Latest / Sports Card Clubhouse / What If Grading Went Away?

Transcript

What If Grading Went Away? · Sports Card Clubhouse

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In our massive country there are card collectors throughout the
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land participating in the hobby. There's Mike of Junk Wax Hero
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and Greg of Midlife Cards, and while distance may separate
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them, here is where they come together to talk cards.
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Hey buddy, we are back in at it and I have watched 2 of your
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videos today two. It's been a day of Junk Wax hero
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Mike. I I won't tell your principal, I
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promise no. No, no, no one was on the way to
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work, this is true, and one was on the way home.
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I'm still in the early phase of my new students in the new
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semester, so I have them all on lockdown still.
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So free time is a rare commodity at the moment.
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So there's no YouTube watching at the moment during school
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hours for sure. Nice.
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And then I've got, my family's got a trip.
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We're going to go, we're going to go see my friend Mickey down
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in Los Angeles here. So we got a big week planned.
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Awesome. I'm probably there as this hits
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the airwaves actually. So, yeah, All right, I I have
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some thoughts and some reactions and some questions after your
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video. So first you and Crystal
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recorded a great episode of This Week in Sports Cards about some
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scams and it got my wheels kind of turning.
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And then you on the way home, I listened and you bought the
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biggest, the biggest card you had your biggest mail day ever.
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You you called it the biggest card you had ever bought.
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Not in person. Right.
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Tell people, if they haven't watched that, tell them what the
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card was in the story behind that.
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Yeah, So no, no spoilers here because by the time you listen
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or watch this, it's, you know, it's days later.
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But I bought a 1953 tops Jackie Robinson, which had been on my
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list for a few years at least. But then I set out in 2025 at
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the beginning of 2025, I really set out to get one and just
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never had the chance, never found the right card at the
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right price. And you know, I'm very picky
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about that until the last week of December, right, right after
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Christmas when I was like, all right, I gotta, I gotta lock in
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and ended up with this one. And it was the price was great.
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It's nicely centered, the the image is beautiful at the edges
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and the corners are beat up really badly.
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But I'm OK with that because of the centering and the image are
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amazing. Now, having it in hand, do you
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like it more than you expected, less than you expected, or as
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expected? I would say as expected.
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OK, so I was thinking about, you know, the Chris Sewell thing and
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about all the scams that are out there and people saying all the
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the envelope was empty. Chris was saying he had that
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happen once and and people talking about, you know, all of
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the different shenanigans out there.
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And it number one, I kept thinking to myself the whole way
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to work. It was it was a great way to
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start my Monday. I was thinking, man, what is
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wrong with people? Like what in the world is wrong
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with people that there are so many people that are going to
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these elaborate schemes to just mess other people over just it.
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It was depressing. And then on the way home, you're
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talking about buying a big card via via through the mail,
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through an online deal where you're not looking at the card
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in in person. And there's been a lot of people
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lately because I did an episode that posted today.
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I hadn't, I honestly, I hadn't even looked to see if that has a
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single view or if it even posted.
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I haven't looked all day. I've completely forgotten about
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it about well, OK, where do we go from here with grading
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companies and who should we use? And if you had to use one, so
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and a lot of people were yelling from the rooftops, the whole
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grading thing is just garbage. Just use one touches.
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So take all of that in a big giant ball and throw it into the
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wall. And my question then is, OK,
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let's just pretend for a second that there are no grading
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companies. OK, let's just play pretend.
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Let's do it. If there are no grading
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companies, what changes if if it was?
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If it's back to the Wild West of 1988, OK, Jose Canseco is a
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stud. Kevin Mitchell is going to win
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the NLMVP or something, right? What?
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Year He caught the ball with one hand, I.
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Believe so. Yeah, that was pretty cool.
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The the question have is then what would you, for example, buy
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a four digit card through the mail if there was no grading
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company? Would you buy that card
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completely raw? Would would what would change?
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I mean, because there are people that are saying, oh, just just
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can't give these guys money. The whole thing is a is a scam,
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it's a sham. It's a this, it's that what
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changes? Because if we think the scams
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are bad now, as you and Chris laid out, what would happen?
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What would happen if there was no grading?
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Are we assuming that the values of cars, the prices of cards,
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are the same as they would be because the reason cards have
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gone up so much is because of grading, largely.
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That's a big part of it. I mean, absolutely.
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Isn't that one of the fallouts? Is the the consumer confidence
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of what they're buying wouldn't be nearly as high?
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So they're no longer they're no longer alternative assets.
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Right, it's it's back to more hobby ish than so I think the
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first thing that happens right is is values go way down, don't
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they? I mean, that's a for sure.
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Absolutely the high. End stuff plummets because who
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knows if it's altered, who knows if the patches are switched out,
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who knows? Who knows anything, right?
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I mean, well, the the patches could be switched out.
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Now we we know a lot of examples where patches are switched out
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because PSA and other grading companies don't know if the
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patch has been switched out. They don't grade the patch, they
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don't authenticate the patch. And so a lot of patches do get
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switched out and then the card itself gets authenticated, but
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the patches they they just don't know.
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And listening to Junk Wax Hero on Sunday mornings, I've I've
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heard many an example of patches being switched out and hearing
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those stories. OK, so values would certainly go
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down. What else would happen?
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Because you know, I'll be and it's going to sound right now
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like I'm probably defending grading companies.
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I'm not defending grading companies.
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I have called them out many times.
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I have picked apart, you know, quotes from the higher ups at
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PSA many times, but I'm just saying, OK, let's go down that
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road because that was one of the main things that people were
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saying in my episode that posted this morning, which is Monday,
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January 12th. My question then becomes, OK, so
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if we didn't have grading companies, what happens?
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I would think there would be more scams.
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I would think consumer confidence would go down.
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Values are going to go way down and, and this is and, and values
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are held high even with even with knowing that there are
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cards that are in holders that have been altered and grades
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that are old that don't hold up and mistakes that were made.
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I mean, heck, your buddy Jeff, your buddy Jeff opened a pack
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this weekend and he said he paid $1000 for this pack and it is
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was a very obviously resealed pack.
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Well, I'm not so sure, Dan. Dan of Dan's Vintage Baseball
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PC, who is a 1970 Tops expert, I I think, says he thinks it was a
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legit pack. OK.
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I I respect that because he probably opened packs during
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that time. I mean, I've opened packs where
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I got two of the same player, right?
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But this pack had 10 cards and four were duplicates 4.
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All all 10 cards were in series 4 of 1970 tops.
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OK, so there were none that were outside of a series.
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They were all in series 4. Highly, highly unusual, but very
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possible. It it's not impossible, but our
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buddy, our buddy Brian, the high pop professor, is a a math
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teacher and I know he's taught statistics.
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I mean, I, I can't, I don't know how many cards are in that
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series, but I would be willing to bet that the chances of that
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what happened happening are, are lower then I, I, I would have a
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more likely chance of getting struck by lightning wit holding
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a winning lottery ticket. Like I, I, I again, I wasn't
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alive then. I didn't open packs then.
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I know that some of the series, you know, there was only like
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150 cards or whatever in in the series or 200 maybe in the
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series. So it narrows down the chances.
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But, but I mean, we're talking about like, I mean, and I took
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some statistics, but we're talking about like one out of
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200 * 1 out of 200 * 1. I mean, it's just, it's just,
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it's crazy. But anyway, anyway, my point is
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we know that there are many examples and maybe that's not an
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example of an error from PSA, who knows.
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But there are errors from all the grading companies.
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They're humans, They're not perfect.
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But what what else would be fallout besides prices going way
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down? If grading companies went away
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and some people would be OK with that?
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We go, OK, the prices have gone out of control.
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This is, this is insane. It shouldn't be an asset class.
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It should be a hobby. I don't have a problem with
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that, but I wouldn't buy a $1000 card over the Internet if if it
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wasn't in a holder. I I personally wouldn't do that,
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would you? No, I, I don't think so.
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But first of all, let me a little quick aside here.
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If your wife doesn't like you, the ideal situation for her is
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that you're holding a lottery ticket and then struck by
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lightning and that lottery ticket wins that she's got money
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and no you man. Can I tell you a story?
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Actually, this is actually kind of a sad story.
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So my buddy at work, my buddy at work was the tennis coach for
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like 15 years. You're a tennis guy.
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He was the tennis coach for like 15 years and he had an assistant
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tennis coach. OK.
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The guy won an $8 million lottery in the California
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lottery, won 8,000,000 bucks. He comes to practice when he
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goes. Dude, I, I won the lottery last
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night and, and my buddy's like, what are you talking about?
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He goes, I hit every number. It was $8 million.
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Was this? Any good by his wife in one of
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those fake lottery tickets? No, no, it was real.
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He got 8 million, so he wins 8 million.
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Well, he then goes, well, are you going to take the the cash,
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you know, or are you going to take the they're going to take
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the cash money or are you going to take the payments?
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Because there's like two options.
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You can take the payments or you can take all the money.
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If you take all the money, it's about half that's what I'm
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taking. I'm taking the money.
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OK, so now it's down from 8 million, it's down to 4 million.
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OK, so then he's, he's got 4 million.
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Well, his, his, his wife and him were, were on the rocks.
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They were separated. They weren't legally separated
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yet. They still had joint accounts,
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all that. So, so now she's going to get
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half of it. So he goes from 8 million down
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to 4 million. He goes from 4 million down to 2
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million. Well, now he's in the highest
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tax bracket, right? He's in the highest tax bracket.
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He in California I think the highest income tax for state
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income tax is like 12.5% or something.
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So with everything he ends up between federal and state he
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ends up having another half it wiped out for taxes.
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So the guy walked. My understanding is he walked
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with a little under $1,000,000. I'm waiting for the sad part
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here. Greg.
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This is still $1,000,000. He hit he hit an $8 million
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ticket and he walked with less than one.
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Still, I'm not sad for him. But that's not, I mean, if, if
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somebody handed a 40 year old guy $1,000,000, that's not
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enough to retire. No, but he won an $8 million
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ticket and can't retire. I mean, that's kind of interest.
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That's kind of a A. Fun story, it is interesting but
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you you sold it a sad and it's not sad.
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OK, I I thought it was, I thought it was sad.
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I mean if if he now $2,000,000 might be enough to retire on.
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Not I don't think so. Really.
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Let's just. Say it's at 5%.
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Say you get 5% on a on a money market or.
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CD 100,000 a year A. 100,000 a year No.
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No, because your money isn't growing if you're taking 100,000
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out. And.
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That's everything that you've gained, then you're not getting
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a raise every year and inflation is happening, $100,000 a year in
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California ain't going to cut it.
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So I got to keep working even if I stayed with my wife in that
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case, huh. Yeah, you're probably right.
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Yeah, Instead, now it's probably all gone.
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But you're still $2,000,000 richer.
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It would also be a little bit easier to find a new gal if you
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just won $1,000,000. So there is the rebound factor.
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OK, I don't know where I took us, but where?
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We are you. You wanted me to answer your
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question, which was would I buy a four figure card on eBay or
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online? And the answer is unequivocally
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no, because you're unlikely to also have the eBay
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authentication program, which is a big factor when deciding to
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buy a big card on eBay. And so going on to eBay and
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saying I'm going to spend this card wasn't $1000, just to be
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clear, but if it would I spend $1000 or close to it on a card,
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No, it wouldn't, wouldn't even be a question.
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I wouldn't even be shopping for those cards on eBay.
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Now, I might at a card show if the seller allows me to take it
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out and examine it and I know what I'm looking for, but I
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would have to really know. And I know a lot of vintage guys
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do, but I don't, I don't know, you know, you got to shine a
16:38
flashlight through it and smell it and rub mayonnaise on it or
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something. I don't know.
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But though there's I'm I'm kidding for anybody who is
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listening and isn't vintage. Mayonnaise part was a joke.
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Right. But you know, if there are going
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to be some vintage sellers that won't let you do that and then
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you have to say, OK, well then I guess I have to move on because
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the card isn't graded, it's not authenticated.
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You can't do the, the eye test or the sniff test or whatever
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your flashlight test. And so it makes it much, much
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more difficult. And so while you and I don't
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like the grading companies, PSA in particular, and now the
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companies that are their sister companies, I do think there's a
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lot of value in having an authenticator grading.
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The, the only value in grading. Well, there are there are some
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values in grading, but the most important thing in grading
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company does is authenticate cards.
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You said that I don't like grading.
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You said we don't like grading companies.
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I don't. I don't know if that's true for
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me. I don't know if I dislike
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grading companies. I think what I do is I
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especially now, this is what I think.
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I think that especially now, now more than ever, there is a lack
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of a need to improve from the grading companies because if one
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umbrella company buys the three main companies, at least the
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three main companies that historically have great
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advantage, then then what is their incentive to improve?
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So the way I look at my, my critiques and my when I'm
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beating the drum about the grading companies, I'm not
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saying I dislike them. What I'm trying to do is be a
18:34
noise that hopefully can help create more noise that makes
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them say, well, we can't get too lazy because if we get too lazy,
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they're going to really hammer us.
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We're the only heat left because they own each other.
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And so I do I think PSA is perfect?
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No. Are they flawed?
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Yes. Is SGC flawed?
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They certainly have flaws and they have way more flaws now
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than they did two years ago. Same with Beckett.
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I don't dislike them, but I am going to be a vocal, I'm going
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to be an outspoken person about the grading companies to try to
19:16
a kind of try to hold their feet to the fire, but also to
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enlighten maybe new collectors that are, you know, starting to
19:26
try to learn and see. Oh, well, this is APSA 7 and PSA
19:31
is the company is going to be around.
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Yes, but that PSA 7 might be different than this PSA 7 and
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here's why. And so I am outspoken at times,
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but I wouldn't say that I dislike them.
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And and that's not a popular opinion cause the popular thing
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is to just beat on them and just harp on them and say how they
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suck. And I I think they do a lot more
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right than they do wrong, but they certainly do some things
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wrong. Sure.
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Yeah. No, I, I I wasn't sure you were
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done. I'm a little fired up today for
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some reason. No, that's great.
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I think I agree with you. I think that PSA, they make
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their share of mistakes, maybe more than their fair share of
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mistakes, but 98% of the time they get it right.
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The problem for me is the monopoly, the how they're
20:25
integrated and everything, how they never, ever, ever respond
20:29
to any of their mistakes. And they, there's, there's just
20:34
a lot of conspiracy theories out there about PSA and they never
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address and there's no face of PSA is Nat Turner.
20:44
The face of PSA is Ryan Hogue. With SGC.
20:48
We had Pete and Pete was amazing.
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He was the faith. He would come out and just talk
20:51
about whatever people were talking about, whatever people
20:54
wanted to hear about. And you don't ever get that from
20:59
PSA. And I don't like that
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collectors, the company owns the three biggest grading companies
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or three of the four biggest. I don't love it.
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And so a lot of the problems with PSA aren't necessarily the
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they're grading or they're authenticating, although those
21:20
are sometimes problems. It's the position they have put
21:24
themselves into in the industry. Yeah, no, I agree.
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I, I, I, I think you and I agree on a lot of this.
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And the the thing I guess that I would respond or, or I want
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people to tell me in the comments or, or reach out to us
21:46
or whatever. But a lot of the people who just
21:49
are so anti grading because there's like I have, I have a
21:53
couple handfuls of of people who constantly respond in the
21:58
comments about how grading is the worst.
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Scan Yeah. And my question is, OK, you get
22:06
to wave a magic wand, you're in charge.
22:08
You can change the hobby from, you know, today's date forward.
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What would you do? Do you think the hobby would be
22:16
in a better place if the grading companies went away or if if
22:24
they came in and broke up collectors and split them out?
22:27
Like I could get on board with that would probably be better,
22:31
but I don't know if grading as a scam.
22:34
I don't know if that slogan that people say, I don't know if that
22:39
is actually in the benefit. Now, if you collect cards under
22:45
100 bucks, I think, I think you could make the argument that
22:51
your hobby would be possibly better off, possibly better off
22:56
if, if grading went away. But if you collect anything of a
23:02
significant amount of value, and to me over 100 bucks is fairly
23:05
significant amount of value. I, I would say I don't know if I
23:10
agree with that. I I feel like it's like we're
23:13
taking the outlier situations and casting it onto the entire
23:20
industry of grading. Like grading has those faults,
23:25
but you know, it's like if, if I have 120 students right now and
23:31
and 118 of them are really sweet, polite, kind, hard
23:36
working students and two of them were kind of weren't, didn't
23:42
have their behavior situation together.
23:44
Is it fair to say that all of my students are a are a joke and
23:49
nobody cares? I don't think that's fair.
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I think that sometimes what we're doing, I mean, if you
23:54
think about the number of cards that these grading companies are
23:57
pumping out and grading and the number of just crazy errors that
24:03
are out there. I mean, is, is it, is it fair?
24:08
And again, I, I know that I'm going to catch some heat for
24:11
this because it sounds like I'm defending them.
24:14
I'm not defending them. I just want to be fair about it.
24:17
I want to be fair on our criticisms.
24:20
Is, is their error rate really insane or do we just live in a
24:27
day and age now where the error rate is, is more publicized?
24:33
It's like when Dan Quayle miss misspells potato, you know, and
24:39
we have it on camera and then they just play it over and over
24:44
and over. And anybody who's younger than
24:47
30 is going who's Dan Quayle? Yeah, probably younger than 35.
24:51
But. But the fact that we could
24:53
capture that and and share it as easily as we did that, I mean,
25:00
it's the same thing with like George W Bush.
25:02
Like George W Bush had a lot of flubs, but if you put that
25:07
compared to the number of flubs from politicians now, it wasn't
25:10
really that bad. It's just it was in the era
25:13
where we were, we were able to capture it and spread it quickly
25:19
and easily for the first time. Yeah.
25:21
So I do want to answer that question.
25:23
But first of all, I want to say that if there were no grading,
25:25
Chris Sewell would still buy your cards.
25:27
Chris Sewell is partner of our channel and you if you are
25:33
selling any of part of your collection or all of your
25:35
collection, you should reach out to Chris at
25:38
sewellsportscards@gmail.com. We'll put the his e-mail address
25:42
in the description to this video and the podcast.
25:44
Greg is taking note of that right now.
25:46
And you can also go to our website,
25:49
sportscardclubhouse.com, where click on the partner link at the
25:54
top and you can go find Chris from there.
25:58
Chris gives the best deals, the fairest prices, the best
26:01
explanation of why he's offering you what what he's offering you.
26:07
And if you 2 don't agree, then he's fine with that too.
26:10
But he'll, you know, you can negotiate with him too.
26:14
So we recommend Chris Sewell, collector, investor, dealer, in
26:19
that order. Let me just throw one thing in
26:23
before you answer. One of my favorite things as I
26:27
was, I actually started watching your conversation with Chris
26:31
before I got in the car, and then I listened to the
26:32
second-half of it. One of my favorite parts of that
26:36
conversation is Chris is such a nice guy.
26:39
Is that like, as you were describing some of the like,
26:45
scandals and things that people were doing, he was like, he was
26:48
like dumbfounded by like really, people are doing that?
26:53
Like, why would people do that? Because he's just like, his mind
26:56
doesn't work that way. Like it was.
26:58
Seeing the look on his face said a lot about what a good duty is.
27:03
When I was in college, I spent 4 summers working for a mini golf
27:06
course and driving range in Brunswick, ME called Longshot
27:08
Golf Center. And I remember at the beginning
27:12
of my second summer, I had driven the golf cart picker to
27:15
pick up golf golf balls on the driving range.
27:18
My first year there, my second year, he put me behind the
27:21
counter and he was I found out that there was a camera over the
27:26
cash register. I wasn't supposed to know it.
27:30
And it was like a four employee driving range in the golf
27:34
course, maybe 5. But there's a camera hidden in
27:36
the ceiling, tiny little camera hidden in the ceiling.
27:40
And I mentioned it to my the owner, my boss.
27:43
And he was like, well, yeah, because I've had employees steal
27:47
from me. And I said, but how, how would
27:49
they steal from you? I mean, it can't be.
27:52
How does that work? And he was describing some of
27:55
the schemes that people had come up with.
27:57
And it blew my mind what people were doing and figuring out how
28:03
to scam people. And that, yeah, Chris's face was
28:07
me 25 years ago. I'm the guy that that like
28:11
probably overpays on his taxes because I don't want to do
28:16
something wrong where I'm going to get in trouble.
28:18
So instead of maybe taking a deduction that I am rightful to
28:22
take, I don't take it because I'm like, I just, I don't want
28:26
to get in trouble. Yeah, yeah.
28:29
So to answer your question, I think the, the, the answer is a
28:35
little bit lengthy because if we think back to four years ago
28:39
when I was fairly new to YouTube, if something really
28:43
interesting would happen, you know, some sort of a scam or a
28:48
huge mistake by a grading company, you post a video about
28:51
it and your audience would watch it.
28:53
Maybe a little bit more would get out and the algorithm would
28:55
catch it and you'd get like 5 or 10,000 views.
28:58
But then that was pretty much it.
29:00
Now, four years later, you do that.
29:03
And then if it's interesting enough, dozens and dozens and
29:07
dozens of other creators across social media platforms will
29:10
create their own video, their own post about it.
29:14
And so a big mistake by a grading company can get
29:18
amplified much, much quicker now than it used to.
29:22
So are there more errors? We don't know.
29:25
We we can't say confidently if there are more errors, but
29:29
they're certainly far more amplified now than they used to
29:32
be. Remember the the finger and the
29:37
chili at Wendy's? Yeah, of.
29:40
Course. So this lady claimed that she
29:44
was eating chili and she found somebody's fingertip in her
29:49
chili and it like went nuclear and like everybody stopped going
29:57
to Wendy's and it like almost bankrupted Wendy's.
30:02
And come to find out it was like her friend accidentally cut
30:06
their fingertip off. So she like threw it in the wall
30:09
and took a picture and and they like found her friend with like
30:12
missing finger it. It's amazing that even if
30:18
something's true, not true, what kind of harm can potentially be
30:25
done? And and how how different
30:29
companies handle that is interesting too.
30:32
I mean like you mentioned earlier, like PSA doesn't really
30:35
say much. I mean look at Probsteam, that
30:38
dude hasn't said a word. Yeah, and he hasn't said some
30:41
people, some people believe it's illegal for him to not notify
30:45
people that their information was hacked.
30:48
He had to have done it within 30 days of, of this happening.
30:52
And at least in some states, I don't know the legalities.
30:55
I don't, I'm not saying that this is true.
30:57
I just know that there are a lot of people who believe him not
31:00
notifying his customers was illegal.
31:03
But the, the strategy is, is very simple.
31:05
The strategy that he has employed and the strategy
31:07
strategy that PSA consistently employs, which is we're going to
31:12
ignore it. Filth bomb brakes is doing the
31:13
same thing. We're going to ignore it and
31:16
it's going to go away. And it it, it's, it's right it.
31:18
That's exactly what happens. I'm I'm like a really late on
31:23
the curve guy with some of this stuff and and I haven't been
31:27
I've been so busy with some of my own stuff I got going on.
31:32
I don't know what the filth bomb brakes thing is.
31:34
So I, I don't, I'm sure it's probably an episode worthy and
31:38
I'm sure you probably talked about it on your Sunday video
31:40
that I haven't watched yet, but I have watched two of your
31:43
videos today, so you can't get too mad at me, but.
31:46
It's not. It's not worth knowing about.
31:48
Yeah, see, and, and I'm behind the curve on even what's going
31:52
on with Probstein, mostly because whenever that kind of
31:55
stuff gets stirred up, I I tend to head in a different direction
31:58
because it's just going to make me mad.
32:00
But I do know that about once every other month I get a letter
32:06
in the mail that says your, your data was leaked by something.
32:11
Yeah. Today, Covenant.
32:13
Health, yes, I'm sure. I'm sure that there's some sort
32:18
of legality. I don't know.
32:19
I don't know how it works either.
32:20
But so back to the original question, if the grading
32:25
companies went away, would you agree or disagree that that
32:30
would be a net negative for the hobby?
32:33
I agree it would be a net negative.
32:36
And. Well, for the hobby, for the
32:39
industry, certainly for the hobby, I think it would be
32:44
neutral, but I think authentication is very
32:49
important. A professional authenticator is
32:52
important. There are all kinds of stories
32:54
about the 1980s and and counterfeit Pete Rose rookie
32:59
cards and counterfeit Nolan Ryan rookie cards.
33:02
I think the authentication of cards is very important.
33:06
So I'm going to say net negative for the hobby.
33:09
I think for the industry it's a net negative too.
33:11
I mean, think about all of the people who are hustling for
33:14
their career of buying collections and selling cards,
33:19
you know, that are, are selling on eBay that are doing that
33:23
whole thing, cashing people out. And the if if all of the
33:30
expensive cards all of a sudden you didn't know what to trust
33:34
anymore. I would think that would
33:36
devastate a lot of those small businesses within the industry.
33:40
And even, you know, PSA being able to buy a card on COMC, have
33:46
it sent directly to PSA from PSA once it gets graded, being able
33:52
to list it directly on the eBay or sell it to the offer.
33:56
Like there are a lot of people who are living, they're paying
33:59
their rent off of that right now.
34:01
And all of that would go away. I think it would be fairly
34:04
devastating for the hobby or for the hobby and for the industry.
34:09
As long as you are a person who participates over that very, you
34:16
know, normal under 50 to $100 range, I think that it would
34:22
heavily affect things. And again, I know I'm just going
34:27
to get trashed for sounding like I am am defending grading
34:32
companies. All I'm saying is this grading
34:36
companies deserve to be critiqued when they make
34:41
mistakes to try to encourage them to continue to improve.
34:47
But we also have to give them credit for, for some of the
34:52
things that they've done that have helped the industry and the
34:55
hobby too. And I feel like we want to take
34:59
the good, but we want to bash the bad.
35:02
And, and it it's, it's like the the spouse, you know who just
35:07
yells at you whenever you don't pick up your crap, but they
35:11
never say thank you when you're Saturday afternoon fixing a
35:16
garbage disposal that broke under the sink in the kitchen.
35:21
Hypothetically, yeah. So what you're saying is you
35:24
take the good, you take the bad, you take them both, and then you
35:29
have the. Facts of life, that's.
35:32
Right. That's right.
35:33
Yeah, I, I don't know. I, I, I just was thinking about
35:37
it today and I was thinking about the scams that you and
35:40
Chris were talking about. And I'm like, how much worse
35:43
would this be if there were no grading companies?
35:46
And then I was thinking about, you bought this fairly big card
35:50
and how comfortable would we be buying a fairly big card without
35:55
the grading company? And I felt like listening to two
35:58
of your episodes today, I was reminded, gently reminded of
36:03
some of the benefits that these businesses do for us in creating
36:08
consumer confidence in in preventing some of the
36:12
additional scams that eBay and PSA are doing that we're
36:16
benefiting from, that I think that sometimes we take for
36:19
granted. And I just felt like it was
36:21
something worthy of at least, you know, picking your brain on.
36:25
Yeah, I agree. I thought there was a great
36:27
topic. I don't know if I have anything
36:32
else. The, I will say that I, I stood
36:35
next to my dad many times before the grading thing started and
36:40
dealers, it was very accepted and known that the, the, the
36:48
buyer would be pulling the card out of the protect the
36:53
protective sleeve and semi rigid and top loader.
36:58
And at that time screw downs and stuff like my, I, I personally
37:04
physically handled very expensive cards in the raw
37:09
before grading started. So and, and that has its
37:14
potential hazards as well. You know, there are only so many
37:18
nice high end cards, and not having them encapsulated means
37:25
the likelihood of the number of those dropping is reasonable
37:30
because things are going to happen when you're handling
37:33
them. Yeah, yeah.
37:36
So that's all I got. Do you have anything else?
37:41
We're 38 minutes in. Well, on our on our website,
37:45
sportscarclubhouse.com, we ended ended the poll from last week.
37:49
And if I remember correctly, SGC finished just ahead of CSG.
37:55
Do I have that right? Yes, yeah.
37:59
In terms of best slab and there were like 100 some odd votes.
38:03
So what is the latest poll that's out there?
38:06
Great. I'm even going to put it on the
38:07
screen. I had it prepped because yes,
38:10
that was that was one of the things I was also going to talk
38:14
about. But that if you do get your
38:17
cards graded, who do you prefer? And our poll said that at least
38:24
the people in our audience prefer SGC, which doesn't
38:29
surprise me 'cause Vintage does look really nice in SGC.
38:35
So that was the poll results that it was SGCCGC was was was
38:40
nearby and then everyone else was distant.
38:44
It was like 36% for SGC, 34 for CGC, right?
38:48
Something like that. So just the two of them made 70%
38:52
of the total. And this one, this newest 1 is
38:54
best card show besides the National.
38:56
And I really, really regret Adam asked us for our input.
39:00
I really regret not saying add Shriners in there because I
39:03
didn't think of it. And Shriners for me has become a
39:06
must go to in the fall. And I haven't been to any of
39:10
these. So I can't even vote.
39:11
I didn't vote. I haven't seen the results.
39:14
Why don't you click on one of these that you like the best and
39:17
let's see where the results are right now.
39:18
Well, I've only been to 1 and and it's Strongsville.
39:22
I will say that of the ones I've not been to, I would really like
39:27
to go to Philly more than any of the ones.
39:30
If, if I were to pick one that I was going to go to, I'd want to
39:32
go to Philly. I'm going to go to the West
39:35
Coast Burbank show in February. So I'll have more information on
39:39
that. But I'm going to choose the only
39:42
one I've been to, which is Strongsville.
39:44
And let's see, let's see how our results are at the moment.
39:48
I assume it's low, a low vote total, but we don't see vote
39:51
total. Yeah.
39:52
So Strongsville is 1/2 and West Coast Burbank has a third of
39:56
them. So that's pretty significant.
39:59
And and our friends north of the border are currently getting
40:02
shut out. I I'm Jeremy Lee obviously
40:06
hasn't voted because I would think he would go at the Expo.
40:10
Carlos probably hasn't voted. He would go at the Expo is
40:14
Carlos. In Canada, I don't think I knew
40:16
that. Yeah, I think so.
40:20
I thought so. He goes to the Expo every year.
40:23
OK. Pretty sure.
40:25
West Coast, Burbank 32%, Philly 5%, White Plains 5%.
40:32
Interesting. Dallas 11%.
40:36
There you go. So Moynihan's voted.
40:39
I don't know. I don't know what he would vote
40:40
for. I'm just being funny.
40:43
Well, a trying to be. Yeah.
40:45
So check out the poll. Let us know what you think.
40:48
Strongsville, AKA Independence. Again, I'm keeping an open mind.
40:55
I think it's going to be a lot of fun.
40:57
It'll be different, but it'll be a lot of fun still, no doubt
41:00
about it. And again, for those listening,
41:05
I will be at the Embassy Suites and I believe that's where Mike
41:12
is planning on being. A lot of lot of guys will be at
41:16
the Embassy Suites. I know Darren return to
41:18
collecting, I know Tony Southern Collector, I know Mike Petty.
41:22
All those guys are also Embassy Suites guys, amongst others.
41:27
So but they're all pretty close to each other.
41:31
And we should throw out a plug that the Friday night hangout
41:38
hosted by the Mayor Crystal, Missouri is going to be at the
41:42
Embassy Suites. And then the four collectors
41:45
trade night will be Saturday night, which I guess that would
41:49
be April 11th, I believe. And that will be hosted at the
41:53
Holiday Inn, which is where the dealers, most of the dealers are
41:58
staying, which is walking distance of the Embassy Suites.
42:02
So that'll be a blast. Yeah, I'm excited about it.
42:06
I'll be there Friday. And so, hey, you got to start
42:11
rebuilding up the war chest after buying that, that new
42:16
Jackie Robinson, the 53. Jackie Robinson, I have a 54 and
42:22
a 55 and you have a 53, a 54 and a 56.
42:27
So you're beating me right now? Yeah, I lost you there for a
42:31
couple seconds. I'm beating you.
42:32
How? You're beating me because you
42:34
have a 53, a 54 and a 56, Jackie and I have a 54 and I have a 55.
42:42
Yeah 55 I have a safe search for 55 in a in about a 1.5 is what
42:47
I'm looking for. Ain't mine's in a four.
42:50
Nice. I think my 54 and 55 I think are
42:53
both fours. Nice.
42:55
I mean, so they got that. I mean, if they're fours, they
42:57
got to be amazing, right? Absolutely.
43:00
Well, Greg, as always, I think this was a great episode. 10 out
43:03
of 10. We're rating ourselves right now
43:05
10 out of 10. 10 stars. Two homers grading ourselves
43:10
here. All right, buddy, I had a blast.
43:16
We will do it again in a week. How's that sound?
43:19
I'm. Looking forward to it, all
43:21
right.