Latest / Sports Card Clubhouse / Talking About the Latest PSA Scandal and Jeremy Lee's New Project!

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Talking About the Latest PSA Scandal and Jeremy Lee's New Project! · Sports Card Clubhouse

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Buddy, it is. Mike, are we recording?
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There we go. Now we are.
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It's Mike. I am joined by Jeremy Lee.
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Jeremy, how are you? I'm good, Mike, It's so nice to
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be here with you today. Thank you for having me.
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Yeah, thanks for joining a little glitch there at the
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beginning where I don't know if my laptop froze or or my
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Internet did, but glad to have you on.
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This is the first time I've ever had you on either my channel or
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here on Sports card Clubhouse. So I'm I'm thrilled to have you.
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I've been watching, you know, sports card live.
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I can't catch all of them. They're at 9:00 PM for me and
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I'm a 9:00 PM asleep kind of guy.
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But I do listen in the mornings. There are certain people you
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have on that I, I just can't, I have to have to listen to them
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on Sunday morning when you have them on.
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But also there are you cover a lot of really great topics in
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really interesting ways. So I appreciate what you do
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there. I, I appreciate you tuning in so
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and, and you know, right back at you.
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I enjoy your content and your take and the way you approach
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the topics, the sensitive topics and the, and the way you ask
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questions of your guests. I, I love what you do, Mike.
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So thank you for your contributions to the hobby.
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Thank you. So you are announcing a new
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collector investor spectrum and we're going to get to that.
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But when we when I first reached out to you a couple days ago, I
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said, hey, nothing big has happened in the hobby this week.
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So I don't want to talk any news unless something comes up.
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But I do want to talk about this thing that you're announcing.
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And then within an hour of that conversation, I saw a tweet
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about something that happened with PSA that I wanted to talk
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about. And just a quick overview.
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I know you know, but for anybody who somehow hasn't heard about
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this yet, the video has 11,000 views as of right now and
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climbing at several 100 per hour.
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Somebody on Twitter posted that they they got APSA reveal with
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30 cards, zero of them 10s, many of them nines.
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And then they were going, they ended up accepting some offers
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on their nines at 9 values. And then what they were going
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back through their reveal later on and some of those nines that
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they had sold had changed to 10's and they had sold them at 9
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values, same certs. And so they posted about it on
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Twitter. And somebody at PSA reached out
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to them and said, oh, allegedly that this was a lot of people
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are questioning the story. But allegedly PSA called them
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and said we saw your original post and we decided to take a
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look at your grades and we regraded some of them and 11 of
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them have been changed. 11 of the nines have been changed to
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10's and PSA ended up giving the money back for the sales and
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gave them the 10s so that they this person was able to keep
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them. This topic has blown up since I
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posted it on YouTube. I wasn't the the first person to
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post about it, it came from Twitter, but since I posted it
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on YouTube it's blown up. What are your thoughts on this
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topic, Jeremy? Well, I think, I think the where
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the direction that most of the commentary has is headed on this
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topic is around, is this a conflict of interest for PSA?
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Are they trying to get a leg up on their submitter?
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Are they trying to exploit their various services to make more
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money? I think that's the direction
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that most people are going with this.
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And I think, I think it's a direction that needs to be
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explored. Now you mention the fact that
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the grades changed and, and so then I think to myself, well,
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'cause I'm always going to try to, I'm always going to try to
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think about are there any plausible explanations for a
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situation that would explain it away and would explain it away
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such that it's not nefarious? I'm going to try and say, is
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there any reason why this could have happened legitimately?
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And maybe there is. That's just my nature.
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I'm going to, I'm going to try to, you know, understand what
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could be going on. Because let's face it, there are
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so many things that go on behind closed doors that are due to
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automation or technology or just process that might be again, a
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plausible explanation for this. OK, so with that said, I don't
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know if this is a legitimate conflict of interest.
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Is PSA actually trying to exploit their customers and
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saying, well, we're going to grade this card low, buy it
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cheap, regrade it and sell it for more expensive.
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That's the sexier explanation to this whole thing.
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That's that's the good for clicks explanation to this whole
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thing. And it's definitely a plausible
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explanation as well. I'm not only going to look at
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the good side, I'm going to look at the bad side as well.
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But I don't know, Mike. I don't have all the evidence
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really my only information on this is your video at this
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point. So what you've told me is what I
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know and it seems it, it seems suspicious, but what just struck
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me even more and, and, and listen, I'm not discounting that
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at all. But what even what's maybe that
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doesn't strike me even more. But what also strikes me, and
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because this is my, one of my biggest issues with PSA and 3rd
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party grading, human grading, is when you said that only after
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the tweet did they decide to go back and look at those grades.
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And now they regraded 11 of 30 cards.
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That tells me that they have about a 35% failure rate in what
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they do in the first instance. That tells me that 35% of their
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grades are bogus. That's my problem.
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That's the that's what my bigger take away.
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Because if they are, if they are, you know, on purpose
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grading cards low only so they can buy them cheaper, readjust
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the grade and sell them for more, then they then there's
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then we have legit criminal activity going on.
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We have, we have bait and switch, We have fraud, we have
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consumer protection issues going on.
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We need, we need Paul Lesko to enter the conversation at that
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or or Dan Lynch to enter the conversation at that point.
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And, you know, do something that is egregious and for, and I
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almost like, you know, I don't want to believe that that's what
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they're doing. But based on the evidence in
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quotes, 'cause I haven't been able to assess its quality
6:39
myself based on what I've heard, it's like really?
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Did they really do like, it's kind of hard to believe, Mike,
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that they would do that. But some people would argue it's
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actually not that hard to believe, Jeremy.
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I mean, this is PSA. They so a lot of people think
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they're shady up and down through and through.
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So, you know, but it's still kind of hard to like, would they
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really do that and let themselves get caught?
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Aren't they a little savvier than that?
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I, I don't know. But so I want to see what
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evidence comes out of that, if any, and where the narrative
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goes on that. And it brings me back to 11 out
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of 30 grades changed upon second review.
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Why wasn't that second review done before the grade grade was
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finalized in the 1st place? How accurate are their grades at
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all? If 35%, what's 11 / 30?
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It's a it's. A 36.67 percent 36. 737% of
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their grades are inaccurate and will change upon second review.
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That's what that tells me. And this just feeds right into
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my, my position on it and grading inconsistency that I've
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been preaching for a couple years now on my on my platforms.
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So it just gives me more and more reason to have no, just to
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not respect the grade on the slab.
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And really, we have to look at the card.
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Yeah, and by the way, we did not plan these outfits.
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This was completely coincidence for anybody.
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I know this is a podcast, but for anybody who's watching it on
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YouTube or on Spotify, we're both wearing green hoodies and
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nearly identical colors. I'm wearing I got I got my card
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ladder hoodie on that I thought it's a national so.
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The the comments on my video are fascinating.
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There are like 400 comments maybe so far and it's almost
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universally anti PSA. And it used to be when I would
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post something negative about PSA it was exhausting How many
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pro PSA people who are angry at me for saying anything bad about
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PSA. And in this case it's the exact
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opposite. People were very angry about PSA
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that they wanted me to be tougher.
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They wanted me to say this is fraud and for me I don't, I
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can't say it's fraud because there's no evidence that it's
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fraud. And I'm a big believer that why
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blame fraud or malice when incompetence and negligence are
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right there and they're much more likely.
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And PSA has a lot of issues. I've I've covered many, many
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issues over the years and the biggest 1 is in my opinion
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incompetence by their graders. And I don't think there's some
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sort of a systemic fraud that's happening there.
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I there is definitely the possibility of a, a rogue grader
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or a rogue group of graders that are doing something shady.
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But I don't think that Nat Turner is has some backroom
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group of people who are taking cards and and doing something
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fraudulent with them or shady with them.
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But I can see other things like I mentioned.
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I just think it's mostly incompetence.
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Yeah, I think we're on the same page, Mike, because it reminds
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me of when it was announced that they were going to be the, you
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know, the the final adjudicator of repack fairness.
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And I remember saying on a on one of my shows, right, like
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right, when that was announced, that listen, I don't think that
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PSA is going to, you know, stuff these these packs of repacks
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that are ending up on Cards HQI forget what they were, what the
10:24
product was called. I don't think that there's that,
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that, that, that, you know, Nat Turner and Ryan Hogue and all
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the executives at PSA are sitting there saying, OK, when
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you get the case, when it arrives at at at Cards HQ in
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Atlanta, the third pack on the right from the bottom.
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That's the good one. I don't think Ryan and Nat and
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the executives who are who are, you know, making the decision to
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enter that that service line are, are having those visions or
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those those goals. I don't think they're going to
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be doing that. Not visions or goals.
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I just don't think that they're going to be taking that that
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path with the service line. However, somebody on the inside,
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a a lower level employee might be able to work something out
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and talk to the receiver at Cards HQ and say, hey, third
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pack from the right, from the bottom on the right side.
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That's your pack. You know, keep that one for
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yourself. So it's not that the conflict of
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interest is, is, you know, actually part of the mandate at
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the top at the executive level. It's the fact that there could
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be conflict that exists and it might be executed by someone
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other than the than the executives.
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That's where the problem really lies.
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So in this case too, like you said, I don't think this is
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coming from Nat Turner, Ryan Hogue and the executive level.
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If there is any wrongdoing here, if they're, if they, if they
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actually are trying to, you know, make money on these nines
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that are becoming 10s. But the, there is the
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possibility that the conflict could actually come to life and
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it's plausible that it could. So, you know, I, I also agree, I
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don't think there's like this systemic fraud that's mandated,
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but you, we, we as a hobby have to be careful and understand
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that it could still be executed from the lower level.
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Yeah, I don't believe that there's necessarily a turning
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point for PSA to to lose ground in the the battle of graders,
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but this feels like it could be one.
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I was shocked at the response to this video.
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The number of comes there are 0 pro PSA comments.
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There are 0 defending PSA here. Out of 400 maybe 500 comments.
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Not a single person said I love PSAA.
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Lot of people said This is why PSA is a scam.
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This is why I'm using CGC. This is why I'm doing Beckett.
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I'm leaving PSA because of this. It's pretty surprising to be
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quite honest, because PSA gets the most value and they I
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stopped using PSA nine months ago.
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I mentioned that in the video and then a lot of people said
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you should stop using PSA. Well, I said in the video, I
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stopped using them nine months ago because I just don't, I
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can't get behind their practices and the backyard Breaks
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partnership, which appears to have ended, but I still, you
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know, I can't, can't do it. Maybe maybe people have stopped
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drinking the PSA kool-aid, you know, maybe they've broken the
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the PSA spell is starting to break a little bit, at least on
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YouTube. Maybe.
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I mean, the hobby's so much bigger than any single social
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media platform and for Psas, you know, dominance to ever for it
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to to get shaken is it's going to be tough, right?
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If they have they literally are the market, you know, and I say
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that, you know, with respect to Beckett, SGCCGC, Tag and anyone
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else out there who's trying to, you know, get a piece of the pie
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when you have 90% of the market and I guess you can include SGC,
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whatever they have as well, that basically becomes the market.
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And so for anything to change that way, I think it's, I think
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it's going to be, it's going to be tough, but maybe it's going
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to start to and you know, you used the word incompetence
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before. I think that's the best word for
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it. How else can you describe a 35%
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error rate or failure rate? That's a failure rate.
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I don't care. They PSA will come out and say
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we're rendering an opinion. You are paying for them to
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render an opinion. No, you're not.
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That's actually not what you're paying for.
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You're not getting the PSA opinion.
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You're getting this. You're saying you're getting one
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human being's opinion who is under the PSA brand.
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But there's no consistency there.
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There's no like you think of McDonald's, you go to get a Big
14:43
Mac anywhere, it's the same. You go to get APSA grade
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anywhere, it's different. Great comparison.
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Where's there? There's a intent, there's a
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major inconsistency there and PSA is growing.
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I mean, they're opening up grading facilities in Germany
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and in Asia, maybe one day in Toronto, they just opened up a
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new submission center there, a big beautiful center in in
15:05
Toronto area as they continue to decentralize cards graded in,
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you know, Germany or New Jersey or Florida or Hong Kong,
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wherever they're opening up in Asia, Japan are not under the
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same statin. They're not graded under the
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same enforced standards as they will be coming out of Santa Ana,
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CA. And so I think that the validity
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of their grades is really like I said, I just don't respect them.
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I don't I don't put any stock into the grade on the slab.
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I certainly don't pay the PSA 10 premium because, you know, I
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just don't want to get suckered. So yeah, it's, it's I want them
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to succeed because they are such a big part of the hobby, but
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they seem to just be growing faster than they can handle.
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They they should put consistency as their number one priority and
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I think revenues their number one priority.
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Well said. Well said.
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Yeah, I guess for now I'm just going to play, wait and see and
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see. Will they respond to this?
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They historically don't respond to anything like this like with
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the backyard brakes outrage, they just didn't respond and of
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course it went away. And I think that that's
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typically their strategy is it's just going to go away.
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We'll see. Let's get to something a little
16:28
bit more fun because you have an announcement about the collector
16:32
investor Spectrum and why don't you go ahead and and explain
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what it is well. So first of all, I'm, I'm
16:39
planning in about 6 and a half, 5 1/2 hours.
16:44
I'm going to start my sports cards live Saturday Night Live
16:47
stream and I'm planning tonight to announce it for the first
16:53
time to to the sports cards live community.
16:55
I've never I've been teasing it for months and months.
16:57
I think since about May I've I when I first sort of mentioned
17:00
that I'm working on some guys. I got something cooking and I've
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been cooking this thing for months now and it's ready to
17:07
enter its early sort of beta stage to test the to test the
17:12
system and and you are you have that in preparation for coming
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on with you today. You've gone and you've done
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you've done it. So basically what what I built
17:24
is called, it's the hobby spectrum.com is the website.
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It's basically a web-based app, if you will, the hobby
17:31
spectrum.com on the hobby spectrum.com, which is
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basically, it's meant to be an identity sort of resource for
17:42
collectors, for sports card collectors, discover your
17:45
collector identity. And it all came about, Mike,
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because for years I've been going live on sports cards live.
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And I'll, I'll talk, we'll talk about the collectors versus
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investors. Are you a collector?
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Are you an investor? And I'll say, you know what,
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there's collectors over here, there's investors over here and
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there's this continuum or this spectrum and we all fall
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somewhere on it. We all have a bit of collector
18:08
in us. We all have a bit of investor in
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US. Maybe no one is an extreme
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investor and maybe no one is an extreme collector or only a
18:16
collector. And I've said this so many
18:19
times. And one night I was going for my
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nightly walk and I was thinking about, and I thought to myself,
18:24
I talked about enough. Why don't I build it?
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Why don't I, why don't I create the collector investor spectrum?
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And that's what I've done. I've gone out and I've created
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the, what I, what is what I call the collector investor spectrum.
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And the way that I've built it is via a A50 question diagnostic
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assessment tool, which otherwise known as a survey, I guess you
18:48
could say, or questionnaire. And it, And so it invites you,
18:53
the, the hobbyist, the collector to come, come to the hobby
18:56
spectrum.com, complete the assessment.
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And at the end of, of doing this assessment or the survey, it's
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going, you're going to get your results, which will be a, we can
19:06
call it a score, but it's more of a placement on the collector
19:10
investor spectrum from, from one to 100.
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You're going to fall somewhere on that spectrum.
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And within the spectrum, I developed 7 different archetypes
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and each archetype is about 14 points out of 100, because 7 *
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14 is just about 100. It's like 14.2 or something like
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that. And so basically it tells you
19:31
which archetype you fall into and it then gives you a
19:34
description of that archetype. And, and so there's a whole
19:40
bunch of things I can, I can mention along with this mic.
19:43
First of all, there's way more than seven ways to approach the
19:46
hobby. There are 1,000,000, if not
19:47
billions of ways to approach this hobby, if not an infinite
19:50
amount of ways. And I recognize that and that
19:53
the system recognizes that. So the, the, the foundational
19:59
spectrum on the hobby spectrum is called the collector investor
20:03
spectrum. Lot of spectrums here guys, I
20:05
apologize for that. But the collector investor
20:07
spectrum is the foundation and it's the it's the first one that
20:11
I'm launching on the on the hobby spectrum.com.
20:14
But in the future, as we get going, I'm going to add more
20:18
spectrums and these will these will be like add-ons layers to
20:23
your identity. And so this is going to help
20:28
give. Respondents or collectors, users
20:32
of this platform, it's going to help give them additional
20:35
insights into how they collect, but also into how other people
20:38
collect. So this is really about
20:41
developing like a shared language for what is a
20:43
fragmented hobby. Right now.
20:45
We have collectors going up against investors.
20:47
They some look down, you know, collectors look down on
20:49
investors, investors laugh at collectors, all these different
20:53
things. And I think that in, in a way,
20:56
if we know what somebody where somebody falls on that collector
21:00
investor spectrum, we'll have more context into who they are,
21:03
how they're approaching the hobby.
21:04
And we might just have better, smoother communication between
21:09
collectors because right now there's a lot of there's a lot
21:12
of like divisiveness in the hobby.
21:14
And I think that by by developing this language,
21:19
developing an understanding for each other, you know, I could be
21:22
sitting, I could be at a card show.
21:24
I can be at at a vendor's booth and someone comes up next to me
21:27
and maybe we're eyeing certain cards.
21:29
We start some small talk, you know, I could say, hey, what do
21:33
you collect? I'm trying to get to know what,
21:35
how do you approach the hobby? If I simply said, hey, are you
21:38
on the hobby spectrum? What, what, what archetype did
21:40
you fall into? What, where, where did you fall
21:41
on the hobby spectrum? Oh, I'm, I'm a, I'm, I'm 38.
21:45
I'm a precisionist. Oh, really?
21:47
What are you? Oh, you say, oh, I'm 19.
21:49
I'm a nostalgic. Oh, cool.
21:51
Now I have an idea of how you approach the hobby.
21:54
Let's say you're having a guest on your podcast, Mike.
21:57
You can introduce them and say, hey, guys, I want to introduce
22:00
you to Jeremy. He's he's a, he's a purist on
22:03
the spectrum. He, he, he, his score was a 5
22:06
out of 100. He's a purist.
22:08
The whole audience is now going to have an understanding of who
22:11
Jeremy is on that in that podcast.
22:14
Or you're like, oh, actually I'm we're guys, we're going to have
22:18
a, we have, we have a guest come in the podcast next week.
22:20
His name is John and he's he's a tycoon.
22:23
Tycoon is the furthest on the right in on the collector
22:26
investor spectrum and the purest is the furthest on the left.
22:29
So if you go to the hobby spectrum.com right now, you
22:33
can't get in it. It's under a gate because again,
22:35
it's early. We're making sure it works and
22:37
everything. But once you're in, you can
22:40
actually have a look. And Mike, you can probably you
22:42
can get in now because you've been in.
22:43
So you could probably screenshot on the about page the visual of
22:48
the spectrum itself of the collect investor spectrum and
22:50
show, you know, here's the different, here are the
22:53
different archetypes and where they fall.
22:56
Now, another thing that's important is that, you know,
22:58
there could be a, an investor, a tycoon in the hobby who also
23:02
collects, you know, so this isn't like we're not trying to
23:05
put anybody in a box. We're not trying to pit people
23:08
against each other. We're also not trying to make it
23:11
so that the score that any score is better or worse than another.
23:15
You could score a 10A10 is no better or worse than a 95.
23:19
It's, it's who are you? It's it's take pride in, in
23:23
your, in your, in your, in your archetype.
23:25
Be proud of, of who you are in the hobby.
23:27
It doesn't matter if you score A5 or A-95, that's where you
23:32
fall. So it's not necessarily about
23:34
lateral advancement, although it might open people's eyes to
23:37
other ways to approach the hobby and maybe they will want to move
23:40
laterally on the spectrum. So lots there.
23:42
I'll shut up for a moment and let you jump in.
23:44
Yeah, being called far left or far right won't be an insult
23:48
necessarily, which will be different from the way things
23:51
are in America right now. So I found it really
23:54
interesting. I went through the 50 questions
23:56
today and some of them I, I would get a little bit
23:59
frustrated reading them, thinking, well, there's got to
24:02
be another option in here. He feels like Jeremy's missing
24:06
an option in this question. And then I would click through
24:09
to the next question or two questions later and it addressed
24:12
that exactly what how I wanted it to be addressed.
24:15
And it it feels like you put a ton of work into this.
24:20
Oh my gosh, man. I mean, I this is yeah.
24:24
So it's important to understand when you're doing and in the
24:28
guidance, when you go to hit start assessment.
24:31
And then there's like the like the guidance page.
24:34
I recognize that some questions might seem repetitive, and I
24:39
recognize that some of the options on the questions may not
24:43
give you the one that's perfect for you.
24:44
It's one of those things where you just have to pick the one
24:47
that feels most right. Again, it comes down to the fact
24:50
that nobody is only in one of these archetypes.
24:53
You. I shouldn't say that there are
24:55
so many opportunities, so many approaches to the hobby that
24:58
could put a bit of you, Mike, a bit of your hobby approach into
25:01
all seven different archetypes. This is about the foundational
25:05
archetype, your foundational approach, what is at the core of
25:09
your hobby of, of your collecting or investing or just,
25:12
you know, hobby, hobbying nature, what's at the core of
25:15
it. The additional layers that that
25:18
the system adds on in coming months as they are added to the
25:22
system, those will help refine and give a a clearer view.
25:26
So this is, again, this is the foundational piece.
25:30
But yeah, you, you, I, I'm almost glad to hear that you had
25:34
that experience because number one, it tells me that you, you
25:36
thought about it, you didn't rush through it.
25:37
Like the, you know, the more care you put into this, the more
25:41
accurate your results will be. As for the work that I put in, I
25:45
mean, it's, it's ridiculous. Like every question probably has
25:50
8 hours of work and research. And like the whole thing is the
25:55
whole thing is based on basically 8 psychological axes
26:01
that are used to measure your, your various approaches to the
26:04
hobby. And some of them are mentioned
26:05
on the website. As far as like, you know, how
26:08
this the science behind it because there is science behind
26:11
it. And yeah, I mean, it's dude, I
26:16
worked on this thing 10 hours a day starting in like May, I
26:21
believe. And it was a, a wonderful thing
26:25
happened at the National, which is where I met a certain
26:29
developer and I was introduced to a developer who at, right
26:35
after the National, we had the first meeting and I, and you
26:38
know, they accepted the engagement and I sent them all
26:41
my documentation. I sent them the, all the
26:44
questions, all the answers. All the questions have two
26:49
components in terms of scoring. The questions all have a waiting
26:52
or what I was calling a gravity, like how important is this
26:55
question to the overall picture? And then the answers each have
26:58
scores as well. So there might be 5 options for
27:01
a question. The scoring might be 012345 or
27:05
whatever 01234, it might be 13579, it might be 1278.
27:12
Like it's these are all very, very deliberately and
27:18
intentionally scored and you complete, you complete the
27:23
assessment, you get your total score.
27:25
It's like over 300 is the total possible.
27:27
We would, we normalize it to being out of 100 and that's how
27:29
you're placed. But the work, the research, the
27:32
site, the, the cycle, the cycle. Like I, I have a, I, I in
27:37
university, I had a minor in psychology.
27:40
I'm no psychologist, but I had a minor in psychologist.
27:43
I have a little bit of an understanding on about
27:45
psychology, but I did, I mean hundreds of hours of research
27:51
into psychology and how it applies to collectors.
27:54
And it was so much fun to do and, and developing the
28:00
questions, the answers. Every question likely has 8
28:04
hours, I mean, several drafts of it as well.
28:07
You know, it's not like 01 and done this, this was tweaked and
28:10
tweaked and tweaked and tweaked over and over again.
28:13
And then I'm like, OK, we're done.
28:15
So yeah, that's where we're at. I'm pretty happy with how it
28:20
turned out. And when you texted me earlier
28:23
and I asked you did, did the Ant, did your result resonate
28:27
with you? And you said it did.
28:29
I love it. I'm like, OK, that's that's
28:31
great feedback. Because listen, if it doesn't
28:34
resonate with people, we're going to tweak it like this is
28:37
going to be tweaked. And I assume it will be.
28:40
I don't know for sure. Hopefully it doesn't have to be.
28:42
Hopefully it's perfect as it is. But let's face it, it probably
28:44
isn't. So.
28:46
Yeah. So I on the scale of 1 to 100, I
28:50
ended up at 19, which is nostalgic collector and I
28:54
thought it would be really fascinating.
28:55
I know this probably won't happen, but if anybody can get
28:58
it to happen, it'll be you have the national send it out to
29:01
everybody who is going to the show.
29:03
And then anybody who responds to it gets their their number and
29:07
their whatever the collector type archetype put right on
29:12
their badge. Because when I go around tables
29:16
and I'm trying to get a deal on a card, I can't stand it.
29:20
When dealers think I'm a flipper, I can't.
29:23
And they're like, oh, you're just trying to get a deal so you
29:24
can flip it. No, I've never flipped a card in
29:27
my life. I'm just trying to get a deal
29:29
cuz I'm a collector and I want to pay less.
29:31
And when you find, when dealers find that out, it changes their
29:35
perspective on me. Yeah, but so, so that, that's
29:38
great on the, the left side of the spectrum for the purists and
29:41
and the nostalgics and the precisionists.
29:45
So just so, so I'll tell you your audience right now.
29:48
The, the, the seven archetypes from the from the lower scores,
29:53
which is really the collector. It goes purist, then it goes
29:57
nostalgic, then precisionist, then hybrid, then builder, then
30:02
operator and then tycoon. So those are the seven
30:05
archetypes that have been developed by myself and some of
30:08
my my team. I can call it which which really
30:12
people that you wouldn't know. So if you're a tycoon and you
30:19
have, you know, I'm a 95 tycoon, Well, now all of a sudden I'm
30:22
going to go to a booth and I'm going to want to turn my badge
30:25
around because people might use it against me and say, well,
30:27
you're just going to flip this. You're a tycoon.
30:28
So I hear what you're saying. You'd have to opt the the
30:32
national would have to ask you, do you want to opt in to have
30:34
that on your badge? But I hear what you're saying
30:36
and I think, listen, that's the kind of thing that that I, that
30:39
I built this whole thing for was to make us to help the hobby
30:45
understand each other in a, in a better way.
30:47
Again, it's this cliche that I have.
30:49
It's like a shared language for what is a fragmented hobby.
30:53
And I think it just comes down to understanding, understanding
30:56
each other and like, if this can do anything to just help the
31:02
community a little bit. Like one of the things that was
31:06
a later addition to the whole, to the hobby, spectrum.com was
31:10
what I call the spectrum directory.
31:12
So listen, there's a million, well, maybe not a million, but
31:15
there's so many social, social media platforms out there that
31:19
we are all active on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,
31:23
all of them, right? I'm, I don't, I'm not trying to
31:27
create a new social media platform for, for communication
31:31
and, and things like that. But I think that this is
31:34
somewhat of a way, if it catches on, if we get a critical mass of
31:39
people responding to the survey, to the assessment, and then
31:43
opting into the directory where we can start to sort of organize
31:47
the hobby a little bit and use our existing social media
31:52
platforms a little bit better, improve our experiences on them.
31:56
If I go to the hobbies, if I go to the directory on the hobby
31:59
spectrum.com and I can filter out all the nostalgics because
32:03
maybe I'm a nostalgic, I'll say, hey, we all have this in common
32:06
guys, you know, let's create a group chat or I'm going to start
32:10
following you on on your social media platform that you put on
32:13
your directory tile or maybe at the National.
32:17
Why don't we all get together for lunch one day?
32:18
You know, then not, not, not, not.
32:21
I'm talking about for you, for the nostalgia.
32:22
Not that the purists or the precisionists aren't welcome to
32:24
come hang. Yeah, you guys can come too.
32:26
But you know, I want to meet more people who are like me.
32:29
That's what I this is it's all about community and
32:32
understanding. That's, those were the, the,
32:35
that was my vision for this thing after I realized that, you
32:39
know, I talk about the collector investor spectrum all the time.
32:41
I we all fit somewhere between here and here.
32:44
Well, what is this thing? You're right.
32:46
It's abstract. I, I set out to, to, to create
32:49
it. And I think I have, I think I
32:51
have with some, with some help, with some wonderful people.
32:53
And yeah, couldn't be happier even right now.
32:57
I mean, it's, you know, you're one of six people who have even
33:00
done this, done, done it like you're, you're early, early.
33:03
And I'm one of them. So, you know, eventually we'll
33:06
get it populated and yeah, it'll hopefully it catches on.
33:10
And I can go in and see who else is right around who else is a
33:13
nostalgic collector. And I don't want to spoil it,
33:15
but there is a fairly big name in there that is one point below
33:20
me as a nostalgic collector. I was pleased to see that, not
33:24
surprised at all to see that. Well, that's that's interesting
33:28
too. As you look at these people now,
33:29
you know, so there are some issues there, right?
33:31
First of all, you know, you have to decide if you want to opt
33:35
into the directory. It's an option, right?
33:37
You can opt in. I want people to opt into the
33:39
directory. It'll make the whole platform
33:42
that much more, you know, engaging for people and eye
33:46
opening for people. But it's kind of fun to see how
33:48
other people scored and and did you expect that?
33:51
And then of course there are, you know, like I just hope
33:55
people are are answering honestly.
33:57
But it's one account per person. There's controls around that.
34:00
There's controls around, you know, like right now it's by
34:03
invitation only. You can't just go in and do it.
34:05
So we're going to grow it sort of organically, Mike, like once
34:09
we get through, you know, like my original kind of list, I
34:14
don't want to just make it about me and my friends.
34:16
It's not, I'm going to, I'm going to say, hey, Mike, here's
34:18
10 access codes, you know, give them, give them away to your
34:21
friends, some of your listeners, whatever you want to do.
34:24
I want it to be filled with people from around the whole
34:27
hobby. And, and we'll, we'll see how
34:30
it, we'll see how it goes. You know, right now it's, it's,
34:33
it's, it's, it's all about helping the hobby, growing the
34:37
hobby. If you understand yourself in
34:40
the hobby, I think you can make better decisions.
34:42
And if you understand the archetype that you most commonly
34:46
fall into, it might help guide your collecting behaviors.
34:50
It doesn't have to, doesn't have to.
34:52
This isn't about putting anybody in a box.
34:54
It's about opening your mind into kind of getting to know
34:58
yourself better. If you're a 50 year hobbyist,
35:01
you may know yourself pretty well, but I got to tell you, I'm
35:03
a 45 year hobbyist. And when I did it, I was like,
35:08
all right, I'm a 38. I'm a precisionist.
35:10
Makes a ton of sense to me because I am very precise about
35:14
the cards that I buy. I'm very specific about the
35:16
cards that I buy. 90% of the time, 10% of the time I just buy
35:21
things that are are not very precise.
35:23
I don't fit perfectly into the precisionist archetype, but I
35:26
think for the most part that's my foundational archetype.
35:30
So, yeah, it's, I've been teasing this for a long time.
35:35
I haven't told I've what I've said to people, Mike, along the
35:38
way is, is when I'm saying I'm working on some, I say, I say a
35:41
couple things about what I'm working on.
35:43
No one else has done it before. It doesn't compete with it with
35:46
anybody and everybody in the hobby could use it.
35:49
And I think that's all true. And so it's just an additional
35:53
resource tool, fun activity for hobbyists to do.
35:58
And eventually it'll be open to the public.
36:01
But for now, as we are making sure that it works, which it
36:04
seems to be working pretty well, We're we're it's, you know, it's
36:08
gonna trickle out slowly at the beginning.
36:12
And you've written each of the archetype descriptions, right?
36:15
Correct. So do you mind if I read the
36:18
last three lines of mine? I don't mind.
36:22
OK, It says you're not trying to build the most valuable
36:25
collection, you're trying to build the most meaningful 1.
36:28
Collecting isn't just what you do, it's part of who you are.
36:32
And that, that hit me. That was perfect, so very well.
36:36
Done. You're a nostalgic.
36:38
I mean, that makes sense to me, Mike.
36:40
And yeah, I'm glad it really hit.
36:43
That's the whole point. Those I refer to those, those
36:47
are like the profile I, I use the terms profile and archetype
36:50
in interchangeably. Those are what we, what I refer
36:54
to as the, the profile descriptions or what I like
36:57
they're, they're meant to there's seven of them.
37:00
They're meant to all be around the same length.
37:01
They're about 500 words each. They're not short, but they're
37:04
very deliberate and specifically written.
37:08
And I can also tell you that like they, they tie directly
37:13
back to how you answered the questions.
37:15
And that's where it's kind of the magic.
37:17
That's like the proprietary formula behind the whole scenes,
37:20
right? Is that not just in the, in
37:22
tying your results to the profile, but it, it also how
37:26
this thing scores? You know, there are all sorts of
37:28
kind of like, I don't know what the two like formulas, I guess
37:34
in the scoring to make sure that like, you know, 50 questions is
37:39
a lot of questions. And there's so many different
37:43
ways that you can get to your score of 19.
37:45
Let's say like not, not, no, two people are going to probably
37:48
answer this thing the exact same way.
37:50
There's a, there's a, it's an exponential amount of ways that
37:53
you can answer this thing. But the, the scoring is built to
38:00
make sure that even if you answer the same things the same,
38:04
even if you answer the survey completely different, but you
38:06
end up at the same score, that you should be at that same
38:08
score. So even like when you think of
38:11
an edge case again, you take 100, divide it by 7, it's like
38:14
14.2 something or other. Well, what if you score a 14?
38:19
Are you a purist or should you actually be a nostalgic?
38:22
Well, there's a couple of questions and this goes along
38:25
the whole spectrum. There's a couple of questions
38:28
that are deliberately pointed to to say, OK, this guy scored a
38:33
14, are we sure he's a purist? Let's go look at how he answered
38:38
whatever questions, and if he answered them a certain way,
38:42
we're actually going to move him.
38:44
We're going to give him bonus points and we're going to move
38:46
him from a 14 to a 16 or a 15 or whatever it might be and push
38:49
him into the next archetype because that's where this guy
38:52
belongs. So I mean, I can't tell you how
38:56
much thought went into every little detail of this thing,
39:00
Mike. When I passed it off to the
39:02
developers, I was like, oh, OK, I need to take a break.
39:06
No breaks for me though. That's when I that's when I
39:08
started going heavy into writing my book.
39:11
So the that pops and comps the book, which is going to come out
39:15
in January. What was that like?
39:19
It's just crazy how I've been working on these two projects
39:23
for most of 2025 and it's like right now I'm at the end of it
39:28
and I'm like, I'm finding myself with extra time.
39:31
The last couple of days as I sent the book to the for final
39:35
for final external edit. Like I did my final edit.
39:37
Now it's being edited by an editor.
39:39
And and so I'm not all, I shouldn't say I'm not because
39:42
I'm still making changes to the book, but but I find myself with
39:48
more time because I've been working on this thing from
39:51
morning till night when I wasn't planning or doing my own
39:54
podcasts. Nice.
39:56
Yeah, I love it. It's you mentioned earlier in
40:00
this that it'll be fun to ask people as they come on, what are
40:05
what is your archetype? And I, I think I would, once
40:09
you've opened it up to everybody, I would send this out
40:11
to people at, before they come on my podcast and say, if you
40:14
have 20-30 minutes go through this, I'd be interested in, in
40:18
at least talking very briefly about what your archetype is and
40:22
knowing that. You know, it's like I work in
40:24
corporate America, that's my real day job and we do
40:28
personality scoring, I guess personality quizzes and knowing
40:34
what your coworkers are on that spectrum, personality spectrum
40:39
and the way they work is very helpful.
40:42
And as a manager, knowing how all of my direct reports score
40:48
is very helpful to how I manage them.
40:51
And so I could see this being very helpful in how I talk to
40:55
certain people as they come on the podcast.
40:57
A. 100%, Mike, I, I've thought about this early on that this is
41:03
going to be something that I think can be integrated into
41:06
content across the hobby content spectrum.
41:09
You know, not just my content, anyone.
41:13
It's it just helps put a framework around hobby
41:16
approaches. I've, you know, I love being at
41:20
card shows set up at a booth as a vendor, because when people
41:22
come by my booth, one of the first question I've, and I've
41:25
been saying this for years and I've been doing this for years.
41:28
I basically say to them, what's you, how do you approach the
41:31
hobby? I'm not saying I say in those
41:32
exact words, but that's what I'm trying to get at.
41:34
How do you approach the hobby? It's not so I can figure out
41:36
what to sell you. It's because I'm genuinely
41:38
interested because I love this hobby.
41:40
It's my life. I want to know how do you, how
41:42
do you approach it? I now can can help I can talk to
41:47
them clearer if I know how they approach it.
41:49
The problem is, is that the answer that question is going to
41:53
come from their perspective, which is fine, but it might be
41:56
hard for me to really understand the context of it.
41:59
Now I come back to that shared language.
42:01
This is bringing a lexicon to to hobby approaches.
42:06
And for that I got to tell like I'm I'm if this catches on, I
42:09
don't know if it will or not. I hope it does.
42:11
If it does, I'm going to be so that might be one of my the
42:14
thing I'm most proud of contributions to the hobby might
42:18
be that in itself. And because I think it's going
42:22
to help frame give your viewers a better understanding of your
42:26
guests, everybody else's as well.
42:29
So early on, I thought to myself, this could be really
42:32
good for content, not only talking about it, but also
42:35
integrating it into hobby content itself, the way you just
42:39
described. And so I'm glad you see that
42:42
because I see it too. And I, I, I think that this
42:45
could be something that is, that is helpful to people.
42:48
Yeah. Yeah.
42:51
Well, any last thoughts before we wrap up here?
42:55
No, it's, it's a little bit awkward because I'm telling you
42:59
all this before I've even shared it with my, with on my platform
43:04
and coming on with you here today has kind of forced me to
43:07
share it tonight for the first time, but I'm ready.
43:10
It's now is the time because as I mentioned, we've, you know,
43:14
there's only been six people that have actually responded to
43:18
the assessment to the. So again, just to, to, you know,
43:22
the website is the hobby spectrum.com.
43:25
The foundational spectrum is the collector investor spectrum,
43:28
which is the foundational assessment.
43:30
It gives you your, your, your foundational, your core
43:33
archetype or profile comes with your score.
43:37
You also get the, the, the, the write up.
43:39
Again, there's only seven of these, but there are plans in
43:42
the future for, for the profile descriptions to be customized to
43:47
each person who responds versus 1 sweeping one.
43:50
That's going to take some AI and AI intervention, if you will, to
43:54
get that happening 'cause I can't be there quick enough to
43:57
add to write a 500 word essay for everybody.
43:59
But the system is being built towards that.
44:03
That's the goal. And then there's a whole bunch
44:05
of other kind of, you know, I go for lots of walks, Mike.
44:09
I do lots of thinking. I gain a lot of inspiration from
44:11
a lot of fellow content creators.
44:14
And I've got, I've got a lot of plans for this thing to make it
44:18
more useful to hobbyists. So I, I hope people enjoy it and
44:22
I thank you for letting me talk about it.
44:24
And for the first time publicly, by the way, ever.
44:28
Post after your your scorecard. I know, but this is my first
44:32
time talking about it publicly. So I'm, I'm grateful to you and
44:36
thank you for completing it and opting into the directory and,
44:40
and now you know, you're at where you fall on the collector
44:43
investor spectrum. I I've known my positioning for
44:46
a couple weeks now and it's just kind of neat to know and I'm
44:49
glad you do too, so I appreciate it.
44:52
Well, thank you for coming on, Jeremy.
44:53
I appreciate it and we should do this again sometime.
44:56
Absolutely, Mike. Thanks for having me.
44:57
I I'm grateful. All right everybody, thanks for
44:59
watching. Make sure you comment.
45:01
Make sure you go check out the hobby spectrum.com.
45:04
Oh, and just if I may, right now there is you can leave your
45:07
e-mail to get on the waiting list if you go.
45:09
Yeah. Yeah, thanks.