Latest / Sports Card Clubhouse / Talking Sports Card Scams and Fanatics Is Tone Deaf! Surface Issues - Episode 5

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Talking Sports Card Scams and Fanatics Is Tone Deaf! Surface Issues - Episode 5 · Sports Card Clubhouse

• 0:00
  In our massive country, there are card collectors throughout
• 0:03
  the land participating in the hobby.
• 0:06
  There's Mike of Junk Wax Hero and Greg of Midlife Cards, and
• 0:11
  while distance may separate them, here is where they come
• 0:15
  together to talk cards. Hey buddy, how's it going?
• 0:21
  It's such a great, great tune to kick us off.
• 0:24
  I love it. I I'm going to say it, I think
• 0:25
  every time for years. We're going to get so sick of me
• 0:27
  mentioning it. Yeah, it's a it's a really good
• 0:30
  one and it's just kind of playful and whimsical and and
• 0:34
  fun, just like us it. Feels a little bit like the Curb
• 0:40
  Your Enthusiasm theme. Yeah, yeah, I could see that.
• 0:43
  Circusy, my family would hear, I would, I would.
• 0:50
  They didn't watch Curb. And I'd be in the other room and
• 0:53
  I'd have Curb playing and they'd hear the intro and the outro
• 0:56
  music and they referred to it as like the carnival circus music.
• 1:01
  And I would be in the other room just laughing where they'd hear
• 1:04
  me throughout the house because that nothing gets me roaring
• 1:08
  more than Curb. Yes, All right, so.
• 1:13
  It's been a week, so a few things have happened in the last
• 1:16
  week. Some new videos on the sports
• 1:22
  card clubhouse platform, whether it be in the YouTube or the
• 1:29
  podcasting arena, one of which was yours.
• 1:33
  Tell us about that. Yeah, a new series called So You
• 1:36
  Want to Be a Dealer, which is a rotating series with every other
• 1:40
  week I'll have So You Want to Be a content creator and each one
• 1:44
  I'll interview a dealer and on the other end of it, I'll
• 1:46
  interview a content creator in this coming week.
• 1:50
  I guess I'll announce it right now because by the time this
• 1:52
  first airs on Saturday, I will have have the episode in the can
• 1:56
  as they say it is, which I've never said before, never will
• 1:58
  again, I promise. But this person is Adam Gray.
• 2:03
  I always want to say Adam West, and I know it's not Adam West,
• 2:07
  but Adam Gray, who is a mostly basketball content creator on
• 2:13
  Twitter and Instagram and he also does some YouTube and he's
• 2:16
  just really interesting and really good and surprisingly
• 2:18
  tall. I saw him at the National.
• 2:21
  I didn't get a chance to talk to him cuz when I saw him he was
• 2:23
  talking to somebody else and then he was gone.
• 2:25
  And I was shocked to find that he might actually be taller than
• 2:28
  me. And I'm 6 foot 2.
• 2:30
  I would guess that he's 6/3 or 6/4.
• 2:32
  We're going to get to the bottom of it on that video.
• 2:33
  How tall is he? That's the only reason I'm
• 2:35
  having him on. I don't like him already because
• 2:37
  I think he's taller than me. Yeah, I mean, that's the
• 2:39
  important thing, is to make sure about that.
• 2:42
  That's right. Yeah.
• 2:43
  So I, I'll be honest, I was asked this morning by our friend
• 2:47
  Theo, have I heard the first episode yet?
• 2:51
  And I said no because my commute is 25 minutes and I am on my
• 2:56
  third leg of the oh man, I'm going to mess it up.
• 3:02
  Jake wax pack wisdom and Matt from Providence, the hit list.
• 3:07
  I was on leg three of the hit list.
• 3:10
  And then I was and then I'm starting you and your, your
• 3:13
  episode with Chris. And I just finished the hit
• 3:16
  list. Like just finished it maybe 5
• 3:19
  minutes ago. They're better anyway.
• 3:21
  Priorities. I understand.
• 3:23
  No, it's just, you know, so couple things you wanted to talk
• 3:28
  about today. You had a video that posted
• 3:30
  earlier in the week. Tell us about that and your
• 3:34
  thoughts on it. Yeah, so I did a video somebody
• 3:38
  posted in this Facebook sports card scammer tracker group.
• 3:43
  I think that's roughly what it's called about a scam, and I had
• 3:47
  never heard of it before. And nobody in the scammer
• 3:49
  tracker group had heard of this before.
• 3:51
  Even the admins seem to have heard of this scam before.
• 3:54
  And then somebody posted about it on Twitter and it went viral
• 3:59
  over there. And I did this video and as of
• 4:01
  now on Thursday evening, it has my video has 12,000 views, which
• 4:05
  is bonkers for a video of me. I haven't had a video get that
• 4:08
  many views over a year. I would guess I just don't post
• 4:14
  that kind of content that that often anymore because it's I
• 4:18
  don't know, I just this one really grabbed my attention and
• 4:20
  I said I got to do a video because this is a really
• 4:22
  complicated scam and I think people need to be cautious of
• 4:26
  this. And the way it worked is, and
• 4:28
  I'll explain this very quickly, a scammer convinced one person
• 4:32
  to sell him cards and he also convinced another person to buy
• 4:36
  cards from him and he had one of them pay the other while he had
• 4:41
  the other one who had been paid ship him the card.
• 4:45
  So he got cards for free, the person he was buying them from
• 4:48
  was paid, but the person who was paying was out the money.
• 4:53
  And it's terrifying how easy it was.
• 4:56
  And there are a lot of red flags.
• 4:57
  There are a lot of things that people need to be cautious of.
• 5:00
  For instance, bypassing. Don't let somebody bypass the
• 5:03
  PayPal or you shouldn't be bypassing the PayPal address.
• 5:06
  If you're the seller, somebody pays you with PayPal, you have a
• 5:11
  default PayPal address in there and you need to ship to that
• 5:15
  address. And if somebody says no, I need
• 5:16
  you to ship this to my business partner or something like that,
• 5:19
  say no, I'm shipping to the address on your PayPal.
• 5:22
  If you need to change your address, you do that before I
• 5:25
  ship. You would think that that would
• 5:29
  solve everything. You would think going through
• 5:31
  the platform of eBay, for example, would solve everything.
• 5:34
  And I listened to I, I listened to your video couple of days
• 5:39
  ago. What was it?
• 5:40
  Maybe what was? Tuesday that I posted yeah,
• 5:42
  we're. Recording this on Thursday, I
• 5:44
  listened to it Tuesday afternoon and I was driving and I'm not
• 5:49
  very smart. I was having a little bit of a
• 5:51
  hard time going. Wait, so he, what was he?
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  He did what? Like Needless to say, people are
• 5:57
  getting creative and have always been creative.
• 6:00
  I tell my students all the time, if you worked as hard to just do
• 6:04
  your work as you are finding a way to cheat, you would actually
• 6:09
  have an easier time being successful.
• 6:13
  Some of the cheating scandals I've had in my classes are just
• 6:18
  truly genius really. And so I am well versed in this
• 6:25
  sort of thing. But when we were talking this
• 6:28
  morning, I said, well, I'm going through a scam right now.
• 6:34
  And you were like, really? And I said, yeah, like literally
• 6:39
  right now you're scamming somebody.
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  What's that? You're scamming somebody.
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  No, no, no, I couldn't live with myself.
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  I'm so I have I am so hard on myself.
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  If I ever do anything to somebody that could come across
• 6:53
  as like harsh. I just like can't sleep at
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  night. That's that's my I put myself
• 6:58
  through trauma. So I'm looking at my screen over
• 7:02
  to the side here and making sure I get the details right.
• 7:05
  So a 1989 Columbus Clippers, this is a true story.
• 7:12
  This is happening right now. 1989 Columbus Clippers, Bernie
• 7:17
  Williams, Cracker Jack, Columbus police card.
• 7:21
  OK, just a Bernie Williams minor league card.
• 7:24
  As a Yankee fan, I'm like, I saw that and I'm like, I want that.
• 7:28
  So the guy I I watched it the guy was asking I think $25 on it
• 7:35
  and he made me an offer of 20 and I countered him at 15.
• 7:42
  So I paid $15.00 for this card and sent APSA 9 holder if that
• 7:46
  matters to you feels. Like a good deal.
• 7:49
  Yeah, and this is a good deal. I mean, I looked at comps and
• 7:52
  and comps are in like the low 20s, but I was like 15 bucks.
• 7:55
  I want this Bernie Williams card because Bernie's Bernie's a junk
• 7:58
  wax arrow guy, era guy. So even his rookie card, there's
• 8:01
  just bazillions of them. It's like Randy Johnson kind of
• 8:04
  thing. And so I'm like, I want the
• 8:06
  card, so I bought it. So I bought it on.
• 8:10
  I'm looking at the screen right now, August 5th, I paid $15 for
• 8:14
  the card, $4.80 in shipping and $1.16 for tax for a total of
• 8:21
  $20.96 that I paid for this Bernie Williams card.
• 8:26
  All in just under $21.00. So I waited and you know, I'm
• 8:31
  always kind of buying stuff and I sell stuff on eBay.
• 8:33
  So you know, you get notifications of things being
• 8:36
  shipped and oh it's, you know, this and that.
• 8:38
  And I got a notification a couple days later. 2-3 days
• 8:41
  later it says the card has been shipped and there's a tracking
• 8:46
  number and the person. Dropped off with USPS I'm
• 8:50
  guessing. Or they just printed out the
• 8:53
  label because it said it said printing number, tracking number
• 8:58
  identified, but it didn't have, I mean, I can click on track
• 9:04
  track package right now and it says tracking number provided
• 9:10
  and that was done on Friday, August 8th.
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  So, so three days. This is August 8th right now.
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  It is currently October 9th. So I bought the card on August
• 9:20
  5th. On August 8th, a tracking number
• 9:25
  was identified in New Jersey. And you know those New Jersey
• 9:29
  guys, you know all those New Jersey guys, right?
• 9:33
  And so I, I waited and I didn't really think anything of it
• 9:40
  because it's a $15 card. It's like not that big a deal.
• 9:43
  It's like one of those things you forgot.
• 9:44
  Oh yeah, I bought this when it shows up and 2-3 weeks go by and
• 9:49
  I'm like the card hasn't showing up.
• 9:52
  I mean, he probably sent it ground, you know, it's probably
• 9:54
  like the slowest economy thing ever.
• 9:58
  And finally like I just kind of forgot about it and after about
• 10:02
  a month I said I never got that card.
• 10:04
  So I went back on and it said it was tracking number on August
• 10:10
  8th. So I'm like what the heck.
• 10:12
  So I messaged the seller, I said, hey, what's the status on
• 10:17
  the card, 'cause I'm like, maybe he printed the label, forgot
• 10:20
  about it. It's sitting in a pile, right?
• 10:24
  Yep. Never responded.
• 10:26
  And I'm like, huh. So I, you know, I waited, I gave
• 10:29
  him three or four days and then I went to eBay to see what
• 10:33
  'cause this is an eBay deal. And I go, I go to eBay.
• 10:36
  I go, what can I do? So, you know, it's like, what do
• 10:38
  you do in this situation? And it says first you have to
• 10:41
  contact the buyer after you contact the buyer again then you
• 10:45
  can open a case. OK so I send the message Hey
• 10:51
  dude I probably just really busy but my card that I bought a
• 10:56
  month ago, any update on that? Now when I bought the card his
• 11:00
  his rating was like 9697% 'cause I looked at it I'm like uh oh
• 11:07
  did I buy it from a guy with like 0 sales?
• 11:10
  It was a lots of sales, about a 9596% rating, which isn't good,
• 11:16
  but it's not total. Disaster.
• 11:18
  His rating has spiraled since then.
• 11:20
  Oh yeah, so his rating is now around the 90% mark.
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  Here's where I have to ask. Maybe he died.
• 11:28
  In all seriousness, yeah. Yeah, I mean it, that's not
• 11:33
  impossible. But I did also look at some of
• 11:37
  his other sales and he has gotten some positive feedback in
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  you know how it says like last month, last six months last year
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  or something like in the last month he's had some positive
• 11:47
  feedback. So anyway, SO has.
• 11:52
  It gotten negative feedback in the past month where people are
• 11:56
  saying they didn't receive their item.
• 11:58
  In the past six months he has. I'll pull it up right now.
• 12:04
  By the way, the name of his eBay store is Kind Collects.
• 12:10
  It's probably his last name. So he's now at 9090.8% positive
• 12:17
  feedback. 636 cards sold in the in this feedback in the past six
• 12:23
  months. Lots of positives.
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  That means one out of every 9 feedback items he has received
• 12:30
  is negative. That's not good.
• 12:32
  It's not good, nothing in the last month, but in the last six
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  months, 35 positives, 1 neutral, 5 negatives.
• 12:42
  So let me give you an update on where we're at.
• 12:44
  So then I didn't hear back and it said I went to open a case
• 12:48
  and said now you can open a case.
• 12:49
  So I opened a case with eBay and I'm thinking, oh, they're going
• 12:53
  to e-mail me and say hey, we're refunding you your money. eBay
• 12:56
  never responded. And I'm like, that seems weird.
• 13:00
  So I again, I just kind of forgot about it.
• 13:02
  I got stuff going on, I got life.
• 13:04
  And this is a $15 Bernie Williams card, you know, and.
• 13:10
  I'll mail you in 1990, tops Bernie.
• 13:11
  How's that? Well, well, so I, I looked like
• 13:17
  like a week ago and I, I was like, what the heck, eBay.
• 13:22
  So when I saw your story, I'm like, what's going on with my
• 13:26
  case? So I go back in there and I
• 13:29
  click on it and it says like like look at the case update,
• 13:33
  case update or case status and it says money back guarantee no
• 13:39
  longer available because it was like 57 days ago that the sale
• 13:46
  was finalized and this person doesn't accept returns.
• 13:49
  And I'm like, wait a second, it's.
• 13:52
  Just not even the returns are only good for people who mail
• 13:56
  the card, right? So that the, but it said we
• 14:00
  can't help you. Like it's it the eBay thing.
• 14:02
  So then I go, I go like it says like contact us.
• 14:06
  So I click on that like, oh, I'm contacting you and it pulls up
• 14:09
  and click that hard, the virtual assistant over to the side
• 14:13
  right. The virtual assistant is now
• 14:15
  helping me. And I say to the virtual
• 14:18
  assistant, which is, you know, AI, I said, hey, yeah, got an
• 14:23
  issue with the purchase. And it says, which one is it,
• 14:26
  this or this or this? I click on it and it says,
• 14:29
  sorry, we can't help you. That sale was 57 days ago or
• 14:33
  whatever. And I'm like, what?
• 14:35
  Like that's the point. So I'm thinking to myself, I'm
• 14:38
  like, OK, if I were to go back, what should I have done
• 14:41
  differently in this sale? Like you have to wait for the
• 14:45
  card to show up and then once the card doesn't show up after,
• 14:49
  you know, 2-3 weeks, you're like, OK, now I'm going to do
• 14:52
  something. Then you contact the guy, then
• 14:54
  you have to wait a few days and he doesn't respond.
• 14:58
  Then I can open the case. So then the case is opened and
• 15:02
  and then, then you check in on the case and they say we can't
• 15:05
  help you. It was too long ago.
• 15:07
  Like that's, that's the whole point.
• 15:09
  It was happening. So I can't get anybody on the
• 15:12
  phone. So I was, it was the start of
• 15:15
  school today, today. And you brought this topic up.
• 15:18
  I said, what is the status of my case?
• 15:20
  And it said we can call you in like 4 minutes if you click on
• 15:24
  this. And like the bell was about to
• 15:25
  ring. And I'm like, I can't have them
• 15:28
  call. I can't have eBay calling me
• 15:29
  right now about my Bernie Williams guard.
• 15:32
  So so I think I got scammed out of $21.
• 15:36
  Yeah, I think you did too. And I think you're you're
• 15:41
  smarter scamming people out of $21.00 than you are scamming
• 15:44
  people out of 1200 like the one in my video, because people are
• 15:48
  going to drop it over 21 dollars.
• 15:50
  People will not let it go over $1200 the vast majority of
• 15:54
  people. That's a lot of money for most
• 15:56
  people. $21.00 is a lot of money for far fewer people than $1200
• 16:02
  is. I mean in California that'll buy
• 16:05
  me like 3 gallons of gas. I don't know what the price of
• 16:11
  gas is, but I, I don't, I don't doubt it.
• 16:14
  It's over $5. It's $3.10 I think I filled up
• 16:19
  this morning for. It's over $5 and it's going up
• 16:23
  because there was a refinery fire out here the other day, so
• 16:30
  we got things styled in. Yeah, this is really good radio,
• 16:33
  by the way. Scam talk.
• 16:35
  Scam talk. Yes, we should.
• 16:36
  This is our new podcast Talk Podcast.
• 16:38
  It's a hook. We're setting that hook D scam
• 16:41
  talk. No, this is surface issues.
• 16:43
  This is yeah, I've, I love messaging people two weeks after
• 16:49
  they create the tracking number. And my very passive aggressive
• 16:53
  message is always, hey, do you think you're ever going to ship
• 16:56
  this? Yeah.
• 16:59
  Because it's been 2 weeks and you created a track #2 weeks
• 17:03
  ago. And they always say, oh, that's
• 17:08
  weird that I, I dropped it off with the USPS.
• 17:11
  I'm not sure what's happening. I'll go in and see.
• 17:14
  And then, you know, like an hour later it's showing up with the
• 17:17
  USPS because they. Went dropped it off.
• 17:21
  One of the things too, to be honest with you, is I had I, I
• 17:27
  had a few CC Sabathia, the Chrome rookies from and, and
• 17:34
  when he made, when it was announced, he made the Hall of
• 17:36
  Fame. I had like three of them or
• 17:37
  something. So I'm like, I'm just going to
• 17:39
  sell one of these. It's probably as hot right now
• 17:40
  as it'll ever be. So I listed it and I sold it and
• 17:43
  it was like a $23 card or something.
• 17:46
  It was, it was ungraded. And I just put it up there
• 17:49
  because I'm like, I don't need three of these.
• 17:50
  And if I'm ever going to sell one, I sell one now.
• 17:52
  Sort of like the day that Bill Walton died and I immediately
• 17:55
  listed as autograph for sale because I'm a I don't know if
• 17:58
  that's I'm a dark person, I guess.
• 18:01
  And, and the guy like messaged me like like a month later, I
• 18:05
  swear to you, I mail, I mail stuff fast like that day or the
• 18:08
  next day. I get it out of there because I
• 18:09
  don't want to think about it. And like at least three weeks
• 18:13
  later, the guy emails me and he goes, Hey, man, like any idea
• 18:17
  why this hasn't shown up? I'm like, are you serious like
• 18:20
  this? I assumed it's been there like
• 18:22
  weeks ago and he's like, no, it's not here.
• 18:25
  And I was like, well, either got lost or this guy's messing with
• 18:29
  me And literally like 2 days later he messaged me and he
• 18:33
  goes, oh, it got here. I mean, it took like a month for
• 18:36
  this, this so, so it's not unheard of.
• 18:39
  And that's one of the reasons I waited so long is because I had
• 18:42
  that experience. And I'm like, well, I guess
• 18:44
  maybe sometimes they just take the long route, you know?
• 18:48
  And so it didn't seem impossible.
• 18:52
  But now I, I, I don't think I'm going to be seen my Bernie
• 18:57
  Williams. Card.
• 18:58
  I don't think so either, and it's probably not worth your
• 19:00
  time either. And that's what they bank on.
• 19:03
  But it's worth my principle. Sure, right.
• 19:06
  Sure. Yeah, I get what you're saying.
• 19:11
  So next week we'll have an update because I'm going to I'm
• 19:14
  going to have the virtual assistant give me a buzz and
• 19:16
  we're going to have a little chat I.
• 19:18
  Love the teaser? Yes, make sure you're following.
• 19:21
  Make sure you subscribe. We'll have an update for you.
• 19:22
  Next, I mean, if you're not subscribed, you might miss how
• 19:25
  this turns out. Yeah.
• 19:30
  Any other scam issues you got going on that you want to talk
• 19:33
  about or you want to go into our our second topic?
• 19:35
  Scam issues? No, I think.
• 19:39
  I think that's it. Next topic though is I think
• 19:42
  it's pretty meaty. OK, well let's talk about it
• 19:45
  because you said one of the things we could talk about is
• 19:47
  the 3 Kings card. And I said, what's that?
• 19:50
  Yeah, which shows you how connected I am with the modern
• 19:55
  hobby. Tell us about the Three Kings
• 19:57
  card. The. 3 Kings card is a new
• 19:59
  thing. So first of all, collectors have
• 20:02
  been demanding, not demanding, begging Tops fanatics to do
• 20:06
  something that benefits collectors.
• 20:08
  Collectors like you and me. Just collectors, right?
• 20:11
  Do something that shows that they care about collectors and
• 20:15
  not just the big Breakers and the the big people.
• 20:19
  And they have come out with a new system that they are pumping
• 20:25
  all over social media and it is a reward system for collecting.
• 20:31
  And so far, this sounds good, right?
• 20:33
  A reward system for collecting a player's three best rookie
• 20:38
  cards, they say. And those three best rookie
• 20:41
  cards, I'm thinking like Topps Chrome.
• 20:45
  Topps Chrome refractor. No, it is their MLB debut.
• 20:50
  Patch auto one of one. It is their.
• 20:54
  First Bowman Super fractor auto one of one and it is their
• 20:59
  rookie Super fractor auto one of one.
• 21:04
  If you have all three of those, you then are rewarded with a
• 21:09
  free 3 Kings, one of one autograph card of that player.
• 21:15
  Yeah, and. Tops is touting this as some big
• 21:19
  advancement in collecting. But what they don't?
• 21:23
  Seem to grasp and what they have certainly heard if they're
• 21:26
  paying attention to any of their social media because people are
• 21:29
  are. Talking about how tone.
• 21:32
  Deaf they are is that this is appealing to like 3 people in
• 21:37
  the world. How many people can possibly
• 21:40
  afford all three of those cards, let alone obtain all three of
• 21:44
  them? If you own one of those cards
• 21:49
  now you know you can hold it hostage for a wealthy person who
• 21:53
  might want it. The value of those have now gone
• 21:57
  up. People are going to hold them
• 21:58
  hostage, and only a very tiny number of people will ever be
• 22:03
  able to get them. Or worse, it will make people
• 22:08
  gamble even further, buying more boxes, buying into more breaks,
• 22:15
  hoping to get these carts in order to get the massive new hit
• 22:20
  the Tops fanatics is going to pump.
• 22:23
  The crap out of. Yeah.
• 22:26
  See out in in in California northern but central Northern
• 22:31
  California along the coast is Pebble Beach and Pebble Beach
• 22:35
  has a very famous Rd. through the golf courses in these, you
• 22:40
  know 10 twenty $30 million homes called 17 mile drive and it
• 22:45
  would be like a local church saying we need to do something
• 22:49
  to give back. So we're going to give away free
• 22:52
  lemonade out on 17 mile drive because those people don't have
• 22:57
  anything going for them and they just can't catch a break.
• 23:00
  So what we need to do is we need to do something nice for the
• 23:05
  residents on 17 mile drive. Not the inner city, not the
• 23:09
  normal person in the middle class, but the 17 Mile Dr.
• 23:14
  residents. They really need something like
• 23:17
  this. Yeah.
• 23:19
  It. It's and, and part of the
• 23:22
  problem and people talk about wax prices and they're too high
• 23:27
  and, and they've driven people out because it's unaffordable.
• 23:30
  Well, part of the reason is because all of the in, in when I
• 23:36
  go to Lake Tahoe, OK, when I go to Lake Tahoe, there are
• 23:40
  literally penny slots. And then there are slots that
• 23:43
  are like $250 a spin. And I go to the penny slot area
• 23:47
  'cause I get to participate and have a little bit of fun and
• 23:50
  have a drink and sit with my wife and laugh and oh, I almost
• 23:53
  got it. Whatever.
• 23:54
  And then lose my money, my, my $18.00 that I brought with me or
• 23:58
  whatever. But they're serving me with an
• 24:02
  ability to participate. But what's happened now is all
• 24:06
  of the products that the margin is in with the whales, it's in
• 24:11
  the high limit room and in the 100 and $200 spin slots.
• 24:16
  And so now you walk into Lake Tahoe and there's 1000 slot
• 24:21
  machines and 998 of them are for $100 each.
• 24:25
  And two of them are for the penny slots.
• 24:28
  And that's basically what we're doing with cards is we've,
• 24:31
  we've, we've eliminated the everyday collector sort of
• 24:39
  participation level. Like there's no longer a Toyota
• 24:42
  Corolla or a Camry. It's, you know, only a Lexus.
• 24:47
  All they have is Lexus IS now and nobody can buy a car unless
• 24:50
  you buy a Lexus and the. Casino is of course, as they
• 24:53
  should be, only promoting the people who have won thousands,
• 24:57
  10s of thousands of dollars. They're not showing the people
• 25:00
  who have lost their life savings and what they're.
• 25:02
  Saying is, you know, we're going to take the 10 people who won
• 25:06
  the biggest jackpot this month and we're going to put them in a
• 25:10
  drawing for a huge jackpot, Yeah.
• 25:14
  Congrats on Congrats. On being wealthy and lucky,
• 25:17
  we're going to make. You even wealthier?
• 25:19
  Yeah, make a mix. In a Taco bar for the guys at
• 25:21
  the penny slots and this is not. This is not anti wealth.
• 25:25
  This is not. Jealousy.
• 25:27
  Although I'm jealous of course, but it's just wealth, right?
• 25:30
  Me too. This is just a tone deaf
• 25:35
  response to collectors by Fanatics and Collect, where they
• 25:38
  have millions of regular collectors out there who would
• 25:42
  love to have something. And I'm gonna cover this on my
• 25:45
  Sunday Clearing the Bases episode too.
• 25:47
  Somebody has put out a great kind of a plea to Topps fanatics
• 25:53
  saying nobody asked for this. Here are some great things you
• 25:56
  could do that would be inexpensive for Topps fanatics
• 26:00
  and would make hobbyists, collectors very, very happy.
• 26:04
  And it would get so much publicity and it would draw a
• 26:08
  lot of business to them that would make that would bring them
• 26:13
  collectors. And right now they're only
• 26:15
  attracting the the gambling investing type people because
• 26:21
  that's what they're promoting and they're leaving behind the
• 26:24
  collectors. And I know people are going to
• 26:26
  say, hang on, they're both collectors, right?
• 26:28
  I get that, I get that, I totally do.
• 26:30
  But there's different types of collectors and.
• 26:33
  That that. Type of collector makes up the
• 26:35
  bulk of the hobby. When So back in the early 90s, I
• 26:43
  think it was 1992. You might you, you might
• 26:46
  remember this, but it's when Tops started having Tops gold
• 26:50
  inserts. And so it would it, it was just
• 26:53
  the foil was gold. It wasn't like the whole card
• 26:55
  was well, Chrome cause Chrome wasn't around yet, but it was
• 26:58
  like the foil was gold and it was a special insert.
• 27:01
  But in every pack there was this little card that had a scratch
• 27:08
  off thing and it had like 10 scratch offs.
• 27:11
  And if you scratched off the one that was the gold winner, then
• 27:15
  you'd mail it in and they would send you like two or three gold
• 27:19
  cards. But they were a little different
• 27:22
  because they didn't say just they weren't the gold foil.
• 27:25
  It's a gold foil. And it said like winner on it.
• 27:27
  So it was like not, it wasn't the pack pulled gold, but it was
• 27:31
  a different kind of gold. And it was like everybody kind
• 27:33
  of had a little, a little thing. So if you got your pack and your
• 27:37
  pack was awful, you had a chance to be able to win a gold card
• 27:44
  even if your pack didn't have any anything of value.
• 27:47
  And it was a pretty cool idea. Do you remember this?
• 27:50
  Absolutely. So I don't.
• 27:52
  Know if you were aware of this, but you could see through?
• 27:58
  Yeah, I'm just reading. About this maybe six months ago,
• 28:01
  really so. We, we went to a card show and
• 28:03
  this guy had an entire table full of the gold winners.
• 28:08
  And we were like, how did you win all of these?
• 28:11
  You have amazing luck. And he's like, no, he goes, if
• 28:14
  you go into like a dark room, like a dark closet and you hold
• 28:19
  a flashlight up to the back of the card, you can see through
• 28:24
  the the the scratch off stuff. It's like a scratch off lottery
• 28:28
  ticket. And you can see which one is the
• 28:30
  winner and you can scratch it off and send them in.
• 28:31
  And I just do it with every pack.
• 28:33
  And so I have all these gold winners.
• 28:35
  And so I remember being jazzed. So I like bought a couple of
• 28:38
  packs and I got the little cards and I went home with my dad and
• 28:42
  we went into his master closet. We turn off the lights and we
• 28:45
  shine through and we're like, yeah, we won.
• 28:47
  It was like this whole thing. But but the thing about that, it
• 28:50
  was a way for an average person to have some sort of special win
• 29:00
  even in a pack that maybe didn't have what you were hoping it had
• 29:04
  in it. And it was it that was a good
• 29:06
  idea. And they're they're they're
• 29:09
  blanking on that right now. What they need to go back to
• 29:12
  that. And I think your whole point, if
• 29:14
  you collected like the bass, you know, the base card and the,
• 29:20
  the, the refractor, just like the silver regular refractor and
• 29:24
  then maybe any other parallel and you do it, then you get
• 29:27
  something like then then more people can be a participant in
• 29:32
  that or, or I don't know, or you get a discount or something in a
• 29:36
  TCD. B type of situation.
• 29:38
  If fanatics were to build something like that, I know they
• 29:40
  never would because it wouldn't make them enough money.
• 29:42
  And that's the most important thing is that, that it makes
• 29:45
  them a lot of money. If you collected 100 of a single
• 29:50
  player, 100 cards of a player, you they'll mail you a special
• 29:56
  card. Doesn't have to be worth a lot
• 29:58
  of money. It could just be a $5 card that
• 30:00
  commemorates you getting to 100. Get to 500 unique cards of,
• 30:05
  let's say, Mike Greenwell 'cause he passed away today and I have,
• 30:08
  Oh, did he? Really.
• 30:09
  Yeah, Thyroid. Cancer.
• 30:13
  So you get to 500 Mike Greenwell cards and they commemorate that
• 30:18
  with a card or a pin or something that would say, we
• 30:21
  appreciate you, Congrats on getting this.
• 30:27
  Greg is in. Case you're listening here, He's
• 30:29
  he's backed up. I think he's going to show
• 30:31
  something. It's got to be a Mike Greenwell
• 30:34
  card. We try.
• 30:37
  Let me see how well organized. I am.
• 30:39
  Oh, I'm so good. Nice, nice.
• 30:41
  All right, I know this. Is a podcast so you're not
• 30:44
  supposed to show stuff on the screen but.
• 30:47
  I-80. 7 tops. I was a Rodger.
• 30:50
  Clemens I was a big Rodger Clemens fan, as we know, and
• 30:54
  pretty much every time Rodger Clemens pitched in Oakland from
• 30:58
  about 1988 until. Well after 2.
• 31:04
  Thousand I was at the game like pretty much every time.
• 31:09
  And so I started kind of casually rooting for the Red Sox
• 31:13
  and I've talked about this and I brought some of my my cards and
• 31:18
  my 88 tops card. 88 tops right here.
• 31:21
  These are 88 tops. And.
• 31:24
  And I had them in the little box, you know, remember the
• 31:27
  you'd shut it and kind of snap shut and you'd kind of the
• 31:30
  little thing it open. It's a blue box.
• 31:32
  Right. No, mine were clear.
• 31:34
  But I'm sure they had different colors.
• 31:36
  And before the game, Ellis Burks came over and he signed and I
• 31:41
  got that with. I sent that to my friend who
• 31:45
  lives out in the East Coast because he is a Red Sox fan.
• 31:49
  And that one was cool because somebody else had a Sharpie and
• 31:54
  he just used the Sharpie to keep signing.
• 31:56
  So it was a black Sharpie. I'm an idiot little kid who's,
• 32:00
  you know, in 1988 doesn't know what he's doing.
• 32:02
  So I showed up with my cards and a ballpoint pen.
• 32:05
  So I'm going to show on the screen my mic green while you
• 32:09
  can't hardly even see it. Can't even see it.
• 32:13
  Yeah, I can kind of see it and it's.
• 32:16
  Ballpoint pen Mike Greenwell And this is when Mike Greenwell was
• 32:20
  just a star and Ellis Birch was a star.
• 32:23
  He was the MVP, that. Year if Canseco had not been
• 32:26
  juicing and I was so. Jazzed for this.
• 32:31
  This was this was my first in person auto.
• 32:34
  Wow, that's a. Special one.
• 32:36
  Yeah, Really. Really.
• 32:37
  Special and and I remember him being really cool and signing a
• 32:41
  lot and that meant a lot. So I'm sorry to hear that Mike
• 32:45
  Greenwell held this card. Very cool.
• 32:47
  That's awesome. Yeah, All right.
• 32:50
  What were we talking? About I have no idea it.
• 32:52
  Probably wasn't important. I have not.
• 32:54
  I have no. Idea what we're talking about 3
• 32:56
  Kings cards. Fanatics were going to collect.
• 32:58
  So you, you made a great point about the three kings cards and,
• 33:02
  and I guess we sounded sort of anti wealth.
• 33:06
  Therefore I sounded anti wealth there.
• 33:08
  I'm not suggesting I have. I, I love the fact that if you
• 33:15
  are in a country that we live in a country where if you go from
• 33:19
  having nothing and you build and you work and you reinvest and
• 33:22
  you expand like our buddy Tony has done, that you can come out
• 33:27
  and, and change generational futures in this country.
• 33:32
  I, I love that about the country.
• 33:35
  And I don't have a problem with there being massive chase cards
• 33:40
  in products, but when when the new marketing thing focuses
• 33:46
  around. The massive.
• 33:50
  Products that's already that are already massive, It's like, what
• 33:53
  are we doing? Like, I get it.
• 33:55
  Because what's going to be on social media, what are going to,
• 33:58
  what's going to get all the attention?
• 33:59
  When the first person gets the first 3 Kings card, that card is
• 34:04
  going to be a huge card and everyone's going to talk about
• 34:06
  it and there's going to be pictures of it and it's going to
• 34:09
  be a big chase and, and it'll get attention.
• 34:12
  And what won't get attention is some little kid getting this
• 34:15
  little redemption in the mail. It's all about.
• 34:18
  What's going to draw it? And so that's my issue is we
• 34:21
  need to be doing more to get kids and entry level in
• 34:27
  collectors in the hobby to have good experiences.
• 34:31
  So they want to stay. That's my issue.
• 34:33
  It's not wealth. It's we need to be doing things
• 34:37
  to reach that group. You know what what about like a
• 34:42
  report card, a report card redemption.
• 34:45
  So any kid who has, you know, like a 3.5 GPA in school from K
• 34:53
  all the way up to 12, you send submit an image with your report
• 34:58
  card and they send you a pack or something like that would be a
• 35:02
  great thing, right? I love that.
• 35:04
  I love that. They would never do that though.
• 35:06
  They would never do that and. That's why they'll never hire me
• 35:09
  for the marketing department. But if if they are hiring, they
• 35:13
  definitely look me up midlifecards@gmail.com.
• 35:18
  Yes, as we trash them here. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's.
• 35:24
  We'll we'll edit out. All the negative things you said
• 35:26
  so that they hire you. Yeah, wow.
• 35:30
  It's just so tone deaf when there are so many collectors out
• 35:34
  there and and when they have a monopoly as they do.
• 35:38
  Yeah, they can. Do this.
• 35:39
  And they'll be just fine. Fanatics is probably I don't
• 35:42
  know how much they're worth. The sports card division of
• 35:45
  Fanatics is worth billions and they only paid half a billion
• 35:48
  for it. So they're doing something.
• 35:51
  Right, let me let. Me, let me go there.
• 35:54
  Let me take this down a little side Rd. the the ability to have
• 36:00
  a monopoly of licensed material. Like what are your thoughts on
• 36:05
  that? Because, you know, for a long
• 36:07
  time it was like tops only, right?
• 36:09
  And then all of a sudden in, in the late 70s, there's a lawsuit,
• 36:13
  I think it was Fleer versus Topps.
• 36:15
  It was Fleer, yeah. The lawsuit was.
• 36:17
  Actually filed in the 60s I think and it was that long. 15
• 36:20
  plus. Years to actually come to
• 36:23
  fruition and and so. It got broken up where not only
• 36:27
  Topps could have the license and that's why Topps, Donrus, Fleer
• 36:31
  all were making cards from the, you know, like 1981 or whatever
• 36:35
  on and but then we went back to that, like, what is it?
• 36:42
  What was the lawsuit then? The lawsuit was.
• 36:47
  Being able to send had something to do with them sending cards
• 36:51
  with gum, and so Tops was sending cards with gum and Fleer
• 36:57
  said, well, we don't want to send cards with gum, we want to
• 36:58
  send it with stickers or something.
• 37:02
  And that's what ended up winning the the deal, the lawsuit, and
• 37:09
  then Don resent it with puzzle pieces.
• 37:11
  And that that's, I don't know why they're able to get away
• 37:16
  with it now. Probably because the industry is
• 37:18
  much smaller and there's no there's not much the government
• 37:23
  will do against anti competitive companies that are worth a
• 37:28
  billion dollars or $2 billion. You have to be worth 100 billion
• 37:32
  now for the government to come after you.
• 37:34
  Yeah. Yes, so they're not.
• 37:36
  That's why they haven't audited me yet.
• 37:38
  It's 'cause I'm more than 100 billion, right?
• 37:40
  You're only worth 1. Or 2 billion.
• 37:42
  Well, you know, it's early. Yeah, I it, it just seems like,
• 37:49
  do you think, I mean, that's we agree that it's bad.
• 37:52
  I I mean, I want Panini and Fanatics to be able to have
• 37:57
  licensed ability to make cards, don't you?
• 38:00
  Absolutely. Yeah, and upper deck and upper
• 38:03
  deck I, I. Love Upper Deck products.
• 38:05
  In fact, upper Deck remains to me a very special company.
• 38:12
  Like I love Upper Deck. I've loved upper deck since the
• 38:16
  first time my eyes, you know, saw upper deck product.
• 38:20
  I think they were innovative. They got, you know, back in the,
• 38:25
  what was it, early 90s, they got Tiger Woods and and Gretzky and
• 38:30
  Jordan and some exclusive deals where they were doing some, some
• 38:34
  big name big time stuff with those guys in cards and autos
• 38:39
  and stuff. And I think they've done some
• 38:42
  really great things. But they can't make.
• 38:46
  Baseball cards, right? This is insane.
• 38:49
  Yeah, and they're. Doing some innovative things
• 38:52
  with hockey cards too. I, I think I, I remember reading
• 38:55
  about they're actually putting a in patch cards like AQR code on
• 39:02
  them and you can go and watch a video of the game.
• 39:06
  You'd see this, the details of the game that it was from and
• 39:10
  highlights from it that was. Fantastic, I think I'm pretty
• 39:14
  sure. That was upper deck.
• 39:14
  It's probably six months ago that I saw that because and I
• 39:17
  know. It's would be expensive.
• 39:19
  I know it'd be hard to do that, but if if you could have the
• 39:23
  picture of the player on the card be from the game where the
• 39:30
  player wore that particular item that the patch is from, like
• 39:35
  it's not just a patch from a game.
• 39:38
  And there's a that picture is from the game.
• 39:42
  He had that jersey on that there's a piece of and you could
• 39:47
  QR code the back and watch a clip from that game with that
• 39:52
  jersey. I mean, that's like instead of
• 39:55
  this may or may not have been player worn, you know?
• 39:59
  Oh my, what are we doing? So it's not from any specific
• 40:02
  shelf from Dick's Sporting Goods, right?
• 40:07
  Yeah. And then?
• 40:08
  The least, the least important part of this, but just a little
• 40:11
  bit of a annoyance I guess or a nuisance is the one card they
• 40:15
  showed which is Junior Caminero card 33 Kings.
• 40:20
  I can't even read the inscription.
• 40:22
  It says like Tokaro or something.
• 40:24
  Did you, could you read it? Did you see it?
• 40:25
  Yeah, it's. So, So what you're referring to,
• 40:28
  we didn't explain it earlier, but the card is not just
• 40:31
  autographed. The card has like a little
• 40:33
  inscription from the player and the inscription that he made,
• 40:39
  let me look it up because I couldn't really read it either.
• 40:43
  I'm like, either you can't spell, maybe it was a different
• 40:45
  language or or it says. To and it has the name of the
• 40:49
  person it's going to and I just couldn't figure out what it was.
• 40:54
  T it looks like it says T OK ERA or A or O.
• 41:03
  Tekera. What does that mean?
• 41:05
  I don't know. I'm gonna just for your sake and
• 41:10
  my sake, I'm gonna put it on the screen there.
• 41:13
  Tokera Tokuran, Tokura. Tokura the King.
• 41:23
  No to to. My Spanish, wait, wait, hold on.
• 41:26
  My Spanish is coming out to tokar is to play, right?
• 41:32
  Tokar like a playing instrument, like you play a flute.
• 41:34
  You tokar la flauta or whatever, right?
• 41:38
  That's what tokar means in Spanish.
• 41:41
  Shout out to Miss Fernandez Senora Senorita Fernandez,
• 41:45
  Vacaville High School Class of 1997.
• 41:49
  Isn't that what that is? Tokara the king so like to play
• 41:52
  the king or the king plays? Put it in a translate hold on
• 41:59
  Tokara the King translation. Here we go.
• 42:07
  What do we got, Tokara? Nothing.
• 42:10
  Was a 19th. Century king of Manambu Kingdom.
• 42:17
  Of the people of. Madagascar.
• 42:18
  That's Towera. Though, Oh, that is Towera.
• 42:25
  Yeah, there's, there's, it means nothing.
• 42:29
  It means absolutely nothing. I'm convinced that.
• 42:34
  This is a meaningless inscription.
• 42:39
  Tokara. What?
• 42:40
  Maybe we're saying it wrong. Treasure Precious.
• 42:44
  Item O Takara is Japanese No no. It's treasure.
• 42:51
  Takara though. Or is it?
• 42:57
  Tokern, is that an AI mean? Let's just OK, let's just take a
• 43:03
  step back here for just a second.
• 43:05
  I mean it's handwriting, bro. What are we doing?
• 43:08
  Yes, what are we doing here? King is legible, though.
• 43:13
  Yeah, but that that handwriting, it's it's not an N because it
• 43:19
  doesn't it's nothing like the N in King.
• 43:21
  It's definitely Tokara. That's ATI.
• 43:27
  Don't know, I, I, I it seems like maybe he could have written
• 43:33
  something. So this person.
• 43:35
  Says it says to Kern, the king. These will be customized for the
• 43:39
  name of the collector who redeems it.
• 43:44
  So he doesn't believe in. Spaces between words,
• 43:47
  apparently. Caro took Kern, the king of all
• 43:52
  the. Names to use is Kern the 1 you
• 43:55
  would have chosen as your to somebody.
• 44:00
  Somebody's name is. Kern.
• 44:04
  There's a Kern. County in in California.
• 44:08
  Apparently this. Same collector.
• 44:09
  Kern also has Jackson Cheerios. So the guy actually.
• 44:15
  Did this, so this is actually real.
• 44:17
  Apparently so. The guy.
• 44:19
  Has all three cards and now has the Three Kings card.
• 44:23
  Apparently somebody named and his name is Kern.
• 44:26
  That's what I'm reading. So that is an.
• 44:28
  N, even though that N looks nothing like the other N Yeah.
• 44:33
  Yeah, Collected acclaimed both of these, Jackson Cheerio and
• 44:37
  Junior Caminero, in September. It's also interesting.
• 44:42
  That the only AL East? Well, I guess the Orioles and
• 44:46
  the Rays didn't make the playoffs, but three of the five
• 44:50
  made the playoffs and then had to fight each other out to have
• 44:53
  the right to play for the Pennant.
• 44:57
  Nice work, MLB, We are. At 45 minutes, yeah, we're, I
• 45:02
  know we. Need to wrap it up.
• 45:03
  I'm just, I'm just, you know, I'm still steaming from last
• 45:07
  night. This is Thursday.
• 45:09
  It's Thursday, right? Yankees, Yeah.
• 45:12
  Yeah. Yeah, Yankees.
• 45:15
  Hey, I'm a Red Sox. Fan I know I.
• 45:17
  Know and and that's why you're giving me so much heat about it,
• 45:20
  but I'm not giving you any heat. You're giving me heat.
• 45:24
  Stop giving me heat, Greg. Always a pleasure it was.
• 45:30
  It was and also. Appreciate everybody for
• 45:33
  listening or watching, whatever your preference is.
• 45:36
  Yeah, yeah, Everybody out there, I will ask this if you've not
• 45:41
  subscribed, I don't ask for subscriptions on on my YouTube
• 45:44
  channel at this point. If you don't like me, it's fine.
• 45:47
  But we're trying to be able to reach more people with this
• 45:52
  because I think this is fun and I think people would like it if
• 45:55
  they get exposed to it. So if you don't mind subscribing
• 45:58
  to this one, whether it be on your favorite podcast format or
• 46:03
  on YouTube, we would appreciate it.
• 46:06
  Absolutely. All right.
• 46:08
  Let's say that outro. Music Outro.
• 46:10
  Music coming right now.