Latest / Sports Card Clubhouse / The Fallout From An INSANE Month In The Sports Card Hobby!!
Transcript
- 0:00In our massive country, there are card collectors throughout
- 0:03the land participating in the hobby.
- 0:06There's Mike of Junk Wax Hero and Greg of Midlife Cards, and
- 0:11while distance may separate them, here is where they come
- 0:14together to talk cards. Oh boy, Mike.
- 0:21The hobby drama is not leaving us.
- 0:23It is continuing. It is accelerating.
- 0:27It is like a car going 1000 miles an hour and they are
- 0:31pushing on the accelerator. What are we going to do?
- 0:35Happy Thanksgiving to you, Greg. I mean, back up.
- 0:38Happy Thanksgiving. And to our viewers, slash
- 0:42listeners. Yes, when this post's
- 0:46Thanksgiving will be behind us. We're recording it early because
- 0:50we're choosing to spend our normal recording day with our
- 0:54families for Thanksgiving. Yeah, probably napping at that
- 1:00time. Oh well, the first nap.
- 1:06So what time does? What time does your family eat
- 1:09Thanksgiving dinner? Do you want the short version or
- 1:13the long version of this answer? The short version?
- 1:18Depends on on whose house it's at, but usually early so.
- 1:23Early like noon or. 1 noon or one?
- 1:27Yeah, we do. Like 2:00 PM-ish.
- 1:31We haven't had a normal Thanksgiving in about 7 years
- 1:36because Thanksgiving weekend is a the West Coast club soccer
- 1:43tournament. So we have been in the San Diego
- 1:46area for the last like 7 years for Thanksgiving.
- 1:48So we haven't really had a Thanksgiving in a very long
- 1:52time. So I kind of forget, but that's
- 1:54what I remember. I love San Diego.
- 1:59Oh, it's the past. It is.
- 2:02It is phenomenal. Yeah, I've been twice.
- 2:04I went in 2008 when the economy was in tatters and San Diego was
- 2:11just not, not in a good spot. And then I won again in 2014.
- 2:21Maybe, yeah. Yeah, I've been to San Diego a
- 2:26lot like many years, twice in a year.
- 2:29There's that's the big facility for the West Coast of the United
- 2:35States soccer tournaments. But Lucy is now in college and
- 2:39so we don't go to that tournament anymore.
- 2:41So this is a quote UN quote normal Thanksgiving.
- 2:47So that's where we're at. So back to my head on collision
- 2:51that we are currently on track for.
- 2:55It feels like everyday something else comes up.
- 2:58It feels like I'm getting tired of talking about hobby drama.
- 3:03Are you getting tired of talking about hobby drama?
- 3:05I'm really not I, I know that I, I see the comments from people
- 3:12saying let's move on from shield bidding and I totally get that.
- 3:16But there's so much hobby drama that I, I enjoy it until I don't
- 3:22the, the specific things like I, I hate to say I enjoy it, but
- 3:25I'm, I'm definitely interested in it in a like a cable news,
- 3:30everything is a train wreck kind of way.
- 3:32I. Jerry Springer kind of way.
- 3:34Yeah, it is entertainment. It's it's definitely affecting
- 3:40all of us. Some of this effects all of us
- 3:42in very negative ways. But in terms of just straight up
- 3:45entertainment, it is wildly entertaining.
- 3:51Yeah, yeah. There's there is some
- 3:53entertainment. So I made AI made a little list
- 3:56because I'm trying to figure out if if the sky is is truly
- 4:03falling. So I made a list of some recent
- 4:06events that have led towards where we are now.
- 4:11So I want to run through my list and then I want to hear what I'm
- 4:15forgetting on the list. So we've got Patrick Ryan who's
- 4:20one of the biggest financial collectors slash investors in
- 4:25the industry in terms of. Being out in public, we know
- 4:30that there are others. There, Yeah, Yeah.
- 4:32Well said. Well said.
- 4:33Good of the most public figures who is heavily purchasing on the
- 4:40high end and making acquisitions on the high end.
- 4:43His whole issue, he's currently taking a break, I guess from
- 4:49social media after he posted for all of us his cell phone number.
- 4:54Then we've got Doctor Beckett, one of the Mount Rushmore people
- 4:59in the hobby. He has been under a lot of
- 5:02scrutiny, changing some people's thoughts and that situation.
- 5:07So we've got the whole shill bidding thing, we've got auction
- 5:10houses. Where I think that what happened
- 5:14is the conversations they had opened up a can of worms about
- 5:18shill bidding, opened up a can of worms about auction houses.
- 5:22Then people started actually looking at what the auction
- 5:24houses do and don't allow and I think it was kind of eye opening
- 5:28for some people. We have the top eBay seller of
- 5:33sports cards left eBay to open his own auction house which was
- 5:39a complete train wreck and is apparently now shut down and
- 5:45forever. And that is 1.
- 5:47So we have the top eBay seller is who knows what his future
- 5:52looks like. We've got all time high prices
- 5:55in many cases of a lot of cards, specifically modern, but a lot
- 6:00of stuff. We've got PSA who bought their
- 6:04number one competitor, the number 2 grader in SGC seems to
- 6:08be slowly, maybe not even slowly, but strangling them to
- 6:13death. And we've got potential economic
- 6:19issues with layoffs from big companies and a lot of question
- 6:25marks in the global and U.S. economy.
- 6:29Other than that, everything's going great.
- 6:34Yeah. That, that seems like a pretty
- 6:37good summary of the like the really, really recent trends
- 6:42that we've seen. I'm sure if we were to take a
- 6:46broader look, we we could come up with a much bigger list.
- 6:50But this is like November, yeah. That's that's like this month.
- 6:55Yeah. PS As turn around times are
- 6:57going up. Prices went out.
- 7:00Prices are, yeah, for sure. There's, there's so much out
- 7:06there. There's so much to talk about.
- 7:07And when I started my YouTube channel, I never imagined I
- 7:10didn't know about all this stuff.
- 7:12I don't even think this stuff was happening there.
- 7:15There weren't as many people in the hobby at the time.
- 7:18There wasn't as much money at the time.
- 7:20And the the monopolization of the hobby didn't exist.
- 7:27Like PSA wasn't a clear monopoly.
- 7:31Fanatics wasn't a clear monopoly at the time.
- 7:34And that's all happened just in the last four years.
- 7:38Yeah, yeah, there's, I mean, there's so much consolidation
- 7:44and, and where there wasn't consolidation, the expansion of
- 7:48like eBay where you know, there's not eBay PSA collectors.
- 7:54You guys know when I say PSAI mean collectors virtually
- 7:57interchangeably, but the, the vault, the buy your car draw on
- 8:03eBay, have it go straight to PSA, have it go straight up for
- 8:06sale through PSA where they take care of it for you.
- 8:09Like PSA is so involved in now you can buy from PSA, you grade
- 8:18from PSA, you sell through PSA fanatics, you can they produce
- 8:24the cards, you buy the cards from them, you can sell the
- 8:27cards through them. And this just huge, these two
- 8:31huge conglomerates are now controlling so much of the
- 8:37hobby. But then you even look at most
- 8:39of the things I just listed and it they're the, they're like
- 8:43everything that they don't control.
- 8:45I mean, it's like the the shield building, the auction houses,
- 8:48the the Probstein stuff. I mean, if I was new to this
- 8:53hobby right now, if I got into this hobby like January 1st of
- 8:582025, I would be going what? This is the wild.
- 9:03West, right? Yeah, it's pretty wild if you
- 9:09are not in it on a daily basis. I know a lot of people will
- 9:13watch my Sunday video. Am I clearing the bases video
- 9:16where I just kind of cover at a quick glance everything that
- 9:19that's happened in the last week and I just I can't fathom not
- 9:25knowing all this stuff until Sunday morning and like just
- 9:27ignoring everything and not see any of it and then Sunday
- 9:31morning catching up on all of it all at once.
- 9:34It's there's so much stuff that happens every.
- 9:36Week. Well, you're very dialed in with
- 9:39Twitter or X or whatever the heck we want to call it this
- 9:43week. They you are dialed into that
- 9:47and a lot of like the new sources and info sources and,
- 9:51and major players in the hobby do a lot of their posting there.
- 9:55And I think a lot of us, myself included, I mean, I have an
- 9:58account, but I don't really use the account.
- 10:02So I don't know some of this stuff until people who are
- 10:06following that like talk about it.
- 10:08I'm like, oh Dang, like so I am one of those people.
- 10:12I have a one. What's that?
- 10:15You have a life. I don't know about that.
- 10:17Let's not get carried away. But I am one of these people who
- 10:21like your video on Sunday is how I do find out a lot about a lot
- 10:27of the stuff. Unless somebody has, you know,
- 10:30made a short video about it during the week and and
- 10:35sometimes the bigger stories they have.
- 10:39I mean, it, it is the is the accelerating toward a brick
- 10:45wall. How does this, how does this
- 10:48play out? Like, OK, let's not to play, you
- 10:52know, Miss Cleo and predict the future, but let's play Miss Cleo
- 10:57like in six months. OK, Let me ask you some quick
- 11:03hits in six months. Does SGC exist as a brand?
- 11:08You know, I have consistently said yes all along that that P
- 11:13that collectors will never kill off the SGC brand.
- 11:16Neo though, and you've made some good points too.
- 11:19But Neo had a really good answer for this that kind of made me
- 11:24think could they maybe and and maybe it was actually a comment
- 11:29on that video too. I'm still going to say SGC will
- 11:33exist six months from now, yes. OK and and I didn't even I need
- 11:39to mention this, but the news about Com C maybe being on the
- 11:46brink of bankruptcy or or non existence, I mean I didn't even
- 11:51include that. And Com C is probably the main
- 11:55place to buy and sell cards not called eBay.
- 11:59And that's that's up in the air. Will Com C in the next 6 months
- 12:06be purchased by eBay or Fanatics or PSA?
- 12:11That's a great question. If you had asked me if Comm C
- 12:13will exist, I will say absolutely they will exist in
- 12:17six months. Will they be purchased?
- 12:20I think yes. So eBay is already a an investor
- 12:26in Comm C and so I could see them increasing their investment
- 12:31perhaps substantially. I'm not sure that it's public
- 12:33how much of Comm C they've invested, how much they own of
- 12:37Comm CI. I've gathered that it's not a
- 12:40huge number, but I could see them increasing that investment.
- 12:45Will fanatics have their own grading company in six months?
- 12:53Wow, Six months. No.
- 12:57OK. Do you think so?
- 12:59No, I, I mean, I, I was asking the questions, but if you're
- 13:03going to ask them back, I, I feel like they're the
- 13:12opportunity for somebody to come in and become a major player in
- 13:17the grading industry that is currently not, has never been
- 13:23more open than it is right now. There is a gaping hole in the
- 13:27grading industry 'cause there is there are people who do not like
- 13:31PSA, They like them even less now that they've been doing what
- 13:35they're doing with SGC. There are a lot of people who
- 13:40think CGC is good but more for modern and non sport.
- 13:46Tag has gone mostly the Pokémon route.
- 13:50So there are a lot of people where there is there is an
- 13:53opening for anything and Beckett hasn't even tried to capture
- 13:59that. They have invested no money into
- 14:03because they have no money but but they're not even trying to
- 14:08capitalize. I mean, I'll say this.
- 14:13I've literally had multiple people reach out to me like that
- 14:19are fairly serious that have some money and connections to
- 14:25money. Say, what do you think it would
- 14:28cost to buy Beckett gravy? Literally.
- 14:33Hundreds of millions of dollars. Oh, no way, No way.
- 14:37Because when Doctor Beckett got his buyout, it was not that much
- 14:41and they were in a much better position then.
- 14:43But that was 2008. Think about what has happened to
- 14:45the economy in the last 17 years and how much companies have
- 14:50grown. So the company I worked for at
- 14:52that time in 2008 is now 10 times the size they were in
- 15:002008. Companies have grown
- 15:01dramatically. And remember, the dollar is far
- 15:06more valuable than it was back then.
- 15:08So $1000, let's just say $100 million in 2008 is I don't know
- 15:16how many hundreds of millions of dollars now, but it's way more.
- 15:21Yeah. I mean terms of the deal, I'm
- 15:24just looking at an article from January 2025.
- 15:27It says terms of the deal were not disclosed, although we saw
- 15:30one unconfirmed report that the that put the value at north of
- 15:3520 million. The value of the entire company
- 15:40in 2008? That doesn't seem right.
- 15:43I'll read the first paragraph of this article again.
- 15:47I don't know, but this is what the article says.
- 15:50beckettpublicationsbeckett.com and Beckett Grading Services
- 15:54have been sold to a Prize Media LLC and renamed Beckett Media
- 16:00LP. Terms of the deal were not
- 16:02disclosed, although we saw one unconfirmed report that put the
- 16:07value at north of 20 million. OK, well, collectivist not not
- 16:15Festivus, but collectivist is the.
- 16:17Newest Festivus is coming up. That's right.
- 16:20They collectivist owns them now and they just invested like a
- 16:26year ago or they promised an investment.
- 16:29I want to say it was $200 million.
- 16:34Yeah, you look that up. I OK.
- 16:38So back to the question though, as you're looking this up, the
- 16:41question was will fanatics have a grading company I2?
- 16:48$150 million investment in the last roughly year and so if they
- 16:55have a $250 million investment, the company has to be worth
- 17:00hundreds of million. $250 million investment in Beckett.
- 17:05Where's that money gone? That that's the question
- 17:08because. The magazine still sort of
- 17:12exists. The database of information kind
- 17:16of exists. But nothing works very well
- 17:18anymore. Well, that's my point.
- 17:20I mean, if it's worth, if they invested $250 million, they need
- 17:24to get some of their money back because.
- 17:27I don't know if they actually I, I know they pledged a $250
- 17:31million investment. I don't know if they actually
- 17:33did it. I mean, I, I, I don't, I, I
- 17:39don't, I don't even know what to say.
- 17:41It's. Crazy.
- 17:42Now is the time, the opportunity is.
- 17:47So it's such a low hanging fruit that if, if fanatics isn't
- 17:52considering it, then they're never going to consider it.
- 17:56They're just never going to consider it.
- 17:58And I don't know why they wouldn't consider it.
- 18:00The depth of the pockets that are available for fanatics to
- 18:07put into the gaping hole, the biggest hole in all of the the
- 18:14the industry right now. It's not a producer of cards.
- 18:18It's a competitor of PSAI. Mean we all know, you know,
- 18:22we've all taken econ one O 1 and the invisible hand will control
- 18:27the market. And what happens is when one
- 18:29company gets fat and happy, somebody else starts to come in
- 18:33and balance it out. That time is now, like now.
- 18:39Beckett just announced, well, though I guess they're group
- 18:43submitters, announced that Beckett is no longer taking
- 18:46group submissions. They're putting a pause on them
- 18:48at least, and maybe this is a precursor to an acquisition.
- 18:54I think it would be really interesting and in a very bad
- 18:56way. By the way, it would be very
- 18:57interesting in a bad way if fanatics were to acquire a
- 19:01grader, start grading their own cards and put them in repacks.
- 19:08Well, that is that is OK. I agree that there would be some
- 19:14dangers in that series of steps, but step one is acquire A grader
- 19:21and and and as far as me or make your own.
- 19:26It feels to me that the easiest route would be Beckett.
- 19:34But then I mean, didn't we hear that PSA was setting up a new
- 19:40headquarters like in the same town as Beckett?
- 19:43Like like on the same block. It's like on the same street or
- 19:47something. It's like it's.
- 19:48In the same building I think. Well, that's SGC in PSA before
- 19:52they picked SGC into the broom closet a la Mike Petty.
- 19:56Saying that, I mean, it is is just such a golden opportunity
- 20:01right now. Or somebody with deep pockets.
- 20:06Let's do it. I've got $17.00.
- 20:08How much do you have? Well, let me look in my wallet.
- 20:11I mean, Mike, I've got hold on. Oh, oh, oh, Mike, I've got $100
- 20:17bill. I've got you.
- 20:20Obviously it was just payday. How many?
- 20:24How many pirate cards will that buy?
- 20:26It depends, is it a common or is it a captain?
- 20:30260 bucks I have available. We have $277 between us we could
- 20:36buy, I mean, Beckett, I think, yeah.
- 20:43OK. So you said no though.
- 20:45You said no, there will not be Fanatics will not have a grading
- 20:50company in six months, but you said SGC, the brand will exist
- 20:56and what what was my other question?
- 20:57I don't even remember. I don't even.
- 20:59Where are we? Podcast.
- 21:02It's gone. Yeah, it's gone.
- 21:05OK, will Probe Steam be selling on eBay again?
- 21:11So I've heard that he is announcing we're recording this
- 21:14rate around the time he's supposed to be making his
- 21:16announcement that he, the snipe is dead forever and.
- 21:21It was alive for like, I don't know, five days.
- 21:24I mean, it was a really, it was bad.
- 21:27And that he's going back to eBay now, if I'm eBay, and I talked
- 21:30about this with Neo, if I'm eBay, I'm like, hey, I've got
- 21:32the leverage now we're going. To eBay I go.
- 21:36Right. You're going to get higher fees.
- 21:39Where else you going to go? What are you going to do?
- 21:41You're going to get higher fees. And in fact, if I'm eBay, I'm
- 21:44probably like, no, we don't want you back.
- 21:46The stuff that we've seen out of Snipe looks so shady.
- 21:50No matter what, it looks so shady.
- 21:53And if I'm eBay, I'm like, I don't want to be involved in it
- 21:56now, correct? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I,
- 21:58I thought I heard Rob Varys and maybe it was a Dustin interview.
- 22:02I can't remember, but I thought I heard Rob Varys say that they
- 22:07went, they were going over primarily from eBay to Fanatics
- 22:14and Fanatics was taking a long time to get the infrastructure
- 22:19in place. And because of that, they had
- 22:22less stuff for sale than they would have, which has created a
- 22:25loss. And Fanatics has been writing
- 22:27them checks for the lost income as a result of it taking so
- 22:31long. I if, if I'm Probstein, instead
- 22:35of going back with my tail between my legs over to eBay,
- 22:39I'm probably calling up Fanatics and going how far out of you
- 22:41guys I'll come over. But why would fanatics want him?
- 22:46Why would any company want him after what has happened?
- 22:49Because he. Sells tons of stuff.
- 22:52But DC Sports can do that. There are other 4 sharp corners
- 22:56can do that. They can fill that gap and
- 22:59probst him. With these allegations that have
- 23:01come out, I wouldn't want to get into bed with him.
- 23:06I mean, we saw companies still doing business with backyard
- 23:11breaks. I mean, if that doesn't tell you
- 23:14that companies will do whatever it takes, that brings in a buck.
- 23:18So companies are doing partnerships with backyard
- 23:21breaks. They're worse in my well, I
- 23:25don't know, I'll get sued if I say what I actually think.
- 23:28I I would think that some of them would be open to bringing
- 23:33on Probsteam. That's a fairpoint about
- 23:38Backyard Breaks, that's sure. But I think that Backyard Breaks
- 23:44is always going to have their fans and I don't know that there
- 23:47is a fan of a consignor. Like does Probstein have fans?
- 23:55Does DC Sports have fans like a Backyard Brakes has?
- 23:59I don't think so. Does I mean this?
- 24:03There's a whole generation they're.
- 24:06Going to do case studies in college on this whole Probstein,
- 24:12the last six months of of the Probstein company.
- 24:15I mean, it is going to be a case study of, I mean, why, why did
- 24:20they completely close the door on eBay?
- 24:23Like at least keep the door open with a slower trickle of stuff.
- 24:29So you always have that in case something happens.
- 24:31I mean, there were so many mistakes that went down over
- 24:38this whole thing. It, it is, it is unbelievable
- 24:42that intelligent people are are coming up with went down this
- 24:50route and it, I mean, I've never seen an implosion like this.
- 24:55Do they ever recover? I don't think so.
- 24:59Could you, if they're if they're back on eBay, could you trust
- 25:02them with your cards? Well, I didn't trust them with
- 25:05my cards to begin with, but. Why not?
- 25:08Why? I mean, I, I have friends who
- 25:14have gone on, gone to consigners, OK, I have friends
- 25:21who have gone to consigners to sell their stuff through eBay.
- 25:26Several friends do that. And they do it because they
- 25:30don't have to pinch pennies and they can just go, this is easy.
- 25:33I don't want to deal with it. I don't want to mail it.
- 25:35I don't want to, you know, get out the wrapping tape and stuff
- 25:39and I'm just going to bang, send it off and then get my money.
- 25:43I totally understand that I'm cheap.
- 25:47Like my hobby dollars, each hobby dollar is like super
- 25:52valuable for me. So if I go, man, I could net $32
- 25:59or I could net $25. I am that cheap because I want
- 26:05those $7.00 for my hobby budget. So I have always thought it was
- 26:11curious how many people use consigners like.
- 26:18But again, I don't understand why people pay Uber eats or
- 26:23DoorDash. Like you're paying three times
- 26:27what it cost to get your Chipotle burrito because you
- 26:30don't want to get off the couch. Like I just don't work that way.
- 26:33So I guess I shouldn't say it's that I didn't trust them to
- 26:36begin with. It's that I never even
- 26:39considered them to begin with. So I'm the wrong guy to ask.
- 26:43So it's not a trust thing. I I need to correct myself.
- 26:47It's AI don't have that kind of income that I want being spent
- 26:53on that. So I think there's a.
- 26:55There's a big difference between your comparisons here.
- 27:00One of them, Chipotle. First of all, delicious.
- 27:02I love Chipotle. Very good day, welcome a
- 27:05sponsorship from them anytime. Yes I would love to have
- 27:07Chipotle right now but when you are ordering from Gordash, which
- 27:11I almost never do because I am, I feel the same way as you.
- 27:15It's why would I spend an extra 15 or $20.00 for take out
- 27:19because I have to pay the fee the the driver and the tip when
- 27:26I have food in my house. If I can't go out and we're
- 27:29going to talk about why here in a moment, but if I can't go out
- 27:31for some reason to pick up take out, I'm just going to make food
- 27:34in my house. There's no way I'm going to once
- 27:37I'm like, if I have company and we're like, hey, we should get
- 27:40something to eat instead of going out.
- 27:43I will very, very rarely order in and it's anyway.
- 27:49But my time has tremendous value to me and I'm always considering
- 27:53the value of my time. And I hate shipping cards.
- 27:59I hate packaging them and shipping them like one or two at
- 28:04a time. I would much rather use a
- 28:06consignor. So you and I strongly disagree
- 28:08here. I would rather ship like I just
- 28:09shipped 170 ish cards to come see many of them.
- 28:13Like 80 of them were slabs I think because I can list them on
- 28:18there. I'm not trying to profit, but I
- 28:21I do want to maximize my dollars, but instead of listing
- 28:25them on eBay and just hoping that they sell and then shipping
- 28:31each one one at a time to various people, that is a that's
- 28:35a time suck. I can ship all of them in one
- 28:38box to the Consignor Comp C in this case, and then let them
- 28:42deal with the hassle of of listing them and shipping them
- 28:47and doing everything right and not worrying about customer
- 28:50feedback and all that stuff because my time is extremely
- 28:55valuable to me. Yeah, I don't value my time.
- 29:00I don't, I don't have a lot of respect for my own time.
- 29:05I I, I had a conversation. So I had Chris Hoge on the
- 29:10channel last week and before we started recording, he goes and
- 29:17you put a lot of content and, and you edit it.
- 29:20You have edited stuff and it's like produced and stuff.
- 29:23It's not just like, you know, flip on the camera And it's
- 29:26like, do you, does someone do your editing for you?
- 29:29And I'm like, no. And he goes, dude, you must
- 29:33spend a crazy amount of time. I go, yeah.
- 29:36And and I need, I need to be more respectful of myself.
- 29:41I'm not I, I abuse my time. I do, I, I want to, some of what
- 29:48you're saying I want to rub off on me because I don't do enough
- 29:52of that. My my, my mother-in-law.
- 29:58OK. My mother-in-law used to own
- 30:02outright 6 houses, 5 rentals plus her own house.
- 30:09She sold the five houses because she didn't want to deal with it
- 30:11anymore. And I don't know what she does
- 30:15with I think her money is just like sitting probably in her
- 30:18savings account. And this woman recite, she
- 30:22reuses Ziploc bags. Mike, I go to her house and I
- 30:29will be there for Thanksgiving and and they will put the
- 30:33plastic utensils, you know, the disposable, the cheap kind like
- 30:37the Kirkland from Costco ones. They put them in the dishwasher,
- 30:41but you reuse, you reuse plastic forks.
- 30:45What are we doing? And she she has plenty of money.
- 30:51But I guess some of us are just wired to be insane.
- 30:58Don't nobody go and tell my mother that I'm talking about
- 31:00her on on this this podcast, but she has paper plates, used paper
- 31:06plates around her kitchen because she will reuse them.
- 31:09There might be two or three of them and she has spoons.
- 31:12She'll use a spoon and then she'll set it down on the edge
- 31:15of the sink and then reuse it. If she gets, if she gets a
- 31:20plastic fork from a restaurant, she'll take it.
- 31:23She gets, oh, this is the best one.
- 31:25She will order an Italian sandwich.
- 31:27Is that, is that a thing out in California?
- 31:29Italian sandwich. Yeah, like salami, Pepperoni.
- 31:32Sure. Mozzarella.
- 31:33Yeah, she'll get an Italian sandwich.
- 31:34She doesn't like oil on her Italian sandwich, so she'll ask
- 31:37them to put it on the side and then she will take that side of
- 31:41oil and dump it into her oil container for another time.
- 31:46I mean, that's next level, dude. That's that is that is next
- 31:51level. I got to say I respect that.
- 31:56I mean, my level of being cheap ends at I will ask for hot sauce
- 32:03from Taco Bell, the little packets, even when I don't want
- 32:06them because then I will use them when I'm making Taco meat.
- 32:10Like that's about as far as I will go.
- 32:13But using the oil and marrying it into your oil jug at home,
- 32:21that's legit, dude. That is legit.
- 32:24Yeah, I always joke, and she's 75.
- 32:25She's born in 1950. And I always joke that she was.
- 32:28She grew up during the Depression because that's the
- 32:30way she acts. Right.
- 32:32Yeah, My dad was born in 1950. Yeah, I mean, obviously she's 20
- 32:36something years too late to have been a depression kid, but she
- 32:39acts like her parents were depression kids.
- 32:42Right. And if you're raised that way,
- 32:45then it definitely rubs off. I don't even know what we're
- 32:49talking about anymore. I, I know that how we got here,
- 32:53who knows, but I'm, I am like, if, if the hobby were a person,
- 33:03right? It would be it would be if the
- 33:08hobby was a person, they would be staying overnight in the
- 33:12hospital with severe A-fib. Wow.
- 33:21All love, nothing but love there.
- 33:23I, I don't, I don't really even know what that means, but.
- 33:27You know what that means. I know.
- 33:28What you are, I know what that means.
- 33:29I know where it's going for sure.
- 33:33What I'm saying is it's been healthier than it is at the
- 33:37moment. And I I love this hobby.
- 33:42Like I don't even people don't like people at work will go.
- 33:47I heard you had a YouTube channel and I'll go.
- 33:50Yeah. And they'll go like, what's your
- 33:53YouTube channel about? And I go, it's just this hobby I
- 33:57do. And they're like, what is it?
- 33:58And I go, it's like baseball cards.
- 34:01And they're like baseball cards. And I'm like, yeah.
- 34:06And but I can't even explain. Like I lay awake at night
- 34:10thinking about this stuff. I don't know why I do.
- 34:14I don't know why I I fly across the country to go into an ice
- 34:20rink in Strongsville, OH. Strongsville, OH who goes to
- 34:26Strongsville, OH? I will fly to Strongsville, OH
- 34:30to spend 3 days at a card show because I love this stuff.
- 34:37So when I see things like this list of, of shrapnel that, that
- 34:48the hobby is currently like trying to recover from it, it
- 34:54affects me and, and I don't like talking about it.
- 34:57I want to move on. I do.
- 34:59But at times I'm like, I, I sometimes just need to talk
- 35:04about it 'cause it's like my therapy of, I mean, we just got
- 35:08hit by a hand grenade and then we just had a leg blow off and
- 35:12then we just, I mean, it's wild what November was like.
- 35:17I can't imagine it going worse. Wait until December.
- 35:22You just, you just reminded me that almost 20 years ago, I had
- 35:26a boss. I, I went to, I drove to Boston
- 35:29with a friend and Boston's about a 2 1/2 hour drive and we went
- 35:34to a fantasy Football Conference where you just sit and listen to
- 35:40theories about fantasy football. And I'd taken a day off from
- 35:43work for that 'cause I have a certain number of days in a year
- 35:46and my boss at that time made fun of me for months, if not
- 35:51years for me doing that. Now I want to imagine me telling
- 35:54her now I, I have a YouTube channel where I talk about
- 35:59sports cards and I travel around the country going to sports card
- 36:03shows. She would, she'd probably fire
- 36:05me. It would be so embarrassing for
- 36:07her. Speaking of fantasy sports, I
- 36:13was so addicted to fantasy football and fantasy baseball
- 36:19that I had to quit. Like I heard Dan Patrick talk
- 36:25about this, that he had to quit because during commercial breaks
- 36:31he would pull out his phone and be making trades and offering
- 36:35trades for his fantasy football team.
- 36:38That it was so taking over his life.
- 36:40He had to pull the RIP cord. And that's literally what I did.
- 36:44And that's one of the things that I'm, I've always been aware
- 36:47of with cards is I get so obsessed with things and I get
- 36:52so fanatical about things that I go, it's taking over.
- 36:57I, this is too much. And, and I am, I get scared at
- 37:00times that that's what's going to happen for cards with me.
- 37:02Because if that happens, like I don't want to walk away from
- 37:06this. Because at this point, it's not
- 37:08just the hobby that I think about and the acquiring of the
- 37:11cards. It's some of the friendships
- 37:14that matter the most to me. It's, it's our link.
- 37:17And I'm like, if, if something were to happen, I were to just
- 37:20flame out like a, you know, a star just flames out and I, I
- 37:27would lose too much At this point.
- 37:30I'm so pot committed with cards because of the relationships
- 37:36that at times I think I need to temper myself.
- 37:39I mean, Mike, I have put out, and I'm not exaggerating when I
- 37:42say this, a minimum of three videos every week since my
- 37:49channel launched October 21st of 2022.
- 37:53Three or more videos every single week.
- 37:56There was not a week I didn't do at least three videos.
- 38:00Yeah, but you really undersell it because your videos are like
- 38:0245 minutes long each. My videos I put out four or five
- 38:05a week. My videos are like 8 to 12
- 38:07minutes each. And there I do a little bit of
- 38:12editing for sure, but it's nowhere near as much time as you
- 38:15put in to your channel. I don't know, maybe that's next
- 38:20week. We talk about the we, we do like
- 38:25a whole psychological analysis of, of, of something.
- 38:31I don't know. I, I love it.
- 38:33I love the friendships, some of the people that matter the most
- 38:38to me in this world. I have I've had face to FaceTime
- 38:44for just a few hours and that's insanely, I mean, and I mean
- 38:50like physically been in the same room as them.
- 38:53I mean, I love Mookie Chelson. Mookie is one of my favorite
- 38:58people on the planet. Like the there's, you know,
- 39:02we're on the Titanic. I've got five life preservers.
- 39:05I have to choose who to use them for.
- 39:08Mookie's on the short list and we've only hung out twice.
- 39:13No, twice. And and that is that this hobby
- 39:18has given me that. We started with the list of how
- 39:23the I mean, I started by talking about a car driving into a brick
- 39:27wall at 1000 miles an hour and accelerating.
- 39:29And now we're talking about my love of Mookie Chilson and how I
- 39:33would use a life preserver on him.
- 39:36I think that's the hallmark of a great podcast and why we have,
- 39:40why we gel so well now. I think I, I would love to hear
- 39:43people's feedback. I think that we have started to
- 39:47really hit our stride as podcasters.
- 39:48We, we don't stick to the topic. When I listen to a, a good
- 39:51podcast, some of them are scripted and they have to follow
- 39:55the script, right. But a really good podcast is a
- 39:57conversation that goes all over the place.
- 40:01And I love it when people start talking about their, their
- 40:03personal lives and, and things like that.
- 40:05So. I'm I'm really enjoying this.
- 40:08This is fine. We are not.
- 40:09We don't even talk about topics. You didn't even say to me, Hey,
- 40:12we're going to talk about this and this and this today.
- 40:15I didn't know and that's fun. Yeah, I totally agree.
- 40:19Each time we do one of these, I have more fun doing it than I
- 40:24did the previous time. And that has been every single
- 40:27time it it has snowballed, the fun level has snowballed into a
- 40:32bigger snowball each and every time.
- 40:34And, and that's what it should be.
- 40:37I mean, 'cause this is a hot, this is a hobby, this is a side
- 40:41hobby within our hobby is this whole YouTube thing, this whole
- 40:45channel that we're doing. And I got to tell people I, I,
- 40:49we've, we've said it a couple times and, and we've got a
- 40:52couple of big things coming up that I'm really.
- 40:56Excited about. Really excited about.
- 40:59And we'll have some guests on to talk about some of it.
- 41:05But again, it's all because it's fun, and as soon as it's not fun
- 41:10is when we just start pulling RIP cords and and hit and eject
- 41:13buttons. But if the fun keeps getting
- 41:16more fun, that's a good sign. I think it will.
- 41:21Yeah, I do too. I do too.
- 41:24All right, buddy, we're at 41 minutes.
- 41:27It's Thanksgiving week. Everybody's probably watched
- 41:31football all week. They probably just been well,
- 41:35when is this posting? What?
- 41:36What is even the date that this is going to post?
- 41:38When we post these Saturday mornings.
- 41:40On the on the podcast they post Saturday mornings.
- 41:44So this will post. I don't even know what is it
- 41:49going to be. It'll post on November 29th and
- 41:53then on December 5th, No, December 4th it'll post on
- 41:58YouTube and here we are November 24th.
- 42:01So by now, who knows? Probstein probably has bought
- 42:07out fanatics and he has been elected senator of a state that
- 42:14was created since then and now. Sounds right.
- 42:22All right, buddy. Good talking to you.
- 42:25If you're listening to this, I hope that you've already had a
- 42:29fantastic Thanksgiving with family and friends and football
- 42:33and maybe some sports cards. If you are, you know, so
- 42:41inclined, leave us some comments down below.
- 42:44Let us know what you think of the evolution of the sports card
- 42:49clubhouse, but specifically surface issues.
- 42:54Final words, Mike. Yeah, I'd love the feedback.
- 42:58We get quite a bit of it in the comments and and I appreciate it
- 43:01helps us evolve, it helps us get better and we definitely
- 43:06appreciate it. Well said, I look forward to
- 43:09next week. Godspeed.
- 43:12See ya.