Latest / Sports Card Clubhouse / On the Beckett Podcast Shill Bidding Controversy, John Keating Has Some Thoughts

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On the Beckett Podcast Shill Bidding Controversy, John Keating Has Some Thoughts · Sports Card Clubhouse

0:00
In a giant hobby in a giant country, there's a collector
0:04
Mike of Junk Wax Hero and a collector Greg of midlife carts
0:10
on opposite coasts. And here they combine to talk
0:14
about those carts. Hey everybody, it is Mike Junk
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Wax Hero. Normally this is Surface Issues
0:22
recorded with Greg. Greg had something that took him
0:25
away today, so I pulled in the big guns.
0:28
I got John Keating of if you're watching video, you saw John,
0:36
that 70s card show. I always, I always mix it up,
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like, is that right? That 70s card show is right,
0:42
yeah. Yes, John, be confused with that
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70s card store which is my eBay store.
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Great ad John. Perfect.
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Love it. Placement is key.
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Yes, John, thanks for joining me.
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How you been? I've been good, man.
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I've, I've, I've been, I've been, I've been getting better
1:01
by the day. And that sounds cryptic.
1:04
It's not. It's just I came out of a pretty
1:07
big work deal and just starting to recover from work.
1:13
So I have a physical and a mentally challenging job, which
1:18
if you know my mental capacity, that could be anything from
1:21
tying your shoes to, you know, walking down the stairs in the
1:25
morning without falling. But I, I do, I, I do ball hard,
1:28
as they say at work. OK.
1:32
That's pretty mysterious too, right?
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Well, we're going to talk at length about the the shill
1:38
bidding controversy of Doctor Beckett and Patrick Ryan from
1:42
this week. But I want to talk about you for
1:43
a minute because you are a fantastic voice, Nobby, very
1:48
acerbic wit. I always thoroughly enjoyed
1:53
being on Bench Clear Media with you.
1:56
But you kind of, I know you're still hobbying, but you've kind
1:58
of disappeared from the public, the public eye.
2:01
What, where have you been? What have you been doing?
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I mentioned it this to your your absent Co host a while back when
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I was on one of his shows, one of his 12 shows that I don't
2:17
have. I only have a certain bandwidth
2:19
right. It's been about 27 or 8 months
2:26
of going hardcore on this one client and the time I have
2:32
leftover I play with cards I I don't have time to think about
2:37
creating content were making content were the time to do it.
2:42
Most of the time I'd rather I have 10s of thousands of cards I
2:46
need to fondle in my basement. I have a major backlog of of
2:49
stuff I need to get done. So that's what my hobby is, is,
2:52
is my card. So I won't even think about
2:56
doing anything until that's all done.
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And I don't see any end insight because I keep buying cards and
3:01
keep buying collections. So that's my joy in the hobby is
3:05
is the cards. Oddly enough, I know I'm I'm in
3:07
the minority these days, but that's that's where I get my joy
3:10
and that's where my attention is focused on.
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I'm not, you know, plus, you know, really I've, I've pretty
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much said everything I needed to say right at this point.
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So it's just it's not worth anybody's time.
3:25
I had a small group of people that I associate with that I
3:29
appreciate. I'm not saying I keep it small.
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It just happens to be that those are the people that keep me
3:34
around. So that's enough for me to get
3:37
my kind of my hobby news and my hobby people feel and all that
3:40
stuff. So I'm very fortunate to have
3:41
people in my life that know that I'm there when they need me or
3:45
when I need them, they are there.
3:47
But I just do my I just hang out in my basement when I'm home and
3:51
and play with my cards. Yeah, well, I'm thrilled that
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you came on here because last night I was on, you know, my
3:59
nightly Twitter round and you had tweeted that you had
4:02
listened to Doctor Beckett's. And first of all, before we get
4:05
started on this, I do have over my left shoulder here I have two
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autographed first Becketts, first Beckett Baseball, first
4:13
Beckett Basketball autographed by Doctor Beckett.
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They're not the first Becketts bro.
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Well, first Becket baseball card.
4:19
Monthly first Becket basketball card.
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Monthly. I've got the two first Becketts
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79 right over there. Those are the only ones that
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matter. Everything else is, oh, I do
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have the one with Clemente, right?
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That's the first Beckett magazine.
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I do have that as well. So big fan, tons of respect for
4:35
what he has done for the hobby. Hobby legend, but he released a
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podcast to yesterday or the no the day before.
4:42
Yesterday. Monday.
4:44
Monday. Monday.
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Monday. Jeez was it 3 days ago?
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It must have just taken a day for anybody to notice that he
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had said some things that caused the hobby to erupt and and we
4:54
have even sports card investor released a video 1/2 hour ago
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where even Jeff came out and said this.
5:02
This feels wrong to me. So what?
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Give me your high level take and then we'll dive into what what
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goes behind your take. So I have a couple buddies that
5:12
I talked to pretty much on a daily basis and I'm trying
5:18
trying to find the exact the exact quote that I sent out.
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But literally after I listen to it pretty much when it comes
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out, 'cause I, I'll go to the gym in the morning.
5:33
So I, I listen to it in the morning, right.
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So I wrote on Monday morning, Doctor Jim may have had just had
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his slimiest guest ever on Probstein Keating in that
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category. So it, it, it hit me
5:47
immediately. And, you know, the, the, the,
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the friends I have in that chat group or, you know, they listen
5:57
to it, but I feel like some of them, it took a while to sink
6:00
in, you know, and that's not it. That 15 or 17 minutes was a lot
6:06
to unpack. And it, it, it hit people from
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all different directions because it hit, it hits home in a lot of
6:15
spots, right. You grew up with Beckett
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magazines. I grew up with the Beckett Guide
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that changed my, the, my card trajectory when I was 11 years
6:26
old. The the book changed my
6:28
trajectory and what I was going to do, whether it's going to be
6:30
a, you know, a passing through thing for me or whether it was
6:34
going to be a lifelong endeavour or hobby.
6:36
So there's that part, but there's the hobby part of it.
6:41
Or what? What does the hobby mean these
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days? And the hobby is getting further
6:46
and further in the rearview mirror for most people, it's not
6:50
a so much a hobby anymore as a way to make money and like any
6:55
other things like flipping houses or or stocks or crypto or
6:59
whatever. And that's unfortunate for a lot
7:02
of us folks. And some folks like myself, used
7:06
to take umbrage to the, you know, the old man on the porch
7:09
monikers. But really, you know, I embrace
7:13
that now because this isn't the hobby that I that I partake in
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the one, you know, this the stuff that gets all the news
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isn't where I the lane I drive in doesn't even appear to be on
7:26
the map anymore. I don't give a crap about
7:28
Panini. I don't give a crap about
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auction houses. I don't give a crap about PSA.
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There's a lot of things I really don't care about.
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But that's what internally and externally to, to externalize
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is, is what the hobby's about now.
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And that's the biggest loser in all this.
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There's always been bad characters and bad actors in the
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hobby, but I've never seen anybody ever fill out their own
7:57
death certificate like this. This cat did on Monday.
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This Patrick Ryan guy. I don't see how he could ever
8:02
show his face anywhere near this hobby again.
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It was supposed to be an apologetic possible mea culpa,
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but it ended up he ripped out the I VS.
8:13
He ripped off the oxygen mask a lit a little lighter in the
8:16
oxygen tent and just self amaluated his his entire
8:21
existence in this hobby reminded me instantly of as I was
8:25
listening of the sports car therapist.
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Although the sports car therapist had the the wisdom to
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just just go away and and die in the woods like a wounded animal.
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This guy, man, you know this, this guy really did it to
8:39
himself. And I, I like seeing that happen
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because humans when given a chance will most likely
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disappoint you. And this guy really took it,
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took it to the limit. But don't you think that Doctor
8:52
Beckett has some culpability here as well?
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He laundered Patrick Ryan's reputation.
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He by saying you're a good guy. You didn't mean to do that when
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Patrick Ryan changed the Story 3 times.
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And then Dr. Beckett also then appears to say that actually
9:09
shield bidding isn't bad. It all depends on your intent
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and you're you're if you if people are watching on video,
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John has on his screen a very funny line for his name.
9:18
Defense wins cards just like defense wins championships.
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And Doctor Beckett said, well, defensive shield bidding is
9:26
fine. Talk about that.
9:27
And what is your opinion of of that?
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So first of all, we know Doctor Jim is not a confrontational
9:37
character. And and that's, you know, that's
9:40
his, that's his method. And he likes to see all sides of
9:44
things and all that fun stuff. His show is heavily edited, but
9:49
the stuff that made it in there, like I said, the, the, the, the
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one guy who I'd never heard of before in my life until Monday.
9:55
And that's the truth. I'm, I am a bit of an airhead
9:58
when it comes to the hobby Q ratings and all that stuff.
10:02
But you know, he, he came through loud and clear.
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Doctor Jim was very disjointed. And I'm not sure whether, you
10:11
know, he's not Geraldo Rivera. We know that, right?
10:13
And we know, you know, first of all, you know, I think tomorrow
10:20
will be a big day. Maybe maybe I'm anticipating
10:23
something that isn't happening. But tomorrow may be his chance
10:25
to give his side and his, you know, his explanation of things
10:30
and maybe be a little, you know, a little apologetic or explain
10:38
kind of maybe how he misstepped Doctor Jim, right?
10:42
I offered him that opportunity though, John.
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I emailed him and said, hey, there are a lot of people who
10:46
are really upset and would love to hear your take on this.
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Come on my podcast, let's talk about it.
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And he said no. And he told me that he Part 2
10:56
would release yesterday or today, whichever.
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Day he does. Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
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Yeah, yeah. Part 2 would release and I got
11:03
the impression from what he said that Part 2 would exonerate or
11:06
change what people believed and it.
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Did not, I don't know. It's funny because I don't, I, I
11:10
have to go back and listen to Part 2 because Part 1 was such
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shocking, shocking. All right, that like Part 2 is.
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And then he. Said ride to the hospital after
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the head on collision where you don't remember anything, you
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know? And then he said that he was
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going to be on hobby hotline in 10 days on the 20.
11:26
Second no. Geez, that's 2 1/2 weeks away I
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think. Is it the 22nd?
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Well anyway, it's quite a ways away and if people wanted to
11:37
talk about it still, then I think he really underestimated
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when he said, if I am understanding correctly, he
11:45
admitted that he has done shield bidding and he calls it
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defensive shield bidding, which means he's trying to prevent
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people from getting. He said I'm trying to prevent
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idiots from getting a like a $200 card for $90.00.
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Those idiots are me. Those idiots.
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Are No, he didn't say that. I think the other guy said that,
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did he? Not?
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Or No, I don't think that doesn't sound like the the the
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vernacular that he would use. Maybe you might, you might be
12:08
right. But yeah, but either way, you
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know, his, he needs to explain himself, right?
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And he will, I have no doubt he will.
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He's an analytical guy. And if you emailed him Tuesday,
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right, this thing took, you know, I, I, I felt the sting
12:23
right away. This thing took a couple days to
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really, really, you know, grow some legs and stuff like that.
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And, and, you know, it's blown up and it, and rightfully so, I
12:33
think it should, I think it should have blown up.
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There's no, you know, it was such a, it was, it was such a
12:42
disgusting display of schadenfreude, right?
12:47
And and it it's, you know, his hands aren't clean.
12:51
But I'm not saying, you know, to me, that's the least of my
12:54
worries is what Doctor Jim's stance on things are with that,
12:57
right? Because he, he mentioned how he
13:00
was doing a, a third party consignment with somebody's
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cards that weren't his. And he called Probstein.
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And, you know, I, I feel like I heard through one of the
13:11
playbacks that, you know, he called to ask if he could do it,
13:15
if he's OK for in the bid And, and his reasoning, his reasoning
13:17
might not have been sound, but I don't know whether he ever did
13:20
it because I think that that part didn't, you know, in the
13:22
playback that I saw they, they didn't talk about that.
13:26
But it's the other part of it to me is, is, is the worst part.
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OK, listen, I, you know, I'm friends with Doctor Jim and he
13:34
could speak for himself. He will speak for himself.
13:36
And he'll, you know, maybe he double s down, maybe he doesn't.
13:40
The other guy I think is, you know, let's look at it with a
13:46
tiny, tiny, tiny little focus and say this may be one of the
13:50
better things that has happened in the hobby lately.
13:52
If change does come out of this, I don't think change will come
13:57
out of this because I think that, you know, there's too
13:59
many, the industry is too, too opportunistic.
14:04
Nobody on that side wants regulation.
14:06
The people on the other side want regulation.
14:08
But when the other people are selling their cards, suddenly
14:11
they don't want regulation. So it, you know, the hobby, I've
14:14
said this for years as an identity crisis.
14:16
They don't know whether they want regulation or don't want
14:18
regulation. It depends on what side are they
14:20
playing defense or offense? And you know, there are a lot of
14:25
hobby issues here. And I'm talking about ongoing
14:29
hobby issues. And it's, you know, this
14:33
character here, this Patrick Ryan would like you to believe
14:38
that he is the smartest man in the room, but I think he's
14:40
proved himself to be anything but that.
14:42
I know his day job is in the ticket business and we all know
14:46
how fun ticketing is these days and, and fees and, and
14:50
surcharges and all that stuff. So, you know, that guy's made
14:53
his bed. The you know, I very rarely
14:58
participate in auctions. Maybe a handful of times a year.
15:02
I'd rather deal with. I'd rather what would you rather
15:05
do, play a casino or would you put rather play poker against
15:10
another human being that doesn't have the advantage, Right.
15:12
That's how I am. I want to buy my cards from a
15:15
dealer and negotiate with a dealer.
15:17
I don't want to, I don't want to think that I'm up against an
15:19
auction house, another buyer and the buyer's friends.
15:23
So who's to blame for that? Is it the people that keep, you
15:26
know, keep participating in these auctions, they keep
15:30
sending their cards to PSAI, hear a lot of people bitching
15:32
about how everything how they're being done dirty, but nobody's
15:35
doing anything about it. They keep shoveling their money
15:38
into into auctions. They keep doing auction watches
15:41
like it's, you know, we're electing a new Pope.
15:44
Who gives a crap what the next 7980 Gretzky goes for?
15:49
You know, like, you know, a lot of people are getting clicks and
15:52
Subs and, and likes and all that stuff for and, and they're
15:56
shitting right on the, they're shitting right on the things
15:59
that they want to have, you know, shined on or whatever.
16:03
I don't know what that means. But anyway, they're, they're
16:05
doing a lot of, there's a lot of people that are enablers that,
16:09
that are on both sides of the camera and both sides of the
16:11
auctions and all that stuff. Dave Berg did a great video, I
16:15
don't know how long ago. It feels like it was a year or
16:17
more ago where he dug into all the shill bidding, the terms of
16:24
all the auction houses. And I think Jeremy Lee is doing
16:26
an update on that right now. But I think that the best one
16:30
that people are finding out, because people are really
16:32
starting to dig into what are the terms of these.
16:35
And the best one right now is collector investor Auctions,
16:37
which is they are very strong. I was reading their terms last
16:41
night, very strong against shield bidding.
16:43
Do you think that this type of thing, with all the popularity
16:47
or not the popular, but the infamy about this drama, we'll
16:52
shift some people away from some of the bigger auction houses
16:55
that are a lot more lenient about shield bidding to some of
16:58
the smaller auction houses like CIA collector, investor
17:01
auctions. Well, do some of those smaller
17:04
auction houses have the capabilities, the IT
17:06
capabilities to to use utilize all the weapons against shield
17:11
bidding, right? We look at one of the big things
17:14
in sports right now is gambling, right?
17:16
And the gambling controversies and there are businesses that
17:19
have sprouted up to monitor irregularities in betting and
17:25
that cost money to, to hire a firm like that.
17:27
I know UFC just had something like that, right?
17:30
They have an independent firm that monitors over the counter
17:34
betting throughout the the country and all the sports
17:38
leagues doing all that stuff. I mean, that stuff costs money.
17:40
It costs, it takes infrastructure, all that stuff.
17:42
So, you know, there are so many ways and mechanisms to get
17:48
around things. And So what, what you're saying
17:53
is smaller should be more, you should be able to keep a better
17:56
lid on that stuff. I, I get that premise, but it's
18:00
going to take a lot to outsmart people.
18:03
Technology is the amount of technology that is out there
18:07
that we probably don't know about.
18:09
I think you're in that. Aren't you in the IT field or
18:11
something? Something like that.
18:12
Something like that you play with computers, but I the, the
18:15
amount of technology that's out there that most of us are
18:18
unaware of, including myself, will astound you, right?
18:21
You know, like you can within 5 minutes, somebody in a parking
18:26
lot can clone your car alarm on their own key fob, right?
18:32
Open up your trunk, get your computer out of there, throw a,
18:35
a USBC into the side of that and completely disable find my Mac
18:42
or whatever. OK.
18:43
You know, like this is the kind of stuff where, you know,
18:46
there's a lot of smart people out there.
18:49
And I wish the smaller auction firms tremendous luck, but it's,
18:53
it's, it's going to come at a price for them.
18:56
And how do you, you know, I, I think it's great that that's
19:02
their, you know, that's in their, their DNA.
19:06
But TS and CS change all the time as we know we get we get
19:12
terms and conditions sent to us through the mail all the time.
19:15
So as it's like the newspaper, as soon as it's printed it seems
19:18
like it would be out of date. So kudos to Dave and Jeremy.
19:21
But I can see a world where it'd be hard to keep that database up
19:25
and running. It would be almost a full time
19:27
job. But smaller firms.
19:29
I wish them luck and it sure does offer an alternative.
19:31
But what are you going to do? Is somebody going to go to a
19:36
smaller firm with a $500,000 card or a $250,000 card?
19:41
I don't know what their, I don't know what their bandwidth is for
19:45
that stuff or to be able to attract that stuff.
19:48
Because in order to get those cards, you have to have a fleet
19:50
of agents out there, the Goldens, the Heritages and all
19:54
that stuff, scooping all that stuff up before it gets to the
19:58
maybe the smaller folks. And they're not going to go
20:00
away, right? Golden's not going away.
20:01
Heritage isn't going to go away. Rea is not going to go away.
20:05
They're just going to try to get bigger and bigger.
20:07
So you know, how do you defeat that?
20:10
You got to defeat the enemy with within your industry and any and
20:13
then the enemy's perceived enemies that are trying to to
20:16
storm the castle from from outside, you know.
20:19
Yeah, Carl, because I'm Carlos posted a video I posted in the
20:24
middle of the night last night, the Wednesday into Thursday with
20:28
an interview with Dan of Dan's Vintage Baseball PC.
20:30
And Dan very, very strongly. And Dan is an attorney, not a
20:35
hobby attorney, but he's an attorney and he he was very
20:40
strong saying that. And I'll quote, I'm pretty sure
20:44
this is a direct quote of Dan Patrick.
20:46
Ryan just admitted to a federal crime.
20:49
Wire fraud. Wire fraud because he
20:53
essentially admitted to that. He does.
20:57
It's collusionary, it's conspiratorial, and it's
21:02
unethical. And I know, yeah, it's the whole
21:06
thing. And, and I mean, that's what it
21:07
is. I don't care what your TS and CS
21:10
say. There's a conspiracy to control
21:14
a, an item or a market or whatever.
21:19
They've people have been locked up for selling weed, for crying
21:22
out loud, for something that's legal right now.
21:24
People are still in jail for selling something that's legal
21:26
in in most states. And you know, this guy, you
21:31
know, that's why I, I'm, you know, I don't know what this
21:34
character's story is. I don't know whether he's born
21:37
on third base and hit a triple, but it I seem to have that there
21:41
seems to have, he seems to have that scent about him, you know,
21:44
and he seems to be like, oh, I got this.
21:46
I can go on in front of a national audience and explain
21:49
all this away. So there's, there's I've never
21:52
seen so many missteps in my life.
21:54
There was no like there was no, I don't know about anybody else,
21:58
but there was not once during that podcast that I said, oh,
22:02
well, that makes sense. Bidding on a card is yours
22:06
right? Then saying, if I can get that
22:08
card for a cheaper price, why wouldn't I do it?
22:10
Well, you already own the card. You're you're auctioning it off,
22:13
right? And then saying that he didn't
22:17
know it was his card and then in the same episode saying that
22:20
this is like a 1 of this was a very rare card or a very rare
22:23
item assigned this like he did not like it.
22:26
It is a it it is a textbook case study on what not to say.
22:31
I mean, I hope they use that in PR classes from here on out,
22:35
because it was again, this is a guy that probably is, is got a
22:40
lot of he's probably high net worth, but he's got one of the
22:44
lowest common sense I QS I've ever heard in my life.
22:47
Like he, he couldn't argue himself out of a, you know, I
22:52
don't know, he couldn't argue himself out of a paper bag.
22:54
What a it was that that part was a joy to see that there are
22:57
people still that dumb in the world that think they're that
23:00
smart. And I, you know, I'm not afraid
23:03
of the, the cat, you know, it, it, it is what it is.
23:06
He proved himself for 15 minutes or half an hour.
23:09
Whatever it is, he proved himself to be not a very worthy
23:14
partner or or adversary to to to the thinking person.
23:18
Yeah. So Dan called it organized
23:21
corruption, which I think was. Very.
23:24
And he? Can use my words.
23:26
Organized corruption is not the IT.
23:28
It sounds better to say conspiracy.
23:30
And then he brought up the Mastro plea agreement and
23:34
described it, read it and said it's identical to what Doctor
23:38
Beckett and Patrick Ryan are admitting to on that podcast.
23:43
And what they're saying is perfectly fine.
23:45
It's shell. It's defensive shell bidding,
23:47
but it's what Mastro pleaded to, pled to and went to jail for.
23:53
Yeah, I, I don't know, you know, I don't know whether Dan's a
23:57
prosecutor or defense attorney. That's a great thing about
23:59
lawyers. So, you know, I love Dan, but
24:02
he, he'll jump on whatever side of the, the aisle he can get on,
24:05
I guess. Right.
24:06
But I, I don't, I don't doubt Dan one thing at all 'cause
24:10
lawyers tend to be very deliberate in what they say.
24:14
So for Dan to say that isn't, I don't think it's emotional.
24:18
I think, you know, it's emotional in the fact that it
24:20
impacts something he does and finds joy in.
24:24
But I don't think Dan would abandoned his rationality just
24:28
to throw, throw that stuff randomly out there in the air.
24:32
He's he's probably right. He said Dan said this should be
24:36
a wake up call. It was a wake up call for him
24:38
and that he's not sure that there's a fair playing field out
24:41
there now for he and his friends who are bidding on fairly big
24:45
items at auction houses. And I'm not at.
24:47
Buyer beware man. Like Dan.
24:49
Dan's my age, if not older if he hasn't figured that out by now.
24:53
And again, I love Dan. This isn't a bashing Dan thing,
24:55
but we all know the whole thing Stacked against you.
24:58
OK, grading stacked against you. You walk into a car show, card
25:03
show. The dealer is, is has the
25:06
advantage always, you know, an auction, you know, you have too
25:10
many people trying to get, get the most out of that card,
25:14
whether it's the seller, the auction house, they all have a
25:17
stake in, in that thing going up.
25:19
So of course it's dirty and it, it's stacked against the card
25:23
companies are, are trying to, to shake you down.
25:26
Everybody's trying to shake you down.
25:28
And there's no, that's not a surprise to me.
25:32
Now, some people could say, some people I don't, you know, I
25:36
don't buy cards that are worth thousands of dollars on auctions
25:39
and stuff like that. I don't swim in that end of the
25:41
pool. It's just not my, you know, I
25:42
don't, I don't have that kind of money, right?
25:45
And, but, but the, the part that should scare everybody is the
25:51
fact that this thing is scalable, OK?
25:53
Whether you're on an eBay auction and you lost, you
25:56
overbid, had to overbid something by 5 bucks, that
25:58
matters on a $20 card, OK, It matters on a $20,000 card.
26:03
So it's scalable. And that's the kind of thing.
26:06
And we know it happens at every it happens at every, every at
26:11
every part of that, every step of that ladder.
26:13
Now I bid on my buddies cards, Bo Thompson on his eBay live
26:16
because I want the cards and then I want a very different
26:19
cards. I don't, I don't there's no, I
26:21
don't know what he's doing ahead of time.
26:23
You know, I put my Max bid in and my Max bid gets succeeded or
26:26
gets or wins. And that's that's that, right.
26:28
But you know, that's as close as I get to it's no different
26:32
really from me buying a card on his his thing either.
26:36
There's no collusion or anything like that.
26:38
I'm not trying to make Bo more money.
26:40
I'm trying to get John G cards, right.
26:44
So like, and that will always went out on, on, you know, I'll
26:48
always root for the, for the underdog.
26:51
And, you know, that's why some of doctor Jim has had some shows
26:54
about ethics and stuff like that.
26:56
And him and Rich Klein have talked about, oh, I saw a $60.00
26:58
card in a $1.00 card box or a dollar box.
27:01
I don't care about that. It's not unethical to put that
27:03
in your pile and, and, and you know, tell the dealer it's a
27:08
dollar card because the dealer put it in there, right?
27:11
And how many times I always say the dealer wins most of the
27:15
time. So why can't the buyer win every
27:17
now and then, right? There's no shame in that.
27:20
And, but you got to educate yourself.
27:24
It's the same thing as if I buy stuff on Facebook marketplace
27:27
for $300 and it's worth $3000. It's not my job to educate
27:32
people on, on what they want to sell.
27:34
And, and you know, we, we should not, we should also, we should
27:39
all be looking inward throughout this whole thing as well and
27:42
saying, what are we doing to prop up this, this, this
27:47
nonsense? We're, we're all doing our part
27:49
here, whether it's PSA, whether it's, whether it's auction
27:52
houses or whatever, you know what I mean?
27:54
Until everybody walks away from the auction houses, it's never
27:57
going to change there. It's a big businessman heritage
27:59
has a huge, huge storefront there.
28:03
You know, they deal with a lot of high end stuff.
28:05
Golden's flying around on private jets.
28:08
Like, you know, everybody's culpable on on that part, you
28:11
know, and that and then on on the micro level, yeah, the
28:14
defensive show building bidding is not defensible.
28:17
OK, It's it's I heard these guys talk about reserves.
28:21
I heard these guys talk about non reserves.
28:23
Who cares? You know, if you can't have it
28:24
both ways, you know, if you, if you want a price for a card, put
28:27
it on eBay for $8000, OK, Don't put it on an auction house for
28:33
no reserve and be sad that you only got 4000, OK?
28:37
You know, you, you got to do your work and it, it's, it's
28:40
really nanny state bullshit, if you ask me where you're, you
28:43
want everything. You want all the protections and
28:46
all that stuff of, of this, that and the other thing and you're
28:49
not willing to do the hard work yourself, you know, go to go go
28:52
trade it at a show to somebody. Go see Ash with your $500,000
28:55
card and see what he gives, gives you for it.
28:57
OK, Don't complain that, you know, you only got 450 for it.
29:02
And that that's insulting to most of us, I think is the fact
29:07
that you were, you know, this guy, you know, this guy is, is,
29:12
is throwing around $50,000 cards and $500,000 autographs and this
29:17
and all that stuff. And he, you know, he, he wants
29:20
us to think that he's naive and, and, and all that junk.
29:24
And I guess in turn, we're naive for believing it.
29:27
But. Anyway, here's my here's here's
29:31
my lukewarm take on what I think happened here.
29:34
I think that Doctor Beckett and Patrick Ryan and other wealthy
29:37
people and they both talked at length about how wealthy they
29:39
are. They they were very proud of how
29:41
wealthy they are because they should be.
29:44
They do this often is what I am surmising from the conversation
29:48
that they are shill bidding either for their own cards or
29:51
for each other to make sure that their cards.
29:53
Don't they define they? Doctor Beckett and Patrick Ryan
29:58
and their other wealthy friends. Yeah, I disagree with that.
30:03
I, I disagree with that. I think, I think it's, I don't
30:07
know. I don't know that to be the
30:10
case. I, I, I Patrick Ryan, of course,
30:13
He said him and his buddies get together and do all that stuff.
30:16
Is is Doctor Jim part of that circle?
30:18
I doubt it. But he he did he not admit to, I
30:23
think. He was saying that there was a
30:25
consignment from somebody, a friend of his.
30:29
Yep, there were a couple of examples that he gave.
30:31
He talked about bidding up to a certain level until he felt like
30:34
it was comfortable. Yeah.
30:36
Well, I mean that that that to me is wrong, right.
30:38
I mean to find a place with a reserve or you know.
30:42
But I think to to continue my thought here.
30:45
I think that they, it's just so normalized in their group that
30:49
they're trying to protect each other and trying to protect the
30:51
market, which is market manipulation, that they forget
30:54
that it's deeply unethical and likely illegal as well.
30:59
And so that they're just comfortable talking about it
31:01
'cause they talk about it as pals and then they at least this
31:03
podcast. The microphone was on.
31:06
Right. It, it, it feels like, holy cow,
31:08
they gave us, they unintentionally gave us a look
31:11
into what's really happening on this high end market without
31:15
realizing that what they're saying was going to cause
31:18
massive amounts of blowback. Yeah, I, I don't, I don't agree.
31:23
I, I don't know Doctor Jim to be bidding on auctions, OK, other
31:29
than Huggins and Scott, which, which is, which is, I've done
31:34
Huggins and Scott auctions and they're, they're interesting
31:37
because you're, you're getting, sure, they have cards and nice
31:41
cards, but it's the lots that are really appealing to people
31:45
like myself. And Doctor Jim has done a lot of
31:48
episodes about that. So I don't know that to be the
31:51
case. I did find it interesting that
31:52
when he'd had that consignment that he spoke about to a family
31:57
about consigning something for a family friend, that he chose
32:00
Probstein because his he has sponsors, sponsors that are
32:04
auction houses that he didn't use.
32:07
So I feel like maybe that was some sort of acknowledgement
32:14
that there may be a conflict of interest there if he chose
32:16
Heritage. I know Heritage is one of the
32:18
sponsors and Huggins and Spot Huggins and Scott is one of the
32:20
sponsors. So it's, you know, he, he, I, I
32:25
trace that to he doesn't want to be involved with any of the
32:29
sponsors to avoid a conflict of interest.
32:30
That doesn't mean you should defensively bid stuff or, you
32:36
know, and he did say, I think in one of the things he did say, if
32:39
he ended up with the cards, he ended up with the cards, you
32:41
know, but that doesn't, that doesn't make that right.
32:43
Again, it's meant to, if it's meant to, to raise the price,
32:47
then it's it's it's not kosher if you ask me.
32:50
But yeah, there's some things, like I said, there's some things
32:53
in there that I my mind just thinks differently, that it
32:57
thinks like, well, he's got these sponsors, these high level
33:00
sponsors that it would he not have gotten a sweetheart deal
33:02
from them. And then the other part of that
33:06
is, and this is again, this is I had, I've had one e-mail with
33:11
Doctor Jin this week and I had nothing to do with this.
33:13
OK, just so you know, so I haven't, it's not like a, a chat
33:15
with a guy this week. Another thing I found
33:19
interesting was, oh, geez, I forgot anyway, it couldn't, I'll
33:28
remember it later. But there was there was another
33:29
one other little nugget in there that I found was a little bit,
33:35
you know, willing to give somebody a little bit of grace
33:40
on. And I'll try, I'll try to think
33:42
of it when I can. But it's, it's not a, not a
33:44
major thing, but it, it is something that I think that, you
33:49
know, just looking at something from a different angle when I
33:51
come up with, it'll be, it'll be great when I remember in.
33:55
The middle of the night? Yeah.
33:56
Don't call me your brain. It looked like your brain broke
33:59
a little bit there. For it.
34:00
Oh, it's been broken. So you're willing to give Doctor
34:04
Beckett more grace? I understand why.
34:07
Well, I'm willing to wait till he hear.
34:08
We hear. I wish he had come on.
34:10
I wish. He Well, yeah, but sometimes
34:12
that stuff, again, he's not as in tune with, you know, his
34:15
comments have been lit up this week, right?
34:18
So he's sitting now and he's a, he's a deliberate guy.
34:23
He's a statistician, right? A mathematician.
34:26
So he's going to analyze things. So he's probably, I would not
34:30
doubt, you know, hobby hotline is not the place to to have that
34:35
kind of discussion because it's just not, it's just not right It
34:38
for several reasons. There's a lot of distractions in
34:40
the chat. It it may be too far gone from,
34:45
you know, and being untimely. It's just not the proper thing,
34:48
you know, even to spend 5-10 minutes on.
34:50
So and I don't trust the most of that panel to, you know, have
34:56
the right back and forth with him.
34:59
You know, there's a lot of a lot of those guys on there, a little
35:03
little too Pollyannaish if you ask me.
35:05
Not that he needs, you know, hard hitting John Stossel stuff,
35:08
but I I feel like he's working on something and I don't know
35:12
that, but I feel like it doesn't.
35:14
It wouldn't doubt me. The guy just cares too much
35:16
about the hobby to just, you know, and he's not the kind of
35:22
guy just just to let things blow over.
35:24
This is the first time, I feel like the first time this has
35:26
happened in whatever, five years of him doing a podcast.
35:29
It's been this commercial. You know, well, hobby hotline is
35:33
a call in show. And so I'm, I'm hoping to call
35:36
in and just ask him. And I'm, I'm obviously going to
35:39
be extremely professional, but I'm going to ask him a couple of
35:42
difficult questions. If I can call in and they let me
35:44
on the screen about what he intended and read him his
35:50
quotes. Just read him verbatim.
35:52
Here's what you said. Can you just help me understand
35:55
what you meant by that? And we'll see, we'll see what he
35:58
says. I'm, I'm certainly not, I'm not
36:00
going to go after him. I'm not going to be aggressive.
36:02
That's not my style. But I do think that somebody
36:04
needs to read back his comments to him and ask him to clarify.
36:09
I think that that's, I think that that's fair, right?
36:12
And I think that that's an honest, you know, a lot of
36:15
people, you know, it reminds me of the black socks, right?
36:19
Say it ain't so Joe, right. It it has that feeling.
36:23
But so many people trust Doctor Jim's words.
36:26
And I, you know, I don't, I'm not contemplating my
36:29
relationship with Doctor Jim at this point because, you know,
36:32
it's like I had a discussion with my wife years ago, you
36:35
know, about, you know, what happens if your son ends up in
36:38
jail, You know, hypothetically not our son, but, and she said
36:43
to me the simplest thing, he's like, he's still that little boy
36:45
or he's still that. He's still the son.
36:47
I, if he did some wrong things, he did some wrong things, but
36:49
he's still that, you know, he's still that son that I always
36:54
had, right. And you know, I'm not going to
36:56
throw my friendship away because of this.
37:00
We all make mistakes. And if he, if he were to, if
37:03
someone were to ask him, what did you mean when you said this,
37:07
it would take the right person because there's, we live in a
37:09
society and our, our hobby is reflective of the society where
37:14
we can't wait to, to say gotcha, right.
37:17
Whether it's our politicians, our actors, our rock stars, our
37:22
mailman, you know, we, we can't wait.
37:24
And the hobby is, is that there's no dilution of that from
37:28
society or hobby or it's just as intense in our hobby.
37:32
Can't wait for, for this stuff to happen.
37:35
Who's next? You know, it's just the, you
37:37
know, So anyway, you know, you know, he'll, he'll say his piece
37:44
and whether he is adamant that he is in the right, then then,
37:48
you know, that's another evaluation.
37:50
Did he misstep? You know, let's hear his let's
37:55
hear what he says. Boy, it sounds like I'm
37:57
apologizing, but it's not. It's just like, you know,
38:00
there's, there's a, you know, he's built up enough credibility
38:04
with me to say, you know, for me to say what say you right,
38:08
Because I think that that's, I think that that's fair enough.
38:12
I'd again, you know, the stuff in there is unethical, right?
38:18
And I don't, I don't like our hobby is if you believe in the
38:23
10 commandments, I don't mean to be controversial.
38:24
You're breaking a lot of them in this hobby just by showing up at
38:27
a card show. You're coveting other people's
38:29
cards. You know, you're, you're doing
38:31
all sorts of you're, you're worshipping false idols.
38:35
You're doing all sorts of weird stuff in this hobby.
38:37
So it's ethics are everybody's ethics are different than
38:42
morals. If you're a good person, you're
38:43
going to do fine in this hobby. If you're a bad person, you're
38:46
going to find a way to probably do really good in this hobby
38:48
because there's so many people, there's so many bad actors in
38:53
the hobby. I don't think he's one of them.
38:55
I think that his guest was absolutely one of them and they
38:57
got away with it for too far too long.
38:59
And, you know, again, if something good comes out of
39:03
this, then so be it. But I don't necessarily trust
39:12
the rest of the hobby to, to self police or get their crap
39:16
together, you know, because there's, it's, it's a, it's a
39:21
backroom endeavour, man, You know what I mean?
39:24
It's always been that way. IRS wants IRS wants nothing to
39:28
do with it because we're shady as shit, you know, And it's,
39:31
it's it just it'll, it'll, I doubt it'll change.
39:35
Yeah, last question. No, you're good.
39:38
I know it's not going to happen, but should the big auction
39:41
houses ban Patrick Ryan from consigning and bidding in their
39:46
auctions? Well, here's the deal.
39:53
What? To me, that's a chicken and an
39:57
egg thing, right? Because legally.
40:01
What did their terms say? What did their TS and CS say?
40:04
If you can, no shoes, no shirt, no dice or do they say, you
40:09
know, are are there lawyers that say you can't do that you can't
40:13
do this? You can't you know, you've done
40:14
nothing wrong on our on our platform.
40:16
We can't. Or do we wait for, does somebody
40:19
file a complaint with AUS attorney about this?
40:25
And you know, then it becomes something else, right?
40:29
It's the same thing. It reminds me a lot of PWCC and,
40:33
and eBay, right? Like there was all sorts of talk
40:35
like, oh, you can't kick us off, but it just did because there's
40:38
probably a smoking gun in there. We know there's a smoking gun
40:40
with this guy. He's he's done all sorts of,
40:46
he's admitted to all sorts of crazy stuff.
40:48
But can they do that? You know, can can they do that?
40:51
I don't, I don't know legally, I'm not a I'm not a lawyer.
40:55
There's, there are some lawyers in this hobby, but there's also
40:59
a lot of fake lawyers in the hobby too.
41:01
So I'm not sure. I'm not sure what can be done.
41:06
The bottom line is these knuckleheads want to make money.
41:08
You know, golden wants to make money Heritage hunt, Rea, They
41:12
all want to make money. So you know, I, I doubt they're
41:15
going to change their spots. They've never, I don't know of
41:19
any of them ever trying to be at the big ones.
41:22
I know you talked about a couple of the, the upstarts.
41:24
I don't know whether the big ones have ever tried to say that
41:27
they're at the forefront of ethics and, and all that stuff.
41:31
You know, I know they have to be to a certain extent to protect
41:34
their, their, their business, but they're probably just
41:39
barely, barely legal, as they used to say at the Unimart and
41:45
Audubon when I was 18 buying magazines.
41:49
Well, John, this was a delight when I should have you on more.
41:53
Your voice is definitely missed in the hobby.
41:56
You, you have. You just always have very
41:59
interesting takes. You've, you're hilarious.
42:02
I appreciate you coming on. Any last thoughts before I let
42:05
you go? Just what I would like to see, I
42:10
would what I would like to never hear again is the whole hobby
42:14
the way you want a hobby? Because people are doing that.
42:18
And for a very long time I've been raging against that
42:20
machine. When people are hobbying the way
42:23
they want to, it's affecting other people.
42:25
This, this jackalope is hobbying the way he wants to.
42:27
He wants to drive up the prices of his cards, right?
42:31
Ethically. Legally.
42:33
Yeah, but what I'm saying is like, we shouldn't hobby the way
42:36
we want to, just like we shouldn't drive the way we want
42:38
to or, or whatever, you know what I mean?
42:40
It's like, I don't care what your intent was.
42:44
I I doubt there's ever been a drunk driver that's, that's had
42:46
a fatal accident. Their intent was to kill
42:49
somebody. You know, they did something
42:51
wrong. And ignorance is no excuses.
42:53
We know. And it's the same thing here.
42:55
I don't care what your intent was.
42:57
You know, you should be smart enough, Patrick Ryan, to know
43:02
that what you were doing was again, conspiratorial,
43:05
collusional, unethical, and and to Dan's point, illegal.
43:10
And like we, we just can't do what we want anymore.
43:13
OK, let's, let's, let's not do what we want.
43:16
Let's, you know, it sounds idealistic, but let's, let's not
43:21
just do what we want anymore because it leads to this crap.
43:24
People are doing what they want and it's impacting everybody,
43:28
whether it's an eBay card for 9 bucks or a $9 million card,
43:33
whatever. You know, there are people,
43:35
there is a there is an Illuminati out there, a
43:38
figurative Illuminati, whether it's a hobby one or whether it's
43:41
high net worth, people that do have the ability to control
43:45
things more than you and I and all that's and, and the majority
43:48
of hobby, you know, I don't care about Mr. Wonderful.
43:50
Let him spend money on cards. That doesn't mean we have to go
43:53
spend money the way he does. You know, it's like, you know,
43:56
it's like a manager, Mike. It's like a head coach.
44:00
You know, we'll ride it out. I wrote out Rich Kotai.
44:04
I wrote out Ray Rhodes. I wrote out a lot of people.
44:07
I even wrote out Andy Reid, that SOB.
44:09
OK. And Donovan McNabb.
44:13
It's my team. Yeah.
44:13
Donovan McNabb. Jeff Garcia.
44:18
Underrated. Jeff Garcia was underrated.
44:19
OK, whatever dude. My, my point being is this is
44:23
our hobby. We're going to be here whether
44:25
the, you know, with the people come in and out, you know, yes,
44:27
let's get rid of the bad actors. But, you know, this is just a
44:31
the flexors, whatever. I know.
44:33
I know a guy who's the greatest guy, one of the greatest guys
44:36
I've ever met in a hobby. He's got one of the, he's got
44:39
the greatest collection I've ever seen in a hobby.
44:42
He doesn't say Boo, OK? He just loves the hobby, OK?
44:45
He loves hobbying. He loves going to card stores,
44:48
all that stuff. Yeah.
44:50
Like there's too much flexing. There's too much hobby in the
44:52
way we want to. And This is why we can have nice
44:55
things. Great.
44:58
And to this podcast, John, thank you for coming on.
45:01
Sure, I'll see you after the outro and everybody else.
45:04
Thanks for listening and or watching.
45:07
Go birds. Go go, birds.
45:09
Sure. Monday night, Lambeau Field.
45:11
I'll be there. Oh, nice.
45:14
Yeah, All right. Thanks, John.
45:15
I'll. Be the guy in green.