Guys, as the co-creator along with Leighton of AuctionWire (
www.auctionwire.ai) that was talked about on Mike's YouTube show this week, this thread caught my eye, and I wanted to share some of my own thoughts back with this amazing community.
AuctionWire was built by Leighton and me as card guys first, who love vintage and even sometimes, oddball stuff too, and spend a ton of time keeping our eye out for that next whale we hope to land for our collections. It's sure fun to do, but also typically very time-consuming and prone to overlooking and missing opportunities that come and go.
As the guy who built the new platform, I will assure you I applied almost forty years of professional experience alongside hundreds of companies around the world to help them identify areas of their own customer experiences and make them better for everyone, removing friction and other challenges from what should be simple, pleasurable processes.
In many ways, that's why I built the software. Chasing cards is a sure pleasure, but often full of friction and missed opportunities, and as a collector and member of the card community myself for most of my life, I felt a need and a calling to fix it. Hence, why I say this has been a labor of love.
To clarify some key things you guys need to know but likely may not realize, I'll tell you here this is truly a native, AI-first platform through-and-through, using the latest and best tech not just to help the search process, but to contextualize cards and other things that surface in the system, make thoughtful creative recommendations for a cool and unanticipated discovery, and in many cases, do a lot of the legwork for the user that tends to consume so much time and energy. Your sentiment here on the board about tech lacking AI at this point in 2025 and beyond is spot-on in my opinion, and the new AuctionWire would be a total "dud" if we didn't start with the experience and then the AI and only then build an application around the AI, with AI and the customer experience at the heart of it. It's just very cool, indeed.
Also, please, make no mistake, this is not just a card "search engine" because there are layers of richness throughout the tool that surface so much more value for the collector and investor, such as an upcoming arbitrage modeling system that will give the user an incredibly advantage in discovering and buying underpriced, underperforming items that deserve more love and attention than they get. It's an incredibly powerful notion that I think will become one of the "killer apps" of AuctionWire.
As for a price comping tool, I *LOVE* Bobby's VCP and pay for it and use it multiple times a day, every day, and would be constrained without it in my toolbox. Knowing this, I had no interest in building a "VCP killer" system because Bobby's offering is perfect (or close enough to perfect) at what it does; there's no need to bang into each other competitively. I have too much admiration for his hard work and don't feel the need to even try to fight that fight.
Instead, we'll do other things with pricing outside of a comping tool, such as predictions and modeling prices similar to, but better than, what CardLadder has tried to do with their modeling efforts. I believe we really have cracked the code on price models and will deliver a truly next-generation capability here that will surprise many when we activate this capability.
And, as for the auction companies and market places, as Leighton said we indeed have many but not all, but the truth is many have sought us out and asked to join our network of brands and who have contracted with us in longterm agreements to share data with us and bring collectors the best and most exciting cards and collectibles ever assembled under one roof. That said, more continue to come in and we'll continue to roll out more integrations each month as we continue to iterate on the software and push out next versions of the system.
Let me suggest this - You gotta see AuctionWire in action to appreciate what it is and why it matters. As valued members of Net54, Leighton and I will ensure you have preferred access to the system without cost or obligation for an extended test drive so you can form a real opinion based on having used it. I do not think just hearing about it via a well-done YouTube show or podcast will be enough to truly understand it. It's like the first time I saw a Tesla car on the road a dozen years ago, and I thought it was cool, but I didn't truly appreciate why Tesla, and not just any EV, was incredibly special until I test drove one. I've been a Tesla owner for 10+ years and can't see much need to switch horses ever again.
Leighton and I will make sure each of you guys gets that preferred test drive access and enough support to really put AuctionWire through its paces.
Make sense?
I can't wait for you to check it out.
Marc Mandel