great matchups, right?

I still have the cards that my aunt gave me when I was 5-6 years old. They're they're still in a in a in a card box.

I still have tons of cards that aren't graded and I don't plan to grade and things like that.

I am getting a lot of enjoyment from cards really, no matter the price point.

For example, growing up in Memphis I'm a big fan of Jerry the King Lawler and this 2023 is a second year of Select and he only has one base black one of one.

And it came to auction and I won it last night for like 150 bucks.

It gave me as much excitement as the other big cards.

And it's it's the rare and scarce stuff.

I keep getting more rare and scarce and if I need it right then I'll kind of consolidate within my collection.

I think one of the things that I'm I'm still proud of is for both Payton and Breeze, I have every one of their tops, finest gold refractors and or gold X factors for their their entire run.

WaxPackHero:

Are there any key cards you are looking to add to your collection?

Drake:

Oh jeez.

The the problem is, is there's cards that I I want, but other people have them and you know, they either want an arm and a leg for them or they've got the, you know, true diamond hands, right.

So, you know, one that comes to mind is the Peyton Manning.

Going back to credentials essential credentials 98 future out of seven.

There's only 7 copies, and that's just one it it changes hands privately.

One hasn't sold publicly in almost three years. That'd be a phenomenal card to have.

With Breeze, I'm, I'm pretty happy with where my Breeze collection is right now.

WaxPackHero:

If somebody wants to follow along with your collection, if they want to kind of be able to see some of these awesome cards that you're you're pulling together, where can people find you?

Drake:

So on Instagram, I'm at Drake's under score PC.

On Twitter or X, I'm at Drake Mcgruder.

And then on Facebook it's Drake Mcgruder as well from Fort Smith, AR.