All Images Courtesy of Netflix

Like many others, Ken Goldin spent his Wednesday afternoon on the New Jersey Turnpike. Unlike many others, Goldin had millions of dollars worth of collectibles in his car.

Such is life for the founder and CEO of Goldin Auctions, which eBay acquired in April. When Goldin spoke to Mantel by phone, he was headed back from the Fox Business studio in New York, where he had been promoting season two of his Netflix series, “King of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch”, and the corresponding auction featuring items from the show. Among the items in the car with Goldin and available for auction starting Wednesday evening: an unopened original iPhone, a Jackie Robinson game-used bat, and the jersey Barry Bonds wore in his final game as a Pittsburgh Pirate.

Bonds and Reggie Jackson, from whose collection Goldin secured the Robinson bat, are both guests in the latest season of Goldin’s show. Produced by Wheelhouse’s Spoke Studios, the show received an Emmy nomination for Season 1, and Goldin said the new eight-episode season is “a huge upgrade.”

“The production quality is much better,” Goldin said. “The people that work at Goldin that are part of the show are much more comfortable being on the camera, now that they've gone through it and seen the results. And the product selections we have, the consigners we work with, and the diversity of items are much more interesting.”

What are some of those items? Goldin shares more about the latest season of “King of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch” in the conversation below.

Can you give us a preview of some of the items in Season 2 that you’re most excited for people to see?

One item people are already talking about is the newly discovered T206 Wagner that 99.9% of the people watching the show will not have known about until they start watching episode one. The T206 Wagner received an SGC 5 grade, and I try to make a deal for it. 

As a lot of people saw on the preview, we've got a mummified hand on the show, and all indications point to it being from the tomb of Cleopatra. We've also got absolutely amazing rock and roll stuff in the show, too.

Since Season 1 premiered, have you had any collectors tell you they’re surprised by all that goes into running Goldin Auctions?

The funny thing is anybody who has ever been in an actual sales pitch with me where I was trying to convince them to consign, they looked at that and they go, yep, that's the same guy who was either talking to me on the phone or was at my house trying to convince me. People who work directly with me, they know what my life is like. But I think the show helps people realize all the work we put in from the photography from the editorial from the authentication to all the marketing we do to all the production behind the scenes — it's a real business. 

Is it at all surreal to you that this work has turned into a TV show?

Everything's been in stages. The first time I was asked to go on TV was back in 1989 for QVC. That was big. Then people started talking about me in 2016 for being the cheerleader for the modern card market. During COVID, I had all these people follow me because I was breaking cards on Instagram with my son Paul. So it's all been incremental. The good thing is I enjoy it. I love getting out there. I love talking to people about their collections.

Is there anything about being a reality star that you’re still getting used to?

Now that we’ve shot a couple of seasons, I know not assume that everyone watching knows what I know. So I've got to say things to a consigner that we normally wouldn't say because it’s not common knowledge to most of the people watching, so we want to explain why it's important and why this item is unique and things of that nature.

What else should people know about Season 2 of “King of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch”?

If people look at the show and say, ‘Hey, I've got a really cool item I want Goldin to sell and I'd love to get on the show,’ then contact us. We get 5,000 items that come through our door every week. So every single thing you see on the show is an item that physically came through our door that we sold or will be selling, or in the case of one very, very big item in Season 2, that we haven't quite gotten a deal on yet. Maybe by the time Season 3 starts, we will have a deal.